Quote Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul
Hi EYG,

I'm sure it won't be long until someone posts a consicive guide for you.
Until then,
Try to play Uesugi. They have their back to the ocean and sit on very rich Provinces. If you manage to outtake Hojo very early, you can get hold of some of the richest provinces in Japan. Mori on the contrary sits on very poor lands and is more difficult to play.
The most furtile provinces are were Imagawa, Hojo and Uesugi meet.
So, a good starting position is important.
Hi R'as,

I've never been particularly keen on Uesugi's starting position, back to the sea or not. While playing as Oda or Hojo, I usually get to witness the Imagawa taking over Shinano in the second or third turn of the game! Seems every side wants to break into there at some stage of the game. It's all too easy to get your forces cut in two. Even if you can re-take a lost province, your developments get degraded or lost totally, in the process. By comparison, Hojo has two starting provinces which are not on the front line, and can develop the tech levels in safety, without the years of delay imposed by increasing farmland output.

Also, possessing rich provinces can be as much of a curse as a blessing - they attract attacks from the opposition. If you've spent the money to develop them, only for them to reap the benefits (because they've spent the equivalent on more trrops instead), it usually means you'll never have the strength of numbers required to get them back.

I tend to err on the side of defensive play, so I end up raising large armies but rarely get to see an opportunity to use them to attack because the AI somehow always has the resources to create forces which at least match or, more often, exceed what I can afford to maintain. Mutsu borders three Hojo provinces so, by the time it's matched my defensive force in all three of those provinces, it has a 3:1 advantage on me and can invade with a good chance of success. Dewa is bound to follow soon after that. End of story.

Part of the reason for starting this thread was to point out that the AI never seem to suffer the same financial setbacks that the player has to face. Hence I was wondering about factors like population loyalty affecting harvests. You get one bad one, so you put the taxes up as 'punishment', loyalty goes down and subsequent ones get worse, rather than better.

Then again, I can shoot a hole in that theory because where I've started off by lowering the taxes, sure the loyalty goes up but, if you give them an easy time, as the guy says "the peasants are lazy...".

As a matter of fact, you have to watch it when raising taxes in response to a bad harvest, since population loyalty goes down in response to the poor harvest, even before you've altered the tax rate.

You're probably right that the harvests are random but I started yet another Oda campaign, soon after starting this thread and had just one 'average' and one 'good' harvest in the first ten years of the campaign. So I still beg to differ...

I gave up on that one, started again and had better luck but gave up again when the Hojo took over Kaga at the first attempt (Uesugi usually takes three or four attempts, with a lot of casualties each time), with two full army stacks, one made up entirely of Cavalry units. Money to burn, that lot. Oh, and about 4 army stacks seigeing in Shinano. Game over.

I'm currently having a little more success (at 'normal' difficulty level) as Hojo. Can't say I can afford to raise 'the horde' myself but I've got as far as 1557 with only one or two poor harvests so far.