Not sure about VH/VH specifically, but I found a very useful trick when playing with Yari Ashigaru.

Take your generals off their horses, and put them in the front line in the middle of the Ashigaru (And have your samurai on the flanks)

You also want at least 2 generals in the army to get more command coverage.

I would use a formation like this

If you are worried about your general's safety, just put another unit of Yari Ashigaru (Or even Yari Samurai) in front of them. (You can probably keep your generals on their horses, doing this, since they aren't being used as Front-Line troops) Just keep the Ashigaru within the blue General aura, and you're good.

Your secondary generals don't seem to gain Ranks when they are being led by another general. So you want to occasionally break them off, with a smaller force, to deal with weaker armies, or the remnants of routed armies. So that they get a few stars under their belt. (And you want to be investing in the right-hand part of the skill tree, since you are essentially using them as dedicated combat units)

Note that I'm relatively new to Shogun 2, myself. (But NOT to TW games as a whole) So I don't know what the meta is, but I find this is a really fun way to use generals and "militia" units. Different from just using Generals as glorified heavy-cavalry.

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Avoid expanding to far to the east, Try and Ally with the Hojo, and a Hojo/Takeda is even better. Ignore the Hattori, and do not trade with them. I like to have the Kitabitake as a buffer, when the Hattori do attack. Once you capture Sagara, you should avoid going any farther east. Let the Takeda take the Kiso. Focus on the Hattori and the Ikko Ikki, and by the time you get realm divide, you should win before the Takeda or Hojo turn on you, if they do, it won't be in time to stop your victory. This is what I did on a long campaign on VH/VH. For the most part.

What did you do for traditions?

I would upgrade Owari your home province to level 3 asap and have like 8 units in it, doing that alone will improve your survivability for atleast 25-50 turns, escapially if you leave 1 -2 katana's as a garrison. I would also make Owari a military recruitment province for the first 2-3 slots. Try to get a solid military recruitment structure up like spear and bow, or stables and sword those are good combos. You have three slot recruitment with lvl3 so its much easier to crank out units.

Originally posted by .tekkaden:

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Avoid expanding to far to the east, Try and Ally with the Hojo, and a Hojo/Takeda is even better. Ignore the Hattori, and do not trade with them. I like to have the Kitabitake as a buffer, when the Hattori do attack. Once you capture Sagara, you should avoid going any farther east. Let the Takeda take the Kiso. Focus on the Hattori and the Ikko Ikki, and by the time you get realm divide, you should win before the Takeda or Hojo turn on you, if they do, it won't be in time to stop your victory. This is what I did on a long campaign on VH/VH. For the most part.

What did you do for traditions?

I'm not sure what you are talking about. What "traditions"?

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Originally posted by .tekkaden:

What did you do for traditions?

I'm not sure what you are talking about. What "traditions"?

I meant arts, apologies.

Originally posted by .tekkaden:

Originally posted by Eddie G:

I'm not sure what you are talking about. What "traditions"?

I meant arts, apologies.

I usually go for chi first because I am going have a metsuke as soon as I conquer Mikkawa. Then I focus on mil;tary arts on the defense side. The Oda are pretty straight forward, I try and get long yari ashigaru in Owara as soon as I can (5/6 turns after the significant advances event, to build the building for them). I do not try and focus on leveling up Owari because you already got two recruiting slots, instead I focus on leveling the castle in Mikkawa after destroying the market, eventually having gunsmith there and sword dojo,for katana cavalrty and dunderbuss. The only reason Mikkawa has market is because the Tokugawa are vassals at the start, so it gives them a little bit more to offset what they have to pay their lord the Immagawa.

If your new player/inexperienced I would not expand into the west, past your home province,. Owari has two good things going for it, bridges and the level 3 castle upgrade is one of the best layouts you can ask for when in defense. Its very possible to have 2 and half stacks of ikko ikki on your doorstep. Omi is probably one of the best eco provinces in the game but it has the worst layout of defences at level 3 and ow your in the middle of the map.

Originally posted by Sn3z:

If your new player/inexperienced I would not expand into the west, past your home province,. Owari has two good things going for it, bridges and the level 3 castle upgrade is one of the best layouts you can ask for when in defense. Its very possible to have 2 and half stacks of ikko ikki on your doorstep. Omi is probably one of the best eco provinces in the game but it has the worst layout of defences at level 3 and ow your in the middle of the map.

I am not a new player, and I think you are confused. The Oda have to go west, that's the direction they are supposed to go for the victory conditions. That's the way Oda Nobunaga did it in real life. It's also the way that makes sense. Building up Owari is a waste of time and money, because the defense issue is only a problem in the early stages, Once you own all the provinces around Owari, it;s a non issue for the rest of the game. If that's what works for you that's great but most of the time your comments don't make any sense.

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Originally posted by .tekkaden:

I meant arts, apologies.

I usually go for chi first because I am going have a metsuke as soon as I conquer Mikkawa. Then I focus on mil;tary arts on the defense side. The Oda are pretty straight forward, I try and get long yari ashigaru in Owara as soon as I can (5/6 turns after the significant advances event, to build the building for them). I do not try and focus on leveling up Owari because you already got two recruiting slots, instead I focus on leveling the castle in Mikkawa after destroying the market, eventually having gunsmith there and sword dojo,for katana cavalrty and dunderbuss. The only reason Mikkawa has market is because the Tokugawa are vassals at the start, so it gives them a little bit more to offset what they have to pay their lord the Immagawa.

Now that you mention the Oda Long-Yari ashigaru, I do have a somewhat of an unrelated question to ask.

Im currently with a limited budget (things here are expensive in Brazil) and I was looking forward to buying at least 2 DLCs, which ones would you recommend as must-have?

Saints and heroes, Ikko Ikki, and Otomo DLC, that will give you all the units. I'm not sure about the Hattori, if it's free or not. You had to pre-order to get the limited edition with the Hattori when the game was released. I didn't get it till a few months later when they offered it to everyone else. Pretty sure it was free though.

The Oda long yari ashigaru are part of the Sengoku Jidai unit pack, which gives each clan a unique unit catered to their strengths. Some of them are pretty bad but some like the oda long yari ashigaru are great.

The Saints and Heroes pack just gives you some fairly useless hero units which any clan can use.

If you had to pick just two DLCs I would get the Sengoku Jidai unit pack and the Hattori clan DLC.

If you could pick three, then the Ikko Ikki are fun, but they are far harder to play as than any other clan.

Otomo I don't like playing as because christianity breaks the game but you get matchlocks right at the start of the game which is kind of fun until you realize they're way worse than bows for anything but defending castles.

Originally posted by BastardSword:

The Oda long yari ashigaru are part of the Sengoku Jidai unit pack, which gives each clan a unique unit catered to their strengths. Some of them are pretty bad but some like the oda long yari ashigaru are great.

The Saints and Heroes pack just gives you some fairly useless hero units which any clan can use.

If you had to pick just two DLCs I would get the Sengoku Jidai unit pack and the Hattori clan DLC.

If you could pick three, then the Ikko Ikki are fun, but they are far harder to play as than any other clan.

Otomo I don't like playing as because christianity breaks the game but you get matchlocks right at the start of the game which is kind of fun until you realize they're way worse than bows for anything but defending castles.

I knew I was forgetting one of them. I just bought all that stuff too, for a new account/copy of the game. o.O

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Originally posted by Sn3z:

If your new player/inexperienced I would not expand into the west, past your home province,. Owari has two good things going for it, bridges and the level 3 castle upgrade is one of the best layouts you can ask for when in defense. Its very possible to have 2 and half stacks of ikko ikki on your doorstep. Omi is probably one of the best eco provinces in the game but it has the worst layout of defences at level 3 and ow your in the middle of the map.

I am not a new player, and I think you are confused. The Oda have to go west, that's the direction they are supposed to go for the victory conditions. That's the way Oda Nobunaga did it in real life. It's also the way that makes sense. Building up Owari is a waste of time and money, because the defense issue is only a problem in the early stages, Once you own all the provinces around Owari, it;s a non issue for the rest of the game. If that's what works for you that's great but most of the time your comments don't make any sense.

I actually wasnt talking to you, but its not good to suggest west expansion for a player looking for tips on vh vh, until that whole area is settled down, which can take a undisclosed amount of time, getting the gold mine and blacksmith is objectively better.

It just never ever a waste of time to build up your home province to atleast level 3,especially if its either/or wealthy, centrally located, has access to a port(ship units out), has special building incentive.

Its not just about defences your playing the old ♥♥♥♥ way of decentralized military, upgrading home province allows you to start really early developing military building synergy and investing into these single buildings only for ranks and - recruitment time, so you have a really good varied source of recruitment come mid game in home. Theres many combinations depending on playstyle with armies but the 4th slot upgrade , which will take long time is filled with so many choices.

I still don`t know if I should produce Oda Long Spear or Regular Oda yari ashi lol
is one objectively better than the other or it is situational?