GCS: Battle of Akechi Hard

Phew...

This is the first level that I've passed that I think warrants a guide. I just barely passed it and it's much harder than the next one up. This was done mostly with rank 1 guys with lv 6 or so units and my guys were not that decked out on gear. 

So you have to hold 2 out of the 3 cities marked in 14 turns. Every one of them gets hit with a massive attack. The two in your hands gets hit even before you can do anything. Akechi in particular is basically impossible to hold because you have one archer to do scratch damage to them, a crippled heavy cavalry, one yari samurai that you might be tempted to stick in there to hold it but will almost certainly die if you do that, and every single unit you spawn out of there gets hammered by 5 enemies and would lose like 80% HP in one turn, or get instant killed if you're trying to get away with smaller stacks to save money. You might as well just run away, that archer is important for something later.

Nobunaga and his group is supposed to help you out on this level if you somehow manage to hold Akechi. He and his samurai friend will run away off the map if you lose it and all you're left with is one green teppo general actively helping you out. Because it's impossible he's completely useless here.



However it's not completely hopeless. There's a couple things we can use here. 

Firstly, almost every enemy unit is scripted to do something. Mochizuki's group will smash down Akechi and then send the cavalry units to take the green city. Yamagata will try to do the same thing on your northern city. He'll come in swinging and then send two of his cavaliers to take the green city. The thing that's great is that they won't move once they finish their objective. So Mochizuki's infantry group will stand perfectly still once Akechi falls and the same with the cavalry attacking the green city. You have to defend one city at the very least or you lose and the northern one is the best choice. Like with Akechi, anyone you stick in there will lose like half their HP unless it's Hideyoshi, but you can do more damage to them because you have a teppo, a stable and less damaged troops.

Secondly you only have to hold 2 cities on the very last turn. The map ends before the enemy gets to move for some reason. So no matter how battered your guys are, as long as you get to the last turn and take one of the cities on that turn you win. And you have a teppo and an archer and the enemy cavalry generals will stand perfectly still in the green city despite being continously shot.

Just remember that you have to take the city on the same turn as the garrisoned cavalry dies, or else they'll stick one of their other cavaliers to defend it, you have a green teppo general who's probably shooting at the city too, so make sure he doesn't land the kill, and that the cavalry will disrupt your movement just for standing around. So precision is needed. I got pretty lucky because I screwed up the second part of that but still won.



You should also upgrade the farm and the barn in your northern city. You will starve even with that, but it helps.