How do you defeat an army of 20,000?

[LivingBudda]

So here I am with half of Japan and an army of 3000. Everything was peachy when a Hojo army of 20,000 showed up. I played many campaigns and managed to advoid this problem till now.
I have read posts in the past about this problem. But I dont remember any solution. Did anyone ever defeat such an army?
How can Hojo afford this army and have money for buildings.

And yes there is 20k, I counted.
Somebody save me... echo...

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When you know me well enough, you'll say I'M CRAZY!!

[ShaiHulud]

On defense or offense the same plan...defeat the initial army and rout them off quickly, while setting up to destroy any reinforcements. In my experience you must kill the enemy taisho to create a bad enough morale to keep the new units routing quickly.


If you only have a total of 3k troops, you're in trouble. He can lose every battle and whittle you down to nothing. Build more troops so you can replace your losses quickly.

Go around his large force and take any land you can from him. Even if you have to give it back you can still destroy buildings and set him back that way.

Send a LOT of shinobi into a single province to start revolts and draw troops away from the front. Even if he puts down the revolts he still destroys infrastructure in those provinces.

Hope this helps...

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[Link(Micke)San]

Kill the Daimyo.
And you need to have at least 2ooo soldiers in every province that meets the hords provinces.
And like he said before me up there.....charge them off the map
I just finished the expert campaigne with only Ashiguras units (ashis, musketts, arq´s) Yari Samuraij´s and Archers......and it was a hard thing.
Best of luck to you.

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May the honour be with you all....
-LinkSan Daimyo of The Chain Clan

[Slyspy]

If you available forces number just 3k then you are unlikely to make it against the Horde I'm afraid. Hojo can replace their losses much more quickly than you can. Essentially it cheats and overspends. Possibly a bug, possibly a way to create a difficult endgame but probably a horrible combination of the two!


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"Put 'em in blue coats, put 'em in red coats, the bastards will run all the same!"

[Shiro]

This is a real bummer when it happens. I really hope they get this fixed for the expansion. I've also run into a Mori hoard one time I believe.

[LivingBudda]

Using an army of 500 I charged against a Hojo army of 38,000.
I was able to remove the head of the enemy Daimyo.
But it really dont matter, now theres an army of 40k Ronin kicking my ass.
But I just pretend I won since Im the only surviving Daimyo.
Thanks everybody.

[Devil's Advocate]

Oh Budda, if it makes you feel better I'll vote that you won that campaign!

There you go - official and in writing.

[leoknite]

I encountered the same problem when I played my first and only campaign, heh! I got my butt knocked all the way to the only land I had left, but just as death was near, and hojo moved all around me, my geisha house was built, I held strong skirmish after skirmish with few thousand troop, then my geisha killed his daimyo and , the end ok ok its underhanded but I am leo hahah! Not really I built the geisha house early allied with hojo, and then killed hojos daimyo to gain all his land, it worked, then allied some more and made some more assination till all was left was the guy in red, and those tiny ronin!

[This message has been edited by leoknite (edited 02-06-2001).]

[Moriboy]

I agree with Shaihulud, rout the bastards and set up shop a short distance from where the reinforcements pour in. Put Hth units on the flanks and have something frightening in front & full view. This said, there's still that damned province in Shimazu land, where the reinforcements cascade into a patch of forest and thus aren't frightened by your eager & intimidating blood letters until they emerge. By then, 2 more units have entered the woods, with more on the way. The name escapes me, but the province borders Nagato.

[Kokueater]

I found several strategies in this forum to defeat 'Hojo Horde' (or any other). One of them consists in sorrounding the horde province (preferible after killing Daimyo and heirs, this means, when horde has become ronins), and then invade the land with two or more quality armies. I tried it many times (hard work!) unsuccesfully. But once my fail was due to the following: there was NO SPACE in the province for my invading armies!!! They were expelled when I put them on!!!

[solypsist]

It's a bummer that Ronin provinces are basically considered to be one "kingdom" just as if they were all controlled by a single Daimyo - without being able to share resources. It would be nice to have Ronin invade other Ronin provinces, just to make the game more unpredictable, but also to help balance out what happened to LivingBudda once he defeated the Hojo.