Tokugawa Hard

Whoever wins the campaign with Tokugawa on Hard, has my absolute admiration.

The Oda is destroyed in turn 1 with no exception, always by that red clan that's north of Owari. Imagawa become allies with Takeda, Hojo, and another lesser clan. I beat the Imagawa somehow. Then I repel the incoming Takeda main army in a castle siege. Then I defend from 1.5 Hojo stacks on a bridge. Then the lesser clan mentioned above moves in 1 more stack, and Hojo and Takeda move half a stack each. By that time I'm almost completely out of funds. Date has 5 provinces and has just recently become allied with this triumvirate, and I'm just waiting for them to declare war. The situation is just out of hand.
Another thing is, you have to attack your masters if you want to do anything, and thus you lose a great deal in diplomatic dealings. Not to mention that your faction bonuses are absolutely obsolete in the early phase.

Anyone has a recipe on what to do as Tokugawa?

Wait.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What if the bird will not sing?
Nobunaga answers, "Kill it!"
Hideyoshi answers, "Make it want to sing."
Ieyasu answers, "Wait."

:bow:

Um, I was joking. You need not wait to help Versus with his Tokugawa troubles. :shrug:

Playing as Tokugawa or any faction, I've found that building your economy is your first priority, there are plenty of posts on the offical shogun 2 forums regarding that issue. Also Ashigaru units are a must for any campaign at the beginning, don't aim for samurai units at the start. They will come with time once you start capturing more regions and building fortresses, your research for the bushido tree will be increased over-time.

This guide I found at totalwar.com will help to a degree, if anything it will give you an idea on how to move forward at the start. Just don't upgrade your markets leave them be, rice exchanges and upwards require more food, which is what you will require for building larger fortresses at a later date.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ery-Strategies

On your first move you need to take out the first Oda stack with limited casulties, once done enter the region Oda are occupying and park your units as close to the port area as possible. When you end turn they might attack your units, if they do just retreat. I found that they then end up backing off themselves and not continuing with the attack upon your units. Saito don't usually attack Oda when I've tried this in the past, so just hope for abit of luck when attempting it.

Now if you have managed to capture the Oda region, just turtle abit (get trade with whomever you can) you wont beable to attack anyone other than Imagawa. Which I wouldn't advise at the start, your just asking for trouble, research civil arts and upgrade those castles and buildings. I'd say around 1555 you'll be in a pretty stable situation, either way something usually opens up for you around that time, which will allow you to expand further.

I think I'll leave it at that, I hope it helps get you started and best of luck with it.

PS. I also forgot to mention that after you have captured new regions destroy any building that isn't a market/sake den or monastery. Unless of course it has a weapon smith there, then it's pretty much upto you want you want.

Have a look at The Tokugawa Campaign Guide for some idea?

I read somewhere that it's a good idea not to turn on Imagawa early. Someone even proposed becoming shogun before revolting against Imagawa.

I tried a couple of times with Tokugawa/Hard to conquer the Oda province, but whatever I tried it didn't work and they were taken out before i could get there. I was getting so annoyed that I just turned on the Imagawa instead! :furious3:

Might not have been the smartest move but I did win the campaign in the end. The beginning went like this (all from memory so there might be some small inaccuracies/omissions):

1. Sell military access to whoever you can
2. Get trade going
3. Bribe the Oda army in your province, merge it with your army and kick the remaining Oda's behind
4. owari will be taken by others, so turn around, declare war on Imagawa and conquer them
5. Takeda attacked me next with a big stack at the eastern Imagawa province, but i managed to beat them and immediately marched on Kai, took it and made Takeda my Vassal!! I was very surprised they accepted, but they are a handy vassal: very aggresive keeping the other clans in the area busy. At one moment they had like 5 provinces but in the end they were destroyed by the Date
6. It seems Hojo was busy fighting in the east because all the units they trained in Izu and Sagami kept moving in eastwards direction (I guess I was lucky there). So Izu and Sagami were easy to take next.

At that point I had a solid basis from which to build up strength and work on my diplo. BTW all my early investments were in economy upgrades, ashigaru and Chi arts.

I don't agree that you need to declare war on Imagawa. I did the same as Mithras72 steps 1-3 and then just studied chi arts, while putting ninjas and monks to work.
With these guys I weakened Hojo and Imagawa and the Hattori while I built an ashigaru stack in my capital and waited for imagawa to delare war - which they did. I allied with Takeda (probably not a good idea in the long term as they will turn on you) and expanded North, destroying Imagawa and most of the Hojo. Also picked up Kai from rebels.
It was too easy from there. Collected the Hattori (allies) territories from rebels and was only at war with Ikko and Hojo with allies Besho, Date and Chesokabe.
Took the shoganate early to avoid realm divide. Sat for a while cleaning up my economy and disbanding useless troops. Built a navy to protect my sea flanks.
Then Takeda turned on me and I took all there provinces easily. Did this with very few samurai or bushido arts - mostly just kept recruiting ashigaru and sending them to the front.
By this time I had maximum number of very strong ninjas and monks and alot of my border provinces were rebel and the only formidable foe was date - they are loyal allies to the end (as long as you marry with them).
Left rebel provinces alone and got into a war with some minor faction to the south to win the forty provinces.
I will try to put a screen shot in shortly - most of Japan not owned by me was rebel or on fire in some way.
My best strategy is get the rebels to kill your enemies - samurais will send you broke.
Gonna try Shimadzu on very hard now.
Cheers

Actually waiting is a very good suggestion when playing Tokugawa - I've written up some advice based on my campaign in this thread https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...hints-and-tips

To sum it up:

> Played a heavy agent game with full complement of Monk/Ninja/Metsuke
> Expanded West/North to access fertile provinces and key resources incl. smiths/ninja's
> Waited quite a long time for the oppurtunity to break my vassalage with minimal diplo penalties
> Teched for spears and gunpowder - armies consisted of 4-8 heavily upg./vetted Nag/Yari Sam, 4-8 heavily upg. Yari Ashi, 1-2 high charge Kat Cav from Miyawa, 2-4 skirmishing ranged units either ashi bow or later matchlock ashigaru
> Focused heavily on maintaining good diplomatic relations - expanded slowly to avoid diplo penalties
> Build up a nice slush fund prior to RD to maintain bribery capabilities before your trade income goes

I just started playing Tokugawa hard after finishing with Shimazu..
I managed to blitz the Oda early, with the help of a successful bribe in the first turn..
I was contemplating my next strategy when I read the above thread..

Lots of useful hints and theories here and the guides are great too so cheers to all..

Realm divide usually kicks my butt although I can usually maintain a strong economy and therefore eventually still conquer the campaign it annoys me that I can never regain any diplomatic standing despite honour I may carry through. I enjoy the political side of the game as much as any part..
So I think I will push hard and take Kyoto as soon as I can this time, ride that tide and see where that leaves me without the threat of realm divide..

Try it on Legendary - a win at Legendary Domination level with Tokugawa would be way beyond the Everest of strategy gaming as I doubt anyone has ever managed it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jacobin

Try it on Legendary - a win at Legendary Domination level with Tokugawa would be way beyond the Everest of strategy gaming as I doubt anyone has ever managed it.

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I've done the Long Campaign on Legendary. Couldn't be bothered rolling up the remainders but would be simple enough to do. Tokugawa isn't the most difficult you just need to a work a sensible way to break your vassalage without taking the diplo hit. Uesugi/Hattori are both more difficult IMO.