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• Second Mission

In this mission, you've got to be fast. The following strategy can beat this mission on the hardest difficulty, but you must not waste time.

You start with a small army and as soon as you travel north, you'll encounter enemies. Try to kill the enemy Samurai with focused fire, so that your cavalry can kill their Yumi archers. Free the villagers, build a cherry orchard and gather 25 wood for an extra shrine. Ally with the Dutch or Portuguese, it's not really important which one - with Dutch, you can have the powerful horse artillery, though. Send all military unit shipments. Once you run out of them, choose military upgrades and resources - remember to have the shipments arrive at your town center. Start traveling west as soon as you've destroyed the stockade and have the shipments arrive at Daimyo Mototada. You'll encounter some more enemies, which are quickly disposed of. Destroy the stockade to free more villagers - distribute them on food and gold.

Head north and you'll receive a secondary objective - to rebuild the trade route. If you are playing with hardest difficulty, you won't have time for that so don't bother. Go for the western village: take out the defenders and then the town center, don't bother with the rest of the buildings. Keep Daimyo Mototada out of the battle and have him train more units for you - Ashigaru musketeers and Samurai. Samurai are very useful in this scenario, since they have a powerful siege attack. If they have a castle up, avoid it. Afterwards, destroy the blockade for more villagers and put them on food and gold. There's not much time, so keep going forward for the northern village! With the hardest difficulty, you should still have about 6½ minutes left.

The northern village is defended well and have a sizeable army, but you'll be able to deal with him. Try to have your Yumi archers shoot his musketeers. Try to keep your Samurai out of the battle, since they're very valuable siege units. Don't bother destroying the outposts (you can kill the castle though, if you have enough Samurai) - go straight for the town center. Keep an eye out for enemy units so they won't kill your Samurai. After the town center is gone, keep going for the eastern village. You should still have about 3½ minutes left.

Train more units at Daimyo Mototada if needed but don't spend any more time than necessary. The village has a lot of units, but not much in the way of buildings. Again, keep your Daimyo safe and have him train more samurai, if you've lost some. After the 3rd Town Center has gone down, you should have some time before the timer runs out. Start moving towards your base, there's no hurry. The enemy won't arrive at your gates until rather late.

Build a castle or two, depending on the resource shipments you've got. Train more musketeers and keep them behind your walls. However, move your Daimyo outside your walls so that it's not between your two armies. Have him train Naginata riders, so you can flank the enemy army once it decides to attack. They're essential for taking out enemy artillery. By now, you should also have about 400 export resource, which you can use to get a horse artillery unit.

Once the enemy decides to attack, have your units behind the wall and destroy the flaming arrow artillery units with your riders. Since you destroyed all the villages, winning the battle will not be difficult.

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