However, as he sided with the Western Army at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, he was dispossessed by the victorious Tokugawa Ieyasu and his domains given to Kobayakawa Hideaki.

However, he died in 1615 without heir and the domain was transferred to his younger brother, Ikeda Tadao castellan of Yura Castle on Awaji Island, albeit with a reduction from 380,000 to 315.000 koku.

Ikeda Mitsumasa along with Tokugawa Mitsukuni and Hoshina Masayuki is regarded as one of the three great daimyō of the early Edo Period.

He was also active in land reclamation and flood control civil engineering projects throughout his domain.

In 1700, his son Ikeda Tsurumasa completed the Kōraku-en, one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan, along with Kenroku-en and Kairaku-en.

He was a strong proponent of the Kōbu gattai policy of uniting the shogunate with the Imperial family; however, he was forced into retirement at the start of the Boshin War.

As with most domains in the han system, Tottori Domain consisted of several discontinuous territories calculated to provide the assigned kokudaka, based on periodic cadastral surveys and projected agricultural yields, g.[4][5] In 1672, Ikeda Mitsumasa gave 25,000 koku of new rice lands in Asakuchi and Kuboya Districts, Bitchū Province, to his second son, Ikeda Masamoto, and established a cadet branch of the clan.