Normal too easy, Hard too hard.

[d1ng0d0g]

I've by now finished the campaign on Normal difficulty with a lot of factions and it really is too easy.

But now that I've made the switch to Hard I find that either around the time I can grab my third province, everybody goes to war with me, or my economy comes to a grinding standstill.

My style of playing on the campaign map is to tech whatever is required for the clan bonus, then focus on roads and farms (not always, but most often). Farms and ports are the first things I upgrade.

My main army consists of Ashigaru Yari and Archers, in an equal mix of 4 / 4 (this is early game).

Garrisons of castles consist of 2 archers and one spearmen unit (sometimes leaving out the spearmen too). For defense against anything that isn't a massive stack, this usually is enough defense (even on hard).

Now, my exact problem is actually that I'm being faced by stacks I can't defeat due to sheer numbers on enemy side. My playstyle on the battlemap is fairly defensive, I siege and let them attack me to break out. I usually let enemy troops meet my main line and then push at the flanks with units that I can spare. My archers try to rout his melee troop before he reaches me. And in an equal battle that actually almost always goes my way.

But the thing is, on Hard I face of against multiple full stacks of enemies (even from the same clan, where I can barely support my small stack of 8-9 units).

Anyone any pointers on how to deal with that ?

[Monk]

Here's my advice from someone who's been on Hard since day one.

Ignore roads initially and only build farms/markets. Most of your cities should get a market in the early game as that will help out your cash-flow way more than anything else. You also need to start building much more Ashigaru, at least until you've stabilized yourself. Your enemies will be coming for you. If a turn goes by and you're not recruiting soldiers, you're wasting a turn and the AI will make you pay for it. Keep recruiting them until you start to get low income, then hold off until you can afford more.

Forget about Samurai in the early game, they're too expensive. Also forget about castle upgrades. Again, too expensive. If it doesn't help your income or put men on the walls, its a waste of investment. After you've secured 5-6 provinces, then you can start thinking about those things.

You cannot neglect diplomacy on Hard. Securing an alliance with one or more of your neighbors is a MUST if you're in east Honshu, much less vital if you're in the west. However, you should be signing trade agreements with everyone at the start regardless of your position. Also selling military access since the AI loves to buy that for some extra cash. Don't worry so much about "But i'll be fighting them eventually" line of thinking. If you aren't fighting them NOW, then they should be treated as a friend. Keep a friend close, and future enemies closer

[Tamur]

Agreed with everything Monk said. I'll especially throw my support behind diplomatic initiatives.

Alliances are very important to keep at least part of your borders secure. Form alliances only with those who you won't immediately walk over, or it will be much harder to form future alliances.

Upgrading farms will help, but it takes time. Trade agreements on the other hand don't take near as much time, and can have huge economic importance in the early game (and mid-game, and late-game). Also, sell whatever you can to whoever will buy it (like military access as Monk mentioned.

Good luck!

[econ21]

Anyone any pointers on how to deal with that ?

Which faction were you playing? Not Takeda by any chance? I just experienced something very similar to what you described with them on VH/N.

I am not very experienced, but am wondering about the following:

(1) Maybe there is something to be said from not having too many neighbours? In several past TWs, sharing a border with someone was an prelude to a declaration of war, sooner or later. There may be some virtue in choosing an expansion path that minimises the number of clans you share a land border with. As Takeda, I went into Shinano and soon all my new neighbours piled on me - I wonder if I would have been better keeping my one enemy alive rather than conquer him to make four new enemies?

(2) Allied to that, I wonder if there is something going on with your relative army size and the chance of declarations of war? With games like Civ, you had to watch your "power bar" - how strong your military was relative to your neighbours. I suspect something similar is going on here, so that if you rush a few early provinces, you may deplete your forces and so your power relative to your neighbours may fall. Consequently, it may be good to recruit a bit before exposing yourself, rather than going for an immediate land grab.

I get the feeling that the hard part of this game is the start - if you can get a core of provinces, you should have an edge over the AI. With experience, you'll probably be able to identify some successful opening faction-specific gambits. But I agree, it can be challenging to find them.

I siege and let them attack me to break out

I used to do that all the time with RTW and M2TW, but I am not sure it is smart now. Time seems so precious early on, the wait may be working against you. If the enemy don't have many archers, you can usually get them to fixate on one side of the castle wall (e.g. deploy your general on one side to get their attention and hide your real strike force on the other side). Then you can use your archers on the other sides of the walls to kill their melee. Send in your own yari ashigaru when the melee defenders are almost dead or you are out of arrows. Yes, it's a little cheap - but until and unless CA fixes the siege defence AI, it seems quite reliable.

[Rothe]

Keep building ashis and don't garrison anything that is not really crucial for happiness or defense. Keep a big stack and swing it where it is needed.

Also, use your agents. A monk for morale buff/debuff may do wonders in a fight where it is basically a face off between 2 stacks of ashigarus.

Diplomacy is something I suspect many people are not monitoring turn-to-turn in normal mode, but you really have to keep your eyes on it in hard+. Also, be aware who is allied with the clans you plan to attack, since a nasty surprise might happen when you assault one clan and their allies in your opposite flank decide it is time for war. In the beginning you can basically afford one decent stack, which is not enough to secure two borders.

[Prodigal]

This is probably pretty obvious, but playing hard take out your immediate competition fast in the very early stages, until you've at least 3 or 4 provinces, if you leave it too long the stacks that the AI produces create serious expansion issues, while crippling your economy.

Also early on play with the general(s) roles, switch around the generals, (can't remember the name...), titles(?) so that you are maximising their potential based on where your clan is at, fighting, building etc. (actually played about 8 games before I even found this option).

Couldn't agree more with everything posted previously, would add the proviso to be very careful who you ally up with, I try to keep it to one or at most two other clans, having your honour wrecked makes dealing with others harder.

Churn out some bow ships as soon as you can & snap up trade routes, (sea warfare is a costly hassle), generally if you're on a trade node the AI seems to leave you in peace.

This may not be to everyone's taste but I used to do it in STW so why not part 2, if you are going to attack somewhere, why not send in the monks & ninja's first, stir up a revolt & take the province from them, that way you can take land without even having to declare war.

[Rothe]

One more bit of advice about fighting multiple stacks. Use ninja to subvert one stack, and perhaps the other will attack alone, giving you a better chance.

The only problem with this is that you have to have a ninja with a few stars to do it with any degree of reliability, and that might be hard in the first 10 turns or so.

[VersusAllOdds]

econ21, how exactly do you lower the battle difficulty? I play on auto-calc almost 100% of the time.. I'd love if I would be able to have a low battle diff and high campaign diff...

Btw, to the OP:

You should definately not stack up any garrisons larger than one unit (actually, I rarely have a garrison early on at all), and if you choose to garrison with a unit, make it a yari ashigaru.

Another thing: playing with Takeda/Tokugawa/Oda/Uesugi/Hojo is much, much harder than playing with other clans, diplomacy-wise. You simply can't make friends with everyone around you, and you are probably gonna face a two front war - at least I did in majority of my cases.

Two things I can add to that:

-Your neighbouring clans with low opinion of you (indifferent is low enough) are definately gonna be on the watch for you. If they have nothing else to conquer, they will be waiting for you to be busy somewhere else, or even better for you to lose a major army.
Imagine you have a full stack and ~4-5 provinces with good army production. You would survive losing that stack, but at that moment your Power rating would fall dramatically, and your neighbours would come streaming in.

-AI rarely waits for you to secure a front to involve. I played Uesugi, and I was destroying Date, but I still needed my armies in the north. Hojo then attacked me, I believe because they didn't want to let me have a protected back. It gave me many, many problems, cuz the provinces are huge and travel times long. That's something every TW game has - the AI doesn't want to let you finish an opponent fully before they come knocking (MTW has that for example).

[Prodigal]

You can alter the battle difficulty but pressing Esc in the campaign map, select the Game Settings option, there's a slide for battle diff. settings, & you can alter the battle duration too.

[Monk]

You can alter the battle difficulty but pressing Esc in the campaign map, select the Game Settings option, there's a slide for battle diff. settings, & you can alter the battle duration too.

Yup. Very easy to miss, not sure why they put it there.