hey great strategy there . whew i just finished the uesugi domination campaign on vh/vh by the time 1588,at last. here are several tips from me and how a win the campaign. i will use orientation based on the game map not the real world map because its easier to understand.
- your first focus should be owning region presently owned by the jinbo but before this you need adequate economy and military strength as marching your army westward will make echigo vulnerable.
- the jinbo owned region is an opening to a more farm riched regions such as kaga and those regions act as a chokehold from central and western japan.
- the key to be steadfast with uesugi clan is to be the strongest clan in the region or at least the same strength as the other clans.
- you dont need to be the richest one at the eary game. once your strength is weak you will be jumped by almost every other clan in the region. it is beacuase you are the master of yamanouchi which control the centrally located kozuke region with paper(?) resources in it.
- i strongly recommend you not to break alliance with yamanouchi beacuse they are proven to be useful if given time.
- an alliance with date is a must. date region is uesugi backyard. you are doomed if you have war on the front and your backyard. they are dependable anyway and in my campaign my uesugi and date are side by side till the late game facing the terrifying oda-takaoka-bessho alliance which control central and west japan. date still on my side even after realm divide and kenshin beacme shogun. it is me who decide to forfeit the alliance because i cant afford to have heavy infantry and archers on standby to defend my backyard while bessho armies led by their 5 star general pressing kyoto and the sorroundings and their over mighty navy-in one of the stacks it has the black ship in it-constantly dropping armies on the south (musashi etc.) so just ask for your allies when you are attacked but remember when you ask that your strength must be greater or at least the same compare to your enemy.
-dont bother to allied with the other clans as they are easily backstab you
-dont take fukushima just yet,because it take a long way to march your armies from fukushima to kozuke region which you should be your priority
-building a massive army immediately is significant. time is of the essence
-merging armies is important. merge the experienced one with the other experienced so that it dont loose the xp when replenishing. xp is important. replacing armies is important, replace your loss of armies beacause of the merger with one better or more expirenced
lets get to business
-crush your rebellious brother then direct your kenshin army to the port.
-make sure echigo doesnt have negative growth. move your tax slider to the left. stagnant is enough. -build an harbour immediately don't waste your money on any other building.
-recruit a monk and merge him with kenshin.
-do this for the turns until your horbour is ready: recruit 1 yari and 1 bow and merge them with kenshin.
-when your harbour is built move your tax slider to the right as harbour will give a positive growth to echigo. echigo's growth should be stagnant by now.
-keep recruiting 1 yari and 1 bow each turn.
-build a bow kobaya and as soon as it ready invade sado. make sure your echigo can withstand jinbo wave attack.
-keep recruiting 1 yari and 1 bow each turn.
-as soon as you have sado build a farm in echigo. take your army back to mainland regularly every turn starting with kenshin to maintain public order in sado.
-now this is your build priority in order: a farm in sado,a mine in sado,upgrade echigo wall,a yari dojo in echigo.
-keep recruiting 1 yari and 1 bow each turn.
IMPORTANT: two things,treasury and income. never let your income goes below 500 per turn and never let your treasury drop below 1500 unless it is an economy build (your lost treasury will be payed off after the building has been completed) or emergency recruitment. pay attention that you have a surplus income when you are recruiting army,for example if you have 1000 income this turn that means you can recruit 1 yari and 1 bow and have a surplus about 300 as total cost of a yari and a bow of about 700. as for building it is build deducted from your treasury fillled with previous income surplus. when your income goes below 700 per turn,recruit a yari and a bow alternately each turn. as for research go straight to way of spear,chi,todofuken and way of bow in that order. purposes for immediate chi and todofuken completion are obvious. as for way of spear and way of bow ill explain below
now you have two generals,a massive army,and two settlements which one is upgraded and ready for yari samurai recruitment. at this point your present army is obsolete. you could have a stack of yari ashigaru with one xp or yari samurai (its worth the upkeep) instead all your armies are rookies. your economy is growing but not at significant rate. so its time to use that obsolete armies. as in my campaign yamanouchi usually gets attacked by takeda/hojo. move your armies south to kozuke,leave a few at guard near the bridge to kozuke. hide your armies in the trees near kozuke so that you will refinforce yamanouchi if any clan decide to attack it. play this till enemy armies tired out. at some point you will have to ambush enemy armies so that you can counter attack the attacking clan. this is way of the bow is for. as half of your armies consist of bow,ambushing enemies with flaming arrow cloud be devastating. you can play it by yourself but i think autoresolve is ok. now you can merge your war inflicted yari and replace the loss with 1 xp yari ashigaru form echigo or even with yari samurai. in my case i tend to recruit 1 yari samurai and 1 yari ashigaru. as a yari samurai takes two turn,by the time i have a yari samurai i have also 2 more yari ashigaru.
now go for the offense. take north shinano,anegakoji region and at last jinbo region. dont worry for yamanouchi. now they are strong enough to face the tired hojo army, thanks to your help to increase their armies xp. by this time money shouldnt be a problem for you. make a stronghold at jinbo region to prepare for the coming of hatakeyama/ikko ikki or in my case the takaoka . go for musashi and all of hojo region including the one with the gold. the hojo are crushed! make a stronghold here. if you want you can crush the supposedly weak satake and ashina. in my case i crush satake but i leave ashina for hojo so that they have a room to expand. i was not worry about the wood,beacause i got it anyway by trade. so now you only have to worry about the west clan which you can easily fend off at three chokehold. north shinano/or sotuh shinano if you decide to capture it (but take care of the weak takeda first),the previous hojo region,and jinbo region. in my case i decide to focus on the north as takaoka armies pressing me. by the time i got echizen at 1564 i almost caused realm divide. later in the game after i build my economy and military strength (i do this step for over than ten years because i wait for land consolidation so that i have economic stability in case i lost all my trade income caused by realm divide) i capture omi and caused realm divide. by this time date has done helping me with oda invasion and they control suruga into saito home province. i cant face oda myself as i focused my welath on building armies and navies to face takaoka. their navies are abundant. later i capture kyoto and kenshin became shogun. then my only concern is bessho which control the rest of central japan. their armies are strong and experinced. as i said before i decalre war on date because i need my extra stanb by troops and i also need the extra money from date provinces. i made a mistake by recruiting a lot of monk warriors both naginata and bow. i got about 30 units of warrior monk. its really worth it. they are useful as hell but their upkeep were dragging my economy down. the date were crushed. i marched all of my heavy armies to kyoto and from there it was a piece of cake. i control all of honshu(?) and then i invaded sagara and sogo. domination won!
p.s. try your best effort to ally with date as soon as possible even if you have to sacrifice your money
ok that's my campaign. let me now if anyone try it!