STW campaign AAR: The way of Takeda

[Fincuan]

The year is 1530, in the middle of Sengoku Jidai, and the daimyo of the Takeda-clan is just starting his quest to become the Shogun.


Map courtesy of www.totalwar.org(Click to enlarge)

Takeda's starting position is pretty poor in my opinion(black provinces on the map), divided in two areas and surrounded by enemies, so they can't afford to remain passive at the beginning. Especially lord Mori, in red, is usually very anxious to take over the western Takeda-lands. Offense is the best defense as they say. Except for Sagami the provinces are outright poor agriculturally, and the the silver mine in Aki and the gold mine in Kai, once built, will be the only true sources of income. Unless... we take advantage of Takeda's biggest asset: cheap(-25%) cavalry and the ability to build more right away. The province of Shinano, famous for its high honour cavalry, is just beyond our lands and in the hands of Uesugi at the start, but this is easy to fix: We take it from them. That won't be the first thing to do though. Our poor income directly affects our ability to build the vast hordes needed to take all of Japan, so we form three point strategy:

• Hold Aki at any cost to use it as a platform for later expansion
• Secure our financial situation by taking the rich Uesugi lands to the east as soon as possible
• Use the new sources of income to expand the our armies and roll over the other clans

Besides these there's a fun vs. function decision to make: After taking the Uesugi provinces should we secure an easily defendable front somewhere in central Japan and tech-up a lot, certainly leading to a situation where the enemy also builds HUGE armies(10.000+, which is a lot in this game)or should we just continue the blitzkrieg to west/south-west as soon as we're done in east/north-east? I'm still undecided on this, so we'll see how the beginning goes. This is after all my first campaign on hard difficulty, so it's entirely possible I screw up somewhere and Takeda just disappears off the face of the earth

Hwg...

[Fincuan]

1530

Summer

Our emissary is sent to Imagawa's lands to propose an alliance with him. We don't really need a war on our western front at the moment. Eastern front is a different story altogether. We immediately go on the offensive and attack Musashi with a small force plus the Daimyo. In the western Takeda-lands we abandon Bitchu entirely, and we'll also give up Bingo if Mori decides to attack, which he will no doubt do soon. Aki we'll hold, whatever it takes. Not surprisingly Mori moves in on the now empty Bitchu and attacks Bingo immediately after my moves, so it's now Aki or nothing in the west. On the home front we start building a Spear Dojo in Aki. The mines can wait until we've expanded a little.



Attack on Musashi
Musashi is a river province and our forces are equal in size, so I expect this to be a bloody one.



My plan is to quickly rush over one unit of Cavalry archers and the daimyo, followed by the Yari Samurai supported by the other CA unit.


It almost worked, except for the damn daimyo. The enemy daimyo rushed the bridge, inflicted small casualties to my CA and trapped my daimyo on the bridge. It's YS off to the rescue. The CA that managed to cross can be seen pummeling an enemy Yari Ashigaru or YS on the right


A close call for my daimyo, but an even closer one for the enemy. As expected the rushing YS did the job with very little casualties, and the enemy could do nothing but run after my CA charged at their Samurai archers.


The Hojo daimyo getting chased by my CA, his bodyguard having been wiped out at the bridge.


A victory that could have come at a lot less casualties with better tactics. At least I learned not to rush my daimyo to a bridge if it isn't absolutely clear.

[Fincuan]

Autumn
Our emissary reaches lord Imagawa and proposes an alliance. He rejects the offer saying there's no reason why he should accept it. I'll show him a few good reasons soon enough, but first it's time to deal with Hojo: After taking Musashi I immediately follow up with an attack on Shimosa.

Attack on Shimosa

Another river province and this time we're the underdogs what comes to numbers. Luckily they rarely decide anything.


The enemy sets up a nice distance from the river, opening the door for a cavalry rush executed by the daimyo and the CA.


The daimyo and the CA circle behind the enemy taisho, with an inevitable result that leads to a full retreat of his forces


An easy victory

[Fincuan]

Winter
Not daring to rest yet we immediately continue the offensive to Kazusa and Hitachi. Kazusa turns out to be empty so we just march in. Hitachi is occupied at first but the enemy retreats before our attack. There's also a loyalist revolt in Bitchu, which Lord Mori took from us a few turns ago, so things are looking nice.

Revolt in Bitchu

The enemy garrison in the province is small, so we should have no trouble taking them out. After re-taking Bitchu I intend to move the force further inlands to keep Mori busy and to find some of their infrastructure to destroy. While doing this they will fight to the last man.


The enemy is one unit of archers. No cavalry on my side means one thing only: RUUUSSSHHHH!


After taking a few initial casualties from the arrows our rush bites in and the enemy is routed.


They run for their lives and we're unable to catch them. Too many of them live to fight another day.

[Castout]

Oh ma those STW screenies bring a lot of memories

Can't play it with Vista and dual core now.

[Fincuan]

Originally Posted by Castout

Can't play it with Vista and dual core now.

Dual core and W7 x64 here and it works fine.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Fincuan

Dual core and W7 x64 here and it works fine.

Oh really you must have that steam or whatever later version but not the original

[Fincuan]

Warlord Edition which I bought xyz years ago. Basically The original+Mongol Invasion rolled into one. Just installed, patched and played, no tweaking needed.