How is your first campaign going?

[therother]

I'm Shogun and have 52/60 provinces now, so will win soon. Just mopping up Takeda in the East. I'll be moving on to top level difficulty and see how I get on... Looking forward to it!

I'm impressed.

Thanks, was quite lucky a few times, and had more than a few sticky moments (including a very impressive long range, behind the lines naval invasion of Shikoku by Imagawa after Realm Divide). Plus I think Shimazu are easier than most.

My new Very Hard (non-legendary) Shimazu game is proving even more of a challenge, and even more fun, forcing me to be more creative. Was very hard pressed at the start: thought it would be easy to take Osumi and Hyuga from Ito as it had been in the normal game, but it was a real fight: had a fair few battles where I was badly outnumbered. Managed to finally finish them off, then started some diplomatic tricks to take Higo and Bungo: got the Shoni to cut ties with the Sagara, isolating them. Declared war, having positioned my main army offshore, poised to invade. The Sagara sent two armies south to attack Satsuma, leaving Higo relatively unprotected. I sabotaged the main army led by their Daimyo, landed my army on the beach just north of Higo. The 2nd smaller army moved to intercept, but I defeated them on the beach and took the town easily. The main army then turned into Rebels, which I destroyed a couple of turns later, when my reinforcements arrived.

In the meantime, my monk had been hassling Bungo, causing two uprisings. The first was defeated, but at a heavy cost. The Shoni appeared preoccupied with their war with the Ouchi, so no reinforcements came, and when I seeded a second uprising it was successful. The rebels, however, were easy pickings. I took the province losing a couple of dozen men. Doing it this way allowed my to retain my relations with the Shoni, giving me time to make preparations to blitz them with three armies, two from Higo to take Hizen and Tsukushi, one from Bungo to take Buzen. With my agents and ships spying on their armies, I waited until their main force was out of the way so I could sabotage it and then nip in and take their provinces. Worked a charm: took Hizen and Tsukushi without much of a fight, Buzen was more tricky but I won the battle. I could then concentrate all three armies on their main force, which was outnumbered 2 to 1, they were mostly Ashigaru whereas I had mainly Samauri. Wasn't a fair fight.

They still have a couple of stacks in Suo and Nagato, so they aren't beaten yet. Currently I'm building up my armies and consolidating my gains. My plan is to mount a naval invasion of Suo and take that for myself (has horse breeders: good cavalry), then try to make the Shoni a vassal in Nagato (although it's got good soil and a port, so not quite sure yet). I'll see what my agents can do about Iwami (gold) and Aki (Hallowed Ground: good monks) but then big campaign is to take Shikoku and use that to launch an invasion of the mainland near Kyoto (good monks and ninja around there!) plus a research bonus in Settsu. Now if only I didn't have work to do!