The Hojo Campaign Guide

[Ecka65]

I think it's time for experienced players to start writing "strategy and tips" articles. Not just per faction, but overall because the principles apply regardless of clan. I had mucked around with Hojo but never seriously. My main H and VH campaigns were with Uesigi, Oda and Date. Once I got the hang of it I managed to win on Legendary with Uesigi (and I'll never play Legendary again!)

Two days ago I decided to give the Hojo a serious play.

In my experience Hojo is THE easiest faction I've played on VH. Now before you flame me, it is the reason I've written the first sentence. Once you get used to how the game works, and how that should affect your first few years, you can get away to a decent start. With Hojo already starting with two provinces - both "specials" - this is even easier.

One trick with the diplomacy is to NOT go for every trade agreement possible. Look at who is allied to who, who is trading with whom. If you don't want to upset a clan, don't make agreements with their enemies. Another when it comes to choosing allies - pick the dependable ones. And again, don't make an alliance if it'll upset the clan you're most threatened by (at that stage in your game). If you're going to hit someone, don't make agreements with them. But if you have one, break it at least a turn before you DOW on them.

At start build maximum troops for a minimum of 4 turns. Then keep building up troop numbers after the initial surge. This means at best one building upgrade per turn early (sometimes none). But troop numbers are critical, and more critical than your economy early. The Ai tends to respect military power more than anything else. Focus your few building upgrades on what is MOST important to you - be it a samurai dojo or a special building and usually a port. All else should wait until you get to around 4 or so provinces. The Ai also seems to respect money in the bank account. Don't try turtle until about 5 or 6 provinces. Then actually try to turtle - this is when you can really build up everything. You don't need peace to turtle, just "controllable" war (ie not an all in gang bang on you).

The above, irrespective of clan, will get you off to a good start.

[Pyramid Head]

Playing on legendary. Put every effort to placing your army on the bridges - Date steamroller will obliterate everything non its way. And they'll come at you with full stack of samurais when you will be still with ashigaru. Protect your Fire Catapult at all costs - it's your only hope to breaking date avalanche - you have to snipe general. Use inspire to boost firethrower.

[Ma'ahes]

Well, if you're going to defend from the bridges, go all-out with at least 4 units of fire-bombers in your army. Bridge+bombs=fun times. While the samurai may not route from the explosions, they sure as hell will lose 1/2 their men before they even reach your pike line. This is one of the few times I would even suggest using cavalry, if you obtain Kai and might be forced into a field battle. Much better to use cavalry+bombers to attack the flanks than hope your ashigaru have enough stamina/morale by the time they reach the enemy. Although, I've never had a problem allying myself with the Date...just go to war with Hatakeyama and Usegi and you're all set.

[Baeksu]

Two days ago I decided to give the Hojo a serious play.

In my experience Hojo is THE easiest faction I've played on VH. Now before you flame me, it is the reason I've written the first sentence. Once you get used to how the game works, and how that should affect your first few years, you can get away to a decent start. With Hojo already starting with two provinces - both "specials" - this is even easier.

Not to mention the fact that between the bonus to bushido research from easily-built castles and the very close proximity of two provinces with Confucian Tradition, the Hojo can tech incredibly quickly.

[arj]

i just finished a very hard hojo campaign. round 154, 0 provinces lost, 63 captured, 163 battles won, 0 battles lost. my gameplay depends heavyly on saving games. if i lose something i just go back to an earlier save.
76 units recruited. 73 infantry, 3 siege, 0 units lost, 1304 units destroyed. my playstile depends on bow infantry especially defending castles on keylocations that are difficult to pass by by the ai. one of my first targets was the hitachi province with its bowmaker. range is the most important factor for missile units thats why i started building my nr one army out of 2 generals, 4 fire throwing mangonels and 14 bow monks
pretty good for defence and offence. need to be careful with the mangonels when defending castles. somehow they tend to not calculate part of the wall in and decimate your defenders. this army was especially great when defending bridges. the ai does very rarely leave the castle to atack the bowman. even on very hard. when a castle is atacked by several stacks at once the units of the second and so on stacks come on to the map but remain passive. they dont go for the castle very much in my experience. several times my defenders were completely out of arrows and would have been easy prey to full stacks of melee samurai but the units just didnt atack the castle.
atacking castles depended on eliminating the defenders from out of their range before running out of ammonition. this army has just next to no power in melee.
additionally i had 3 full armies of ashigaru bowman. only melee units i had throughout the campaign were the start untis.
1 ship built (for capturing the gold island up north), 1 naval battle won (with the small fleet i received when becoming shogun i didnt go for any of the foreign trade goods.
i created 5 metsuke in provinces with a bonus for them and had one go with each army and/or keycities. no ninja or monks for me. i dont like that stile.
only characters i lost were 2 generals due to nartural causes.
i didnt do any alliance but tried to trade with anybody i found willing. i also did not create vassals. just cant see a reason for it.
in the beginning i pumped out as many units as possible. province upgrades can wait til u have captured a nice number of provinces. my not losing any units alowed me to upgrade the provinces quite nicely some rounds later and continuously through the campaign. the units replenish themself good enough for me.
i made about 2.1 million koku. 900 k went into building, (413 buildings) 1,1 million into upkeep and only 45 k into recruitment.
upgrades i do in every province: market (level 1), roads as high as possible, farm upgrades (as high as possible), gambling hall (level 2 i think) roads make replenishment better, farms produce wealth that can be taxed and gambling halls produce happiness which lets you set taxes higher. additionally i of course upgraded the special buildings in each province. and also the harbours.(even though i didnt build ships) i am not sure the building of harbours was beneficial as my trade income was only 250 k overall.
in keycastles i also built baracks. round 4 had me musashi, round 11 suruga, shimosa and kazusa. by round 19 i had captured hitachi, totomi, and shimotsuke also. by round 30 i took on takeda because a clash with them is inevitable imo and by round 40 i had an easyly defendeable (west) area of 12 provinces. next 23 rounds i spent on building up my wealth and armies (hitachi) i seem to have had a lucky break there with little trouble from the neighbours. by round 105 i had expanded through all the north/northwest and was ready to take on the rest of the map. from there on it was more or less a boring mop up action. from time to time there were seelaqndings behind the front but i handled that by movind to an earlier save. i used the shogun fleet to move my crack army to shikoku (hard fighting there) and sent the other 3 stacks towards the southern tip of kiushu.
the ai was managing my taxlevel. i just occasionally set a province to no taxes to avoid riots. the ai was fighting among themself even after realm divide it seems. i would like the whole thing more challenging. maybe i should try to win the whole thing with melee units only or something similar. but that requires a lot of micromanagement in battles for which i have no appetite.

[Pinky333]

I always kill takeda on the 2nd turn :p imagawa always remains true, till rd that is.

[razr19]

In my hojo campaign I have been rather lucky the kiso took north shinano right at the start from the Takeada the useigi vassals the Yamanochi destroyed the Kiso. This gave me the great opportunity to allie the Satomi and betray the Imagwa and takeada. i demanded the Imagwa peace and to become my vassal wich they accepted. this also gave me the Tokagwa. The Asi came and killed the Tokagwa, they revolted and then declared war on me and the imgawa. I left the Imgawa to die then I destroyed the Tokagwa.
Funny fact I did this with a single very cheep, very overpowerd army. I then made another copy of that army and im now marching in takeda land.

[razr19]

I always kill takeda on the 2nd turn :p imagawa always remains true, till rd that is.

How do you deal with the ogygatsue so fast? sorry for double post

[Ma'ahes]

He probably sends a small force north immediately, since the Takeda will always send their army up to take North Shinano. Then you can send a smaller force east to take out the Ogig's, forcing either a defensive battle or win by running out of turns.

[Grouchio]

nothing to add?

[T&D]

In advanced campaign after you defeated some clans and if you have still alliance with Takeda just prepare spear units(yari and naginata) Takeda have always many horse units...

[russelcoight]

Ill be honest , i can't get past the first battle lol. Ive never had trouble with first battles before but this one is quite difficult.


Im playing on Vh so the enemy start with a Yari cavalry , 2 spear ashigaru's , 1 yari samurai and a bow ashigaru. I start out with 2 generals , 1 bow ashigaru, 2 spear ashigaru and a Yari samurai.

Basically enemy AI sits on a hill with trees and wont budge for much. Ive tried to bait their cavalry into attacking my general , who then flees behind the yari , but general always gets caught and dies (i think i could technically still win , but losing my dynamo / only other general so early on isn't ideal). Ive tried poking around the edges of their formation to make them move , while my bow troop hits their spears. But due to trees , and the fact they hide again almost instantly , we do no damage.


Ill try a few more things (like demounting my generals maybe? /shrug) , im a little surprised this one is so hard. Ive done the first battle on vh with every faction so far bar Hojo and Oda. Never had a problem .



Update ;


Yeah Demount generals and just spam your units at one end of their flanks. Surprised i didn't think of that sooner. Hope this helps anyone else who might have trouble with this particular battle .

[Pinky333]

They never leave the city :O. Out of all my campaigns theyve never attacked me, so I just take takeda out. BUild up a little bit then killl them.

on vh.

[Shikayama]

I finally got my Hojo Campaign on normal (Shamefur dispray!).
There were several attempts but finally my tactics work out. The general tactics was written on first page but I want to share what I did.


The best way in my opinion to win a campaign is to build up a single front offense.
Hojo for their part are in the southeast of Japan and normally have to around with Imagawa - at least what I experienced.
This goes contrary my wish to build up a single front because the only way to deal with Imagawa is kill those suckers.
First step at all, I allied with Takeda and Imagawa. Takeda has always been a reliable ally and Imagawa as their little Chihauha were none of my business.
My offense went north right after getting the whole Edo Bay. I went into war with Ashina, Uesugi and Hatakeyama by diplomacy so no dishonour by breaking agreements. This worked until Fukushima with Date in north. They liked me and so Masamune asked for an alliance. It would be great, he suggested. PUT YA GUNS ON! With Date in North I would have two allies after realm divide with whom I can trade.

Takeda's lands were big. It was like a bloody spot right in Japan. Only two ways: one down south where Hattori wiped out Imagawa, one north where Ikko Ikki was messing around with Uesugi. They were my vassels, but Ikko Ikki gave them no chance. So right before realm divide I had my provinces like a lobster claw around the neck of Takeda's homeland.
But what now?

I tried several things. Dishonourably attacked Date to get the realm divide, worked in the first place. But Takeda made it into Kinki with their force. Should I attack them, too?
One full stack in the south, one in the north and one in the east. The eastern force could roll up Takeda.
I installed vassels everywhere to work on some trade agreements to fill my empty pocket.
But then some of them betrayed me and held back my offense to Kyotô.

Next try. Rampage to Kyotô. In brief, it didn't work.

Realm Divide is frustrating because the economy breaks down. No trading except the Ainu Port in Hokkaido. But how to finance 4 to 5 armies? One in north in case Date was rioting, one in my homeland east to Takeda and two advancing forces.
I spent several years in building up farms. I invested all my Arts the civilian way to get the Steam Achievement for "Impressive Buildings" (whatever it is called in English).
Chonindo and the second farm upgrade achieved.
After upgrading the farms in the rich northern provinces, some castle upgrades, some agents recruitments (I tried to get control of the Kinki region by Metsuke and Ninja) later I literally ran for Kyotô.
I just advanced no matter if the Ikko Ikki revolted in my just conquered provinces, the Chosokabe tried to invade at Fukushima (my northern army dealt with that twice). Takeda and Date stayed with my until I reached Kyotô. with three armies (one I shipped to Settsu) I made it to Shôgun. Ikko Ikki and Mori tried to dethrone me, but Takeda dealt with Mori and I could deal with Ikko Ikki. Just two more provinces after becoming Shôgun and the game was over.


It was a last minute victory and if I would have keep on playing there was no bright future for my Hôjô Shogunate. Takeda was too mighty. But an early alliance can stand Realm Divide until Kyotô.
Not to mention, after Realm divide I was counting my pennies and could not repair any building that got destroyed. Kyotô-jo burned for half a year until I could gain 2k+ again.

Still I am glad I made it. As far as i played this was the hardest campaign to me.

[coalnews]

Thank you for sharing this info.

[Therobedone]

My Hojo games have been difficult so far, probably due to the fact I'm trying to win short campaign instead of opting for the long campaign. Biggest problem is trying to gain additional provinces for victory condition when every clan hates my guts. Shimazu have 24 provinces and are allied to everyone else, so my Hojo Shogunate is doomed to be shortlived. Only have 16 provinces or so myself. Also, DO NOT TRADE WITH NANBAN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE MONKS. Damned Christians keep revolting, so I have to keep putting them down, fending off Date incursions, and trying to hold onto Kyoto for dear life, all with severely reduced income. The turtling strategy sounds like it would work out the best overall.

PS- As my current Chosokabe game, I have 5 of the trade nodes, though one gets blocked off semi frequently. However, I'm getting almost 6,000 Koku profit, without trade agreements with anyone else. When I temporarily lost access to all 5 trade nodes, I went to -98 profits instantly. Trade nodes generate tons of wealth, definately worth the effort.

[Jaxin]

Playing VH/VH

You can ally with the Imagawa and Takeda early easily. The Takeda are excellent sheilds to the east and thr Imagawa OK to the south (they tend to get whiped by Oda or Hattori)

The clan to your west needs to be taken out fast because all they do is sit still and build up a massive army.

Go Hojo Motars

[Therobedone]

If you send an alliance request to the Takeda early on, you can ask them to break their alliance with Imigawa, and they should almost always agree.

[CyrusII]

Did anyone try converting to Christianity as Hojo?

It seems to me that if you manage to get a nanban quarter in Hitachi, your superior accuracy cannons and matchlocks allow you to turtle in your castles very well.

The play would then focus on missionaries inciting rebellions left and right, then taking rebel provinces when opportune. At the same time, you can dominate the seas with nanban ships and tech up very fast with the churches.

The biggest downside I see is that you'd have to wait a long time for nanban trade to reach the east or sail an army to the west and take a province with a nanban port there. (preferably with a monk inciting rebellion first, but this early the chance of success would be rather low).

[Therobedone]

Did anyone try converting to Christianity as Hojo?

It seems to me that if you manage to get a nanban quarter in Hitachi, your superior accuracy cannons and matchlocks allow you to turtle in your castles very well.

The play would then focus on missionaries inciting rebellions left and right, then taking rebel provinces when opportune. At the same time, you can dominate the seas with nanban ships and tech up very fast with the churches.

The biggest downside I see is that you'd have to wait a long time for nanban trade to reach the east or sail an army to the west and take a province with a nanban port there. (preferably with a monk inciting rebellion first, but this early the chance of success would be rather low).

Haven't tried that, might be worth it though. Will take you longer to lockdown provinces to prevent riots. If you're waiting to convert, you could try to secure the north so you don't have a two front war on your hands later.