The Tokugawa Campaign Guide

[Heartfire]

Yea, make sure you get peace with the Hojo fast and work on an alliance with the Takeda. The Takeda are the power to be considered in the region, since the Oda pretty much HAVE to die fast, and the Hojo are restricted by the Imagawa and Takeda. Sometimes the Hojo break out, but more rarely I see them begin a break out, then get caught between the Date, Takeda, and Imagawa.

An alliance with the Takeda would be the most beneficial of any.

[Saudade of Sunday]

For those of you who can't get rid of the Imagawa surviving the first turns, I uploaded my save when Imagawa declared war on me.
Got Mikawa, Owari and for what I remember a trade post in the west. Defending them is up to you. Warning: difficulty is VH/VH. Save is turn 13.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Optional Megaupload link
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KZ3J91Q4

[Heartfire]

Did you by any chance find out a for sure way to have Imagawa declare war on you?

[Saudade of Sunday]

Did you by any chance find out a for sure way to have Imagawa declare war on you?

Not really, but making Hojo and Takeda break alliance with them, start stocking up troops and finally break the trade agreement should work fine.

[Babaganoush]

I'm playing on DarthMod 1.5 and it might be different but I know people are saying you can just bribe the beginning army with your metsuke... M/H you can... in VH you can't, it's too expensive. If you try to attack it, you will most likely win, but Oda's second army will finish you off. What I did was turtle up in my castle and in turn 3 Oda attacked. I fought him off and killed his whole family.

I guess that's why Oda dies in turn one.

[Saudade of Sunday]

I'm playing on DarthMod 1.5 and it might be different but I know people are saying you can just bribe the beginning army with your metsuke... M/H you can... in VH you can't, it's too expensive. If you try to attack it, you will most likely win, but Oda's second army will finish you off. What I did was turtle up in my castle and in turn 3 Oda attacked. I fought him off and killed his whole family.

I guess that's why Oda dies in turn one.

It's not too expensive at all, you can easily gain money through diplomacy. For what I remember, I beat both Oda's armies with just
all my starting troops plus two ashigaru units I recruited the first turn.

[Babaganoush]

It's not too expensive at all, you can easily gain money through diplomacy. For what I remember, I beat both Oda's armies with just
all my starting troops plus two ashigaru units I recruited the first turn.

No. What I'm saying is that people are suggesting to bribe the Oda army on Turn 1. You can't. You don't have enough money to bribe them in VH as the army mainly consists of samurai compared to ashigaru in Normal and Hard mode. I never checked what they have in easy mode but I'm sure they hired little babies.

[Babaganoush]

Welp. Turn 40 and despite making Imagawa hate Takeda and Hojo, neither of them declared war on them yet. And if I declare war, that means a bad hit for me. Just shows how much crap "Dishonoring treaties" is.

[Heartfire]

I think "dishonoring treaties" is a good idea for diplomacy. If I ever get turned on by my ally, which doesn't happen too often anymore (*cough* ETW *cough*) then they get a massive penalty and people are less open to allying with them.

However, for this one case, the Tokugawa vs. the Imagawa, it is annoying. We aren't dishonoring our treaty, in my opinion, if we are just trying to be free.

Still want to find a for sure way of getting them to attack me... Although, I haven't tried to get both Hojo and Takeda off of their alliances, just Takeda so far. Will check that out and get back to you guys.

[dutch81]

So when your vassal turns on you you wouldn't consider it to be dishonoring its treaty with you? Yeah right! This is exactly what dishonoring a treaty is all about in fact the most vile form of it ... and it plays great just the way it is ... it is what makes playing the Tokugawa interesting and challenging to play.

I think more people should try to play the good vassal it is very challenging to grow and expand at the whims of your overlord.

Now that I think about it, can you become Shogun while remaining a vassal state of the Imagawa? It would not make much sense.

[Buckethead]

I have an idea for the whole "being a vassal to the Imagawa problem" although I haven't tested it personally. But you might be able to break up the Hojo/Takeda alliance and then get terrible relations with the Hojo so they declare war on you. Since you are a vassal of Imagawa, Imagawa should join the war on your side and eventually get defeated by the usually more powerful Hojo.

You can damage the relationship with Hojo by getting a trade agreement with them and then cancelling it, also if you use your agents on Hojo and they are unsuccessful it will give you a relations penalty with them.

This is what basically happened in my Tokugawa campaign except it happened by chance and I actually had very good relations with Hojo when they declared war on me. I've since defeated Hojo and started converting to Christianity just to experiment since I remained Buddhist in my first Shimazu campaign.

[Saudade of Sunday]

No. What I'm saying is that people are suggesting to bribe the Oda army on Turn 1. You can't.

Yes, you can. Ask Obama. Just try to "sell" trade agreements and military rights. Anyway it's better to defeat both of them on the
field (it's not even that hard) so you can spare the kokus for the diplomacy with Hojo and Takeda.

Welp. Turn 40 and despite making Imagawa hate Takeda and Hojo, neither of them declared war on them yet. And if I declare war, that means a bad hit for me. Just shows how much crap "Dishonoring treaties" is.

Strange, but anyway that's not what you should aim for. That way a war will start between Hojo or Takeda and Imagawa, you
wouldn't want to get sucked in an unnecessary war, would you? Instead with my method Imagawa feel threatened and attack you preemptively.

Still want to find a for sure way of getting them to attack me... Although, I haven't tried to get both Hojo and Takeda off of their alliances, just Takeda so far. Will check that out and get back to you guys.

Don't worry, that way is almost sure, done it already two times. Just make sure you don't stockpile too many troops or they'll end up thinking you're too powerful.

[Babaganoush]

Oh right.. never ever thought about selling trade rights.

Also, Imagawa is Hostile to me, but hasn't done anything yet. My plan was to make the Hojo and Takeda attack the Imagawa, and I break off, freeing myself from vassalage. That way there isn't any diplomatic hit... I guess the Tokugawa's "Bonus to diplomatic relations" is to try and sort of neutralize the betrayal against the Imagawa? lol.

Edit: Just tried without the mod - apparently its affecting it as Darth tried to make the AI more predictable (as in why should a Very Friendly, long lasting ally betray you) and this in turn made the Imagawa more... friendly. Without the mod, the AI was just as backstabbing as ever.

[Heartfire]

As a tip, although I think it has already been said in this topic a few times, keep Mikawa very lightly garrisoned. Put some troops in the forest outside the Mikawa capital if you are worried about Imagawa betraying you.

That's what I did, and surely enough they didn't see my troops and just assumed Mikawa was unprotected, so they tried to march in. Suddenly, 2700 men come screaming from the forest. Whoopsie Imagawa.

And yea, thinking back on it, a vassal breaking their treaty with their ruler should be considered a "Dishonoring Treaty" penalty. It's just the game is set up to make the player believe that the Tokugawa should be free, and deserve to be free. What can I say? I wanted to be free.

[Scib]

It took me a few tries to take the Oda castle but I got it now. You need to march far into their territory, when the Oda army comes to attack yours, retreat. If you marched far enough you should still be in their territory after retreating and the Oda army will return to their castle. If you didn't march far enough into their territory then your army will retreat back into yours and the Oda army will follow you, leaving their castle defenceless to be taken by a rival clan.

This current campaign has been strange, the Takeda got taken out in the first few turns. The Imagawa declared war on a few clans so I've got like 5 territories and I'm still their vassal.

[Heartfire]

Yea, in my campaign I have expanded to all of that very rich peninsula to the west of Owari, between Owari and Shikoku and I am still Imagawa's vassal.

But when I was playing last night, I inspired two revolts in their territory so I don't think they will exist much longer... (Their army got obliterated by Satomi in the east)

[Drox]

Does anyone keep the market that you start with in Mikawa? I get rid of it as soon as I am able to build a market somewhere else. Seems like a waste of a building slot to have a market in a province with the horse specialization.

[Babaganoush]

I moved my market to Owari since it has a rich farmland and therefore, higher wealth.

[Heartfire]

Same here. I got rid of the market in Mikawa as soon as I got Owari.

[Heartfire]

Just thought I should add a little something on here:

In one of my new Tokugawa campaigns (I have made several to explore this faction because I think they are the most interesting) I was able to reproduce a way to become peaceful with the Oda. Follow closely!

1) Bribe the Oda army, then defeat what is leftover.
2) Move everything you can into Owari Province towards the remaining Oda army, but not too far in. Make is so you can retreat back into your own territory if needed.
3) Research, recruit, and do whatever else you want
4) When the Oda attack you during their turn just tell your men to retreat
5) When this happens the Oda should leave Owari open to be conquered, however, the Oda forces will still be in Owari province with their Daimyo and General, and as such they will not be killed.
6) During the Rebel turn (Which comes, hidden after the Wako Pirates), before your second term, the Oda will retake Owari and therefore, because they died and were reborn, have reset relations with everyone ("past grievances" still exist though)
7) Tell the Oda you want a trade agreement. Beware: The Oda are expansionists, and will not hesitate to attack Mino, Kiso, and Katakeyama, or whatever it is called next to them.
Also: The Hattori are always hyper-aggressive in my games, and it is possible that the Hattori will conquer Oda fairly quickly.

I just thought you all would like to know a strategy for keeping Oda alive, as they are pretty much the unifiers of Japan. If you want I can upload a save game of the turn when they become free.