Tokugawa Hard

[VersusAllOdds]

Whoever wins the campaign with Tokugawa on Hard, has my absolute admiration.

The Oda is destroyed in turn 1 with no exception, always by that red clan that's north of Owari. Imagawa become allies with Takeda, Hojo, and another lesser clan. I beat the Imagawa somehow. Then I repel the incoming Takeda main army in a castle siege. Then I defend from 1.5 Hojo stacks on a bridge. Then the lesser clan mentioned above moves in 1 more stack, and Hojo and Takeda move half a stack each. By that time I'm almost completely out of funds. Date has 5 provinces and has just recently become allied with this triumvirate, and I'm just waiting for them to declare war. The situation is just out of hand.
Another thing is, you have to attack your masters if you want to do anything, and thus you lose a great deal in diplomatic dealings. Not to mention that your faction bonuses are absolutely obsolete in the early phase.

Anyone has a recipe on what to do as Tokugawa?

[Gregoshi]

Wait.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What if the bird will not sing?
Nobunaga answers, "Kill it!"
Hideyoshi answers, "Make it want to sing."
Ieyasu answers, "Wait."

[Gregoshi]

Um, I was joking. You need not wait to help Versus with his Tokugawa troubles.

[Blue-Eyed Samurai]

Playing as Tokugawa or any faction, I've found that building your economy is your first priority, there are plenty of posts on the offical shogun 2 forums regarding that issue. Also Ashigaru units are a must for any campaign at the beginning, don't aim for samurai units at the start. They will come with time once you start capturing more regions and building fortresses, your research for the bushido tree will be increased over-time.

This guide I found at totalwar.com will help to a degree, if anything it will give you an idea on how to move forward at the start. Just don't upgrade your markets leave them be, rice exchanges and upwards require more food, which is what you will require for building larger fortresses at a later date.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ery-Strategies

On your first move you need to take out the first Oda stack with limited casulties, once done enter the region Oda are occupying and park your units as close to the port area as possible. When you end turn they might attack your units, if they do just retreat. I found that they then end up backing off themselves and not continuing with the attack upon your units. Saito don't usually attack Oda when I've tried this in the past, so just hope for abit of luck when attempting it.

Now if you have managed to capture the Oda region, just turtle abit (get trade with whomever you can) you wont beable to attack anyone other than Imagawa. Which I wouldn't advise at the start, your just asking for trouble, research civil arts and upgrade those castles and buildings. I'd say around 1555 you'll be in a pretty stable situation, either way something usually opens up for you around that time, which will allow you to expand further.

I think I'll leave it at that, I hope it helps get you started and best of luck with it.

PS. I also forgot to mention that after you have captured new regions destroy any building that isn't a market/sake den or monastery. Unless of course it has a weapon smith there, then it's pretty much upto you want you want.

[xploring]

Have a look at The Tokugawa Campaign Guide for some idea?

I read somewhere that it's a good idea not to turn on Imagawa early. Someone even proposed becoming shogun before revolting against Imagawa.

[Mithras72]

I tried a couple of times with Tokugawa/Hard to conquer the Oda province, but whatever I tried it didn't work and they were taken out before i could get there. I was getting so annoyed that I just turned on the Imagawa instead!

Might not have been the smartest move but I did win the campaign in the end. The beginning went like this (all from memory so there might be some small inaccuracies/omissions):

1. Sell military access to whoever you can
2. Get trade going
3. Bribe the Oda army in your province, merge it with your army and kick the remaining Oda's behind
4. owari will be taken by others, so turn around, declare war on Imagawa and conquer them
5. Takeda attacked me next with a big stack at the eastern Imagawa province, but i managed to beat them and immediately marched on Kai, took it and made Takeda my Vassal!! I was very surprised they accepted, but they are a handy vassal: very aggresive keeping the other clans in the area busy. At one moment they had like 5 provinces but in the end they were destroyed by the Date
6. It seems Hojo was busy fighting in the east because all the units they trained in Izu and Sagami kept moving in eastwards direction (I guess I was lucky there). So Izu and Sagami were easy to take next.

At that point I had a solid basis from which to build up strength and work on my diplo. BTW all my early investments were in economy upgrades, ashigaru and Chi arts.