Archer spam.

But before I get into that I'd like to say I'm having a blast with STW2. I skipped Napolean after ETW left a bad taste in my mouth, and I believe TW is more well suited to melee based armies anyway. I can say I enjoyed ETW but was overrall disappointed.

Enough about that.

I'm no expert, but I consider myself decent at these titles, and rarely venture beyond normal difficulty. However Normal campaigns as the Mori, Date, Shimazu, Chosokabe, and Oda were a cinch once I got beyond the start. Both Takeda and Uesugi continue to pose a significant challenge on normal.

I decided to try Shimazu on hard. Conquered Ito and then Sagara showed up and beseiged Satsuma with a stack of 15 yari archers, 3 yari ashigaru, and 2 generals. There isn't much an early balanced army can do against 15 archers period. Is this the type of thing one runs into on the harder difficulties and that's why there's a dirth of army compostion mods out there?