Oh, come on!... - Legendary Oda Domination for dummies

So I just jumped in to Shogun2 after a month away from a PC to see a patch that has changed the dynamics of campaign play significantly. I did not expect them to make Oda any easier than it was, but look at the goofball and his clown nose - that's exactly what they did. There are tons of changes, but the most important one for this particular guide I'll start out underlining as it pretty much just made Oda the absolute powerhouse clan you've always wanted on Legendary. So say it with me:

40 unit battles.

Wow! Goodbye teching, hello Zerging. Lets analyse why this change is mindblowing.

The strength of Oda in the campaign comes singlehandedly from their Oda Yari Ashigaru. This 1 unit is the reason Oda is stupidly powerful. To understand why lets examine the difference between Ashigaru and Samurai, using two obvious unit examples to do so (all numbers are based on normal difficulty, but since the increase in price is percentage based this is irrelevant):

Yari Ashigaru
250 cost
75 upkeep

Yari Samurai
700 cost
150 upkeep

You can argue the effectiveness in battle until you're blue in the face, but lets state the most obvious and important differences between these units in terms of economy: A Samurai costs roughly 2,8-3,5 times more to recruit, but only 2 times more to maintain. Also a Samurai unit is more effective in battle than an Ashigaru unit.

Sounds straightforward enough. So what? Well, what this means is that recruiting Samurai is expensive as hell. They take longer to make (2 turns) and cost a truckload of gold to tech to (Castles that need upgrading, unit construction buildings that need makin' and on top of that there is the innate high price of the Samurai squad). However, once they arrive they will outshine an Ashigaru unit in a battle. Simply put: 20 Yari Samurai will flatten 20 Yari Ashigaru without breaking a sweat (as they should be, given the cost we just established). Now, normally the case is made that Samurai are more than twice as effective as Ashigaru. Be it Katana Samurai that can take on hordes of Ashigaru or even other Samurai at a time or Naginata Samurai which can perform surprisingly well against all other units in the game (including archers) there is just "something" that makes Samurai worth their large initial investment. However, one thing that I must stress as important is that on the field a Yari Samurai will not beat two Yari Ashigaru, but a stack of Samurai will simply dominate non-Samurai/Monk stacks. What good will it do that you have 35 Yari Ashigaru units if they fight 15-20 Samurai over 2 rounds, thus getting completely demolished due to not being able to fight as a single army and therefore fighting 1unit versus 1unit in a straight line against Samurai units which will result in a very quick wipeout of the Ashigaru. This is the real strength of Samurai, the often-overlooked additional "something" - strength-per-unit-effectiveness. And this is important largely due to the unit cap per battle (this+the lack of teching cost is also why the cost-ratio between Ashigaru and Samurai is completely different in a multiplayer battle as full stacks are rarer and thus Ashigaru are naturally more effective).

All simple stuff. Lets get dirty. So Samurai have 2 main strengths over Ashigaru: Upkeep effectiveness and strength-per-unit-effectiveness. Buying them sucks, having them around is awesome and fighting with them is legendary.
Welcome to the dealbreaker:

Oda Yari Ashigaru
200 cost
50 upkeep

50 cheaper to recruit - a 20% decrease is not small, but this is a one-time payment and is not that important. But 50 upkeep? "Well, a 25 koku saved per turn", you say. "So what?" That is an illogical way of gauging it. Let's quickly demonstrate why: If a Yari Samurai were to drop in upkeep to 100 koku, would it be less powerful in battle? Of course not. But it would be cheaper to maintain. You save 50 koku per turn compared to before. Irrelevant. What matters is the percentage you save compared to before, which is 33%. If we decrease upkeep by 33%, we increase units we can maintain for the same price by 50% - regardless of the unit or upkeep in question. It could be 3 upkeep to 2, it wouldn't matter. 10 Yari Ashigaru cost 750 per turn. 15 Oda Yari Ashigaru also cost 750 per turn. Not so subtle anymore, those 25 koku. This is why Oda Yari Ashigaru rule. Sure the Oda Yari Ashis have more morale and fare better in battle, but you can have 50% more for the same upkeep! Something that Oda Archer Ashis and Matchlock Ashis dont come anywhere near. And lo and behold - with our Oda Yari Ashis we're now at Samurai cost-to-upkeep ratio (excluding the 50 cost discount Oda gets, as this is compared to a standard Yari Ashigaru). We just completely removed one of the main benefits of Samurai. This alone is why Oda is straightforward and easy to play. This is also why Todofuken is not more effective on units that have a higher upkeep - in fact I'd argue its more effective on Ashigaru units from all factions as they have a disproportionally higher upkeep to their cost and effectiveness.

However, if you've tried playing Oda a few times you have probably run into the following scenario: You have your 5-6 provinces, your 2-3 Ashigaru stacks are you're ready to assault Ikko and Hattori - when suddenly Hojo shows up with a general, some 5-6 Yari Ashigaru and 10-12 Katana Samurai in a stack. Now what? This army is litterally unbeatable for you at this point assuming a standard landscape unless you attack with all 60 of your guys in three waves which cannot be effective. Why is this the case? Simple: You attack with 19 Yari Ashigaru and they will be crushed by the Samurai. Then the next 19 reinforce and they will be squashed by the remaining Samurai. The strength-per-unit-efficiency of Katanas vs Yari Ashis is simply too strong. If he had, say, 5 Katanas against 10 Yaris it would be a whole other story as now we can pitch 2 Yari Ashis on each of his Katanas instead of just 1. Armies get exponentially more effective as they get more numerous in a straight melee. 10 Yaris against 5 Yaris won't leave 5 Yaris for team 1 - it will probably leave something around 8 as the 10 Yaris will squash the 5 so quickly that the 5 wont have time to fight back due to morale and fatigue. But in stack situations we don't have this luxury. This advantage to Samurai is what has kept Oda in line in the midgame. Stacks of Samurai become more abundant in turns 50 and later and thats why Oda generally should aim to end the game very quickly as their Ashigaru advantage starts declining at this point.

No longer the case. With 40 units in a battle at the time a "stack" is twice as large. So lets spell it out: Samurai have the same advantage as before (40 Sams will demolish 40 Ashis) but this advantage kicks in significantly later than before. Now when Hojo shows up with his 12 Katanas you just swamp him in 25+ spears at once and it wont matter.

Oda-fans, are you grinning wider than Joker from Arkham Asylum? You should! Assuming your PC doesnt start coughing when 80 units are duking it out, this change has completely revamped the campaign for all factions - and Oda benefits from it significantly more than anyone else!

As a final note: I wouldn't want to be Takeda after this patch. Cavalry-based stacks seem to suffer the hardest from this increased unit cap (not that Cavalry isn't still excellent, but large Cavalry-squads didn't get more flanks to hit but they got twice the units to rout). Rumors have it they found Shingen's real burial site this morning due to him spinning so hard in his grave the earth shifted above it.

Edit: Uploaded a replay (Attachment 5051 - roughly 1500 Katana Samurai, some retainers and 4 generals attacking and routing roughly 6700 Ashigaru and Takeda Shingen) showing why you don't assault Samurai cores with Ashigaru waves. Imagine if the AI had swarmed my Katana core with all of his 6700 units instead of waving them over 2,5 assaults.

Since this requires a whole new approach to the Oda campaign I'll write out an edited guide in this thread after playing around with the campaign for a while

I am currently Hojo-ing so can't speak directly to the patch effect but this does sound very plausible.

At least pre-patch I still was able to beat AI samurai stacks with the right mix of Oda bow, yari and matchlock ashigaru though even in the later game - the only enemy mix to cause me major problems was one with lots of bow samurai as even with upgraded armour and exp/morale my ashigaru tended to take too many casualties before closing.

One of the major benefits of this patch is that you no longer need to rush Matchlock Ashigaru. You can beat smaller Samurai squads *without* rifles for much, much longer. This means you win 10-15ish turns that you can use for infrastructure and Arts. The biggest difference for me is that I can now safely get Tax Reform in turn 13 and rush 2-3 Merchant Guilds and still survive 40 turns later without rifles. Pre-patch this was nigh impossible.

This is exciting! Everything I felt I knew about the Oda campaign has been turned around!

Thanks for the write-up!
I guess if the AI also comes up with 2 full stacks of samurais, Oda would... wait, we can simply sabotage one stack with ninja. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jarmam

However, if you've tried playing Oda a few times you have probably run into the following scenario: You have your 5-6 provinces, your 2-3 Ashigaru stacks are you're ready to assault Ikko and Hattori - when suddenly Hojo shows up with a general, some 5-6 Yari Ashigaru and 10-12 Katana Samurai in a stack. Now what? This army is litterally unbeatable for you at this point assuming a standard landscape unless you attack with all 60 of your guys in three waves which cannot be effective. Why is this the case? Simple: You attack with 19 Yari Ashigaru and they will be crushed by the Samurai. Then the next 19 reinforce and they will be squashed by the remaining Samurai. The strength-per-unit-efficiency of Katanas vs Yari Ashis is simply too strong.

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2 Stacks are strong enough to beat them. With experinced units and a good tactic 1 Stack is enough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by faker01

2 Stacks are strong enough to beat them. With experinced units and a good tactic 1 Stack is enough.

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Went and tested it: No, one stack is not anywhere near enough. If you can beat 12 Katana Samurai and 5 Yari/Bow Ashigaru with 19 Yari Ashigaru you are either redlinecamping (which in my book is an exploit and still it won't be enough) or you have massive unit upgrades + Stand and Fight. You dont have massive upgrades in turn ~20 when this attack hits. Even with a full stack of experience 3 Ashigaru (which you wont have so quickly) you will still get routed unless of course you redlinecamp. If you have any archers you will be behind. If he has any archers you will be further behind. If you have a full stack (and I do mean a full stack since any weak link will start a chainrout even if they attempt a flank) of at least rank 4 troops, against an inexperienced general who fields nothing but inexperienced troops, then yes you can force a rout through superior morale. But that never happens. There is no way you have a full stack of supertroops so quickly and no way the enemy's stack is so hopelessly inexperienced - if it is then he hasn't fought a single battle yet and you somehow have 19 troops of 150 Yari Ashigaru all rank 3+ despite xp decay due to replenishment and a 2nd front facing the two strongest earlygame enemies in Hattori and Ikko. If his Katanas have any respectable amount of xp (2 or more) it is hopeless as their one major weakness is their weak defense skill and xp helps that out for them quite nicely.

It is, however, quite possible to rout him with 19+20 Yari Ashigaru assuming you even or ahead in xp (which is quite plausible as Ashigaru xp faster than Samurai) and that you're also on the defense and not in a castle. This just requires your first wave to deal massive damage as the second wave has a habit of watching the first one run away and take a serious morale penalty due to it. This of course also requires every single one of your units to be maxed in manpower. You could argue the same for him but if his units lack men then they have xp and we're back to square one. Or we used to. Now we don't care. He could have xp5 Katanas for what its worth, it won't do him any good if we have 2,5 units on the field for every Samurai squad he has. (Yes I tested it and even 15 xp5 Katanas cannot hold against 39 xp1 Yari Ashigaru, you will overrun him with fewer casualties than he gets). By the time he has 30 Samurai or more to move around with we now have a solid 4-5 rich provinces coupled with either the most absurdly overpowered thing in the game: The high level Ninja - or we have Matchlocks. Either way its all over for him by now.

In other exciting news, all of this Oda-stuff is really exciting and Im currently on my 4th Oda campaign trying to refine the new way to play the campaign efficiently. You can still blitz for sure and basically end the Long campaign before 1560, but it seems more effective to be more passive and wait with Divide for about 10 turns more than before without fearing a complete overrun by the western superpower and their love for Bow Samurai stacks. This isn't too relevant in a Long campaign but for a Domination campaign its really nice to have access to stronger infrastructure through 10 turns of Chi Arts (Tax Reform basically). You can also plan out your deathball stack more easily now, though it still seems that roughly 15-25 units of "real" troops is more than enough. This is also a lot more forgiving if you're not too confident in your campaign play and you're just looking for a basic strategy with a basic faction to get started on Legendary. A "blitz"run as Oda will teach you all about battlefield efficiency, early/midgame play and how tech and faction specialities rise and fall as time goes. Coupled with a Chosokabe lategame-oriented Christian slow Long/Domination win and you should be well equipped to try Legendary with a real faction!

One time I got a similar situation. The enemy had a few less katana-samurai, but experinced units. My units were inexperienced(2 xp I think) and I had no good general there. I tryied to make a record in the campaign(finally got the last province in round 61 on legendary), so I didn't wait for reinforcements. I have splitted the samurai by sacrificing a few units. So I could flank easily the half of the stack. the rest was very disorganized, but morale wasn't my problem anymore(half stack flanked and when they breaked, there were a massacre, that makes even for samurai a big penalty in morale). They flanked my units and my units flanked their units, but I had more units left.

What is red line campaigning?

Its a very tense balance, since like I mentioned the melee tips very quickly as each additional extra unit you have over your enemy is worth more than the previous one (aka 10v10 is even, 11v10 is not, 12v10 is more "uneven" than 11v10 was). But you're right, you can beat inexperienced Katanas with two waves of Ashigaru assuming the AI does the usual poor job of defending its flanks. Its still a complete chore since it will cost you a lot of men and probably units, until we got the 40 man battles which basically ensured that you're now unbeatable and can roll over any enemy army for the first 50 or so turns with significantly fewer losses than before.

Redlinecamping is basically to just take your army and park it in a corner, having your frontline from one red line marking the end of the battlemap to the next. That way you cannot be flanked no matter what the enemy tries to do. This is huge for both morale and battleline management and on top of that the AI in Shogun2 gets totally confused when you do it and starts sending in 1 unit at a time. Its basically an exploit of the fact that the battle interface is (naturally) limited to the square that it is, since its taking advantage of an engine limitation to protect your flanks. It was very popular in Rome multiplayer a long time ago, and got flagged as an exploit and I think of it as such as well in the SP as if you redline camp, you can basically be unstoppable in a defensive fight and the game becomes mindbogglingly easy. Thats one of the reasons I like to think of ways to win the game with a simple approach - as I think people will learn more trying a basic strategy (as they will try to improve or alter it or learn from its results) than if they try things like redline camping to win, as this will teach you nothing about anything. Each to his own, of course, but I always discount it as a valid strategy, its basically three times more effective than a castle with zero drawbacks.

Last hour I had time to test a bit. I played a game with a general and 19 oda ashigaru against a general, 5 yari ashigaru and 11 katana samurai. All were without any experince. I used a simple reversed v-formation and it was enough to kill about 66% of the other stack. Then I tested it with 2 xp every unit. That didn't made the katana samurai much stronger, but the ashigaru were much better -> easy win.