Ikko-Ikki : the viral faction

[Daevyll]

Been playing the Ikko-Ikki faction campaign recently (Hard), and I've been pleasantly surprised by the game mechanics.
It seems to be very possible to grow your faction by using religious expansion instead of military expansion.

So far, through building religious buildings, monks, ninja (sabotage temples, kill opposing monks) and the skills/traits from generals I've managed to multiple provinces through pure religious conversion.
Add to that provinces succesfully converted via direct action from my monks, and I've found that I use my main armies almost solely for defending my newly acquired provinces. And with each province gained, the number of religious buildings etc converting all around is growing further still.

These new provinces also come with their own ready-made garrisons, which can be suprisingly powerful. Usually more than enough to weather a counter-attack or two with heavy losses inflicted on the enemy, and plenty of time to get help.

Playing them, I truly feel like I am loosing a virus on the nation; a welcome change of pace. It'll be interesting to see how far I get without ever using my armies offensively.

[Monk]

Absolutely, they have a really unique feel to them, one that really takes some getting used to.

For the first, i'd say, 80 turns I used them conventionally - battering my forces against the other clans as you might expect from other gameplay. But thanks to all the temples I built I really started to notice Ikko moving beyond my borders. Pretty soon my neighbors were suffering public order problems. Even if the provinces didn't flip over to my control, the people were making it incredibly difficult to hold onto.

I destroyed a few clans that way on accident. The people revolted and toppled the clan's last stronghold, and gave me control. It's a very fun way to play and am not regretting my purchase of the DLC one bit.

[The_Emperor]

I have been playing as Ikko a lot, while a lot of the other factions all feel very similar this one to me really stands out with their "province flipping".

Their capability for expansion and religious unrest really makes them a fun faction to play as. Right now I am trying to survive the scrapping in central Japan with so many big clans arriving on my borders.

[Graphic]

Would that then make this a "viral" video?

LOL!