I actually don't have an active STW campaign going now, but I think this forum needs a little love, and besides I was just thinking about this so I figured I'd make a thread about it.

Does anyone besides myself shatter their own domain just for the fun of it? It's something I do once in a while when I've conquered almost all of Japan, the end of the campaign is in sight, but I want to keep playing. What I do is I send my daimyo into a suicidal attack in a battle and get him killed. I do this after I convert to/from a religion and create a lot of discontent. Like say my whole domain is completely Christianized but I convert back to Buddhism, destroy the Christian churches and build Buddhist temples. While most of the population is still Christian and seething with discontent at this development, I have my daimyo run into someone's sword. The result? Every province in the realm takes the opportunity to erupt into rebellion, all the old clans reappear, and I concentrate my forces in a random small area somewhere in the country and get to do the game all over again. The difference being, it's later in the game now and better units are available. Typically this is the only way I can recruit geisha or trade with the Dutch, because otherwise I tend to win the game before even getting to the point where I can do those things. And it's not just myself that gets to field more advanced units; the rival clans do as well. So it's like it's 1530 all over again but on a more advanced level. It creates a fun and interesting challenge.