Key Provinces on the Campaign Map

[Leptomeninges]

In your games, what do you feel are the key strategic provinces on the map? Why do you value that province?

Coming from the southwest, I like the Hoki/Bizen line. Those two provinces block off that part of the island in either direction and because they have military resources, they are natural ones to build into large castles.

I like Settsu to block off the south/central island. In the north/central island, there are a few provinces that can fill a similar role. Because the north/central island tends to move as a single province line separated by mountains and water, the chokepoint isn't quite as important, but I like to use Echizen as the crafts resource makes it another natural spot to develop a large castle.

The northwest becomes more of a mess, but in an interesting way. Strategically valuable provinces like North Shinano tend not to also carry valuable resources.

In my recent Uesugi game in which I conquered Date first, I used Echigo as an axis around which I slowly rotated a line of conquest south through Fukushima and ultimately up to a North Shinano/Kai/Totomi line pre-RD. Echigo strikes me as a tough province to use as a springboard to the west, but a strong province to lock off and defend the north island.

What are your map insights? What do you think are the key points and why?

[Poulp']

As Oda, holding the bridge in Suruga province is critical once realm divide hits; it directly protects 4-5 cities while I concentrate my northern defenses in South Shinano (the stone makes it easy to upgrade the castle). As I expand West, upgrading the castle in Omi is important too; the shogun's army never siege the town, but losing Omi is losing my main crossroads and the fastest way to switch armies between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean.
North Shinano is a crossroad too, but not as important as Omi; you can lose the province and as long as the bottleneck in South Shinano holds, your heartland is safe. I never saw an army bypass the castle, they sometimes raided the farms, but they always turned back to siege it.
Finally, Settsu province is important if you want to further strengthen your hold on trade nodes; though it's not critical, it makes the sending/repairing of fleets 3 turns faster.

As Date, I make the conquest of Fukushima my top priority; if someone wants to go further North, they must pass through these lands. Then I'm sure I can clean the North from Mogami influence with no outside interference.

As Shimazu, I hold the landbridge in Buzen while a fleet-in-being is anchored in Bungo. Obviously, the whole of Kyushu was already in green.

With any clan, holding on Mimasaka and building a whole militaro-industrial complex prior to realm divide makes everything easier. In two moves, you can cut the whole peninsula and still spam units like Ford would produce Ford-Ts.

Edit
I (roughly) traced the roads, but screengrabbed the map from here http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/, credits to the author(s)

[Rothe]

I like the smithy provinces in the mid-part of Japan. The edge ones are so far that any "troop surge" takes too long to reach the center which the game usually revolves around post RD. I like to have castles in smithy provinces to be able to produce 3 units per turn of top quality units. Even if my armies are getting to be large, producing spear ashigaru of good quality will be done as a continous flow in any case. For missile troops I don't find it so critical as usually they will survive better and gain valor, but I do tend to combine melee troops after battles, and that means "lost units".

[Monk]

Usually anything with a gold mine gets a big fat target slapped onto it as I'm expanding. I've even started wars over them, since they're such a boost.

Warhorses are the second most important for me, with ninja and religious centers tied for third. Warhorses are absolutely required if I want to field Yari Cavalry, which are usually a big part of my armies. I love their speed and their strike force potential, 3-4 of them in a stack and I can do some real damage. The bonuses to Monks and Ninja are great, but not required in any stretch of the imagination.

[Dead Guy]

Kii province is also a key province.

har har...

But it's true. Major cash cow with very fertile soil, smuggling network and, if possible, infamous chimichurri district.

Otherwise this topic depends too much on where you're at and where you're going to give a concise answer, really. And how far into the game you are. Close to Realm Divide, choke points > resources, early on it's the other way around. I like Bizen (Buzen is the crafts region on Kyushu, right?) as Shimazu/Mori/Chosokabe, serves a choke point if you've focused on the west for example, and it's close enough to the center of Japan to be excellent for weaponsmith/armourer troop spam castle. Kaga rivals Bizen in this respect, coastal choke point north east of Kyoto with smithy. Kaga might be better just because there's a crafts province right next to it, so you can produce all your upgraded troops in one central location if you want to. I rarely capture those provinces early enough though. Went south (not figuratively) as Oda and took the Imagawas smithy province instead.

[Azi Tohak]

Playing as the Takeda now I'm really happy I nabbed Kaga and Echizen early on. They're very upgraded and I'm producing lots of very useful troops from there.

Thanks Poulp for the map. It has been VERY useful.

[xploring]

Edit
I (roughly) traced the roads, but screengrabbed the map from here http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/, credits to the author(s)

Thanks for tracing the roads, Poulp. I have been looking for a roadmap like this for some time.

[Poulp']

Thank you all

mind you, the road to the port in Iwate (Date's homeland) is wrong, the rest is by memory.