Please recommend a good challenging clan to start with

[Triggaaar]

I've played the sengoku full campaign once, on normal difficulty, with the Mori clan, and I'm after something more challenging, without it being impossible.

Any suggestions on a clan for the Hard or V Hard setting (or should I try a different campaign to the Sengoku)? I'm trying to search for a thread like this, which must have done before, just can't find one yet.

Thanks

[Martok]

Well with the possible exception of the Mori, the Oda are probably the most challenging clan to play as in the regular Sengoku Jidai campaign. And if you up the difficulty to Hard or Expert, I suspect you'll face a significantly stiffer challenge than before regardless.

[Triggaaar]

So the Mori clan isn't easy then. I think I'll try expert, with whichever clan takes my fancy. I assume that the AI doesn't get better on the battlefield, just that they have more units etc in the first place?

[Martok]

I assume that the AI doesn't get better on the battlefield, just that they have more units etc in the first place?

Actually, the AI does improve noticeably on Hard difficulty, as it "unlocks" increased strategies for the battle AI: It'll flank more, consider using the "appear weak" defense, etc. There's a complete list lying around somewhere that lists all the increased strategies the AI can employ, but I'm not sure where it is right now.

On Expert difficulty, the AI does admittedly receive a +4 morale bonus, which obviously makes it harder to route. (I believe the AI on Expert may also receive a small honour bonus for its troops -- equivalent to around one-third of an honour level -- but I could be wrong about that.) Also, you start with significantly less koku at Expert difficulty than the AI-controlled clans, although I forget the actual amount of the difference.


My personal preference with both Shogun and MTW is to play on Hard difficulty, as the battle AI is at its most capable while still not receiving much in the way of blatant cheats/bonuses (or at least, it doesn't receive any *more* cheats/bonuses on top of the ones it already gets on the lower difficulty levels ). Of course, I'm also only a middling-average strategy game player myself, so the Hard difficulty is usually sufficient for me; in your case, Expert level may very well be the difficulty you need in order to have a sufficiently challening experience. As always, one's mileage varies.

[Tantalaul]

Oda clan is very dificult on Expert. You will deal from the start with warrior monks, they are very hard to defeat only with archers and ashigaru

[caravel]

The hardest campaign in Warlord Edition (MI) is probably the Oda/Expert/1530 campaign. Play on huge units and you will take two seasons to train every unit.