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Ok, so here goes the second part which concerns middle-north Japan. A few introductory lines: Central-North Japan is significantly more rich than southern (Kyushu, Shikoku and Chugoku); stable domination in this entire area or in most of it usually means that you are 75% Shogun. Provinces here are naturally rich (Echigo, Dewa, Mutsu, Kozuke, Hitachi, Musashi, Kai and Shinano are very to extremely wealthy) and thus the dominant clan makes usually its way southwards faster with more advanced troops unless the southern/central clans have the money (based on port/post trade & cathedral as the viable answer) and means (good troops and guns) to stop them on their tracks and have a fair chance.


Poles and Axies Part II
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Tokai Area: This is the area extending North of the Oda territories and is occupied by the Uesugi, Imagawa and Takeda initially; it includes Shinano, Mikawa, Totomi, Suruga, and Kai; Mino may be considered as part of this area or of the Kinki (Oda) area since despite having iron and sand and being relatively defensible, its low output and many approaches mean that is better secured once the economy wheels are turning sufficiently. Musashi is a province that belongs to Kanto; nonetheless it plays a significant part in Tokai as well since it is such a strong pole that effectively acts as one in the Tokai area as well. The other pole of the area is Mikawa (and not Shinano!). Kai is a secondary pole. Mikawa, despite its low income suggests that your southern flank is secured; the river also makes sure that the province can be easily defended. Holding on to Mikawa and Kai is advantageous, holding on Mikawa and Musashi means almost victory.

The area is seemingly dominated by the presence of Shinano; which according to my definition should be strong a pole: it is quite defensible, it has iron and sand, fine cavalry, not so bad rice output... despite appearances though and counter to intuition as many experienced players have found already and stated in many guides, threads and miniguides, Shinano is not worth taking unless the intending conqueror holds half of its adjacent provinces at least. This is because Shinano is the least "bottleneck" province in the map bordering with land all around; this drops the "polarity" dramatically according to the number of adjacent provinces that belong to rival clans. The more adjacent provinces you own the more Shinano is a pole; the less the less it is.

Usually the winning combination comes from the east; ie whoever has Mikawa, Totomi, Suruga, Kai and/or Musashi can take and keep Shinano with an economy of force and effort. This turns Shinano to a virtually very strong pole; the disadvantage is that this condition is fluid ie if someone is pushing you back or a clan reappears then Shinano's status might be reversed again.

The reason for this is that Shinano is very prone to invasion from multiple opponents; this overruns its position advantage, defensibility, income and cavalry bonus as the position cannot be secured and thus developed (unless you like to see all the hard saved koku you spent on that horse Dojo wiped out by the various Takeda's, Uesugi's, Imagawa's or Hojo's); once you defended succesfully against one opponent another will spring as a mushroom. The usual pattern is that the first opponent will weaken you significantly while the more prudent/patient that was developing all the time you two were fighting, will smack you at that point.

Once you get though the aformentioned provinces then Shinano becomes the almost-great advantage it appears: instead of defending 5 provinces individually; you just make sure you have a large appropriate stack in Shinano that "covers" Musashi, Kai, Suruga, Totomi and Mikawa. This is the reason why taking Shinano works well for some time for the Imagawa at the beginning of the game; it "covers" their core territories and provides economical defence. The mistake the Ai does is to use it as an expansion point and attacks ususally Echigo or Musashi. This is not such a bad move in it self, it happens though quite early usually (and while there is the Takeda around that find an opportunity) and thus the Imagawa are spread thin, breaking their "balance" and being unable to hold onto their new acquisition AND to Shinano: chaos ensues usually as other "opportunists" join in, typically the Takeda. The other mistake the Imagawa AI does is not to pay attention in Mikawa that is Imagawa's strongest card. Totomi is a very very susceptible place to develop unless you hold Shinano and have a good income from, say, holding on to the rich Kuyshu provinces. Don't let the archer bonus fool you - it works for the early game as it saves you the cost to go for the famous archery dojo, but it isn't a long term reliability unless you get Musashi and Kai at least.

Trying to occupy the provinces west of Shinano, in orer to capture it does not fare half as well as trying with the ones in the east; this is because these are less numerically (3 = Etchu, Hida, Echigo) and also because the strong clear poles there are Echigo and Kaga from which only Echigo makes contact and that does usually result in a "weak" and unreliable holding of the province. This is why the Uesugi are much better off holding on to Echigo, Dewa and Mutsu and targeting Musashi and then Shimosa before faring south, rather than hitting Shinano as they often do.

The Takeda usually fare well as long as they hold Aki (Chugoku's most powerful pole - fairly easy against a weak Mori army which gives plenty of chances for large kills and honour levels to your elite Aki samurai) which can feed their north territories with troops. The Takeda game seems so difficult in the North simply because all their provinces are very weak poles: Kai, the best of them is a secondary pole at best and provides very little security. This is why it works so well to make a strong army in Aki and keep moderate garrisons in Kai and Sagami as well as "ally" with the Hojo in order to make them keep a small garisson in Musashi. Do anything possible to let them get their guard down and then move your army in Musashi in two turns from Aki; the Hojo Ai does the mistake of fighting useless wars with the Uesugi and over garrissons Shimotsuke more often than not which is welcoming as they cannot reinforce Musashi at the time of your attack. As many stated before me, Musashi not Shinano is the way forward for the Takeda. After this you can play cat and mouse with the Hojo until you have taken Shimosa (which spells their doom) or concentrate on Imagawa and Shinano.

Northeast Japan (Kanto plain): Well this is the area occupied by the Hojo and it is the best in the game from a polarity of provinces point of view, as it has three, potentially four adjacent strong poles. These are obviously Musashi and Shimosa closely followed by Kazusa and Hitachi.
Clearly Shimosa and Kazusa may develop to the safest military centres in the map and with the addition of ports in them and in Musashi-Hitachi (that will increase your income anyway) make the Kanto the best area to be/have (if you wish to safeguard against port raids then build a port in Musashi and in Hitachi and keep stacks there throughout the game). The relative disadvantage of Hojo comes later in the game as someone might have conquered all Kyushu, Chugoku and Kinki and will be coming at you with all his might, but usually it is of no concern as the Kanto holder will reach Kinki faster be it controled by the AI or a player. If not, the Hojo or whoever else dominates are at least able to put a very gallant resistance which with trade and guns can result minimum to a stale mate.

It is a mistake to start developing Hitachi right away - that might lead in risky, cold war style, dead locks if Uesugi does the same in Mutsu: ie both clans pile up stack after stack in these two provinces without being able to move it from (justified) fear of attack and pillage of their main facilities from the other, that will eventually happen when all these deadly high tech stacks are unleashed inevitably towards each other. Usually pillaging from both sides occurs as the armies are very big with lots of reinforcements and the result quite difficult to fortell or ensure.

Hitachi is a very viable option once Mutsu, Dewa and most importantly Echigo (Uesugi's strongest pole) have fallen; then you can start making that precious armoury.

I find that the "If its roots are left behind any tree will grow again" advisor quote is particularly applicable to the Hojo because of their lands; no matter how many times you take Hitachi or Kozuke they'll come back and take them and grow again. This is because their core of Musashi, Shimosa, Kasusa is one strong pole that needs to be broken systematically rather than by winning battles on a border line that will never stay still. Conversely if you are the Hojo all you have to do is defend Musashi (with your life) and turtle while waiting the opportunity that your foolish neighbours will weaken each other. Hojo can comfortably live even with the loss of, say Kozuke that can be recaptured when the opportunity arises; do not overstretch just to defend it, just make sure that Musashi has border forts and the right troops to defend against any invading army (that is ususally not a problem). The same goes for Hitachi to a certain degree if you lose it its not the end of the world. Beware of Musashi though (that usually attracts all the trouble as it is adjacent to Kai and more importantly Shinano): if you lose it you are potentially one step in the grave.

Losing Musashi is a very severe blow from which the Hojo or the Kanto holder might never recover; losing (permanently) Musashi and Shimosa spells the end for Hojo, a new power has arrived and taken over their lands.

Northwest Japan: This is the area occupied by the Uesugi; it stretches from the Kinki area (Etchizen, Kaga, Etchu, Noto) all the way north (Ecthigo, Mutsu, Dewa) including the island of Sado. Main poles are Ecthigo and Kaga with Mutsu and Dewa being secondary poles. The area has one clear pole that is in the clans holding right off the start: Echigo. Echigo has a great income, a one-bridge river, access to Shinano, Mutsu and Dewa and its back on the sea which makes it the perfect capital province for the Uesugi. Some advocate Sado as the main troop producing province due to the iron and sand and its isolation; in an (almost) unavoidable war with Hojo though, speed of troop movement will play a role and Sadois at a disadvantage with that; it also makes you keep a garisson there whenever someone approaches from Dewa or Noto - considering that you will keep one in Echigo anyway due to the incime and the solidity it provides to your borders/territories, it is a waste of resources. Last but not least a battle for Sado will be fought in the open while in Echigo will be fought in the all familiar bridge choke point.

Shinano as i explained previously is a risk for the Uesugi all the more so because the Hojo are waiting to hit while you are fighting Imagawa and/or Takeda or both. Hida is together with Izu and Noto and Osumi one of these provinces that deserve very little attention. Your goal on the south west should be Kaga that has a decent income, facilities and the monk bonus. Kaga is relatively isolated from other places of interest in the sense that there are no other polar provinces around it except itself; this means that potential aggressors such as Mori and Oda in certain occasions are simply waisting their time and this is good for you: keep defending and producing monks and other troops and let them give you some extra honour with their ashigaru armies. A port in Echigo and in Kaga would make for a very strong axis that will serve you well.

Once Kaga is set up (or even before that) concentrate on the real enemy, which is Hojo and take him out once and for all. Don't fight hardcore battles in Mutsu and Dewa, let him overstretch his forces (making that all the more necessary with a few shinobies) while you firmly occupy Kozuke and pave the way with an extra "special" stack to attack Musashi. After Musashi falls Hojo is easy pickings, take out Shimosa as well and he is completely doomed; you'll see that his territories will fall like paper castles. In that case (much as in the case of the Hojo once they take out Uesugi) the other clans in the area are off the race: you have the resources to wage the long war that leads in founding the shogunate. Your real opponents now rest to the south.
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In part III: Axis analysis and a general conquest guide from various approaches for the middle and late game.