Imagawa Guide

[Drisos]

Hey Khan of Steppe, thanks for the shout out. ;)

The thing I like about taking Shinano is Totomi is then protected and as long as Mikawa and Suruga and Shinano all have castles in them then I'll only need one stack sitting in Shinano to deter any attack. Of course I eventually will build up to a second stack but Suruga and Mikawa will only need a single unit in each province who can then retreat into their castle if they're ever attacked.

I was wondering about this, I've seen multiple people advocate for castles as a defensive tool, but I don't understand it. If you 'Retreat to Castle' and Sally+Invade next turn, the enemy still can Damage/Destroy your buildings (and get Koku for himself), and you're forced into a battle where you have to attack instead of defend. For one thing, the timer will be against you. Am I missing something?

I occasionally do retreat to Castle, but I consider it a mistake and try to have the garrisons to prevent attack or defeat whatever they throw at me.

[Khan of Steppe]

I was wondering about this, I've seen multiple people advocate for castles as a defensive tool, but I don't understand it. If you 'Retreat to Castle' and Sally+Invade next turn, the enemy still can Damage/Destroy your buildings (and get Koku for himself), and you're forced into a battle where you have to attack instead of defend. For one thing, the timer will be against you. Am I missing something?

I occasionally do retreat to Castle, but I consider it a mistake and try to have the garrisons to prevent attack or defeat whatever they throw at me.

Hey Drisos! It's good to see you stop by

This castle defense strategy was mentioned in the published guide (was it Prima?) and in there this strat was called a "satellite defense" I believe. The downsides to using a satellite defense, as you've mentioned is that you will lose buildings. So the answer is don't build buildings in your frontier provinces. This is still a downside but I like that this strategy gives you something to consider. Use it if if fits your playstyle/overall campaign strategy. Or don't use if it doesn't. I prefer to use as few armies as possible in my consolidation/build up phase so that I can pay less upkeep and therefore have more money for economy/military infrastructure.

[Drisos]

Hey there!

Yeah, I also generally avoid building on my front line. However some regions I really want to build in (i.e. Nagato as Shimazu, Hitachi as Hojo, Shinano as Uesugi/Takeda/Imagawa), and some of the clans starting capitols ofc. In those cases I commit large garrisons.

Btw, I just realized, in some cases the downside I mentioned might actually be an upside. If you want to conquer a certain region on your border, but attacking that region would be harder than attacking your own region. Struggling to think of an example, ... Perhaps playing as Takeda, when Hojo has a decent number of SA in Musashi. Instead of the usual river crossing tactics, build a castle in Sagami and place a small garrison, it's very tempting for Hojo to take it. Instead of having to do the typical river bait, you can effectively use your cavalry to mow down those archers on the plains of Sagami. There's probably better examples elsewhere. ;)