The Battle of Sekigahara

The Battle of Sekigahara is the fifth and final scenario of Act I: Japan in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties. It starts off from the cinematic "Out of the Fog" and revolves around a disillusioned General Kichiro remaining loyal with Tokugawa by staying with him for one last battle before finally changing his mind and leaving; staining and shaming his family name for generations.

Objectives

 * Destroy Daimyo Ishida(primary)
 * Assassinate Daimyo Otani (secondary)

Strategy
In the mission, there are seemingly great numbers of armies but as the introduction says, many of them are turncoats and stragglers.

Again at start, the player should queue Villagers to gather resources and collect the stray Treasures with General Kichiro and Tokugawa. At the same time, they should build a few Shrines for population as well as collecting resources. The players should start to move their initial troops in the village to the east along with Kichiro and Tokugawa, bringing the Coin Rickshaw along. The player will soon start to see some enemies, among them some are Hatamoto Samurai, which they should try to hit and run as they are extremely powerful. Remember Kichiro's special attack! The player should then proceed to destroy the Outpost and head further along the road.

In this mission, the player should not produce too many units, as they should get enough shipments. Build Villagers will be a necessity however. This will allow the player to age up up as soon as possible. The enemy will do so as well, so the player should try to keep up with him. The player should take out the defenders in the enemy village and send their Coin Rickshaw to the area marked with blue flags - they will gain control of the village and even more importantly, get 3 Ninjas. Now the player should send most of their army to this village, leaving only a skeleton crew to the Trading Post area.

If the player proceeds to scout around the village a bit, they will receive a mission about assassinating Daimyo Otani. This is where the Ninjas play an excellent role in, the player can put them on stealth mode and have them move to Daimyo Otani's position without attacking anyone along the route In the meantime, the player can claim the treasure in the Village to get a stable rickshaw - build it in your original village. When you're up, send Naginata Rider shipments from their Home City. The enemy will use a lot of Yumi Archers, so they should be a mainstay in your army. You can build more units too, but concentrate on improving your economy and getting to Industrial Age. Once the Ninjas arrive at his location, attack the Daimyo, and the Daimyo alone. After he's dead, his army crumbles into bits, fighting among themselves.

This gives the player's army in the Eastern Village a good chance to go to the castle in the center of the map. Start damaging the Castle - don't bother killing the units. Those units, along with a great many other troops and buildings change sides again - now the player can control all but Ishida's troops. The player can now Backtrack to their home village, retreat with the units in the Northern parts of the map so they won't lose them to Ishida's masses. The can now progress by starting to gathering more troops and upgrade them. Yumi archers and Naginata riders are a good combination of units. When the player damaged the castle, they also obtain 4 Morutaru units and should keep them safe as well as taking out all of the enemy buildings at range.

The player now can mass more units near the two castles they obtained and get ready for the final push. The player will eventually have to fight his great amount of Yumi archers, but once massed some Naginata riders, they will have no trouble dealing with them. Hatamoto Samurai will be extremley dangerous threat to the Naginata Riders and must be countered with Flaming Arrows. The player should keep pushing with their army and train more units from the buildings they captured recently. Once Ishida's castle goes down, a bunch of Hatamoto Samurai will attack them but by now, nothing Ishida throws at the player's army should be a problem for them.

Once the last loyal troops of Ishida die out, the mission is complete and the player completes the Japanese campaign.