I've played many games as various clans, and they've all had one thing in common.  Oda (when I'm not playing as them) die on the first turn.  It's a rather hilarious thing to behold really, and all the more so as more and more great clans fall within the first 10 turns.  The record is still Oda, Date, Shimazu, and Tokugawa all falling within the first 7 turns.
 
This brings me to my complaint.  Previous games have always managed to make the "major" nations feel more powerful than the minor ones, either by making the minor ones just rebels, or as with Empires, giving major nations a much greater land advantage.  However, Shogun 2 fails on that point.  All but one major clan start with one province, which leads to relative ease in being killed off at a very early point by other AI clans.  While this is not any big failing point in terms of overall game play, it simply feels off.  Much like if the Knights of Malta were somehow able to kill off Italy within the first turn in Empires.

Man...I really wish my computer could run this game. Even reading the complaints make it sound awesome.

I agree with you, for the most part. There seem to be a lot less minor nations this time around, when compared to the amount of major nations. So I guess it kind of works itself out, but yes, it does feel a bit off.

Oda gets assassinated by one of his top ranking generals. So he should pretty much always die every game...Historically anyways.

" Oda gets assassinated by one of his top ranking generals. So he should pretty much always die every game...Historically anyways. "

Before the Oda came to power, they only had control of the small province of Owari.  In 1560, the Imagawa clan intended to march through the region on the way to Kyoto with a heavy force numbering between thirty and forty thousand.  Nobunaga Oda, on the other hand, had about 3,000 troops.  Still, while the Imagawa forces were camped in a rainstorm and getting drunk, he led his forces out and ambushed them.  The Imagawa soldiers were so drunk and unprepared that they were routed, and the clan daimyo, Yoshimoto Imagawa, was executed.
 
Essentially, the Oda were, in part, really damn lucky.
 
In a video game like Shogun, such historical facts probably aren't taken into account.

" Oda gets assassinated by one of his top ranking generals. So he should pretty much always die every game...Historically anyways. "

Oda is easily one of the most powerful factions in the game... if the player is controlling it. Their cheap ashigaru are incredibly over-powered. Half the price of regular ashigaru and yet stronger? I fielded armies 3 times larger than my enemies and conquered the entire map in under a day.
 
The reason they get eliminated at the beginning of every single game is because of the way the map is set up and the way the ai works. I actually got eliminated on my first time playing oda in the first turn. What happens is on your first turn you get a quest to kill some rebels in your borders. You move your army out of your castle to attack the rebels and kill them, and then when you click the next turn button two different armies from your neighbours enter your territory and capture your only city.
As a human player, you learn the lesson and don't take out the rebels on your first turn, but the AI constantly repeats this mistake over and over, and so it is literally impossible for Oda to ever be a threat.

" @ThatFrood:   A fair statement, but I cannot understand why I see the phrase "over-powered" occurring so frequently on this board. Is it not fair to say that the game is generally well-balanced - with the exclusion of the poor battle AI? "

Oda are quite powerful, but at the end of the full game I just played the biggest power in the country at the time (other than me and my ally) was Date.
 
So I guess sometimes it's just the luck of the draw that kills off certain clans!

I wouldn't really call them a "running gag", since Oda Nobunaga started the reunification of Japan!  And yeah as mentioned earlier in this thread their cheap and powerful ashigaru make them the most powerful faction in the game... provided you survive the really tricky first few turns. Strangely enough the Tokugawas get wiped out most of the time too, although historically Tokugawa Ieyasu ended this era and became Shogun.
 
I'm digging that fact that most legendary figures are present in this game    — Tokugawa Ieyasu, Date Masamune, Oda Nobunaga, etc   — but Toyotomi Hideyoshi's absence is pretty glaring. Kinda wish they found a way to slip him into the adoption system, even though he wasn't of noble birth.

 A bit of a missed opportunity, but I'm sure a mod out will fix that eventually.

You would have to buy a bunch of ashigaru then sit in that one city until you can make peace with the warring factions. Fighting another major faction that early on is the worst.