Positioning units for bridge defences

[ReluctantSamurai]

No apologies necessary, mate! As you said, everyone has their way of doing things, and whatever works for you is a good plan.

My way does require some good timing (ie. much micro-managing) but as you saw from my screenies, can be devastating. I use a 'creep' method against multiple stacks. I stand off a bit from the bridge for the first wave allowing large numbers of enemy troops to cross before giving them a good dose of fire. When this first wave has been destroyed, I move closer to the bridge to allow my teppo to fire on troops as they are crossing, yet staying out of range of enemy archers and teppo. I then use my cav to cross over to chase off any remaining archers before the next wave hits.

limiting the effects of the Teppo units and minimising the abilities of the "fast" units

As you noted, some bridge provinces have quirky bends, and I might add, random dips in terrain in front of your position that can affect teppo placement. I've played enough in every bridge province to know just where to place teppo for greatest effect, so it does take some micro-managing.

Suprisingly a lot of my Yari units remained completely un-engaged, so I could have had a smaller army than the enemy, and still have won.

I never deploy my entire army at the bridge, especially against a multiple-stack invasion. At most, I deploy three archers (and keep two in reserve if I have them) and about half of my infantry. Cavalry is deployed to the flanks with one unit (and my Daimyo if he's involved) kept dead-center on the bridge behind my Yari. These are for chasing off enemy archers once they've lost their infantry support. If you look closely at my screenies you can see a fair amount of kills stretching away from the bridge on the enemy side. Those are mainly the enemy archers. Keeping fresh units available is important for long battles where fatigue becomes a factor. That second screenie in Mikawa was from a battle that took almost two hours to resolve (obviously I play with the timer off) and you'll notice my two musket units are not on the field for the ending.......they ran out of ammo so I withdrew them

It's just as well, otherwise we would never capture a bridge province ourselves!

Indeed! I always try for the crappiest weather possible to minimize enemy archer fire, and sometimes it will take several attempts to wear down enemy forces before you can take a heavily defended bridge.