How to win as Oda?

**ReluctantSamurai** · 06-28-2010, 01:42

I prefer to await the Dutch. I hate those Catholics and I like using Ninja's on any Priests!

I couldn't care any less about the religious preference of the gaijin. They bring me guns and an offer to trade. Both give me an edge over my opponents. If that edge gets me to the Shogunate before anyone else, then I will take it. By taking the Portuguese offer, I have muskets at least 10 years before anyone else.

Oda would have your head on a pike to hear such talk!

Just kidding, of course

Sometimes a bad or worse harvest will leave me without funds, but that's life.

Maybe so, but string 5 or 6, or even 7 (I had 7 on one occasion) consecutive poor harvests and you will not even have enough koku for replacements, let alone for new units or construction. I prefer the certainty of getting 200 koku from each trading post, and 200 from each church when I have a cathedral.

**caravel** · 07-02-2010, 16:41

Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

Maybe so, but string 5 or 6, or even 7 (I had 7 on one occasion) consecutive poor harvests and you will not even have enough koku for replacements, let alone for new units or construction. I prefer the certainty of getting 200 koku from each trading post, and 200 from each church when I have a cathedral.

If you keep hiking taxes up in the autumn and leaving them low for the rest of the year you may see a lot more "poor" or worse still, "terrible" harvests. In my latest campaign I've just had 4 terrible harvests in a row and then remembered that hiking up taxes in this manner can cause it.

**ReluctantSamurai** · 07-03-2010, 02:18

Terrible harvests? I've never seen one of those, and I'd rather not

Is this something that is peculiar to the original vanilla STW, or have I just been having the kind of luck I wish I had while in Vegas?

Bringing poor harvests by raising taxes in the fall is also something I've not heard of....

I never do that anyway....if I've set punitive taxes, I usually leave them to the point of rebellion.

Just goes to show you can play a game for nearly a decade and still have something new to learn.....

**caravel** · 07-03-2010, 08:20

I've not seen a terrible harvest in STW/MI 1.02, but I've seen more of them than I want to in STW v1.12. I actually think they might have been removed from MI/WE.

**ReluctantSamurai** · 07-03-2010, 13:22

I actually think they might have been removed from MI/WE.

That must be the case, then. The WE edition is what I've had from day 1, and considering the number of campaigns I've played over the last 10 yrs., I should have run into a 'terrible' harvest at some point........

**Yesugey** · 08-06-2010, 20:29

Hey guys,

I went back my homecity to visit my parents last weekend, and I decided to play STW again on my old computer, after many years. I selected to play Oda 1580 - known as the hardest campaign.

It was a pleasure to back to the lands of Japan, and i was hell harder than any other TW game as expected. Because now I have so many rules which stricts me from using the tricks of the game:

* Re-play battles after you lost so many men is illegal.
* Re-play turns because of unexpected enemy moves are illegal. (Its allowed only if you forget to move something)
* The destruction of buildings, because of the threat of losing the province, is illegal.
* Suicidal armies walks through enemy territories and destroys enemy heartland is illegal.
* You have to accept the christianity in the same turn its been offered, if your clan was accepted it historically.
* Training counter-religion's units is illegal. (You cant train monks with Oda, and you must disband any, after accepting

Christianity.)
* Mass-Training non-specific units of your clan is illegal. (If you are Oda, you cant train Heavy Cavalry horde.)

With this rules, 1580 Oda is like impossible to win. But the fun is definite!

I really enjoyed my play.. As always, Takeda and Imaawa attacked Mino and defeated me. I lost all my provinces except Owari and the neighbour of it. (The one with the Cathedral.)
More dire thing is, even Rebels turned against me, which supposed to be a buffer between me and Mori & Shimazu. Yamashiro, and even my the inland provinces were plundered...

I have lost many battles, and all my heirs have been killed, except the best one. (Even he surrounded in small castle once.) BF Ninjas, Heavy Cavalries... But Musket fire prevailed! I like losing battles and provinces, because I have forgot the feeling since Rome TW.

Anyway after 2 days I had to back to Istanbul which I work there, and at the time I left the game, I was took all my provinces back, including the two key provinces, Shinano and Kawachi. It will be lots of fun to try to march on against two borders at the same time, struggling with Mori + Shimazu + Hojo + Takeda. (Imagawa and Uesugi are somehow about to disappear)

STW is definitely most enjoyable game of TW series, and struggling on all the front, while losing key provinces is such an excitement that no other TW games can be reached.

**ReluctantSamurai** · 08-13-2010, 16:11

With this rules, 1580 Oda is like impossible to win. But the fun is definite!

With rules like those, you are certifiably crazy

Just kidding, of course

Actually, of the rules you laid down for yourself, the only one I don't hold myself to is the training of HC. I tend to not use them much anyway, but still, I usually train a small number of them once I reach Shinano.

As always, Takeda and Imaawa attacked Mino and defeated me.

That's the very first battle that you must win, although you seem to have eventually recovered from your loss. I strip everything else to the bare bones to ship troops to Mino and you absolutely have to maximize the damage to them from your guns because they will keep coming, season after season until you kill one...or both of them. The only respite you will get is by devastating the attacking armies so badly that it takes them several seasons to amass enough troops to continue. This is your primary goal, at the start. Bleed them in one defensive battle after another while you slowly build new armies in your hinterlands for the eventual counter-attack.

That first battle is one of the few times I do not defend Mino from the big hill to the right of the valley. That hill doesn't offer an immediate line-of-fire for your guns. You have to wait for the enemy to crest the edge. If Imagawa leads the attack, his BFN will get into your guns rather quickly and rout them. The battle is as good as over, at that point. If Takeda leads the attack, his cavalry will get into your guns before you can do much damage to them. And again, you can kiss Mino goodbye.

But from the hill in the far left corner, your guns have maximum line-of-sight, and because it's a steep hill, you can place your YA directly in front of the guns as the teppo will be able to shoot over them. The other advantage is that one or the other will reach you before their ally, allowing you to defeat them, piecemeal. In my experience, Imagawa is most often the initiator, so you can concentrate on taking out his BFN first. Once they are gone, he has nothing but YS & SA and becomes less of a threat than Takeda's approaching cavalry.

I'm sure there are other ways to do it. I've tried various tactics, but the one I've described always seems to net me the most kills for the least damage to my own. I'll have to spruce up my last Oda campaign (Nobunaga's Ambition) as some of the links to screenies seem to not work...but you can look there to see some of the kill ratios I managed to achieve.