With all of the changes in the SP campaign, Shimazu seems to have become oddly dominant in the new 1530 campaign.. most of the guys in the east, when they are all AI, seem to get wiped out or severely hampered by minor clans (i.e. "ronin"), while me as Shimazu just goes on a veritable Blitzkrieg, quickly techs up, has no trouble maintaining sufficient army size and quality, and very early in the game has the best income, best armies, and best infrastructure. Inept Ronin and pitiful satellite provinces of eastern clans have no effect on me. It is now around 1550, I have just conquered Yamashiro and been "proclaimed" Shogun by the emporer, and I'm seriously considering just ditching the game because I know I'll roll over any further resistance from the two remaining eastern clans who have decent-sized domains but seem incabable of even mild expansion, and have for the half-decade or more..
I would also note that the AI strategy for using archers is ineffective.. they ALWAYS leave just on skirmish, even more so than before, so if they have alot of them or they are losing the melee with their standard units and need help, they lose baaaaaaaaadly. And given the AI's extreme preference for all or near-all archer armies, this can knock down the difficulty of the entire campaign by many many notches.
I personally dislike playing on difficulty higher than Normal, not because I don't like the challenge, but because I don't like the way in which the challenge is implemented. Skewing the combat odds makes the game tedious and bizarre, and probably messes up your sense of things for MP. I personally would like an option to start a campaign at mild to severe territory and/or army disadvantages, i.e. a campaign in which the clans AREN'T all perfectly balanced. I suppose this will be possible if they, as rumored, will provide for campaign editing and mod-ing galore in a few months or so..
Anyway, sorry, that kinda dragged on longer than I meant it to, but one campaign issue led to another, and.. well, you see.
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Khan7
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