Uesugi hardest clan?

Admittedly I've not played Hattori or Date yet but everyone else I can get a legendary domination win for.

But Uesugi are amazingly difficult - that vassal to the south exists only to embroil you with the Takeda, Satake, Satomi and Hojo, you take out the Jinbo only to face Ikko Ikki doomstacks, The Honma will stab you in the back at the first opportunity and the Date will attack you as soon as they learn of your existence.

So far the only way I've survived past 1550 was to keep some units on a boat in Echigo harbour and take Sado as soon as the Honma loaded their stack onto a ship and sent it away - and even then I just ended up sitting there on my little island with no other provinces left and fleets from not one but three enemy factions blockading me so I couldn't get off.

I've tried blitzing south to take out the Hojo and got as far as Sagami before three stacks of Takeda appeared in my rear, I've blitzed west to Echizen only to find the centre of Honshu occupied by the Oda who sent their multiple stacks against me, I've gone east to Iwate and Myagi but still got steamrollered by the Date who for some reason had about four stacks wandering about the hills, I've used priests (never lasted long enough to recruit a ninja) to raise revolts, I've turtled in Echigo and destroyed a massive Takeda force in an epic siege defence only to have another Takeda full stack turn up two turns later and overwhelm my pathetic remnants that were left alive....

Any other suggestions?

I've played every big clan except Hattori and Ikko-Ikki. With the Mori and with the Tokugawa I had big problems, but much bigger problems with the Uesugi. attacking Takeda makes no sense if you go to far. If you don't go far there you will also get more emenys then you want. I don't think attacking Date would make sense, because enough could go wrong. So I think attacking the Ikko-Ikki ist the best option. At least you can defend the provinces there if you win against Ikko-Ikki. You should try to take their provinces as fast as possible. Often they have one or two stacks somewhere else and if you wait, they like to come back.

On my fifth go now and going south does appear to be the worst option as there are not one but four clans who will attack you.

Going east involves too much distance - you really can't afford to both send a full stack east and hold on to Echigo.

Going west and being ready to abandon Echigo (not such an issue if you have taken Sado early) can work depending on who is running the central bulge when you get to Echizen - unfortunately the one time I tried it there were Oda stacks everywhere so it ended early.

On my sixth attempt I may just send Kenshin west with everything and just carry on while his brother stays in Echigio only long enough to raise a new army to take Sado.

There may also be some value in vassalising Jinbo as there is just no time to stop there in Etchu.

I began a new campaign with the Usuegi today. It was hard, but it works. After I deafeated the Ikko-Ikki I was attacked by the Takeda. I had luck, so their allied where to busy to join the war. I just defeated the Takeda in 1550 and now its time to benefit from the chaos down there.

I have never played Uesugi on Legendary. I used to read people recommending to defeat Ikko-Ikki first, but the religious unrest will tie us up while we don't have enough good monks to shorten the pain.

Here are two ideas:

The New Hojo: As soon as the game starts, beat Jimbo and force a treaty. Then sell military accesses to all our friendly neighbors, gather a good 1/2-2/3 stack of Ashigaru, and rush south to eliminate Hojo. It should be quite easy to do as it is still early game. After Hojo is done, work on Imagawa and Takeda, but maybe consider forcing a treaty with them - since we want to focus on expanding all the way to Iwate and Higo.

The New Shoni: Sell military accesses and use that money to keep hiring Bow Kobaya from Echigo, and sail every ship west as soon as it comes out, but only use 95% of the movement points for later relay purpose. Once a full stack of Ashigaru is achieved, board the ship with everything you have (a Monk + a Ninja is highly recommended) and use the navy relay method to quickly ship every thing you have all the way west to Hizen. Purposely lose Echigo to rebels (raise the tax the turn before you take Hizen) so you can get trade routes better setup later.

Both ideas need some time and that is what you don't have.

I should be able to get some time a week later and test them out. Sounds pretty plausible to me. And after moving to Hizen it should be very smooth sailing.

The problem with loading all your troops on a ship (which I'd only recommend after taking Sado as Echigo is almost as bad a stack magnet as Owari but I've almost never seen anyone land an army on Sado) and sending it to Hizen is that then you might as well be playing the Shimazu.....

Having said this having finally conquered the Takeda, Hojo, Satomi and Ikko Ikki provinces I found myself with very strong allies blocking my expansion to the east and west so I did end up sending all my monks and ninja on boats to Kyushu to raise some revolts from the Christian Shoni followed by an army to take over the new rebel provs - but this process took so long that I only hit Realm Divide in the 1580s and gave up around 1595 as there was clearly no way I could conquer the additional 18 provinces I needed for domination by 1600 without a rather graceless rush.