A rude awakening...

I forgot about this. Shogun Total War ain't Medieval 2 Total War. Here, when you lose, you lose immediately...

I reinstalled Shogun after a couple of years. It all came from the musical score, I put it into my iTunes, and listened to those beautiful songs made by Jeff Van Dyck. Instant hit. Reinstalled, started playing. Annoying flickering on Vista, but the campaign map is completely playable.

Started off well with Uesugi, on Expert. Punitive taxes, started developing those rich regions but quickly lost Shinano to Imagawa.... Continued like that, developed my economy, teched up the provinces and trained a couple of units until Oda attacked me in Hida, and everything crumbled. Hojo became neutral and the next turn they attacked me, rendering me useless in 4 turns.

Morale of the story - stop playing M2TW, play some real games, like STW.


Going to play again, and this time more careful...

Your best bet with the Uesugi is to take out Hojo first. You can do this by occuppy Kozuke Shimotsuke and Hitachi; for every season that every one of these provinces remains in Hojo hands is another inch in the Uesugi grave as you are risking to be doubled by whoever comes from the southwest and teh Hojo. The ultimate goal is to take over Musashi/Shimosa. After that you can deal with Imagawa in Shinano or finish off the Hojo before you proceed southwest.

STW does not reward complacency in the strategy map or the battle map - as you say it isnt M2TW, which frankly imo it is a mockery of a TW game in the battlemap.

:bow:

edyzmedieval, same thing happened to me as well;

I decided to play shogun on my old computer, after few years. If you make few mistakes or lose your key provinces, there is no way turning back. On M2TW, i am so confident that i can win even starting with one city.

Hardest campaign ever is: playing Oda on 1580. Usually İmagawa and Takeda become allies and attack me, and if you lose the large battle to stop them, you will be invaded at all costs.

I've played that campaign a ton, and my "traditional" opening focuses on what Gollum advises--neutralizing the Hojo. I attack and take Hitachi on Turn 2, from Mutsu. I attack and destroy the (only) Hojo troop training facilities in Shimosa by Turn 4, with the same army. Shimotsuke, Kozuke, and Musashi take a bit longer given that the AI is unpredictable as to how it depends these territories, but it doesn't usually take more than a year or two. Kazusa can present a minor challenge, particularly since this is where the Hojo usually start building their second troop-training province (taking it isn't hard; holding it without a rebellion can be when you are forced to maintain momentum and troop parity with the next target enemy--the Takeda--and can't afford to leave a big garrison there for long).

In order to accomplish this, I abandon Hida on Turn 1 (troops to Shinano), and when Imagawa attacks Shinano, I withdraw the troops there to Echigo (all good considering what my objective is). After I take out the Hojo, I take back Shinano permanently and it becomes the hub for campaigns against Imagawa, Takeda, Oda and the ikko-ikki rebels (Phase Two, when my front of Musashi/Shinano/Echigo has been established and secured).

One thing to be careful of is to keep just enough defense in Echigo to discourage Imagawa from attacking there. If he goes to Etchu instead, he attracts rebel animosity from the Kaga area which shifts his attention away from the Uesugi (until enough troops mass in Echigo/Kozuke/Musashi to threaten Shinano).

I did a write up that illustrated this opening some time ago, presenting it as a puzzle (Can you take all of these territories within x turns? etc.). Don't remember which thread it's in though.

I share this just to describe how I approach that campaign's opening, not to suggest how anyone else should.

I do the same essentially, only that i leave Shinano too and use the force from there to attack Kozuke. Then at the same time take over Hitachi and Shimotsuke from Mutsu and combined from Mutsu/Kozuke. By the end of teh first year Hojo is left with his three easternmost provinces only.

If lucky, sometimes the Hojo Daimyo and heir fall in these battles and i am left to attack Musashi and Kazusa/Shimosa without them building up for the bridge assault. In fact in those times i managed to do an extremely fast (full) conquest campaign, finishing some time in the mid/late 1940's. It is however a matter of karma and skill, not of skill alone.

Hojo an Mori are back stabbers.