Uesegi are proving a real challenge to play.

[Didz]

I've been working through the achievement list to collect the campaign victory achievement for every major clan in the game.

I've successfully completed every one except Uesegi, and I'm now on my fourth attempt, and this one isn't looking too hopeful either.

The problem seems to be location related. Uesegi begin with a single province and a vassal in Northern Honshu, which is quite a distance from most of the trade nodes and surrounded by some of the most aggressive major clans. In my first three attempts I tried to complete the campaign in single player mode, which is how I did most of the others. However, even on Normal difficulty I quickly found myself cluster clucked by Takeda, Ikko Ikki, Imagawa, Hojo, and Ashina. I managed to get the Northern trade port quite easily but hardly anyone would trade with me, and despite completing the mission that provided me with a free warrior monk unit this eventually died to a man in the repeated siege assaults on my capital. My vassal didn't really help matters and just seemed to attract more enemies until it was and quickly overrun.

In an attempt to make things easier I persuaded my son to join me in a Co-Op campaign. He chose to play Takeda, and I'm having another go at Uesegi. I figured that this would at least removed one of Uesegi's traditional enemies from the mix and force Takeda and Uesegi to work as allies.

However, we are still struggling. We have managed to subjugate most of Northern Honshu, only Iwate remains free under a rebel banner but that has required major conflicts with Ashina, Morgami, Date and Honma . But beyond that we might as well be post realm divide with large enemy armies battering against our southern border provinces constantly. There are huge Oda, Chosakabe and Ito fleets off our coast preventing any chance of overseas trade and no Koku to build or defend anything.

We currently have two full Oda Armies threatening Kozuke, another large ChosaKabe Army on a fleet off Kazuza, and an Ito Army on a fleet sailing round the Noto Peninsula.

Bearing in mind that Simon and I have just completed a successful Co-Op campaign on Legendary difficulty (Shimazu/Otomo), whilst this current one is only on Normal and I am finding this quite surprising.

[Man o' War]

Uesugi are difficult.

First get a monk then knock down the monastery for something else.
You need to take Sado for its goldmine asap.

I never ally or make vassals but use diplomacy and make peace with those to the west.
Split the land North to south so you're only fighting on one border then subjugate everyone to the east which will then give you free rein over the trade node and allow your forces to now wage war to the west without fear of being attacked from behind.

Hope that helps.

[Didz]

Thats pretty much what we've done, though it's been a real rollercoaster ride getting there. At one point Chosakabe were sending a fleet with an army on it every turn, one following behind the other in an attempt to flank our border defences. It's proven much more difficult than the legendary campaign we just completed.

[SanyuXV]

I actually finished the Uesugi on Co-op Campaign with my friend and it was a struggle in the beginning but after the first real surge we started to just steamroll everyone even after Kyoto playing on hard. I played the Uesugi while my friend play the Date, we weren't able to trade initially but I only had to worry about the Takeda to the south and I pushed out West until I hit the Ikko-Ikki and fortified while trading with them. The real challenge was defeating the Takeda and their endless stacks and the support of their allies, also money has a tight issue, low economy sucks

[Didz]

I sometimes wonder if choosing Date as the second clan would have made our campaign easier. Part of the problem at the start of ours was that Takeda seemed to attract a lot of conflict from it's many neighbours, whilst the Morgami, Ashina and Date in the North and later the Honma who invaded and took some of their provinces, meant that we were fighting a two front war in the early campaign. Now we have cleared the North of enemies and eliminated their clans things are a lot easier even though we are now post realm divide.

[Man o' War]

I played a single player Uesugi legendary campaign and it was the Takeda that caused me most grief.

What I found (after many restarts) was that it is favourable to use agents to keep an eye on their troop build up and movements. They had a habit of building up a hidden army that I had to keep an eye on with my monk.

I also let the vassal province that you start with fall after causing as much enemy attrition as possible, I then walk in and take it as my own.

[Grognir]

I jus started playing S2 earlier this month b/c of the Feral mac port. I finished Oda Long campaign on Legendary and have started Uesugi a few times. I was building up the castle but may just replace the temple w/a market. I take Sado asap. Yes Oda legendary was easy but hard to consider playing at lower difficulty level now, since previously had found hard too easy for my taste. But difficult to know where to expand after Sado, especially compared to Oda where there is a clear expansion path.

[Didz]

I played a single player Uesugi legendary campaign and it was the Takeda that caused me most grief.

That was the logic behind our decision to choose Takeda as the other clan in our co-op campaign. We figured it would make it a lot easier to have the most troublesome adversary on our side.

I finished Oda Long campaign on Legendary and have started Uesugi a few times.

I really enjoyed playing Oda, with it's peasant army. Although I notice that the AI seems to ignore this benefit and still populates it's Oda armies with samurai which is a bit short-sighted of it.

[Robin de Bodemloze]

The Uesugi are awesome once you get past the first 20 turns or so. On Legendary getting Sado asap seems like the only way to survive, even if it's at the possible expense of losing Echigo (I managed to keep Echigo once or twice...with great difficulty). On lower settings it's possible to form reasonably robust alliances with the Ashina and/or the Date to secure the northern flank, and possibly expand westward towards the Jinbo. Only the Takeda are hard coded to go after you below Legendary, I think.

[rzz41]

this is obvious since hojo, imagawa and takeda always end up in an alliance while you end up in a 3 front war against ikko ikki, takeda and hojo.

try the 83 new regions mod, it make uesugi much more enjoyable.

[Rijul.J.Ballal]

I persuaded my son to join me in a Co-Op campaign

Man you're a cool dad!

[Accius]

I'm in turn 100 or so and am feeling confident. My strategy was to smash-and-vassal early on. Hojo took one of my vassals, whereupon I started looting from them - much wealthier. Takeda then declared on me as well which was tough. However, somehow I was able to pacify Takeda into a cease-fire, enabling me to finish off Hojo so I had control in a strip from north to south coast. Meanwhile, I secured long-term alliances with Oda and Date. Takeda was weak and already at war so went after them next. Then I just sat and consolidated for about 20 turns before smashing Ikko Ikki. I now hold about 14 provinces and am wedged in between my ally, the Oda Shogunate, which is getting its ass kicked by the rest of the western clans, and the Date, who I am warring against (and will eventually conquer). Then I will have control of half the provinces of Japan, and a weakened Oda will be ripe for the taking.

[joeman_0]

I have never played Uesegi, but I like to try. I just found out warrior monks are awesome late game units such that it seems becoming christian totally not worth it. In the past I tried producing them in smithing provinces to give them +5 armor, but i think that is a mistake. It is better to research fortified monastery and produce them in holy sites. The bonus from a holy site stack with archery or spear bonus from research. The +2 armor encampment should be sufficient. My veteran bow monks get about 100~200 kills for each unit per battle in the field, and they shoot arrows like machine guns. Also they make siege battles easy. They make sure enemy archers on the walls are dead before my infantry climb up the walls because of the range advantage. Also warrior monks coupled with a few catapaults cause mass destruction within a fortification before the real battle even starts. If you bring like 10 catapaults with a few units of bow monks using fire arrows, the mass destruction is quite fun to watch.

What prevents me from using warrior monks is the cost so I can't really use many of them until the economy kicks in. But with Uesegi's bonus, man, you will rule if you can survive the early phase of the game.

[beatles300]

Uesugi is really fun once you get goin. After you destroy date, takeda, and other little clans around you and make a stable land mass that can provide you enough money to train warrior monks, you can take the shogunate fairly easy. You just want to make sure that you aren't goin to be attacked on multiple fronts

[SilkZither]

I think the difficulty with uesugi isn't because of takeda or any single clan, nor so much the location of echigo, but all the clans around you forming an alliance, attacking you simultaneously. Some will wait for their ally stack to arrive, then both attack you at the same time, making such battles almost impossible to win. If you only have one or two enemies to deal with at a time, then it's not a problem; this is why oda or tokugawa are much easier.


If you are doing co-op, Takeda is probably not a good option because it won't take the load off uesegi very effectively. If your partner was playing hojo however, he can take the load off uesugi by declaring war on takeda, satomi and satake. If the enemy decides to march northward to echigo, your partner can attack their base from the rear and capture their home province. (Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao)


On a single player campaign, the best thing to do is to take sado island, and located yourself away from the danger zone -- the mainland, for a few years. Honma will sail away with a stack of army to one of their enemies, that's when you declare war and land your forces! When echigo gets overrun, retreat to this island, and just wait till the clans on the mainland start to turn on one another. On sado, you can also take out enemy forces one at a time, with enough time to replenish between battles, as enemies are unlikely to coordinate multiple ship landings at once. When enemy forces have become weakened or when they start to turn on one another, make a comeback to echigo and plan your next move.

[Didz]

In my experience it's all of those things.

Echigo is not a good starting location, the province has nothing going for it and under normal circumstances would be a simple food production province. Therefore, to do anything well Uesegi need to conquer a better province. Even producing the best warrior monks requires them to conquer the Ashina clan, so initially at least one is forced to invest in a province which is below par just to provide average units, in order to capture something worthwhile.

At the same time Takeda and their allies do combine pretty quickly to destroy you, and you are already at war with the Jimbo Clan. Capturing their province is no help at all as it's a long road to their castle and doing so merely worsens the strategic situation of trying to defend two sub-standard provinces miles apart. On the other hand ignoring the Jimbo eventually leads to their defeat by the Ikko Ikki, and nobody, let alone a devote buddhist clan like the Uesegi want them as a neighbour.

Taking Sado island is a good idea as at least it has a gold mine, the only problem I found was that because you begin without a harbor, or an army, getting there and being able to take it requires a huge investment of time and rice, neither of which are in plentiful supply in Echigo. Also with the Honma out of the way I found that the Morgami and Date began pushing west much faster as their coast was no longer threatened, and once again Sado is not a troop producing province.

My son and I eventually beat this campaign, but it was one of the harder fought campaigns we have been involved in. In fact, we found playing Uesegi on Hard proved more of a challenge then playing other clans on Legendary. The main advantage I found of having Takeda as an ally (only because it was being played by my son), was that I could focus on capturing Fukishima which then gave me access to two neighbouring holy sites for possible training of my cheap warrior monks.

However, what followed was a long war of attrition with Fukishima changing hands multiple times before I was finally able to expand further, and I found most of my battles for this campaign were fought using poor quality peasant armies raised in low quality locations simply to fend off multiple enemies on all fronts. I only finally managed to train some decent Warrior monks in the closing stages of this campaign even though I owned the provinces to do so, simply because of a lack of koku and a need to constantly bolster holes in my province defences.

[SilkZither]

Sado: Try to use a bow kaboya to keep an eye on sado. As soon as their army leave the island to invade the mainland, you only have their 60 retainer troops to deal with; easy win. Also, declare war and land your troops at the same turn. This way, you only need a bow-kaboya and two ashigaru units to take sado.


Personally, I'm not a fan of uesugi; like you said, it's starting location terrible... 5 fronts and everybody wants a piece of you. Whats more, there is no solid area to expand to, as all the adjacent provinces are open to more enemy attacks from multiple sides. Most sure way to survive when overwhelmed is to abandon echigo and retreat to sado for a few years and defend there, until there's an opportunity to strike back on the mainland. Infantry wise, warrior monks arent even the most powerful melee units, and I don't find their specialty unit that useful either. I'd just move on now that you have completed their campaign, there are more fun clans to play than this stressful one.

[jupsto]

uesugi starting location is great compared to some, its tricky but not that hard to relocate to north region and once your there you've won.

For me its not fun to have all difficulty at start and then no difficulty mid to late game.

[Didz]

That used to be a problem with the original Shogun, but now with the realm divide mechanic I find it's necessary to plan through the entire campaign in order to win.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Uesugi is a really tricky one. Because of mountains you can't go north. Going south is difficult because of the Takeda, going into the Kanto plains is harder because of the Hojo, Ashina, Satake and a whole bunch of clans over there in the East. Going into Etchu, Kaga, Noto is hard too because of all the clans there and the Ikko Ikki.

I would suggest you take out the Takeda first (which you covered), now if it is in a co-op campaign then Takeda should try to conquer its surrounding starting regions in the mountains as those are major choke points you might want to develop the castles in start of the mountain passes and have a decent garrison there. Takeda should try to seize a port (most likely from Imagawa). However it is possible that both of you can go and invade the Etchu/Kaga and Noto region and seize those together (as Takeda can go north up there).

As the Uesugi you will want to take over Sado as well and it should be one of the main priorities for Uesugi. If you want you can have Takeda watch your back while you land on Sado. If the Hojo kill you vassal in Kozuke don't worry as you can come back and with the Takeda march into Kozuke and reclaim it, perhaps even taking both of your armies into every region of the Hojo to eliminate them once and for all. If you get to wipe out Hojo you will want to get Satomi next and from there try to conquer the entire north and seize the trade node at least. Now one of you will have to develop a large fleet in anticipation of the realm divide and an attack upon Chosokabe, if Takeda takes the Imagawa territory then I suggest Takeda does it.

You guys really should march together and try to outnumber the enemy as much as possible or at the very least bring two of your own armies into any province where you think the resistance will be intense.
If it all possible one of you should research military arts and the other should research social policies, particularly farming and trade so that you can get income and some public order bonuses from developing the farmland.