Imagawa campaign: "Short Letters to Mariko"

[Wishazu]

Excellent read so far my friend. Much better written than my Oda Campaign. Imagawa are usually a very tough proposition, they are my favourite clan to play as and I was going to do them in my next campaign but you have beaten me to it lol. If I may make a reccomendation, I would suggest taking Mikawa as soon as possible. Its very easily defensible, away from the dangers of most of the other clans and has a reasonable income from farming. I usually take it immediately and build it up as a fall back position if things don`t go to plan in that part of the map.

[patdj]

Thanks for your attention. It is quite a lot of text, I must admit.
I had to perform some updates on the text to ensure the consistency with the story:
- I removed Minoru's surname Hayashi. Since he is a peasant he is not entitled to carry one.
- Hôjô attacked Izu and not Ise. Thanks for telling me, Wishazu.
- I decreased Minoru's initial authority in Hizen a bit. I think it was way to exagerated. He is now to command the garrison and ensure the infrastructural expansion of Hizen.

Yeah, the Imagawa are a tough one. Still, you were in a similar position in your Oda campain. I think I should not let Shimazu grow to strong, though this will be a hard piece of work.
As for Mikawa, I totally agree. By now I did not dare to face the 4 star general there with my busy troops, but I think I will weaken the garrison in Musashi in order to conquer Mikawa before Oda does.

[Adam99]

Great read start so far, good luck with the campaign. I agree with grabbing Mikawa if its feasible.

[patdj]

Letter from Autumn 1531
Mariko,
I am still in the camp near Chikugo-kawa. Inoue reports reinforcements from Totomi.
My Lord Imagawa visited my tent this afternoon. I served him tea and tried hard to show the adequate manners. He observed me with calm interest, but fortunately did not look insulted.
We spoke:
"Minoru."
"Imagawa-sama?"
"How come, that a peasant like you acquired so much talent for the Art of War?"
"I do my very best to please you my Lord. I hope my humble services are of some value in your honourable campain."
"You traded your yari for a bow, I saw?"
"Yes, my Lord. Inoue-san liberally taught me the proper use of a bow. I think by now my arrows are of better use to your army than my pike was."
"The Bow is a Samurai weapon, Minoru. There are opinions that I must not grant privileges like that to a mere peasant."
"If you wish me back in my old unit, my Lord, I will inmediat-"
"Minoru."
"My Lord?"
"I know better than listening to the tongues of envy. You have a good overview on the battlefield. Bowmen suits you better than infantry, I think. I will ask Watanabe Nuotaka to take you into service. Once you returned to Hizen you can then remain with Inoue Kagemochi."
"I thank you, my Lord."
"But still... you must work on your comportment, your prestige. There are men in my army that do not respect you. First of all, you need a surname."
"I beg your pardon, my Lord, I do not understand well."
"Why did you set up your tent away from the bakuei, among the trees of this grove? There are rumours you are conspiring and avoid being seen."
"Honestly... I find it... easier to defend."
"Ahaha! Against which attackers you seek to defend yourself?"
"Please excuse, Imagawa-sama, but I am afraid that in times like these there is no lack of potential attackers."
"True."
"I was able to hear you and your guards approaching sooner than if you had been walking on grass. Additionally I could draw advantage of the trees if I was outnumbered in a fight."
"So be it then. If you prefer groves to camps, you shall from now on be called Hayashi, Hayashi Minoru-san, a warrior peasant in service of Imagawa Yoshimoto."
"I cannot thank you enough, my Lord, for the honour that you are granting me."
Lord Imagawa stood up and left the tent. I felt thunderstruck, as you can imagine. I will now sign the first letter with my new name. I love you, Hayashi Mariko-san.

林 実



Letter from Winter 1531
Mariko,
Inoue moved into Chikuzen against the Akitsuki and Kikuchi clans with about 230 men before winter came. Imagawa sent him 63 men for support. Though he was succesfull he had losses and is now facing a major army of the Kikuchi that might attack from Buzen.
Shimazu keeps expanding and apparently has taken Butcho some days ago. He strikes with big armies, bigger than any one I have seen so far. I do not dare to imagine how we could face him if he turns against us. I am hoping for him to expand over Shikoku.
Imagawa-sama rose taxes a bit because the situation in Chikugo is calming down. Still, it remains unstable and we had a poor harvest, leaving us behind with hardly any money at all. Loyalty to our forces is barely seen. Despite the rather low taxes we have to fear peasant uproars, claiming their independence.
Surprising news: Katagiri Nobutaka from Totomi has abandoned Suruga and taken Mikawa. Rebels from Shinano have put Suruga under their control. Our position in Honshu is now nearly desperate. We have a border to the Great Oda Clan now, from what I heard they could overrun us in half a year. We have a emissary on the way to propose an alliance. I hope the Oda agree.
I miss Yoshiko, I hope she is fine.

林 実



Letter from Spring 1532
Mariko,
the Oda accepted the offer and there was neither a revolt nor another attack from Shinano. If we can make it over this year we might be able to gain some strength.
I visited Yoshiko in the castle of Nagasaki. She asked a lot of questions, but she is fine. Still I have to remain in Chikugo. Shimazu drew his troops together in Butcho. I wonder whether he is aiming for us, the Buzen rebels or Shikoku.

林 実



Letter from Summer 1532
Mariko,
everything quite. An amazing silence lies above the fields. The sun warms my troubled heart. Still there is no sign of further aggression.
Shimazu Takahisa's son has now come of age and is serving in his army.
I decided to draw you a picture of our current situation, so you can follow my descriptions better. Please excuse that I am such a poor painter, but the constant use of the bowstring makes my fingers numb.





Loyalty in Mikawa still is reported to be too unstable for a tax raise. Perhaps I demand too much, but could you provide me with some advice? Since the weapons are getting cold I do not have frequent chance to serve my Lord in suficient manner. This might become a severe thread for my further career in this army.

林 実


Summary:
Puh, this campain is a lot of gambling. I could be whiped out completely in no time. I think I have a good position to turtle and be friends with everyone until I have the strength to strike. Taking Mikawa this early without considerable forces was good but risky.

[patdj]

Letter from Autumn 1532
Mariko,
Shimazu Takahisa has attacked and taken Buzen. All rebels were put to the sword. He is now in the position to attack Chikuzen and Hizen without passing Chikugo-kawa. We would thereby loose the tactical advantage of the river.
Imagawa rose taxes to the common level. The garrison in Mikawa must therefore pay attention to the peoples loyalty.
Apart from that I am spending my spare time with training bow and arrow.

Ogenkide,

林 実



Letter from Winter 1532
Mariko,
night has fallen and I am back in Nagasaki. Lord Yoshimoto and I rode up here to meet the emissary Abe Hanzo, who proved himself being a very able diplomat. He is on his journey to meet Shimazu Takahisa-sama in order to form an alliance and ensure that he directs his highly expandatory potential towards Shikoku.
He confirmed what was already indicated. The whole country had a good harvest! Mikawa remaint silent and we now have over 1600 koku to spend. I convinced Lord Imagawa to invest in infrastructure as well as in recruiting new Samurai Archers. We are building a castle in Mikawa and support the farmers in Hizen and Chikugo. This will approximately take half a year. By then, the new bowmen should be sufficiently prepared, too.
I spent the day with our daughter. Despite my absence she has neither neglected her studies nor did she lack physical activity. They say she was running throughout the whole castle, climbin up walls, houses and trees, asking everyone out, but always polite and with her wooden sword, like a little Samurai. It was her teacher Kimura-sensei who looked after her during my time in Chikugo.
Lord Imagawa granted me another visit this evening. He brought his Go game and asked me to play with him. Do you remember how I loved to play Go, always imagining it to be a real battlefield? You always disapproved of me wanting to become a General, a military genius like Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Well, as you see it must somehow be my destiny. I still recall the first part of our conversation.
"So Minoru, why didn`t you as well build your house among the trees of a grove?", Yoshimoto-sama said and laughed.
"My Lord, I probably would have done so if this was my house. I am sharing this little hut with 4 of my fellow ashigaru soldiers. It belongs to the father of Kutoshi. He is a local merchant who travelled to Chûgoku two years ago."
"I understand. And the little girl in the kitchen is your daughter?"
"Yes, she is helping Kutoshi with the supper."
"Why isn`t your wife looking after her?"
"My wife died 5 years ago."
"How come?"
"We were accidentally involved in a Ninja assault. It was during a public theater in Suruga. Two Ninjas suddenly came out of nowhere and went for a local nobleman standing next to us. When they threw their daggers at him he quickly pulled my wife in front of him, using her to shield himself against the blades. Before I realized what had happened the nobleman had escaped and the Ninja were slain by his guards. My wife had died instantly."
As you may imagine, I felt like I was cooked alive. I could not afford not to talk openly to my Lord, but the tension inside me was hardly possible to hide. Still he did not inmediately change the topic and asked me if I would blame the Ninja, their employer or the targeted nobleman for your death. I told him, honestly, that I was unable to figure that out in all these years. He responded that he would make the nobleman responsible and asked me if I knew his name. Again honestly I said that I do not know his name. After that he remained silent.
Some turns late he told me, "Minoru, if I find out that you are letting me win I will have you executed."
He was right, at the first glance he had considerable advantages that I granted him on purpose because I could not yet imagine what would offend him more, a defeat or a potentially faked victory.
"I am sorry, my Lord, but you are not winning.", I told him.
Two turns later I was equal again, another four and I was dominating the game. Lord Imagawa looked surprised, even a bit amused. Can you remember how your father always got mad at me because I used to turn the tide when he thought he had finally secured his victory? I was always letting my deployment appear weaker than it was. I wish this would as well apply to the Imagawa troops, but I am afraid it does not.
"This was a very challenging game, Minoru. I thank you."
Yoshimoto-sama won by performing some well thought moves towards the end of the game. I caught myself not paying enough attention to the match as I was slowly carried away thoughts. In any way I am glad to keep my head well situated on my shoulders.
He told me that tomorrow he would be heading back to the camp, without me. I would be to go with Abe-san to see Lord Shimazu. Yoshiko wants to come with me but I am not letting her. It is not unusual to execute unlucky emissaries and everyone travelling with them. As Imagawa-sama said, Abe-san is to teach me appropriate manners and the Art of Diplomacy. He is said to be a great swordsmen, too.
This will be an interesting journey.

林 実



Letter from Spring 1533
Mariko,
fortunately there was no attack from Shimazu and as far as we know he has returned to Bungo. We are in Chikuzen at the moment and heading south. It is already getting confortably warm on midday, so Abe-san is teaching me advanced techniques in sword fight when we rest. During the journey we talk a lot about manners and diplomacy. He is very wise and must be older than I thought, despite looking still very young and vital.

林 実



Summary:
My situation is still not secured and depends much on the benevolence of the Oda and Shimazu. Diplomacy is a major issue, as it seems. The good thing is that I am now able to generate some cash and build troops without needing to expand. My longterm plan is to either get a grab at Kyushu if Shimazu somehow gets weakened or inattentive or, if not, build up a strong position in Honshu with a Mikawa-Shinano-Suruga border.

[caravel]

Great campaign and write up so far. The format is very original. As I said in the other thread you also may need to employ the services of some of the "men in black pyjamas" to stop your provinces rebelling and allow you to raise taxes.

I'd say your situation in the east is precarious, though it's early days yet of course. You could bide your time and go for Owari, which has a good farm income, but I'd say your priority is Suruga to use as a buffer zone to protect Totomi which will be one of your major developed provinces. If you do go for Owari, t's best to wait until Lord Oda invades Omi or Ise of course.

In the west you have more opportunity and you are in posession of fertile lands. I would go after Shimazu as soon as possible and have your warriors and his dishonour, chase him to his grave (sorry couldn't resist that one). With Hizen, Chikuzen and Chikugo already secured you should be getting a half decent income as it is, though if Shimazu gets any ideas of going on tour with his Satsuma No Dachis, your plans in the region could be ruined.

[Thermal]

yep, shinobi and embassies will be handy here, maybe you could risk weaking totomi some more to strengthen mikawa, oda are in a terribly good position to strike, same as shimazu, i think you have over reached yourself a little, but if your borders clans dont attack im sure you'll pull through

[patdj]

At the moment I am working on the next update, "Men of Shadows" already in progress, but thanks for the advice. I wanted to have enough troops to hold my position, so I was a bit short in cash, as you cannot deal with ronin via Shinobi.
Now the cash situation got a lot better, but I am still undecided what to do first. You'll see.


Because I forgot to comment on that:

Much better written than my Oda Campaign.

Don't you dare! Your Oda campain is a masterpiece. My campain lacks a certain thrill at the moment and I'm afraid I'm getting boring. This never happened in your campain, maximum action, from start on.


Still thanks for the compliment, I'm trying hard.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Here is a crazy suggestion, but a strategy I use almost all the time as Imagawa. Withdraw all your southern forces to central Japan with the idea of delivering a knockout blow to Oda and gaining access to the much richer regions of Ise and Omi, and eventually Iga (great for Imagawa with the ninja bonus), Yamashiro and Kawachi. You end up with much richer provinces and more of them have some kind of bonus. You are also concentrating your forces.

The down side of this is that Shimazu gets a free hand and often forms an alliance with Mori to threaten your southern flank, so a rollback of Mori is needed early.

To the north you need to decide where to form a defensive line......push out a bit to Suruga (which is much more defensible than Totomi, especially against Takeda cavalry), or Mikawa (and abandon Totomi......scorched earth in order, here).

In any case, it's a fun and non-conventional way to play Imagawa, and avoids the difficult split-empire problem.

[Wishazu]

Don't you dare! Your Oda campain is a masterpiece. My campain lacks a certain thrill at the moment and I'm afraid I'm getting boring. This never happened in your campain, maximum action, from start on.


Still thanks for the compliment, I'm trying hard.

Cheers mate. Though I will 100% agree that my Oda campaign was the most exciting campaign I have played in years, and I`m glad I was able to transmit that excitement onto the pages here, this Imagawa campaign appears to me to be unique in the way you are presenting it. I love it. Keep it up

P.S Reluctant Samurai makes some good points there. But I would disagree on going for Oda`s lands early on, you will get bogged down by large armies of ronin packed full of Monks.

[patdj]

The strategy sounds interesting but daring. I am not sure whether I have the unit and player quality to manage kicking Oda that easily (despite the 2 bridge map of Owari). I'm not at my PC at the moment, but I will calculate that one when I'm home.
Still:
- I am afraid giving Shimazu whole Kyûshû will end up him being my major foe again (see Hojo campain).
- Additionally, concentrating in Honshû will be very much alike my Hojo campain, too.

At the moment I'm favouring the turtle&trouble tactic. Means gathering everything I need to defend myself properly, while creating disturbance and irritation by the "Men of Shadows". I hope to apply some handy diplomacy and grab everything thats easy to get and to be hold.

Still, thank you both very much for your advice and your interest in the campain!

[ReluctantSamurai]

But I would disagree on going for Oda`s lands early on, you will get bogged down by large armies of ronin packed full of Monks.

Not necessarily the case if you play with patience. The largest contingent of monks usually resides in Kawachi. Ise, Omi, and Iga are cleared fairly easy, Yamashiro places you in close proximity to fairly the large contingent in Kawachi. I wait for Shimazu and/or Mori to bang their heads against that wall until the rebel forces are worn down, then step in and snatch it. My last three Imagawa camps (expert lvl) have all gone that same way If they choose to attack you, they have to leave some kind of contingent in Kawachi. Monks are very vulnerable to archer fire, especially with no armor upgrades. I've had them attack me in Yamashiro before and my archers, both foot and cav whittle 'em down to less than half strength before melee is even joined. The map in Yamashiro contains many tactical possibilities for traps and flanking......even monks will rout when decimated and flanked

The strategy sounds interesting but daring. I am not sure whether I have the unit and player quality to manage kicking Oda that easily (despite the 2 bridge map of Owari).

It's really not that tough, especially since the AI usually has Oda running all over the place fighting rebels.

- I am afraid giving Shimazu whole Kyûshû will end up him being my major foe again

This is usually the case, often made more difficult by a Shimazu-Mori alliance. However..............

........if you reach the goals of Kawachi/Yamashiro/Wakasa as a defensive front, this is very easy to hold. Shimazu will bleed himself white trying to take Kawachi, and Mori usually tries for Yamashiro which also has excellent defensive possibilities. What usually happens then is they turn on each other.

Compare the koku income from Owari/Ise/Yamashiro to Hizen/Chikugo/Chikuzen. It's nearly double! Add to that the ninja bonus from Iga (tailor-made for Imagawa, AFAIAC), the Ashi bonus from Owari (great for teppo), and the +1 bonus for any unit trained in Yamashiro, and you have not only have considerable koku at your disposal, but a training edge as well.

Might I suggest that you make a save-game of your current position, and give this strategy a whirl? If it doesn't work for you, you can always go back and try a different approach. I had similar misgivings when it was first suggested to me. After trying it, I was hooked. Much more exciting than the usual way I was playing Imagawa.

[Adam99]

I think its a really interesting way its been written, looking forward to the dramatic developments as much as the campaign!!

i think ReluctantSamurais strategy is an interesting one.

[Wishazu]

I would use this strategy if I have a full stack army spare. However I think your underestimating the number of warrior monks in the area, in my recent Oda campaign(posted here) every rebel force had at least 1 or 2 contingents of monks that when combined(Rebels would abandon province after province then counter attack with a large stack packed full of monks) can be a serious threat. Also came across a large force in Yamashiro. I like the idea though, I definately give it a try in my next Imagawa campaign.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The strategy is certainly not without its risks......but I don't find the monks to be all that troublesome. Like I said, they are vulnerable to archer fire and I retain at least three or four in each army (either foot or cav or both). It's a challenge to fight monks early on, but the rewards are very good.

I would use this strategy if I have a full stack army spare.

That's the whole idea behind abandoning the south......after razing all your provinces there to the ground, and taking Owari, you have enough koku to get the job done.