Beautiful (Magical) Simplicity

[ReluctantSamurai]

Beautiful (Magical) Simplicity 

Agreed. Just finished several campaigns using the starting date of 1580. I always hated that starting point because of the geisha, until I remembered the modified building stats that "discouraged" the building of geisha houses.

The only faction I ever played from the 1580 date was Oda........arguably the most difficult campaign in SP. My usual port-raiding technique to destroy geisha houses (I don't use them myself) is quite difficult to pull off in that campaign as Oda is under relentless pressure from a combined Takeda/Tokugawa alliance on one side, and often a Mori/Shimazu alliance from the other, and there's rarely time (or koku) to go hunting for geisha houses.

My latest several were Hojo (arguably the easiest clan to play) just to get back into form (on expert setting), then Oda (for old times sake) and the last one just finished yesterday......Takeda. That one surprised me with it's difficulty level as I was constantly fighting off alliances; first Hojo/Uesugi; then Mori/Uesugi; and finally Shimazu/Uesugi.

Why did Uesugi hang around so long you might ask? Well, the AI kept using a technique that I totally disagree with: that of acquiring your ally's lands when he dies. Every time I had Uesugi on the ropes, he'd form an alliance with the next daimyo encroaching on my lands (and every, and I mean EVERY attempt to assassinate his diplomats was doomed.......even using mid-level ninja) and when that clan was destroyed he'd acquire ALL of their lands, not just some as is the usual course.

So I finally broke my long-standing rule of no-geisha when the last clan other than the two of us went down and he acquired almost all of southern Japan (first from Mori, then all of Shimazu's lands) and now had just quadrupled the number of his standing armies (There's only so much one can do against multiple-stack invasions of Shinano despite muskets and defending in high mountain terrain, and when the invading numbers began to climb above four thousand, I decided more drastic measures were needed.)

I didn't send her against any heirs or Kenshin himself, but took out any general with more than two stars to make my battles a bit easier.......I figured the land acquisition is cheesy, so fight cheese with cheese.

I then embarked on a campaign to kill the two remaining Uesugi heirs (on the battlefield, of course) and then Kenshin himself before I simply got overrun by the inevitable hordes...........and it worked. I had to catch him with a port-raiding force after he'd retreated from several battles, but I finally cornered him..........and the Shogunate was mine

So.........to bring a long-winded post to a conclusion, even though I've played many, many campaigns with every clan, in nearly every starting point, the AI always seems to come up with some new way to outsmart you....in this case using alliances to increase my main antagonists holdings even though I was beating him handily on the battlefield........and forcing me to do something I promised myself never to do.....use geisha. Without them my battles would've been against higher honour generals and thus more costly.

And attrition warfare was definitely in the AI's favor due to a much higher koku income amd more numerous armies. Imagine the AI from RTW coming up with that one