I just finished up an Oda grand campaign I'd been wanting to try, using Yamashiro and Iga with Famous Ninja Houses to supply a steady stream of pre-fab Honor 2 assassins. While I churned out ninjas, I dealt with the rebels and expanded conservatively.

Sending my ninja after high-value targets paid off when one of them took out Lord Hojo and rendered his lands vulnerable. When the clan re-emerged later, it only took a couple tries to assassinate the new daimyo. And by then, I controlled Shinano and Musashi.

It was a long, hard slog of a campaign, with frequent attacks from two or three directions. Certainly, the AI rarely contains my expansion so well. However, all the remaining enemy daimyos except Uesugi were killed in battle, leaving me one single rival to eliminate once I trained a Geisha.

In the past, I hadn't used Geishas much, but I now see them as a good way to end a triumphant campaign once the contest for the Shogunate is essentially over, to avoid fighting a few dozen battles which won't affect the overall outcome.