Tosa guides, hints and tips

[frogbeastegg]

Please post any advice you have for the Tosa faction here.

[47thlegion]

these seem to be one of the toughest clans to start with, just had a few go's and found that if u just train troops and then go and attack the clan u start at war with u will get beaten as they have a dojo and plenty of yari kachi which mince up your early game modern troops, so restarted and let him come to me which he eventually does. beat him and then nip up and take his town, i found this take's a quite a few turns to get the first additional province, also the island you start on is pretty unproductive in terms of farmland and decent resources, anyway, i had my two provinces finally stable when at about turn 19/20 4 or so clans declare war on me and iwakuni turns up in my starting province which has sparse troops as they are still all in the other province with a 3/4 stack naval invasion!! i left it at that so if anyone has any ideas id be most interested

[erebrus]

Playiing Tosa is not hard, buti you can make your game a lot easier if you take a bit of effort on the first crucial 15-20 turns ( as in most, if not all, TW games).

You can follow the straightforward path, which i: reinforce your army, move north to the hostile province, and attack it. You will likely take considerable casualties, but it shouldn't present a big challenge. However, what will happen immediately after that is that the neighbor province will attack you. They will come with a a significant army which can get a bit messy. On the bright side your ally will join you in war and attack the hostile province. If you are lucky, he will conquer it before the enemy army reaches you. This doesn't sound too bad, you'll have 2 provinces and your ally will have the other two provinces of the island. However...what now? Maybe you ally breaks alliance and attacks you - because he should be quite stronger than you at this stage - since it didn't have to fight any major battles. Or maybe he doesn't, but then, what are you going to do? Turtle for ages on two meagre-soil provinces and eventually deal with war against your ally or be forced to expand outside the island prematurely?
Instead, the key is to force the NE clan to go to war against your ally. To do that, declare war on it BEFORE your conquer the NW province. Your ally will join the war, and since the NE clan isn't allied with the NW clan, but it is at peace with it, then it's only expansion option is go south towards your ally. Meanwhile, you go straight for the NE province. If you are lucky, your enemy conquers your ally's province - not before taking heavy casualties. You can then push south and attack them before they can recover, If you didn't get lucky and your ally managed to beat the invading army, then at least you still end up with a nicer scenario than the original one, since you now have 3, instead of 2, provinces and your (no longer ally) has to recover his armies with an economy weaker than yours. This means that as soon as the penalty period (10 turns after military access was canceled) you can attack them.
Regardless of when you attack them, the step after that is taking the island NE. This province might seem uninteresting - barren soil, no economy - but it has barracks, which means very nice units for Tosa in particular. The best is that you can conquer them without much a fight. As soon as you conquer the SE province, block the pass to island with your navy. Then, heal your wounds, take one of the ships to the port, board and move to the ocean, but don't disembark on the island yet. Instead, unblock the pass and end the turn. If you are already at war with them, they will jump at the opportunity to attack your unprotected province. However, this pass is slow, which means that in the next turn, you can disembark, block the pass again and attack the province facing nothing but garrison units. The enemy army in your province will disappear before causing any damage, and you will have 5 provinces, no land borders to defend and a barracks - which together with the city level of the NW province should make you reach dev level 2.

From here on, protect your realm with navy and develop at the speed you want before expanding further.

Notes:
a) I recruited 2 levy inf, plus two line inf, left the matchlock samurais in tosa, and took everything else with me to attack. The matchlock is there to ensure repression
b) naval bombardments - use them and abuse them
c) money will be very tight, also because you will need garrisons for repression. Consider building a police station in NW province, to handle that and the conversion
d) geisha in tosa entertaining nobles
e) use a gb to meet satsuma, you will want a trade agreement with them.
f) after you reach devel 2, you get 12 turns with +50% wealth, invest on an economy.

If this was useful, let me know, and I will do more guides or extend this one

[Major Robert Dump]

Make 3 levy and 3 spear to start, load in the boat and go to the NE province. When you get there it should be the last turn of winter. Declare war but consider not offloading yet. If you wait another turn he may invade your territory and give you access to his castle. If you offload he will pile into the castle and you will have to siege him out, during which he will likley sally out to fight you, which is also good.

FYI you will likely be losing money at this point.

As soon as you see the NW clan enter your borders make 3 troops and raise your taxes. Sometimes he turns around and leaves after you take the NE, sometimes he approaches your capital. If he continues to approach make more troops. Meanwhile, you should be able to march on his capital with just a few units coming from the NE province.

This actually worked better for me than all other strategies I tried including the one abve (on legendary) but (dont know if this was random or because of my actions) about the time I got my profit back up and all the villages repressed to a comfortable point, my ally renounced his allegiance, which totally screwed my plan as well as all my trade pacts.

Considering starting over to see if it happens again, but all my battles are so close I have to play them out manually and I dont have time right now

[Mr Mrrtn]

Here's my strategy that worked very well last night and ended me in a better place than the above posts :) Please note I am playing on normal difficulty, so this may not work if you are playing hard etc. I hope it helps.

1. All of winter, build up your army with as many Line Infantry as you can afford, add some Spear Levies and a Sabre Cav if you can afford.
2. Last months of winter move 1 cheap Spear Levy along the road just inside the western border. Also move all of your army, leaving 1 unit
for repression, to the northwest rough path.
3. Springtime. Move your main army north, try to end your move in forests to hide. In around 3 turns you should be within reach of the
NW enemy town. Normally the enemy army is stationed outside the city, but as you army approaches it will move inside the walls. This is
where your single Spear Levy comes into play.
4. Move your Spear Levy north along the road and raid the mine. If all goes to plan, the enemy army attacks, retreat and it will attack
again, taking if away from the town. You will lose this fight, but feel free to use artillary fire if your ships are nearby.
5. Attack the enemy town with your main army, which should now be unguarded. If your Geisha is nearby, distracting the garrison makes
thing even easier. Make sure to have your ships in range, so you can bombard the city gates for a quick attack.
6. The town is yours, repair any buildings, hire some more troops. The enemy wont attack you, but will raid the province's resource
buildings. Harass the enemy by bombarding with your ships. Once you're strong enough and the enemy is weakened, go for the kill.

Next, improve your army, because the enemy in the north part of the island is marching an army south. Move your main army east, but
keeping peace in your new town can be a challenge, so leave some crappy troops. When the nortern enemy army moves south towards your
capitol, move your main army north to take over the now undefended enemy town. In the meanwhile recruit more troops in your capitol and
recruit an assassine to get rid of some enemy generals. Once I conquered the enemy town, the enemy force disappeared. If they dont
disappear, combine your armies and attack.

Now move on east towards the last unallied clan. At this stage the eastern enemy force often goes north to conquer the mainland
provinces. By delaying this force's return with my assassin I could easily take over its town while it was undefended. Sometimes your ally
comes along with an army, make sure you are at the enemy city first and lay a siege so you occupy the town once won.

Next.. up to you - break alliance? Conquer the mainland? Cash up for big improvements?

Good luck