Fun with Shinobi

[ReluctantSamurai]

I say "somewhat rapidly" because I tend to finish a campaign in 15-25 years.

I never finish a campaign in LESS than 25yrs. I don't turtle, but I do tend to tech up first. I am more of an opportunistic player........I'll take the best of whatever the AI can dish out....and then counterattack.

if I build them at all it's to counter enemy geishas on Expert Difficulty.

I use ninja's only for this job.....and enough high-level shinobi to hold off the enemy geisha long enough for the ninja to get there. I rarely ever lose a taisho, let alone an heir or My Daimyo

I got about six poor harvests in a row, very early in the game.

Glad to see I'm not the only one to have suffered so (not that I'm glad it happened to you )

(I feel crafty allying with Shimazu and leaving Hizen defenseless, and sending an emissary to wait in Satsuma; when he gets greedy and takes Hizen, I send my men in black to raze Satsuma--highly developed and worth a lot of koku--to the ground).

Crafty? That's down right DASTARDLY!.......(not that Shimazu doesn't deserve it )

[Caliburn]

In the middle of a very tricky and taxing war, I got 4 -25% harvests and one -50 % harvest, followed by two -25 % harvests. Fighting strategic victories against large archer-heavy stacks (800 vs. 2000) is very taxing for the troops, as it depletes them more than a balanced melée army would. Too few cavalry units, and limited amount of koku. But at least I have Shinobi to keep the order and cause the enemy to divert its forces at times.

Annoying how they can "tower" their troops (in Vanilla STW at least) - when you're attacking them, they'll move their army to the province you launched your attack from. Then they retreat, and my army never gets to attack their army.

Well, a few Shinobi here to cause a "rebel buffer", a weakly defended province there serving as a bait, and then their army is surrounded and can be wiped out. And that's all she wrote.

My first Shogun campaign in years has proved to be a real challenge, and both my strategy and tactics need a lot of fine-tuning.

Have to try the Warlord edition again soon, but I wanted to try with vanilla units and settings first.

[Togakure]

I've posted that I almost never build Watch Towers or Border Forts, but playing a little this last week I recalled an exception. I like to build Border Forts in the province that produces my clan's emissaries (Kazusa whenever possible). It makes a nice little ninja trap if you build a Port there too, particularly when you seed it with a couple of shinobi and a ninja.