That has never been the design. Plots are supposed to be an additional tool you can use, and especially for small clans to be able to give them a chance. It's not supposed to be the normal way of waging war.
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That has never been the design. Plots are supposed to be an additional tool you can use, and especially for small clans to be able to give them a chance. It's not supposed to be the normal way of waging war.
I see three tweaks that could help with this.
1: Plotting interface. This could use a new column to display why they won't join (maybe with some shiny new icons for "my honor is too low," "you're too big," "I like them better.")
2: Plot joining. The AI should have a third option where their entry into the plot is pending. This would be for where they want in based purely off of troop counts and other basic war considerations, but they need to up their honor or ruin a relationship before they can join. It would be satisfying to players to get this sort of confirmation so that they could redirect their attention elsewhere.
3: Plot power. Because you can't trigger a plot until x power there's no risk of getting pulled into a war where you are outnumbered worse than that. As such the AI should calculate plot power based on that any time it is actually lower- it would get people together against blobs much more often and, again, be satisfying to the player.
I find that sometimes are better than others for plotting. If the entire region is at war, you will never be able to get a huge plot going since the AI is rather determined to only have one war at a time. The best time to create a plot seems to be when everyone is at a relative peace (usually following the conclusion of the Onin War).
As an example, let us say Uesugi has managed to either Nagao and has been growing slowly. The Onin War has just concluded with its usual results. Now, Uesugi has just decided that Ashina/Date/Mogami/Satake (any of the clans they often pick off early) should be conquered and has declared war. At this point, the AI will be very willing to join your plot as long as it has the honor to do so because they love a good dogpile on someone already at war. This puts Uesugi at war with a lot of other clans. Because this will also be a long war, it means that after a year, you can probably create another plot against Uesugi and pull even more clans in if needed. This same idea can be used to also break a Yamana clan that did too well early on.
I love plotting in Sengoku. The find plotters window is my favorite window next to the find brides window. It makes starting as a smaller clan possible while still making it challenging since a plot is never a guaranteed win.
As an example, let us say Uesugi has managed to either Nagao and has been growing slowly. The Onin War has just concluded with its usual results. Now, Uesugi has just decided that Ashina/Date/Mogami/Satake (any of the clans they often pick off early) should be conquered and has declared war. At this point, the AI will be very willing to join your plot as long as it has the honor to do so because they love a good dogpile on someone already at war. This puts Uesugi at war with a lot of other clans. Because this will also be a long war, it means that after a year, you can probably create another plot against Uesugi and pull even more clans in if needed. This same idea can be used to also break a Yamana clan that did too well early on.
I love plotting in Sengoku. The find plotters window is my favorite window next to the find brides window. It makes starting as a smaller clan possible while still making it challenging since a plot is never a guaranteed win.