I agree with Opeth666 about the whole economics system. I played about 40 years as the Akagi Clan and I found the economics to be very difficult, if not impossible. Population grows way too fast, and its almost impossible to keep the towns happy for long. After restarting several times to see if I could find a workable progression, I started to resort to cheating (add_money 20000) so I could have enough money to build public order buildings and try to develop my economy. Even when I had the cities quite built up, I was in a hole almost every turn. This made it impossible to field more than two full stacks at a time.

Just a few suggestions:

1) Reduce unit upkeep by half. With the existing economics system, this should make it feasible to field more than a few armies without going bankrupt every turn.

2) Add Academies to the building tree (please!). If we can develop the management capabilities and traits of the family governors, it might help offset some of the squalor problems that come with such rapid city growth.

3) Add more public order buildings...Perhaps some more shrines and temples, or some symbolic buildings (such as "Introduction of Confucian Philosophy", "Cultural Expansion of Confucian Philosophy", etc) to help keep the masses under control. Another possibility is increasing the degree of happiness provided by the current buildings.

On a different note, how about making the battlefield ninja available as a recruitable unit with the legendary ninja dojo building? The invisible trait of the battlefield ninja does come in handy (and they look cool as hell), but their numbers are so few that their inolvement rarely has much of an impact. At least if they could be recruited, one could load up several units to set up a good trap for an aggressing force.

With all that said, GREAT JOB! This mod is a lot of fun and the tremendous work you put into it is very evident!