Hello Folks!
It's about time I whip out another guide and this time I'm going to be writing about the Imagawa clan. Before I get started I do want to give a mention to a couple threads that either inspired my own strategy or simply offered an alternative method. First up is the thread by Drisos that actually is still on the first page of this forum at the time of the writing of this guide. In it he describes wanting to find a unique playstyle for the Imagawa clan that uses the clans bonus which gives a cost discount to shinobi and ninja's. Funny enough, Drisos started that thread at the exact time that I was trying to figure out a similar Imagawa "roleplay" strategy on my own. As I wasn't a member of the forum at the time and I wasn't so sure about signing up, I stayed out of the conversation. Still though, reading the back and forth between Drisos and Reluctant Samurai really got the wheels turning in my head when I was considering the plausibility of such a shinobi and ninja heavy strategy. I'll talk more about my ideas on the subject later into this guide but for now you can check out Drisos' thread here...if you're having trouble finding it.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...ies-Challenges
The second thread I'm going to mention offers a more straight forward version of an attacking Imagawa strategy. Personally, this isn't the type of playstyle that I'm looking for regarding this clan. However, if you're trying to win as the Imagawa and you don't want to mess around with agents then this guide could help you out. At the very least it gave me some ideas with how one can attack from Imagawa's position in the north.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...lefield+ninjas
First thing I have to mention when talking about clan Imagawa is their split domain setup. When playing as clan Imagawa you're going to have three provinces in Kyushu that are surrounded by the Shimazu. And you'll have three provinces in northern Honshu that hug the eastern coast and they're bordered by the Oda, Uesugi and Takeda. Your two separate domains will be connected by a pair of ports and your first consideration when beginning an Imagawa campaign will be whether you're going to attempt hold both positions in Kyushu and Honshu or whether you're going to abandon one position in order to consolidate your forces in the other. This decision is going to decide the difficulty of the rest of your campaign. If you're just trying to win at all costs just to check an Imagawa campaign victory off your list then by all means consolidate your forces in Kyushu and eliminate the Shimazu. As the Imagawa clan, all of your starting forces will be samurai. This means that by consolidating your forces in an effort to crush the Shimazu and taking control of Kyushu your campaign opening will be a walk in the park.
The second option is to consolidate your forces in Honshu and get into a five way royal brawl that will pit you against the Oda, Uesugi, Takeda and Hojo. This way is more exciting than the first option but it's still very doable. You'll start the campaign bordering the Oda's capital in Owari and Takeda's capital in Kai. Taking either of these on turn two will cripple their respective clans. Conversely you could attack Shinano on turn one which will effectively take all of the pressure off of your core provinces (most importantly your capital, Totomi). With reinforcements arriving from Kyushu it's likely that you'll be able to take two or even three of those targets very early into your campaign.
The third option is the one I like to go for. Hanging onto your territories in Kyushu and Honshu definitely requires some finesse but I find the challenge of holding onto both regions to be an interesting challenge and it makes playing as the Imagawa clan feel like a unique experience. In addition to holding onto my territories in Kyushu and Honshu I will also attempt to play a shinobi and ninja heavy strategy like the one Drisos describes in his thread. I won't ban myself from attacking but I will focus more on building tall, playing defensively, maintaining alliances, starting rebellions and of course murdering family members.
With that all out of the way, for this guide I'm not going to do much for a turn by turn guide. Instead I'm going to focus more on giving pointers to try to help you in your campaign if you decide to also play an agent heavy campaign.
On turn one I will simply take Shinano off of the Uesugi clan right away before immediately trying to reach a cease fire with them. I don't want to get into a long protracted war with them, I simply want to take Shinano because seeing it in enemy hands is too scary. I once tried a campaign where I didn't take Shinano and I just made allies with the Uesugi and I simply just tried to build up to high level ninja's using only my starting provinces. It didn't work. The Uesugi quickly built up a massive army advantage and triple stack sat in Shinano until they smelled fresh fish and decided that invading my three home provinces simultaneously wouldn't be too hard for them. It turns out it wasn't, they made short work of me and it was time for me to try a new strategy. The thing I like about taking Shinano is Totomi is then protected and as long as Mikawa and Suruga and Shinano all have castles in them then I'll only need one stack sitting in Shinano to deter any attack. Of course I eventually will build up to a second stack but Suruga and Mikawa will only need a single unit in each province who can then retreat into their castle if they're ever attacked.
I'll use the same "satellite defense" strategy in Kyushu where I'll build castles in Chikugo and Chikuzen which are each garrisoned by an Ashigaru while a full stack will post up in Hizen incase the Shimazu want to attack either of my border provinces. In Kyushu I will build a tea house and start building my shinobi there. I like to use my shinobi in squads of six (minimum) to cause unrest in enemy territory. Of course this is a viable tactic for all clans but I like to save it for my Imagawa playthroughs. It feels thematic and it doesn't feel too OP when you're playing an Imagawa campaign where you're attempting to hold onto both outposts. I'll recommend using your first shinobi squad to mess with the Shimazu. The Shimazu will be feeling feisty way sooner than you'd expect so go on ahead and use your shinobi to slow them down and keep them from attacking you. There will often be a border fort built in Higo so you can skip that province and go straight for Satsuma. If you're ever unsure of border fort placements killing your shadow agents then use your emissary to scout ahead for border fort provinces.
In addition to messing with the Shimazu, you'll also want at least one shinobi squad messing with either the Hojo or the Uesugi. You can actually just keep switching between the two based on who's the most powerful at that time. Just be careful when you're doing this, the A.I. will start acquiring some pretty beefy generals just off of farming rebels that you've helped spawn. There's no way to really avoid this but I will recommend eventually attacking the Shimazu and taking Kyushu for yourself. This will just help you create some space for yourself and it'll give you more provinces to build ports in for that additional income.
I would also move my ninja production to Kyushu so that I can keep producing high honor archers in Totomi. Now I personally teched up to a couple geisha houses and continued to train ninja just to keep in theme with the clan. From there it's simply a matter of keeping friends with the right clan at the right time and hunting and killing off their family members with ninja's and hoping that their territory falls into your hands instead of the rebels. I will say that the first time I completed this campaign while using this strategy everything went pretty dang smooth. The wars were manageable, my economy was sufficient and my ninja's got the job done. Along with all of that I was able to inherit a decent bit of territory from assassinated allies. The second time however...lol uh...nothing was every that easy. I still won though! But it was a struggle. And my ninja's ...oh my poor poor ninja's. Cities could be built from the bones of deceased ninja's in that campaign. To add insult to injury this also happened to be the campaign that was recorded for my youtube channel !
I have just a couple notes to close things off: While playing this strategy it's important to be able to make alliances/ceasefires with other clans. This means that going Christian is unfortunately not a good play. This is going to make money tighter than it otherwise would be but it's still manageable.
Imagawa Yoshimoto starts off as a four star Daimyo and this is second only to Mori Motonari's five stars! Unlike Motonari however, Yoshimoto is young and he should survive long even if you're playing a slower campaign. Another benefit of playing a slower campaign is getting a chance to use Tokugawa Ieyasu and is six freaking stars that he comes of age with!! This is on par with Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin so use him well! (also how the heck is Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi not six star generals?!) Other than your family members the Imagawa clan will start to get some pretty solid generals later on in the campaign that represent Ieyasu's lieutenants. I'm pretty sure all of the Seven Spears of Shizugatake will be available at some point, which is pretty cool because these guys were such legends.
Lastly for my Imagawa army comp I really tried to make battlefield ninja a working focal point of my army but this would often come with mixed results. Every time I tried to get fancy with them and use them on the flanks to potentially get at the enemy taisho or even to draw off units into the woods so that I could surround and kill them...I just couldn't figure it out. My ninja's would just end up being hunted down and killed. Now, using them in close support to my main infantry body however did have decent results every once in a while. Clearly I just need more practice using them and I do intend on hoping into some customs battles with them because I'm not ready to give up yet! So if you came here looking for battlefield ninja tactics, sorry but we'll have to wait for Reluctant Samurai to show up and school us in the ways of the ninja. If you want to see how not to use battlefield ninja though I have a whole playlist of my Imagawa/Ninja failures that still ended up with me somehow winning the campaign Check it out if you'd like!
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