[RotS] Natural Expansion/Chokepoints

[Charsi]

This is a thread intended to outline my play in Rise of the Samurai and what I felt were natural directions to expand and create chokepoints to set up a "turtle and hold" economic loop. Key border towns are heavily fortified with the intent of creating a wall to break the back of any encroaching armies.

I haven't played every clan and thus don't know every chokepoint so any additions you might have are welcomed. This little guide is ONLY intended for use against the AI. People are quite a bit smarter than this.

General Notes
When fortifying a province, my general approach is this:

- You can defend a basic tier 1 town but you hardly ever want to. But if you feel threatened, put extra Levy in the town and use the pre-placed low barricades to your advantage. Place your Naginata Levy beyond the low walls. I have a saved replay beating 2:1 odds in a basic town on Hard, took me a couple of tries to pull it off though.
- As soon as feasable, build your province up to at least the Stronghold level (the first level that offers fortification). This will consume 1 additional food. I actually haven't ever been involved in an engagement beyond the Stronghold level so I dont know what kind of towers/defensive emplacements are added at higher tiers.
- A Stronghold can withstand 2x its number of Levy attackers due to the low morale of attackers and minimal losses incurred by defenders.
- Go for the 1 recruitment slot / garrison line unless you specifically want to build units here.
- Go for the Dry Field Agriculture line unless you specifically want to build mounted units here.
- Don't build any dojos, again, unless you specifically want to. Use the additional construction slots on Food Storage for more food.
- Manually build 1-2 Bow Levy in the town, to support the garrisoned forces which lean towards Naginata Levy.

North Eastern Provinces (Fujiwara clans)
Most traffic to the north tends to go through the province of Fukushima. There is a tree-lined mountain pass from both Fukushima and Echigo provinces through to Uzen provinces, ideal for secretly moving through with an army, but both routes will heavily tax your movement points and thus take at least two turns to get where you want to go. If you can take and hold Fukushima (by attacking through the pass from Uzen), a single unit in the pass from Echigo to Uzen can provide ample warning of a flanking army. I've yet to encounter an AI that takes the passes (except when playing Chosokabe heh), most will simply follow the roads instead.

If you are defending the northern provinces I would suggest fortifying either Fukushima (western Fujiwara) or Miyagi (eastern Fujiwara). I've had a lot of success fortifying Fukushima against 3 hostile clans to the south that all hit me with simultaneous declarations of war. If you choose to take Fukushima, you will quickly come into conflict with your sister clan as that province is their natural expansion as well. Be prepared to deal with them. Once you do, you can capture and hold the entire north and set up Fukushima as your gateway to the south.

Note that even in my Normal mode games, by the time I rushed an army south to take Fukushima, the provincial owners had built a Military Port on the coast. This is a huge advantage (as it is money somebody ELSE spends effectively building up YOUR navy). I was able to devote my northernmost port to trade and taking the northern trading node.

South Eastern Provinces (southern Minamoto clan)
Unfortunately to adequately defend here requires you to take at least two provinces: Suruga and Kai... fortunately the Takeda of RotS start with Minamoto allegiance and can be bought out with a Junsutsushi fairly early (on normal at least).

This sets you up with a very solid defense; west at Suruga (which itself defends Kai from an unexpected attack), north at Kai, leaving you free to expand eastwards towards the craftworks in Hitachi province. There is an iron mine in Kazusa and you want it.

In my multiple plays of the southern Minamoto clan, the northern Minamoto clan tends to expand north and west. In a fit of historical irony two lesser clans ganged up and wiped it out.

Central Eastern Provinces (northern Minamoto clan)
The northern Minamoto (I forget the name, sorry) start with North and South Shinano. In my gameplay I have expanded into Echigo and almost immediately regretted it; it is far from your military producing provinces and I didnt find it a particularly desirable province to even bother holding onto. Naval Tradition.. um.. yay?

South Shinano is only approachable from North Shinano and Mino; I usually set it up as a bulwark to the west. I then dig in at North Shinano as well to hold against Takeda, to the south, and... well, basically every other direction too. Unfortunately the town of North Shinano province lies a little beyond the bend in the road leading to South Shinano, so you will want to station a unit or a spotter on the road outside of town to intercept any approaching Takeda or Minamoto army from the south. If you don't push south your sister clan will likely expand east and west and generally leave you alone.

If I had to play it again I would expand northwest towards the Ikko provinces of Vanilla with the goal of taking everything up to Echizen lightning fast, and then digging in hard. Your east and south borders are North Shinano, western border is South Shinano and Echizen, and you're only really vulnerable to an attack along the coast from the direction of Echigo (Vanilla Jinbo/Uesugi provinces).

The Center (Kyoto Taira)
I've only started this clan very recently. The vassals sound good on paper but in reality it's a bunch of bad seeds in the middle of your territory that have different allegiances. You will want to take them eventually. I immediately rushed Echizen and Kaga, with the intent of setting a northern bulwark at Kaga. My eastern bulwark will be in Mikawa; normally I make this Owari province in Vanilla but in RotS, the Horse resource of Tokugawa has been replaced by an Iron mine that I think you will want to acquire.

I'm not too worried about an attack from South Shinano, though I will likely keep a scouting force or a monomi along the road there to spot any attackers. Reinforcements can be pulled quickly from Mikawa/Owari.

The approaches from the west are divided by a mountain range so that there are three natural chokepoints: Settsu chokes off an approach along the southern central coast. Kyoto can only be invaded via Tamba province and Echizen from Wakasa. I will have to check the map again but as I recall the two roads merge along the northern central coast to at either Tango or Tajima provinces. From there you can simultaneously block both approaches. My concern is whether your sister clan holds that key province.

You end up holding the "core" of Japan; all the monomi producing provinces, blockaded by Kaga to the northeast, Mikawa to the east, Settsu along the coast to the southwest, and Tajima along the coast to the northwest. Everyone inside those borders must be made to submit... or die.

The West (naval Taira)
I haven't played this clan so i'm going off memory. However, your only major clan threat is to the east, your sister Taira clan, which would be fortified in a mirror fashion to theirs. Tajima and Harima should successfully blockade them; then you can expand westwards towards Kyushu. I'm afraid I dont remember any great chokepoints to the west other than Buzen province, which is a long way to the west. I have yet to play this clan but if I did, I would almost certainly fortify heavily to the east and expand westward, going for the gold, iron and craftwork resources I know are in that direction.

A sneaky thing to do may be to load up a strike force and do a naval invasion of Buzen province. Once you hold it, you can fortify like mad. I've tried that in Vanilla and failed miserably (by the time you land, your force - which left several turns ago - is outnumbered) but with the way the AI doesn't seem to build up fortifications, and the ease of taking a simple town in RotS, this may be doable.

Once you hold Buzen you can simply expand westwards from central Japan until you've filled in the gap. I have no idea how realistic this is to actually pull off (i'm kind of doubtful truth be told).

[valky]

It is also worth mentioning, that if you let your sister clan grab the province (e.g. Fukushima - Green / Tamba - Red...), which both needs to capture anyway to achieve victory, just let him do so. You'll have a real steady and peaceful ally - and you can crush him after you achieved every other goal (e.g. 24/25 provinces and all other key areas), as it doesn't matter anymore which penalty you'll get at this point.

Though there have been some discussions, if you just obliterate your other ally, but usually he covers you for a good time, even on higher difficult settings - did not play legendary yet, and I highly doubt it, cause the new VH-AI is quite challenging and fun.
The minor exception might be Fujiwara, both are sending their force right to Fukushima, that leaves both cities completely undefended or with minor production which he also sends to Fukushima every single time. So one town can be easily forced to pledge their allegiance with you, while your army is already waiting to get the other.
Your main defense-area will be the twice named province in any case or you let the clan starting from Echigo get it as well (Uesugi area ^^) and help him too! He is a good 'meat-shield' against Minamoto, and you can avoid an early war against the family and build up/turtle for some cool units.

If one prefers a more challenging game right off the bat, just get whatever objective-province you are sharing with your sister clan (but don't complain on higher difficult levels, that you are getting beaten by never ending full stacks of armies ^.^)

The West (naval Taira)
They got one of the most amazing land-chokepoints to the west ever: the small passage, which leads to the Kyushu Province (Shimazu starting island; just in case). As far as I know, you can block off any enemy army movement if you place a ship on the 'arrow' - same nasty tactic for playing as Sweden in E/N:TW, where you could block off Denmark or vice versa; if one remembers.

Else every 'pairing' of provinces do fine as well, while advancing to the west: Hoki/Bitchu, Bingo/Izumo and so on. Both are separated by a 'natural' defense line, so the AI has to take over your castle and can't exploit and run around.

The disadvantage is your massive open coastal line, which can be easily exploited, specially on the northern side by an invasion force; the southern can be blocked off by some fleet to the east & west, so you can sink the fleet including the army right away, typically it's only 1 ship.


But I'd go for Kyushu - with any clan - as final goal, the island can be completely blocked off at one tiny spot to any land-force, though it still leaves you a bit vulnerable in case of an invasion. But at this point you should have some insane income and some fleets as well. None of the families seem to be interested in this area anyway, as far as I remember.

0.02$

Oh, and don't underestimate the power of 'Naval Tradition' later on (honestly, it does not matter on 'normal').
You can get +3/4 ranked ships right off the dock = 6/8 missile accuracy, some morale and a bit melee as well. But one should stick with Attendant ships only, despite the description both are using exactly the same crew for melee & missile accuracy. In case one wonders, the very same crew the Bunes also had, that's why both ships using the same accuracy and it is no display error.

Seems to be either intended or a bug, and can be verified by checking the .pack file too.

[Charsi]

Do Attendant ships have fire arrows? If not I will always go Samurai. 2x Heavy Samurai + fire arrows = instantly rout your target of choice.

Whistling Arrows are actually really good as well if used correctly.

[valky]

Whistling Arrows are actually really good as well if used correctly.

That's the only thing that is missing and might be a pain, as it is freaking cool to instant rout a ship which gets too close, else they share the same ability pool.
I prefer fire arrows + 4 or even 6 medium ships anyway. (6 is nearly overkill, as there is only on Legendary a hidden morale boost, where you can not instant rout every ship in one salvo)

[wealthmonger]

A sneaky thing to do may be to load up a strike force and do a naval invasion of Buzen province. Once you hold it, you can fortify like mad. I've tried that in Vanilla and failed miserably (by the time you land, your force - which left several turns ago - is outnumbered) but with the way the AI doesn't seem to build up fortifications, and the ease of taking a simple town in RotS, this may be doable.

Kobayakawa in Buzen is Yashima Taira's vassal so It might be better to land at Hizen or Bungo. Akizuki in Tsukushi, Takahashi in Hyuga and Ito in Osumi are Taira supporters so I sent My Junsatsushi to get them to switch allegiances while my invasion forces took the rest.

Meanwhile Kobayakawa can hold off Ouchi or anyone else at Buzen. Then I sent my Juns to convert Buzen and I bribed that province as well.

You can even have your Jun Bribe Aki on the way. From there you can build up a force to take Iwami province.

[Charsi]

Playing Taira, even on my 12 turns/year mod, I was unable to take all the bordering provinces I wanted until Realm Divide hit. It is far more practical to make Settsu/Kyoto your western border, Kaga your north (watch attacks from Wakasa though, you will want to build up Echizen anyway for the construction slots) and Ise to the east and/or sit armies hidden in the forest along the Omi province eastern border.

You just can't push out as far east as I thought; you don't have enough of an army and your vassals quickly turn on you within your lands. Also, the owner of Iga (Hattori in vanilla) ISNT a vassal and hates you. He caused me quite a bit of trouble.

You could hold the peninsula with a northern "border" of Settsu - Kyoto - Omi and consolidate southwards towards Ise (Kitabatake). Maybe go for a morale boosted production facility there.

[Charsi]

I was just glancing at the online RotS map and got a nasty little surprise. In my current game I am playing Fukuhara Taira, and rushed straight to Echizen and Kaga, stretching my empire vertically and making me quite vulnerable to attacks from Owari. Also, it's a LONG way to go and leaves your empire's heart without an army. My experiences playing as F.Taira and going for Kaga have been that its *doable*, but sets yourself up for big hassles.

And then I took a look at the provinces near Harima and immediately started kicking myself. It occurs to me that I should have just played as Yashima Taira, because immediately to my west is Mimasaka and Bizen (Iron and Blacksmithing, respectively). You've got an impassable mountain range to the north, the coast to your south, a Taira brother to your east, so there's really only direction you need to even worry about! West! So instead of playing the "hard" Taira and run all the damn way to Kaga, I should have played the "easy" Taira, and just conquered one province west. Bizen will be mine!

There's also 3 Taira-allied clans right there, so you can just immediately set up trade agreements and perhaps even ally with Seno, who owns Mimasaka. And sweet, sweet naval bonuses. No Monomi makes me sad, though.

One of the big problems with starting as Chosokabe in vanilla is how you have no land trade routes from your capitol and are 100% reliant on ports. Taira's capital is on Honshu so you don't have that problem, provided you can hold it. It seems to me the natural course of affairs, as Yashima Taira, should be to secure the Blacksmith, set up a trading agreement and/or military alliance with the Seno (for Iron), fortify like crazy, and turn your attention to Shikoku while ruling the seas.

[wealthmonger]

Taira's capital is on Honshu so you don't have that problem, provided you can hold it. It seems to me the natural course of affairs, as Yashima Taira, should be to secure the Blacksmith, set up a trading agreement and/or military alliance with the Seno (for Iron), fortify like crazy, and turn your attention to Shikoku while ruling the seas.

Try a reverse Shimazu setup with Yashima Taira. Setup trade agreements and make nice with everyone around Harima except Bizen.
Send your Junsatsushi over to Bingo and Aki to bribe allegiance. Meanwhile attack Bizen then Bitchu, send reinforcements by sea from shikoku if need be.

Move more reinforcements over by sea to Aki and then take Iwami, Suo and Nagato. One group goes after Suo while a stronger group takes Iwami and Nagato. Meanwhile your Junsatsushi moves onto Kyushu to bribe Buzen and Tsukushi then down to Hyuga and Osumi.

by land or sea send your troops over to Kyushu. Take the remaining provinces from top to bottom. If it's a short campaign and you want to turtle for a while before you become an enemy of the state then you can cause Harima, Awaji and Sanuki to rebel by raising taxes. Just make sure the public order will be okay in your other provinces. Hopefully Kagawa will take Awaji and Sanuki after they rebel because their a Taira supporter that can be bribed later.

[crzyrndm]

And then I took a look at the provinces near Harima and immediately started kicking myself. It occurs to me that I should have just played as Yashima Taira, because immediately to my west is Mimasaka and Bizen (Iron and Blacksmithing, respectively).

There's also a crafting province on the other side of the mountains adjacent to the iron province

[Charsi]

Well I tried Yashima Taira last night. The biggest problem I have right now is that economically, the lands are weak. I haven't expanded much; I basically added Bizen to my starting lands and that's all. I've been upgrading its production capabilities, and went with an Armorsmith in the town; i'm going to go for +2 attack with the obligatory Encampment, though.

I noticed that Foot Samurai are actually really good if you just use them as a archery unit (Bow Samurai on crack, basically). They always could take a few volleys from Levy, but their low numbers sucks. The thing is that Foot Samurai, at 45 men (based on my unit sizes), are three quarters the size of a Bow Attendant which has 60 men, but half the size of Naginata Attendants which is something like 90 men. The numbers gap matters less when its ranged vs ranged, and that is something consistent with my experiences.

So I ended up making Foot Samurai over Bow Attendants as i'd planned. You need the prerequisite building anyway to get -1 turns off Bushi unit construction.

Hata are slowly taking the whole of Kyushu; they took Buzen province (my Vassal there dragged me into a war, and was wiped out) so I landed an invasion force at Buzen and took it as a foothold. It looks like i'm about to get roflstomped out of town, as the Hata counterattack stack massively outnumbers my small strike force and Buzen has no walls yet. I played the battle once last night and got wiped out; i'll have to reload the quicksave to see if I can pull off a win, but i'm not hopeful. The attacking stack has something like 4 Generals' Bodyguards and i've learned to hate those things; they have super range, are highly lethal, and flat out annoying to fight.

[valky]

The attacking stack has something like 4 Generals' Bodyguards and i've learned to hate those things; they have super range, are highly lethal, and flat out annoying to fight.

THat's something that p*** me off even in the main campaign; always those ultra stacks with at least 3/4 generals attached and none had less than 3 stars - how the heck can he manage to rank them equally? Don't they get the penalty the player has (after the patch) and should receive only 30% (?) of the experience the leading general gets?

In RotS it's even worse, given their sniper-like accuracy and it seems they provide a higher morale boost making even levy units in combination with a rank-4+ general nearly unbreakable. (they laugh about warcry - so just another reason to never recruit monks and go for cheaper attendants.)

Yet one word: Shirabyoshi Stripping off the other generals is quite effective - if you don't have Monomi. Often disband them right away if they are older than 30/35 cause the AI puts the points into the most stupid things.
But on a second thought, now that it became easy to get a nice pool of generals, I might develop some of them as cheap melee cavalry.

[just about to restart my campaign anyway; don't want to delete and rebuilt all that stupid monks. Guess I'll try the navy Taira now. Experimenting around with lots of campaigns but never finishing them is just my hobby ]

[Charsi]

I gave Hirazumi Fujiwara a go last night (difficulty: Hard). Declared on Soma on turn 1 and took Fukushima within the first 5 turns. Ended up getting mass DoW's from most of the neighboring clans there, as well as my sister clan. I snuck a 6 unit army from Iwate over to Ugo and took one of Kubota's two provinces away, and now am advancing with those 6 units on his final remaining province, Uzen. If I can take it I will hold the north, but he has a full stack in the town and Miyagi is completely unfortified and undefended. If he comes across the border i'm toast.

Fukushima is heavily fortified and besieged or outright attacked every other turn. Ashikaga and Satake are throwing stacks at me (Nitta died). Even if I defeat the stacks, the 1-2 units that rout and reform hang around in the province, raiding, siegeing and generally being annoyances. Fukushima had a military port when I took it over, so I suspect the province simply starts with one. That makes it a valuable early grab, not just to blockade the south but for building a navy.

Twice i've been attacked by two stacks at once, only to win the battle due to reinforcement bugs. I saved both replays and am looking to send them to CA.

Weaponsmith encampment is +3 attack (I thought it was +2). So, Master Armorsmith (3/3) + attack encampment (3/0) totals +6 melee, +3 armor. Master Weaponsmith (5/1) + attack encampment (3) totals +8 melee, +1 armor. Thus far I like armorsmith + attack encampment. The armor encampment is only +1 armor. That doesn't seem all that great to me... am I missing something about the value of +1 armor?

I had to pay 500 koku to open a trade agreement with Amakasu on turn 2, but they are thus far the one ally NOT to declare war on me. They actually seem to be really favourable to me and share the same allegiance. I may even ally with them.

[wealthmonger]

I haven't tried fujiwara for more then a few turns so I tried Hiraizumi Fujiwara on hard difficulty to see what all this DoWing is about. I moved my troops up to the Fukushima border then declared war on them as I sent my troops across the border, I had Kubota Fujiwara join me.

I took Fukushima, as I was doing that I sent my Junsatsushi to bribe the allegiance of Satake then Yuki. One thing to note move reinforcements as quickly as possible from Hitachi to Shimosa so you can blunt Chiba's attack. I didn't so I had to do some fancy delaying tactics until I could get more troops.

Kubota Fujiwara cancelled our alliance then the next turn they cancelled our military access and then they finally attacked Fukushima. I had a small force that I sent over to take Uzen and I have another force on it's way to take Ugo, so they won't last much longer. I sent a group to attack Ashikaga and I should be able to take out Chiba soon. I'm low on funds but within a couple turns I should be able to bribe the allegiance of Amakasu. It's 10 turns into it now, by the end of 1177 I should have 10 provinces and a nice solid front established at which point I can put more focus on the economy.

I still haven't reached a trade node yet which is very irritating. As far as trade agreements I've had to throw in a little something extra to the deal because most potential trade partners seem to be low or moderate on accepting trade.

So it isn't too bad if you use your Junsatsushi to bribe Satake, Yuki and Amakasu.

[Charsi]

Back to Fukuhara Taira. This time I moved my army through my ally's territory and declared war on and captured Bizen. After a few turns, Yashima Taira lost their home province of Harima in a bloody exchange. I immediately declared on the offending party and took it for myself. Now Bizen is connected to my empire which is pushing eastward from Kyoto.

I didn't bother with Echizen/Kaga this time. All my bow units are being built out of my capital, Settsu (3 recruitment slots), while Bizen is building Naginata Attendants (2 recruitment slots). Note that to build Bow Warrior Monks you need a Buddhist Sanctuary, which is a baseline building that requires no research. Just build it in the same town as your Koryu Training Grounds.

Watanabe turned out to be really aggressive in my game, taking Ise, Owari and Mino. Not bad for a vassal, but I had to find a clever way to steal some land away without declaring war

[oqvist]

Necromancer resurrection. Wonder why the ROTS campaign is so under the dark here.

I just started a naval taira campaign. The diplomacy and all make me totally paranoid. My sister clan quickly became a force to recon with and I felt like I had to dance along their pipe. They asked me to join war against a faction. I declined and I believe that is where my -100 don´t hold deals penalty comes from. After that I felt forced to join every single war they start and it´s pretty much every turn. I wonder if it´s deliberate but now at -186 in relations they showed off a full army stack next to my capital and asking again for joining war against our neighbour. Oh god how can I say no to you sir!

Expansion don´t really go all that well. I took bizen and then bungo. I am holding pace with the stronger clans but not much more. Been sloppy making sure to get provinces with trade routes so despite focusing on economic upgrade it goes really slow to make real money despite not spending much on army yet. I hate these trade ship spamming business but without that I wouldn´t make any money whatsoever lol.

Frustrated with the economy I got a bit greedy and wanted to go for hizen. Made a couple of vassals on the way getting back some daymio honourt Got Hizen but than he came for me with his main force and had no general or anything so had no chance whatsoever holding it. Shogun 2 melee is a bit of a mystery for me. Feels I have no use whatsoever of my medieval/rome melee experience. After that he instantly went for Tsushima and drove off my half arsed armies I landed trying to reinforce. So back to the dark ages now with my 10 enemies or something. None really close buy though.

Great fun but how does it work with these sister clans. Is it normal that the relations get piss poor with them for little apparent reason? I got more penalties for not holding alliances which I have no idea where it comes from. I am for obvious reasons not getting much penalties for expansion lol. I have sinked ships and protected their navy but have no real army to aid them perhaps that?

[yegan]

So many info here thanks for sharing

[eXistenZ]

ive been playing rots campaigns too (on hard), and i have played both taira's. a big advice is going for the trade nodes on the west (as yashima taira i even managed to get the iron near fujuwara territory), they are a big financial bonus, and you need the money a lot.

Fukuhara taira are actually a fun faction: your western border is safe, you have the state academy and if you play it smart, lots of early monomi's and sou's. You just need to keep your vassals in check at the start. they have indeed a different allegiance, but build a lot of markets so yo can recruit junatsushi early on (thats a requisite for every faction). A trick you then can do is incite a revolt, the garrison (which is too big to bribe without losing honour) leaves to deal with the rebels, and if you're in luck, they wont make it back in the same turn. You can then easily request allegiance. and you have acquired their territory without fighting or losing honour.

Although the name is rise of the samurai, as fukuhara, take a lot of armies of naginata's: you get a discount, and if you manage to get ise and yamato, you can recruit high experienced bow warrior monks and highly moraled naginata attendants (and use the appropiate encampment to enhance their bonusses). When you have the provinces needed (certainly required are ise, yamato, iga and omi), you can build up the economy, which is certainly helped by the (very) fertile farms. I also went for inaba, to recruit highly experienced sailors. Then you wait a few years, building up a highly experienced and moraled army from yamato and ise, and making yourself a huge treasury. while you are building up, you send your agents to the east so they gain experience by sabotaging and seducing, and spreading influence. Then you can steamroll minamoto when realm divide hits with 3-4 stacks, and 4 fleets ( 2 on either side of japan) to stop invaders. when the relation with your sister clan is becoming strained, pay them a lot of money, and keep them untill you have conquered all the eastern provinces. Never let them declare war untill you are ready, cause once a clan declares war in RD, it will never make peace


A general tip is: build a market and clan estate in very valuable provinces, and an academy in the ones that offer almost no income. Also, the AI almost never attacks trade nodes with 10 ships on it, just raids it

(will later post something about yashima taira, cause that campaign isnt over yet)

[oqvist]

Obviously that furukawa taira has a lot of potential. As for me I will probably have to restart a few turns back and make a more serious attempt at Kyushu pretty much my only option it feels. There is not that many great provinces otherwise on the western part and it will just be to hard to defend my current half crappy provinces. Average soil at best sigh... Eastern part is completely blocked off. I got all trade nodes so I should not be totally dead if I can just avoid furukawa declaring war on me before realm divide. However I don´t really have much money to bribe them with. Only managed to get some 20 trade ships to the different trade nodes currently and since I don´t have enough trade ports and furukawa messing with my trade partners

[eXistenZ]

As yashima taira, i had the luck my sister clan got destroyed, so i could take all their lands, including the state academy, the ninja hideouts and the yamato province with the holy shrine, giving me experience 9 warrior monks.
The Hata clan are on steroids though, they always grow big (about 15 provinces), every campaign. they constantly raid my trade routes, but i still manage to make a decent profit

another tip. when a province is owned by rebels, the clan allegiance dont change. so for example, you use your junatsushi to increase your allegiance in a non defended province. you then use your sou to inspire a revolt. the rebels take it, and when you mov your junatsushi to another province. the allegiances rating will remain. once realm divide hits you can easily pick it up and continue your army towards the other clans.
Only downside of this is that the province wezlth goes down due to devastation, so dont let it be rebel for too long