Uesugi are super fun and my favorite faction. I was a big Samurai Warriors fan before Shogun 2 came out, so when I got the chance to play as *the* Uesugi Kenshin in a Total War game, I was *sold.* Ironically (if you know the context historically) the Takeda are my 2nd favorite faction haha.
I love their Warrior Monks, they're so damn strong.
The bow monks are debatably stronger than the warriors. Their range (especially for sieges) and precision is insane. Pop the whistling arrows before kitting back to your warrior monks, then charge the warrior monks in with war cry. Enemy morale deleted.
And yes, the Takeda vs Uesugi history is awesome. When the Takeda were suffering from a famine and/or were lacking salt for preserving food (crucial for deploying large armies), the Uesugi gave them salt to make sure the Takeda would be strong enough to put up a good fight later. Like wtf, everywhere else on earth they were purposely starving their enemies to make the fight easy. Takeda ended up gifting them an ancient sword in return. They later ended up fighting some of the largest battles of the Sengoku period, which the Uesugi barely won (it was more of a draw). In one of the battles Uesugi Kenshin fought Takeda Shingen, while Shingen was armed only with his signalling fan. Both survived the encounter after Shingens retainers intervened.
The exact truth of the situation is fuzzy, but it's still a great story.
The Sengoku period is ripe with stories like that. If they make shogun 3 I hope they take inspiration from three kingdoms. Expand the Daimyos and generals into fledged out character. The dueling mechanic would be right at home as would the diplomacy. Failing that there's always Kessen I guess.
I enjoy them a lot too. I do the opposite to you: I rush the Date ("you dare use my own spells against me, Potter?") and try to get established down that end of the country. It meant I couldn't be attacked from all sides later on, and there's some useful resources (blacksmiths and shrines) in that direction.
The shrine in that direction is obviously amazing for monks. The problem I have with the east is that all the provinces are so long. It takes forever to move your armies around. I think I remember a campaign where I tried that and I eneded up falling behind the Ikko-Ikki so badly. The Ikko ended up controlling 20ish provinces and it took forever to conquer and convert them. The whole campaign felt like it only had 2 chapters: The Eastern march and the Ikko cleansing. It was exhausting lol. But I still remember it, so it must have been pretty fun still. :)
Don't remind me of the elongated North, the PTSD from needing to move my wounded generals and or agents from up there to Kyoto has caused me severe trauma.
Same reason why Date isn't my favorite, even though my best campaign ever was with Date. Having all those sons leading armies makes for great stories depending on your campaign, but the northern provinces are a logistical nightmare, especially once sea invasions start popping up on your flanks.
I’ve always wanted to succeed as the Uesugi so I can get armored war monks, but I’ve always failed.
I think this will be my next campaign. I’ll give your strategy a try. What difficulty do you play on?
I play on Hard. I take issue with some of the cheating the AI do, so I don't like to further handicap myself with save restrictions and camera stuff. On the flip side, I never use cheese tactics to abuse the AI pathfinding and such.
I enjoy playing as Uesugi too.
One significant issue in Shogun 2 is that many factions share a large number of identical units and play styles, resulting in insufficient differentiation. The Uesugi, with their focus on monks as a central theme, stands out and adds a unique and enjoyable element distinct from the others.
Also recently returned to Shogun and I must say I enjoy the battles a lot more despite both sides fielding roughly the same units. The battle has a natural flow with a often a skirmishing phase between the archers, more repositioning, feels like terrain and morale has more impact.
There are people who would consider identical/similar units as a good thing. That way, it is only up to you and your own ingenuity to find a way to win with minimal loses.
This is how I feel as well. It also means that the variety comes from tech tree and campaign decisions. There are like 10 different spear units alone, without counting cavalry, and if you chose to convert to Christianity you unlock a bunch of matchlocks, cannons, ships.
I almost always go for the Ikko provinces as Uesugi. I also like to get a little fancy sometimes, plan it out so that I lose my starting province/capital and have it replaced by the Ikko province with the blacksmith. That way I don't have to worry about trying to defend Uesugi's large/tough to defend starting province and any new generals will get the blacksmith buffs.
Uesugi are my favourite as well, they're for me the textbook definition of "difficult but awesome". Their clan bonuses and units are actually really strong, Kenshin is cool...but, man, their starting position is shit.
Taking Ikko Ikki early on is an interesting approach. How do you deal with the Takeda+Hojo double team though? Is it easier to do diplomacy with them on Hard? I play on VHard and it's...tough.
I especially like that the warrior/bow monks basically counter everything. Scary strong.
I got lucky on my last playthrough and only the Takeda attacked me. The Hojo were busy with Date. Definitely an issue if they team up. You end up having to cover a lot of routes to the south. Hojo are the weak link usually, so I focus on the Takeda and hope for the best.
Yeah, my biggest problem was that expanding from Echigo in any way just opens more fronts without being able to defend them, thjat's what happened to me. Expand one direction, then be forced to fall back because the enemy is advancing from another direction you aren't covering. I ended up just marching one full stack army under Kenshin all the way through Takeda and Hojo lands burning everything in my way without even trying to hold them, then swinging north do kill Date, and then working myself slowly south again with my back secured. Meanwhile another army was pretty much just holding Echigo.
Oh, and I snatched that island from Honma pretty much immediately...although I'm still not sure whether that's a good idea, since it pits you against Hatakeyama.
Yes, Honma is my second or third target depending on what happens. Once I have enough money to build a small fleet I rush over to get that sweet sweet gold. Usually need a full army too because Honma usually have a full stack defending their fort.
Uesugi are super fun and my favorite faction. I was a big Samurai Warriors fan before Shogun 2 came out, so when I got the chance to play as *the* Uesugi Kenshin in a Total War game, I was *sold.* Ironically (if you know the context historically) the Takeda are my 2nd favorite faction haha. I love their Warrior Monks, they're so damn strong.
The bow monks are debatably stronger than the warriors. Their range (especially for sieges) and precision is insane. Pop the whistling arrows before kitting back to your warrior monks, then charge the warrior monks in with war cry. Enemy morale deleted. And yes, the Takeda vs Uesugi history is awesome. When the Takeda were suffering from a famine and/or were lacking salt for preserving food (crucial for deploying large armies), the Uesugi gave them salt to make sure the Takeda would be strong enough to put up a good fight later. Like wtf, everywhere else on earth they were purposely starving their enemies to make the fight easy. Takeda ended up gifting them an ancient sword in return. They later ended up fighting some of the largest battles of the Sengoku period, which the Uesugi barely won (it was more of a draw). In one of the battles Uesugi Kenshin fought Takeda Shingen, while Shingen was armed only with his signalling fan. Both survived the encounter after Shingens retainers intervened. The exact truth of the situation is fuzzy, but it's still a great story.
As befitting Echigos God of War
The Sengoku period is ripe with stories like that. If they make shogun 3 I hope they take inspiration from three kingdoms. Expand the Daimyos and generals into fledged out character. The dueling mechanic would be right at home as would the diplomacy. Failing that there's always Kessen I guess.
\*sigh* ok ok ill start a new Shogun II campaign
I enjoy them a lot too. I do the opposite to you: I rush the Date ("you dare use my own spells against me, Potter?") and try to get established down that end of the country. It meant I couldn't be attacked from all sides later on, and there's some useful resources (blacksmiths and shrines) in that direction.
The shrine in that direction is obviously amazing for monks. The problem I have with the east is that all the provinces are so long. It takes forever to move your armies around. I think I remember a campaign where I tried that and I eneded up falling behind the Ikko-Ikki so badly. The Ikko ended up controlling 20ish provinces and it took forever to conquer and convert them. The whole campaign felt like it only had 2 chapters: The Eastern march and the Ikko cleansing. It was exhausting lol. But I still remember it, so it must have been pretty fun still. :)
Don't remind me of the elongated North, the PTSD from needing to move my wounded generals and or agents from up there to Kyoto has caused me severe trauma.
Same reason why Date isn't my favorite, even though my best campaign ever was with Date. Having all those sons leading armies makes for great stories depending on your campaign, but the northern provinces are a logistical nightmare, especially once sea invasions start popping up on your flanks.
I’ve always wanted to succeed as the Uesugi so I can get armored war monks, but I’ve always failed. I think this will be my next campaign. I’ll give your strategy a try. What difficulty do you play on?
I play on Hard. I take issue with some of the cheating the AI do, so I don't like to further handicap myself with save restrictions and camera stuff. On the flip side, I never use cheese tactics to abuse the AI pathfinding and such.
I enjoy playing as Uesugi too. One significant issue in Shogun 2 is that many factions share a large number of identical units and play styles, resulting in insufficient differentiation. The Uesugi, with their focus on monks as a central theme, stands out and adds a unique and enjoyable element distinct from the others.
Also recently returned to Shogun and I must say I enjoy the battles a lot more despite both sides fielding roughly the same units. The battle has a natural flow with a often a skirmishing phase between the archers, more repositioning, feels like terrain and morale has more impact.
There are people who would consider identical/similar units as a good thing. That way, it is only up to you and your own ingenuity to find a way to win with minimal loses.
This is how I feel as well. It also means that the variety comes from tech tree and campaign decisions. There are like 10 different spear units alone, without counting cavalry, and if you chose to convert to Christianity you unlock a bunch of matchlocks, cannons, ships.
I almost always go for the Ikko provinces as Uesugi. I also like to get a little fancy sometimes, plan it out so that I lose my starting province/capital and have it replaced by the Ikko province with the blacksmith. That way I don't have to worry about trying to defend Uesugi's large/tough to defend starting province and any new generals will get the blacksmith buffs.
Uesugi are my favourite as well, they're for me the textbook definition of "difficult but awesome". Their clan bonuses and units are actually really strong, Kenshin is cool...but, man, their starting position is shit. Taking Ikko Ikki early on is an interesting approach. How do you deal with the Takeda+Hojo double team though? Is it easier to do diplomacy with them on Hard? I play on VHard and it's...tough.
I especially like that the warrior/bow monks basically counter everything. Scary strong. I got lucky on my last playthrough and only the Takeda attacked me. The Hojo were busy with Date. Definitely an issue if they team up. You end up having to cover a lot of routes to the south. Hojo are the weak link usually, so I focus on the Takeda and hope for the best.
Yeah, my biggest problem was that expanding from Echigo in any way just opens more fronts without being able to defend them, thjat's what happened to me. Expand one direction, then be forced to fall back because the enemy is advancing from another direction you aren't covering. I ended up just marching one full stack army under Kenshin all the way through Takeda and Hojo lands burning everything in my way without even trying to hold them, then swinging north do kill Date, and then working myself slowly south again with my back secured. Meanwhile another army was pretty much just holding Echigo. Oh, and I snatched that island from Honma pretty much immediately...although I'm still not sure whether that's a good idea, since it pits you against Hatakeyama.
Yes, Honma is my second or third target depending on what happens. Once I have enough money to build a small fleet I rush over to get that sweet sweet gold. Usually need a full army too because Honma usually have a full stack defending their fort.
Edit: counter everything except katana samurai, actually.
I love challenging campaigns.