i think once u have conquered evrywhere and the ???s appear at the end they are nearly imnpossible and i dont know why but i think they are still the right difficulty and by the way i beat them
i have a really good strategy start in hokkaido so noone can get you from behind then get lvl 4 troopsand some other things then when ur finished with artillery scrolls and soldiers get whole row of barricaded places full of ninjas they keep attacking it but never succeed even when they tried 2 rows of samuai and a row of bowmen