How is your first campaign going?

[Monk]

On my fourth campaign now: Chokosabe H/H going for long victory conditions.

This was also the campaign i mentioned in another thread, and have shown screenshots about, but i haven't had the chance to talk about it much. Basically i wanted to try surviving a little longer than normal, and instead for pushing toward Kyoto and Honshu (after securing Shikoku) I decided to go in the opposite direction and subjugate Kyushu. It proved to be a very hard fought battle, not the least of which because nearly the entire island had converted to Christianity. Town by town Chokosabe Motochika converted the people back to the one true faith, just as town by town he liberated the island and added it to his own domain.

This campaign was relatively slow and reasonably entertaining. Once i'd managed to unite Kyushu I sorta felt like my daimyo was a bit of a hero. He'd driven gaijin influences from the Western Japanese islands and united the clans under his banner for the greater good. Food surplus was up to 12 and the Chokosabe enjoyed immense wealth thanks to their many trade connections - if you were a kingdom in the east that traded with Japan, you dealt with the Chokosabe. Motochika even secured an alliance with the powerful Oda daimyo, Oda Nobuhide, two years before the later declared himself Shogun and effectively brought all of the eastern clans under his control.

By 1570 warfare in the Japanese islands at ceased, but an interesting schism was emerging. Motochika ruled in the western islands from his capital at Tosa and held parts of the west tip of Honshu, there he had brought a number of clans under his protection who now served as his vassals. The Oda Shogunate had suceeded in bringing down every major clan. Except the Chokosabe.. in 1571 a dispute with the Hatorri clan lead the Chokosabe to declare war. At first the Shogunate supported Motochika's right of conquest, but as tales of the Chokosabe heroism spread through Honshu, whispers of jealousy surfaced in Kyoto. The Shogunate was unhappy with the control of the Chokosabe, indeed, he ruled nearly all of Honshu, why should Kyushu and Shikoku be different?

When the Chokosabe captured a number of hattori provinces in west Honshu, provinces which had long served as trading stops for Oda merchants, the Shogunate declared war on the Chokosabe, bringing with him his Yamana and Uesugi allies..

It's been seven years since the declaration of war and what started as a realm divide event has exploded into full on East vs West civil war. I'd love to claim that this has been one sided and i've been whooping Oda behind, but that just isn't the case. Fighting has bogged down in western Honshu between my alliance (Chokosabe, Oushi, and a few other small vassals) and those loyal to the Shogunate. Every time one side gets a big victory they capture 1-3 provinces, only for the counter attack to dislodge them and return to the status quoe. Thousands of samurai are dead in what is turning out to be the final culmination of the Sengoku Jidai.