Oda: Part 02: 1457-1477: Unification of Japan

After getting rid of bugged samurai, and diring free company, it was time to contine my conquests. I was at the point where together with allies I'd be about matched with Ashikaga, but it's better to unify as much Japan as possible before taking the shogunate.

In 1462 it wa stime to declare "War for the Emperor", that is for a new shogun. I managed to ally 6 daimyo, and Ashikaga only had 3 loyal ones (and it annexed one more), but my alliance was rivaling each other, and not too stable, so waiting would have made it worse. It was 22k vs 10k troops, Ashikaga just waited too long to challenge me, and now it was too late for them.

There's a 10 year break before I can start annexing vassals - that's why the way to speed form Japan is to not take Kyoto, but to annex every single other daimyo first. In the mean time there were 100k rebels to kill.

I was briefly a great power, but then Renaissance happened in Europe, kicking me off the list. It was spreading extremely slowly, 27 years in it was barely in Venetian Crete, Genoese Azov, and Portuguese Ceuta. Constantinople got it too, but it's not enough for Ottomans to embrace it yet.

For foreign policy, Korea and Ming rivaled me, and I had Ryukyu and Ainu to deal with, just for the sake of mission tree. Ryukyu just voluntarily joined my realm, but Ainu was Orochoni's vassal somehow, and Orochoni had a lot of allies including Oirats. But here's a thing - horses can't swim.

Unfortunately the science of horses didn't reach the unwashed barbarians, and instead of just surrendering the islands, they kept trying to make horses swim, so I had to invade them just to flush their boats and sink them. That somehow didn't bother them at all either, horse people just don't care about boats.

What impressed them a bit more was Ming invading the Oirats, and dragging most of the hordes into it.

To unity Japan I need to annex all daimyo-vassals, not all subjects. So I thought diplo-vassalizing Ryukyu - who's not a daimyo - is fine, but they flipped to daimyo, delaying unification of Japan, by only by a few months. Well, this was definitely not a speedrun.

I kept Oda ideas, as they're probably better than Japanese ideas. Now I have to make two decisions.

First, which government to take now that Shogunate is gone - Feudal Nobility (boring), Autocracy (boring), Eastern Plutocracy (it's going to really complicate things with gov cap), or the new Elective Monarchy (not to be confused with Polish Elective Monarchy; it would be really good in Europe if I could PU random countries, but I can't). I think I'll go for Eastern Plutocracy.

And second, which idea group to take. Exploration and Expansion are the only real contenders, because I need to reach Europe to get their institutions in reasonable time, and because I just got my gold mine and dumped all my bird mana into it, Expansion is the only one I have mana to get.

The optimal way to speed run Japan is to break all alliances, and just keep expanding until Ashikaga plus all other daimyo are under 100% warscore (it only works if Ashikaga didn't annex too many yet). Actually going for the war the intended way means 10 years delay before I can start annexing daimyos, but this is not a speed run. 

Fun and Balance removes all land bridges, so both sides' forces on other islands weren't very relevant, the fighting was mostly on the main island.

Japan has a new Shogun

I did some landings. It would be nice if I could send some spies to Pijin to see provinces around it for safe landing, like I can in CK2. I only needed to do this as I hate sitting years waiting for war score timer to tick.

Japan, formed with all the islands from Kurils and Sakhalin to Okinawa. I'm actually allied with Korea, Brunei, and Dai Viet, friendly towards Ming, and I have no real plans of expanding there until Ming starts falling apart. It could be a very peaceful Japan, just colonizing for a while.