Most difficult faction?

Just wondering what everyone thinks is the most difficult faction to play. I'm guessing a lot of people will say Oda, and I agree that they are slightly difficult, but I don't think they're the most difficult.

In my opinion, I want to say Uesugi is the hardest to play, and then maybe Ikko Ikki behind them. I say Uesugi because I think they have a terrible starting location compared to Oda or Tokugawa. Where Oda has many easy expansion opportunuities close by, Uesugi have to go a long way to find one (Jinbo being the most obvious, but that's 2-3 turns away). Honma can be taken, but if you take too long, and with no reason for them to ever go anywhere since they're on an island, it becomes a battle with some massive stack of defending units. Let's also take into consideration that Takeda is almost always a powerhouse and are almost always in direct conflict, or shortly will be, with Uesugi. The only other avenue of expansion, aside from Jinbo and Takeda (who almost first-turns North Shinano in every game I play), is through your vassal, which isn't necessarily a good idea. Taking them opens you up to more enemies, and capturing anything beyond that when letting them live separates your lands and makes them that much harder to defend (as if that really long starting province wasn't bad enough).

Additionally, the bonuses of Uesugi are arguably not that great. Warrior Monks are expensive. I like to use them because they're kind of neat, but their bonuses are outshined by their lack of defense - I'd actually be interested in seeing how they fair in a toe-to-toe match with a similar unit, just for posterity... though I still doubt they're really worth that much more cost. The trade income bonus is negligent until late game, but is only compounded by the fact that 80% of the trade locations are on the other side of the map completely and a pain for them to get to.

Maybe it's just me, but I've always found Oda or Tokugawa relatively easy, because it's a lot more straightforward and takes less time to get anywhere. Their biggest disadvantage could easily be their advantage - they have plenty of routes to go for expansion, which makes becoming a formidable power relatively quick and easy.

On the other hand, I say Ikko Ikki next just because they suffer from a lack of samurai units, metsuke and a differing religion. Their advantages aren't really that advantageous.

I always thought Takeda would be a tough one, being right in the center of things and with a bonus for a unit type that's a little weak in TWS2. Oda have one back to the sea if I remember correctly and a great bonus given how useful ashigaru are in this game.

I've never played Takeda, so I can't comment accurately on how difficult they are - but I can say that in 100% of the games I play, they are the largest and most powerful faction in the early game. Unless I come into direct conflict with them at some point, leaving them to their own devices always makes them the most powerful NPC faction. This undoubtedly has a lot to do with their cavalry bonuses. A charge from a lot of horses has always been very powerful (in history and in these games). Regardless if they run into spears, a bunch of horses will cause just about any unit to break relatively quickly, and that's often all it takes to win a battle through chain morale failure.

Light Cavalry are powerful in their own right - for chasing down units and flank-charging the enemy. Being able to do it from the front with yari cavalry, and their added bonuses to attack and defense, along with their comparable mobility to light cavalry, makes them pretty damn good on the whole. Not to mention that there are more men in a samurai cavalry unit than light cavalry... AND they can dismount, so they can easily fill multiple roles in addition to being quick and sturdy.

I've honestly never thought that the cavalry were weak in this game. I rarely build them because they require more buildings than infantry, but I will always have at least 3-4 units of light cavalry (or just cavalry in general- 2 generals and 2 light cavalry or some other combo) for what they bring to the table. They can't hold up in a straight fight to infantry, being outnumbered and all that, but they're definitely not useless or underpowered.

And yeah, the start disadvantages to the Oda are well than made up for if you add in their bonuses to Ashigaru. Frankly, I've always thought Oda was one of the easier factions because of that. With that lowered cost, you can field larger armies and leave larger garrisons in towns for defense. I won't make full samurai armies until very late in the game, as I like to have a nice large unit of ashigaru handy for quick reinforcement. They really aren't bad units when they have enough experience.

The problem with the Oda are getting through the first few turns/years. I rarely play them since I look for a somewhat easier start and harder finish (relatively speaking) whereas they have the opposite. Just about whenever the AI Oda survive the first years they become a force to be reckoned with.

The Mori are difficult.The Oda are difficult,and the Date are hard as well.

The Takeda are easy.

that's coming frome you takeda when i was playing as the tekada the emenemy blitzkreg me right away

The easiets factions are Date, Shimazu and perhapd the Mori. I think we can all agree on that perhaps?

The hardest factions are The Hattori (they reach realm divide in like no turns), the Tokugawa (being a vassal sucks, aswell as having other powerfull clans 1 turn away), and the Uesugi (starting location, crap diplomacy becomes your doom)

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Originally Posted by jepp21

The easiets factions are Date, Shimazu and perhapd the Mori. I think we can all agree on that perhaps?

The hardest factions are The Hattori (they reach realm divide in like no turns), the Tokugawa (being a vassal sucks, aswell as having other powerfull clans 1 turn away), and the Uesugi (starting location, crap diplomacy becomes your doom)

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Originally Posted by Pharoah

that's coming frome you takeda when i was playing as the tekada the emenemy blitzkreg me right away

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Nope,they are hard.

well right now i'd have to say the easist faction in the game is the honma.


ps i am using the all factions play able mod

I wouldn't say Oda, they were my first successful campaign, and while the first few turns as them are an absolute nightmare, and the diplomatic penalty is annoying, things are normally okay once you've got a foothold.

And Tokugawa is basically the same, once Imagawa and Oda are gone.

Uesugi can be ridiculously difficult. Takeda turns into a terrifying beast pretty quickly so you're required to keep good relations with them, but they almost always seem to slip up and get whittled down to 1 or 2 provinces by another clan soon after that, so you find yourself thrown into a horrible new mess against the other clan and its allies as they suddenly become powerful. Also, your starting position is deceptively awful. :dizzy2:

Maybe it's just because I'm not very familiar with Total War games in general, but I always end up being ganged up on and squashed as Uesugi, you definitely can't expand as quickly as you can as other clans. Even though playing Uesugi irritates me, I still find the challenge fun. :beam:

EDIT: Oh well, I just beat their campaign. :artist: That was still the hardest thing I've ever done on a strategy game, though.

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Originally Posted by Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout

The Mori are difficult.The Oda are difficult,and the Date are hard as well.

The Takeda are easy.

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I picked Mori as my first (except a few turns with the Shiz clan). Found em to be pretty ok, was thinking to get Takeda next, but maybe Oda then would be the worst?

Welcome to the .Org Tixan :2thumbsup:

Regarding the Oda, don't turn your nose at their Ashigaru -- you can easily hold your domain against the most vicious AI opponents by creating army corps comprised of Oda Ashis up to ~80%. This perk trivializes their conquest of Japan a great deal.

The Oda are a favorite of mine. I love super peasants and that they go against the Samurai elitists. Their opening game is difficult and relies on some luck; However, their strategic position gives them easy access to Kyoto and when I played them I became incredibly wealthy. Focusing on a peasant army core allowed me to research Chi arts leading to a great diplomatic game. I held off realm divide until the end because I was so happy with the diplomatic situation.

I have played Oda several times. Diplomatic situation is much depending on luck. Sometime i had war with every faction, some time i could choose my opponents, like in my last game, till a insignificant battle triggered realm divide (in incredible circumstances).
So sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's very easy.

Oda, and it all boils to luck. Tokugawa too.

Uesugi is sheltered and Echigo is a gold mine in every aspect when it comes to economy. Ports, farms, roads, easy access to trade nodes.

So far, I've played as Shimazu, Date, Chosokabe, Uesugi and Tokugawa. I'd say for me Tokugawa and Uesugi were the hardest, well my tokugawa campaign is actually still going but it's not easy. For easiest I'd have to definitley say Date.

Easiest is obviously Chosokabe, but discounting this pseudo-faction I'd say Oda is the easiest faction (made a bit harder with the fix to the -20 diplomacy trait, but this didnt bother me too much, clans will ally with you out of necessity if you choose your partners correctly and your early game is such a joke that you dont even need allies that much) followed by Shimazu and then Date (due to their starting positions mixed with speciality mixed with blacksmiths off the bat - all 3 are areas where Shimazu is slightly better off). Then it gets hazy. Uesugi can be a bear but they arent that hard once you get the hang of it - I disagree that expanding with them is hard, you just have to have a lean, crisp 5-6 turn opening targeting Homna instantly and once this succeeds you can fend off Takeda easily while expanding eastwards. Monks are also brutal as all hell in the lategame - apart from Choso's Sniperkyo Samurai Archers, Bow Monks are my most feared enemies and War Cry scares me more than Giger's worst nightmares.

Takeda can be between troublesome and ghoulish and, before the Loan Swords, Ikko could be a nightmare. Now its just hard, prolly cuz it takes such a different approach to play the faction correctly. I havent played Hojo yet (boring specialization and they start in the same area as 3 other factions start, zzz) so cant say about those guys, but I would label Mori as being the toughest out of a personal disgust for non-cannon based naval warfare and a mediocre starting area. I guess you could just abandon your starting area entirely (its worthless), take Chosokabe's island and play as Choso with better nanban "trade" ships, but apart from this method I struggled the most with Mori. Well... if you autoresolve constantly on Legendary, you *will* lose, and I cannot be arsed to use the bloody ships in combat, so this might be my problem. I will probably settle on Ikko due to being poor at playing the faction, or Hojo due to their general worthlessness.

Tokugawa can be pretty brutal but if you dont care about being a Vassal you can completely ignore the southern border, which lets you blitz the Hattori nutjobs (who will declare war on you in a bilisecond so the ability to declare war is not one you will miss - they'll find you anyway), and if this succeeds, Tokugawa is a cakewalk. The ninja provinces are hard to assault, but easy to hold once you have the whole Kyoto-area up to Hatano, and the income from Burakumin villages is ludicrous. I think I stayed a Vassal for 90ish turns and just riced up my provinces until I could field 3 deathballs of high tech fully upgraded units from Ikko's archer/blacksmith starting provinces. Thanks, Imagawa, for your loyal protection - idiot. From there I just toyed around and tested the game out, it was my first real campaign and I couldnt know that Geisha and Kisho ninja are practically worthless.

Well it definitely isn't the Shimazu or Chosakabe. I have found all of the other clans reasonably hard, I haven't spent a lot of time playing the campaign though. I find multiplayer much more interesting.

I've always found the Oda relatively easy. Date are hard initially imo.

At the risk of sounding like a jerk I have managed to win with every clan on legendary with the exception of the ikko ikki and the uesugi. For the reasons already mentioned above they are the two hardest clans to play hands down.

The Oda are quite easy. Do not forget to constantly recruit ashigaru units. Theirs are superior in quality to the ashis of the other factions. And you have the income to support many of them.

If you want to be careful you can fight defensively the first turns to not lose your initial province. But then you can take the province in the north (the castle is not far away) and then move to the south.

One special tip from me: I played the Oda on normal difficulty and found out that is possible to demand vassalization from the clan in the north without doing anything before (yes, they become vassal). I was able to reproduce this. But this is absolutely not necessary.

Back to topic: Maybe the Takeda because they specialize in cavalry and cavalry sucks. Or the Hattori due to their central position and mali for many unit types.

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Originally Posted by sassbarman

At the risk of sounding like a jerk I have managed to win with every clan on legendary with the exception of the ikko ikki and the uesugi. For the reasons already mentioned above they are the two hardest clans to play hands down.

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Let me escalate that risk level by writing that, as a chap who finished his first S2 campaign on legendary and never lowered it afterwards and who completed all Sengoku Jidai campaigns bar those of the Chosokabe, Oda and Hattori, I found the Uesugi and Ikko Ikki campaigns to have been rather easy.

Just goes to show this type of topic is impossible to agree on in any definitive manner.

Those two were certainly easier, or at least less arduous, than Date, which caused me to play with a constant headache while advancing into Kanto due to the long reinforcement lines, nevermind the very stressful need to secure ports and trade routes against constantly spawning pirates along the coasts of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, which immobilised entire fleets away from the seas which were neighbouring my actual borders and where, thus, I was stopping the fleets of the enemy clans.
In fact, my longest campaign was as Christian Shimazu, ending in 1571. A very easy and cosy game and I was not rushing, yet even if I was speeding things up, the difference from my Long 1563 victory with Mori for example, or from my 1561 as Hojo would’ve been significant.

Uesugi develops fast and rather safe along the north coast into Echizen, securing its riches and those of Kaga, nevermind that it thus establishes Kaga as recruiting grounds. Unlike Date’s Iwate, Echigo’s vastness works in its favour, the castles of Northern Shinano and Fukushima being far away and thus an invasion won’t take you by surprise – the AI amasses troops in the neighbouring province prior to declaring war, yet it headquarters in the castle, not on the very border. Moreover, towards the end of your early game, an army in Kozuke easily defends North Shinano and Echigo as well, thus by placing a second one in Echizen your entire domain is secure and you can build up forces at a relaxed pace to capture the next few provinces before hitting realm divide.

Ikko Ikki; great units; then Kaga and Echizen at your finger tips. An army in Etchu secures them from the north, a second army headquartered at the Omi crossroads is able to also cover the defense of Echizen, Mino and Owari and hold the province’s castle with a bit of luck, indirectly helped by the fact that the western road is blocked by Ashigaka (with which you can actually maintain the peace). Mino and Owari you will of course occupy as you head for the important Suruga-Sagami-Izu triangle with a third army.

Date, Oda, Mori , Chosobake, Shiamzu/

I haven't played through the campaign with every clan yet, so the value of my opinion is a bit limited ^^, but for me it definitely tends to be the Uesugi as well for pretty much every reason you described Madae. I find them really fun and love their colors though, so I have trouble keeping away a bit :p.

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Originally Posted by Madae

Additionally, the bonuses of Uesugi are arguably not that great. Warrior Monks are expensive. I like to use them because they're kind of neat, but their bonuses are outshined by their lack of defense - I'd actually be interested in seeing how they fair in a toe-to-toe match with a similar unit, just for posterity... though I still doubt they're really worth that much more cost.

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Bow warrior monks have the greatest range of any archery unit in the game. They are also very accurate and puncture armor well. Like you said though, their defense is nonexistent. Against other units it's a matter of range for who wins, but if you can let them safely snipe they can be pretty devastating.

Naginata warrior monks have a very high melee score, so they can handle themselves extremely well in melee despite having almost no armor. They also have their war cry. The only thing that can really put up much of a fight for them in melee are katana samurai. Archers will clear them out pretty fast though. On both cases like you said the cost of the units and how easily you can lose them raises a big question about them. It's really about how well you are able to micromanage them in a fight and keep them out of the trouble they're weak against.

If you haven't seen it, frogbeastegg's guide goes into a lot of detail about monks and where they shine (and every other unit :p) if you're interested in really detailed info.

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Originally Posted by jepp21

The hardest factions are The Hattori (they reach realm divide in like no turns), the Tokugawa (being a vassal sucks, aswell as having other powerful clans 1 turn away), and the Uesugi (starting location, crap diplomacy becomes your doom)

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It seems as the Hattori most people generally hold off on capturing Kyoto early to avoid that instant realm divide, and instead sort of absorb everything around it. That way they can seize it pretty effortlessly when the right (or inevitable) time arrives.

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Originally Posted by Syl

It seems as the Hattori most people generally hold off on capturing Kyoto early to avoid that instant realm divide, and instead sort of absorb everything around it. That way they can seize it pretty effortlessly when the right (or inevitable) time arrives.

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I find that to be the Hattori's biggest advantage, since I'm lukewarm about their battlefield buff and the increased upkeep which comes with it. Having the Ashikaga as a safe little trading pet partner is a nice boost to my economy and, because they're a passive clan, I know my borders with them are safe unless someone else gets them to declare war on me. I ally with them and keep them happy so most times they side with me when push comes to shove. It's most of the bonus from having a vassal without any of the drawbacks. Only once realm divide is triggered by my fame do I march on Kyoto.

be chosocabe and mix it with a little christianity. and you get the hardest faction ever

I don't know about hardest (that largely depends on your personal playstyle IMO) but I'm going to declare Mori to be the easiest. Yes, they're easier than Shimazu, Date and Chosokabe!

They start out allied to a reliable, passive clan which can be relied upon to guard the western flank. The geography makes it very easy to defend your borders and expand east without exposing yourself. There's a gold province right by the starting position so early money problems are solved. Slightly to the east there's a province which gives XP bonuses to ships; combined with the inherently superior Mori vessels and it's easy to dominate the seas and thus grab 4 or 5 trade nodes. If you own the Sengoku unit DLC then you have access to the wako raider unit, a cheaper, lightly armoured version of the katana samurai with higher attack and melee defence stats. These fellows are delightfully dangerous and you can spam them like there's no tomorrow thanks to their low cost and the booming Mori economy. Once the mainland position is solidified it's easy to go after the two islands in order to create safe 'backup' zones, or to continue pushing east to Kyoto and victory.

If you go Christianity then all of these advantages get superpowered! The Nanban trade ship will defeat entire fleets singlehandedly, saving scads of cash on fleet maintenance and ensuring that no one threatens Mori naval supremacy. The Nanban quarter and other income bonuses bring in so much money it's impossible to spend it all. Early access to guns makes defending those limited borders even easier - 4 guns plus a couple of bows and a sword or two in each border castle makes for a very tough force at a low, low cost. Churches make it easy to rip through the chi side of the research tree, further boosting your economy and agents.

While all of this is based on my incredibly silly and inefficient reader directed campaign, I believe it's all going to be applicable to a serious campaign played on a higher difficulty. Most of these advantages will apply equally on any difficulty. I'll have to try them on legendary one day. It'd probably be a lot of fun.

Shimazu have to contend with poor provinces, religious turmoil, and slightly uncooperative geography. Date have those big, empty provinces and take forever to get anywhere. Chosokabe are bottled up on their poor little island and have no easy, reliable way off it without either a big gamble or a big naval investment. Mori don't seem to have any disadvantages at all.

You mentioned trade nodes in your Santa Samurai thread in regards to your of your booming Mori economy as well, and I don't think they can be stressed enough.

To me it feels like one of the major things that make the northern clans more difficult, aside from the geography and being surrounded by more hostile neighbors on all borders, are that the four trade nodes in southern Japan let you come away with such an incredible advantage when you have easy access to them. The Mori having stronger ships and a greater travel range let them grab them even quicker, but as the other clans in the area you can jump on them pretty easily as well. The AI doesn't seem to realize just what a gold mine they are and don't seem to really focus on trying to hold as many as they can consecutively.

I haven't played Shogun II on its hardest difficulties so maybe that changes ^^, but from what I've seen, life as the Shimazu, Chosokabe, and Mori feels like being a kid happily lost in a Samurai Shopping Center with their parents seemingly unlimited credit card once you've grabbed those trade ports.

:medievalcheers:

Surprisingly, I've had more restarted games as Shimazu than any other clan. Their starting position is weak economically until you capture the trade nodes, and if you take too long or make any mistakes you can easily find yourself trapped and overrun by numerically superior opponents. Once you manage to get them going however, Shimazu become juggernauts due to their somewhat isolated, trade-node centric location and superior military.

Well I'm currently part-way through my third attempt at Hattori and darn I think they get my vote for hardest - even moreso than Uesugi.

You start in a nice enough spot with lots of fertile provinces nearby - but you are also next door to two of the most psychotic clans going - Oda & Ikko Ikki. Oddly enough Oda have developed into a force in all of my games (much to my chagrin) as they field brutal early game units. So after getting dragged into early wars you will rapidly run out of money (due to high unit cost/upkeep) or be forced into fielding mostly Ashigaru that will just struggle to match the enemy stacks. To make matters worse there is no easily accessible port which makes getting the trade nodes difficult to reach - and frankly now that I have ports I don't even have the money to spare to risk sending a fleet.

The second problem is that while dealing with the inevitable conflict to the East you will also share borders with 2-3 clans in the West - all of whom want a slice of you. So it has been constant warfare for me with some ridiculous battles - I played one siege defence where I lost every single unit in my full stack apart from my general (5 left), 1 unit of bow ashigaru (about 12 left), and some Kisho Ninja (about 8 left). My general got some funny traits after that one :D

Needless to say while difficult it is also enormously fun!! :)

Aite, I got around to playing the Hattori campaign and there is no doubt in my mind anymore that this is by far the hardest campaign. Holy check this thing is out of control. The useless (useless useless useless) deploy-anywhere bonus that their units recieve will have you cringe in frustration that Ikko can field Katana Ashigaru for less than 1/3!!! of the cost of your basic Yari Ashigaru. But whats better than 1 aggressive enemy with such cheap units compared to yours? Two of them! Oda is right there next to you as well! On Legendary this spins the cost differential completely beyond anything I've encounted as any other faction.

The *only* unit that can benefit from being deployed anywhere is the Kisho Ninja, which coincidently already have that trait. Lucky enough, since their relative low upkeep compared to Hattori Samurai and Ashigaru alike will have you making Kisho Ninja a lot more than you're used to. Battlefield tactics are iffy as Ikko but they are unrecognizable as Hattori. Cavalry, Snipers (their speciality unit whatever its called) and Ninja are pretty much required to be the foundation of your army as they are the only ones with a reasonable price tag. That or some heavy reliance on diplomacy, praying that your neighbours are trustworthy enough to let you abandon the border you share with them.

Theorycrafting on the optimal way of opening in the first 15 or so turns was a lot of fun. After 65 turns I am sort of settled, but for once it doesn't feel like a total walkover from here 'till the end. This is a good campaign that will give you the extra nodge of difficulty that is otherwise only accessible by inflicting arbitrary restrictions on yourself. Well worth the re-visit to this game.

I agree Jarmam - the upkeep of those Hattori units on legendary is obscene - 122 per turn for a basic Ashigaru unit and double that 244!! for a basic Sam.

The only thing that has kept me in the game are two generals who both have stand and fight - this allows my central block of Yari Ashigaru to hold against enemy Samurai, I've also found myself fighting a lot of castle defenses which is unusual for me. The deploy anywhere trait is pretty handy I find as you can basicaly pick your ground on the battle map - I find I am playing with mostly Ashigaru (for financial reasons) which generally go down on a hill, while I send out the bandits/bow to skirmish and drag the enemy into my spear wall that is uphill. Still the price you pay for that is pretty steep - perhaps better actually is the fact that all your generals get night attack - that is very powerful. Also cavalry and warrior monks do not cost any more than usual - but personally I have not had the money to spend on the infrastructure necessary to field them yet - too busy surviving!!

Bandits was their name. Those guys are pretty good for their cost - fortunately, since everything else is a joke for their insane price tag.

Cavalry is fairly simple to obtain, but yeah, monks are pretty much out of reach for the critically difficult start and the monk archers wont really be worth it since Bandits fill the archer role nicely, cheaply and quickly. It is true that the Night Attack trait is really, really good. Like *really* good. It saves a fortune on otherwise risky sabotage missions, leaving your Ninja to do other stuff instead. The reason I dislike the field-anywhere trait is A. You're often fighting in a defensive siege battle, and the only unit worth having outside a wall is Kisho Ninja and B. If you field away from your General, you risk your units mass-routing incredibly quickly, forcing you to panic-deploy Rally + Stand and Fight which can leave your general vulnerable.

I do like the idea of aiming for late-game armies based on Naginata Monks. I wonder if you can maintain enough of an archer advantage with just Bandits to justify the Monks' paper cloth armor or if you have to switch to Bow Monks to combat enemy missile troops. Maybe you can lure the enemy missile units enough to allow a consistent reliable ninja attack? That would certainly make the lategame a lot more straightforward and play to the Kisho units (Bandits and Ninja) effectively. This would also eliminate some oversaturating of speciality units given that you can then diminish cavalry use and field actual units instead. I think I need to restart and re-think the entire gameplan. I am really struggling with Takeda's 25 provinces atm, and Monks would certainly alleviate the main problem of his terrifying Katana Cavalry.

I also think I've underestimated the value of prioritizing fleets and trade nodes, since ships arent inflated in upkeep as units are. Its just so hard to find safe spots to invest properly in ships. I think I am really starting to like this faction.

I'm now at 15 provinces with my Hattori campaign and I'm sitting quite comfortably building up some slush money for RD. Christian Ito have occupied the entire Western half of the map but I broke them on my Castle in Settsu so things are peaceful for now. I'm currently fielding stacks of ~6 Yari Ashigaru, 1 Nag WM, all from Ise with +morale & +arm. 4 or so Nag Sam from Kaga with +4 atk, +2 arm. 4 or so Bandits/Bow Ashigaru from Echizen with +accuracy, and actually a couple of bow sam that I built before I got my bandits. I have two 5 star generals with Stand & Fight which turn the Yari Ashigaru into woodchippers. Without S&F I would have been done for long ago. I'm just about to spend a bunch on Kat Cav and see if I can work them in. Figure they will allow me to get a bit more aggressive with my bandits and try to lure units out where they can get mopped up by the Cav.

As far as ships go I find the trick is to send a stack of trade ships with a stack of warships. The AI won't tend to take them on. It cuts down your profits a bit but still nets you a lot of cash and it is a very safe way to do it. But remember you will need to keep your home port clear and it helps to have some allies along the way (chosokabe in my case) to keep raiding down to a minimum. It is a big investment though so not something you can do early or even mid game really. Also I'm finding lately that owning for e.g. the cotton node will enable you to sell trade access for massive amounts of money. I think the most I have gotten in one campagin was something like 17,000 koku for trade access which was just ridiculous :)

I mostly play at legendary in which Oda and Tokugawa are both horrendously difficult (as for that matter is Chokosabe)

Oda will can only expand safely to the two relatively poor provinces to the south and if it takes Suruga will find themselves fighting the Hojo and Takeda from the east as well as the Ikko Ikki or Hattori from the north and are highly unlikely to survive.

Tokugawa must first take Owari which then puts them in exactly the same position as the Oda are in after they take Mikawa but economically crippled until they can pick a fight with their Imagawa overlords.

Of the two Oda are marginally easier only because it is extraordinary easy to take out the Tokugawa in turn 2 by sending your spare general and a single unit of archers to take out their undefended capital and due to their advantage of being able to recruit much cheaper and better Ashigaru being vastly more useful in the early game - while the Tokugawa's advantages in diplomacy and espionage only becomes really useful in the late game which they never survive to.

Their performance as AI factions is a good test - I have never seen the Tokugawa survive more than a handful of turns and never seen the Oda survive into the middle game.

If anyone has won a Legendary Domination campaign with the Tokugawa then they really have beaten the the whole series and have nowhere else to go.

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Originally Posted by Jacobin

If anyone has won a Legendary Domination campaign with the Tokugawa then they really have beaten the the whole series and have nowhere else to go.

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Compared to Hattori the Tokugawa are a walk in the park. You can instantly get rid of the most fearsome enemy in the middle of the map (Oda), you have a completely secure border to the south and a staple friend and trade partner in Kiso which is also a completely safe harbour border to the east. Havent tested Toku's rifle riders, but if they work the way it sounds like they work then they could be quite fearsome indeed - too bad you cannot even get them as the tech pattern is senseless as Toku.

Its not *that* hard, its just unusual to be so at the mercy of diplomacy and being so handcuffed in the earlygame by being a vassal. Definitely not the campaign I would recommend as 1st legendary, but if you want to piss someone off to the point that they'll throw bricks at your window out of frustration then dare them to complete the Hattori domination Legendary before you do the Toku legendary
trollface.jpg

Hattori, easily. Once you get to the battle map it might be easier going with everyone having kisho training, but the position on the campaign map along with most of their units being more expensive, its extremely difficult right out of the gate.

Don't have whatever version gives you the Hattori so will take your word for it.

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Originally Posted by Jacobin

Don't have whatever version gives you the Hattori so will take your word for it.

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You can unlock them for $5. $2.50 would have been more reasonable. They're fun though. There's a cool factor that comes from being "the ninja clan" and having a black and red color scheme that no other faction can match, and you feel like you actually accomplished something by winning with them.

I'm not very familiar with Total War games in general, but I always end up being ganged up on and squashed as Uesugi

Ikko-Ikki because everyone hates you.