Legendary difficulty

[TinCow]

I'm beginning to think that Christianity is NOT the way to go, at least not until after realm divide, because I cannot afford to lose allies too early.

Well, having won 3 Legendary campaigns now, I have a different take on this. The key isn't Christianity per se, but trade nodes. As I play the game, I expect to have NO trade (or allies) whatsoever after Realm Divide. Thus, I focus my pre-divide efforts on creating a stable economy where I can fund my armies and expansion without any financial difficulties despite total trade isolation. This can be done without trade nodes, but it is much harder. If you can secure the trade nodes, you will become very wealthy very quickly, even if you have no trade partners. However, the key to securing the trade nodes is sea power.

It is prohibitively expensive and tactically difficult to maintain dominance at sea with traditional navies. However, once you have Nanban Trade Ships, control of the seas is incredibly easy and you can pretty much sail wherever you want without worrying about much of anything. Thus, Christianity works well because it gives you Nanban Trade Ships, and Nanban Trade Ships give you the trade nodes. What I do is try and grab as many trade nodes as possible early on. Just stick a single trade ship on each to 'reserve' them, and then back fill to increase profits. Once Nanban Trade Ships become available, I retire all my traditional ships (except trade ships). Every single trade node gets 9 trade ships and 1 Nanban Trade Ship. If the node gets attacked, withdraw the 9 trade ships right at the start to keep them safe, and fight with the Nanban. You will win and your trade fleet will remain intact and keep the profits flowing in. In addition, with a Nanban ship on each node, you can easily detach it to clear out any fleet that's raiding the trade route nearby.

For fleets outside the trade nodes, each is made up of a pair of Nanbans. I have not encountered any enemy fleets capable of defeating two Nanbans. With complete control of the seas, you also get easy control of Kyushu and Shikoku. Once those islands are conquered, they can be defended entirely by your Nanban fleets, without the need for any local armies. This gives you a good 12 or so provinces as a base that are never threatened by the enemy. With that kind of a 'base' and control of the trade nodes, you can easily field 3-4 high quality armies. You can then fight wherever you choose to on the mainland with your entire force. Due to the starting location, obviously Shimazu and Chosokobe are the easiest factions to do this with. However, it can be done with anyone. Simply secure a 'core' of about 4-5 provinces that you are capable of defending with your existing armies, then convert and spend a large number of turns converting your provinces over. Then focus on your naval and trade improvement, while making as much money as you can via trade with other clans. When you've got your fleet ready, take the nodes (declaring war to take them from their existing owners if need be). After you have your nodes fully loaded, invade and conquer the islands (if you haven't already). After that, the world is your oyster. With your high income, you can spam missionaries and generals and level them up to further increase tech research rates. You'll eventually be churning out exceptional-level armor and accuracy troops. There's not much out there that can stand up to an army of 9 exceptional armor rank 4 Naginata Samurai and 9 exceptional accuracy rank 4 Bow Samurai.

Another side perk from being immensely wealthy is that it allows you to use agents in a manner you wouldn't otherwise. I cannot over-emphasize how much of a difference bribing armies can make. If you have 100k in the bank, you don't need to think twice about spending 20k on a bribe. It's not uncommon to find yourself being attacked by two or three full stacks to your one stack. As long as you brought your agents along with your main army, you can totally turn the tide. Use your ninjas to remove generals from stacks, then bribe the enemy stack with a metsuke. The situation that was two stacks against your one just turned into your two stacks against their one. Destroy them, then either keep your new army or disband it, depending on your income and military needs. Is there a front that is giving you problems due to multiple avenues of approach? Send your missionaries off to start up revolts everywhere. Rebels are your friends in Realm Divide, as they don't expand. They're a nice road bump for AI armies trying to approach from another directions.

Again, none of this is necessary for a Legendary win (I did not convert in my Date win). The point is simply that Christianity makes it much easier to be wealthy, and being wealthy makes it much easier to win.