Battles - how to win big with equal numbers?

[phonicsmonkey]

No, unfortunately I'm not going to tell you how to do this (hence the question mark) - instead I'm looking for a bit of help from you guys.

I consider myself a fairly experienced TW player but I'm really struggling to meaningfully win battles in this game so far.

It's wrecking my campaigns because while I'm on top of the economic management side of things and I'm keeping up with my neighbouring factions in terms of army size and composition I keep getting my sorry self kicked on the battlefield, leaving me wide open to invasion.

It's (very) possible I might just need more practice but I thought - why not ask my orgah buddies for some help?

My issue, I think, is that I have become addicted, through many many hours spent playing RTW and M2TW, to cavalry charges as a way of winning battles and inflicting massive casualties on the enemy for very little loss of my own. Clearly this is not going to work in this game as cavalry are more realistically balanced and in the early game appear next to useless except for taking out bow ashigaru and chasing down routers.

So, would you mind posting some tips for me as to how to win battles against equal or greater odds and maybe this thread can become a tactical resource for other players like me who are having trouble?

(BTW I'm playing on campaign VH or H and battles Normal difficulty)

[Centurion1]

i play vh vh

i can give you two tips that net me heroic victories mostly.

A. kill the general. you do this you win it matters more than in any other tw game to date.
B. archers. you win the archer fight you win the battle. my traditional army in sp now is about 6 teched up to the brim archers with three infantry units to engage the line (what survives the field of death) a couple cavalry to deal with the guaranteed mass rout and a general.

[Dead Guy]

A cheap way to win big: Have more Samurai than Ashigaru ;)

If you're on the defensive and can find a nice hill, that's a guaranteed way to win big too, of course. I think the bonus you get from fighting downhill is pretty huge.

The key factor, imo, is to have the rock to his scissors, switching out units in the army to match the enemy army. This is hard to do of course, without serious scouting ahead, and not very feasible economically. If you're up against an all archer stack, you want to be heavy on the cavalry side. If you're facing only infantry, there's less need for cavalry and if you're facing a lot of cavalry, you want a lot of spears (duh).

I tend to win costly victories when my balanced stack comes up against a very biased stack and I for some reason fail to use my advantages and/or allow the AI to use the advantage of focusing on one kind of troop type. If you field balanced armies it's absolutely key to fight cavalry heavy armies in a forest, distract archer hordes with flanking cavalry while the infantry closes the distance without getting completely annihilated etc.

Other than that I don't know... Use the Inspire ability well? I like the Stand and Fight ability a lot, it's wonderful when you've parked your army on a hill. Your archers reload faster and your infantry gets a bonus to attack.

I've played a bit with splitting my force into two when the AI has allowed it. Basically, I was the attacker and the AI camped on a hill. He had fewer archers, but I didn't want to just engage him head on anyway, so I put all my archers out on a flank so they came at his hill on top of another forested hill. I put spears and two katanas behind them, and then a strong line of katanas and naginatas in front of the AI but some distance away. By moving my troops closer/further away from him on either side and hiding/revealing the archers in the forest I got the AI to constantly change his position at a run, tiring his troops out so the sandals by their banners were red or deep orange before the melee eventually began. By then I had managed to get some free volleys in from the archers on his flank. Major win. The tiring out part is a bit cheap though.

[Monk]

A cheap way to win big: Have more Samurai than Ashigaru ;)

That's not cheap, that's just stacking for quality!

I think it goes without saying, if your army consists mainly of Ashigaru you're going to suffer a lot of losses. Even in relatively 'clean' victories, expect to lose 50+ men per unit on large settings.

[Rothe]

Killing the general is a sure way to win. I even consider it a bit of a "cheap" tactic and I avoid targeting enemy generals with archers for this reason - call it "honourable" or whatever.

Archers are quite important to take into account. When defending, you can kill a lot of enemies with archers alone and routing them after a good barrage should be pretty easy. Assaulting, you have to take care to avoid archer fire (loose formation when closing) and plan for it in the strategy side to have a good mix of units to counter it.

Flanking is key to getting a chain rout, which is the way to reduce your casualties.

My plan usually is to close the melee ranks with defensive units like naginata and some ashigaru, and then flank with katana and naginata monk units, perhaps cavalry if I can fit it into the budget. The naginata monks are great for flanking, as they have the battle cry ability - flank and after a short while use that ability and you should be able to rout ashigaru and even some samurai units - shooting a few arrows into the mix will make it even better, but try to avoid the monks as they have low armor.

To avoid casualties, the flanking move should be happening quite fast. I sometimes even use yari samurai flanking if I lack monks because they are quite fast. Also, in the flanks, they tend to be quite good protection vs. enemy cavalry.

I find most of my casualties are coming from enemy archer fire and the ashigaru I lose when I close ranks with the enemy. Ashigaru are cheap, so I have some in a reserve stack to stock up my army after the fight and I leave the surviving ashigaru to restock.

[Dead Guy]

That's not cheap, that's just stacking for quality!

Lol, guess I should've written "An expensive way to win big:" eh? =)

But yeah, the raw number of men lost can be a bit misleading. Ashigaru die easily (like other men, as the romans would no doubt say)

[Rothe]

I definitely agree on the Rock, Paper and Scissors being key.

For instance, if I see an enemy stack with tons of katana samurai, I try to reinforce my army with something else than spear troops. Naginata will lose head-to-head vs. katana, but with a good amount of archers you should be able to beat a katana heavy army. Having my line with lots of yari ashigaru and yari samurai would just be suicide.

It is kind of counter-intuitive, but I think that naginata are really good just because they are not biased. I can have a core of naginata infantry and just swap out some "auxiliary" troops to match my enemy's stack if I have time. That way, I can keep most of my troops standardized, but still I can respond to most threats. My Chosokabe armies tend to have 8 archers, 4-5 naginata, and the rest is usually a mix of ashigaru and flanking forces (monks, katana) or special use units (yari samurai, cavalry). Obviously I am archer heavy because Chokosabe gets a bonus for that.

[phonicsmonkey]

So the main message I'm getting from this is: have more archers.

Secondarily, if they have more archers use cavalry to run them down.

Anyone had any luck with horse archers? One unit of those routed my katana samurai with a couple of volleys from behind...

[xploring]

Use your agents to help you before the battles begin? They can be very powerful if you leveled them up.

[mason_dt]

<delurk> The unit abilities are really useful in turning the tide, warrior monks' war cry can break multiple wavering units. The no-dachj banzai ability just plain rocks too (a single unit managed to take down 3 groups of samurai bowmen on my last Kyoto seige - I've got to try a Date campaign and see what they can do.) And the Yari samurai speed increase makes them perfect for intercepting flanking cavalary.

I've been very unimpressed with cavalry as a whole - compared to Medieval at least. Swooping crane (Cantabarian circle) may help out horse archers some, but bow samurai seem much more useful.
</delurk>

[frogbeastegg]

Cavalry can be devastating if used well, even the early light cavalry. It took me a while and at first I didn't like them much, finding them too fussy. It's all about the charge. Most of them shred like tissue paper in a melee; you have to really pay close attention. I kept looking elsewhere for a moment and I'd come back to find my horses dead.

What you need to do is attack in detail. Tie an enemy infantry unit up with one of your own and then charge the cavalry smack into their back. Give it a few seconds and then give a double click move order behind your cavalry to begin withdrawing them before the melee can cut them apart. Often it requires several orders, maybe one every 2 seconds. Once they are free give a double click attack order on your next target. The impact of the charge combined with the morale penalties and the casualties for being flanked will often prove the breaking point for ashigaru units. Try not to do this if the enemy cav is still active, or if the situation is so messy your cav might believe they are in danger of being flanked by the scattered enemy. In those cases your cav will rout as you issue movement orders. I have settled at two cavalry per army plus general; more feels like a waste of koku and space, and more micro than I can manage.

Archers are important, and it's good to put some thought into which type of archer to bring. Do you want big clouds of arrows raining down on lightly protected foes? Do you want archers you can send out in a missile duel and use partially as a human shield? If either of those apply, bring ashigaru archers. They are cheap, replenish quickly, and have more men per unit. If you want precision over volume and face heavily armoured foes samurai archers are better as they are more accurate and their arrows are supposed to be slightly armour piercing.

If you are having problems with your ashigaru routing, attach a monk to the army. They give a morale bonus. Then park your general behind the infantry line and any unit in the blue circle will gain a morale boost. These two actions give the basic early game ashigaru quite a boost.

Finally, pick samurai types which counter the bulk of your foe's force and use them to support your main ashigaru line. If you like a more balanced option and don't want to swap units all the time, try naginata samurai. They are good against everything, albeit spectacular against nothing. Sometimes 4 units of all-rounders is more use than 4 units of various specialities. Their heavy armour also means they can absorb some serious damage, and can weather arrow storms better than most. I really like naginata.

Typically I send my ashigaru archers out in front in skirmish mode and loose formation. They do some damage and absorb the return fire. If I can gain the missile advantage I will keep shooting for as long as possible. If the enemy presses contact, or I need to close sooner, I let my infantry line (typically ashigaru unless I am filthy rich) take and hold contact with the main enemy line. My archers are withdrawn to behind that line and can continue shooting. I use my samurai to charge in on the flanks if possible, or to counter any enemy flanking attempts on me. Meanwhile my cavalry is galloping wide with two missions: charging enemy archers, or charging into the rear of the locked lines. Enemy cavalry is usually tied up either on my spears or my naginata at this point.

Don't be afraid of enemy samurai. A basic ashigaru can hold them for a good while unless circumstances are very dire. That gives you time to get a second unit after the samurai from an advantageous position. Sometimes even a second basic yari ashigaru will do. Even if you don't have spare units to send around and clean up that samurai, it's an expensive unit being tied up by a cheap one while you (hopefully) work to your advantage elsewhere. If that samurai is one of the last units left out of a routing unit, he's still going down.

Likewise enemy cavalry. Keep your calm and use your spears or naginata. A single unit of those will dispose of cavalry in most circumstances, and if not it will tie them up for a while. Just make sure they meet that initial charge head on.

If they have missile superiority and you don't have a screen of ashigaru bowmen to absorb the fire, get into melee contact with the bulk of your army ASAP without putting yourself at a formation or terrain disadvantage. Then friendly fire comes into effect and all those bows become considerably less dangerous.

The out of battle bonus to these ashigaru-cored armies is that they fix very quickly no matter where you are. Sometimes that's the edge you need: getting back into the next battle in better shape than your enemy. Sometimes it lets me push on for one more battle when I would not do so if I had more samurai, because I know one more round of losses will be replaced swiftly if I win that push and take the province. When you start adding honour and armour bonuses on the yari ashigaru, plus a ranked up monk for bonuses, plus some general stars and abilities, they remain relevant into the mid-game. And what does it matter if a few yari ashigaru units are totally destroyed? I can have them back in two turns.

I'm surprised by how much use I have found for the yari ashigaru units. I never used them in shogun 1, and didn't like them at all at first. Then something clicked and I have used 6-8 of them as the core of my armies since. They do the standing and dying so my precious samurai can do the safer killing. The bows are nice too. Teppu ... ah, need more practice.

[quadalpha]

Wow, FBE himself!

What do you make of the feeling (from the MP forum) that the flanking penalty (and morale in general) is too insignificant? I've not been paying much attention, but I don't recall seeing a unit "concerned; attacked from flank" in this version, and waving a unit behind the enemy doesn't seem to have much of an effect (you used to be able to rout a unit on-the-edge without an actual charge). They don't fight to the death either.

[frogbeastegg]

Herself

It's been a while. Seems to be a lot of old faces back.

Well, I don't play MP so all my experience comes from battles against the AI. I also have not got as much experience as I'd like; there are some units I am still getting a feel for, and lots of things I want to see repeated dozens of times before I feel the conclusions are anything like solid. That said, I don't feel like there is a problem with flanking penalties at the moment. I do get results, and have seen the AI get results against my own units. Especially when cavalry or a superior unit hit, and definitely when the target has already been damaged to a reasonable degree.

I have seen a few units fight to the death. Very elite units, such as a high honour general plus bodyguard. I think a couple of my samurai did in a particularly nasty battle but I cannot be sure as I was busy elsewhere. Either they stood to the last man, or routed at a handful left. It's rare and due to wider gameplay implications that is how I like it; it should be a special event belonging to an outstanding group of warriors.

My main battle problem is arghohmygodthatsfast! I ended up playing most battles on the slow mo setting, and have recently found a mod which purportedly slows movements speeds down without affecting anything else. I intend to give it a try.

The second thing - which is definitely more a consideration in need of more experience before a positive or negative conclusion is formed - is that it sometimes feels like the rout happens too quickly, too easily. That's in face to face combat. Charge with fresh and barely damaged units, lines met, oh, over already and I didn't even manage to run my flank attacks into place. That's with fairly equal unit classes.

Between the two it feels like I don't have time to do anything remotely elegant unless I stick to slow mo. Until I found slow mo it was hard to even get a flank attack even, and cavalry was entirely useless.

[andrewt]

So the main message I'm getting from this is: have more archers.

Secondarily, if they have more archers use cavalry to run them down.

Anyone had any luck with horse archers? One unit of those routed my katana samurai with a couple of volleys from behind...

I haven't been impressed so far with horse archers. They're best used as weak archers that can chase down enemy routers.

They have multiple problems:
1. They're more expensive than samurai archers.

2. Their reload rate sucks. The only way to get your bang for your buck is to send them skirmishing early, which brings up the next problem.

3. Skirmish is bad. They tend to run towards the edge of the map, where they'll get trapped and slaughtered. It's also a pain to control other horse archers to shoot the pursuing cavalry. You have to manually turn off skirmish mode (since it overrides instructions), tell them to run towards your main force, turn back skirmish mode after they're safe already. If you don't have skirmish mode on, infantry will slaughter them when you are busy somewhere else. Having yari cavalry escorting them all the time is a micromanagement nightmare, since yari cavalry have no skirmish against infantry.

4. They don't outrun generals and katana cav so even these can keep your horse archers occupied until they're trapped in the corner of the map.

5. They're only really useful against armies with no cavalry and not enough foot archers to protect all their flanks. And to chase down routers.

[Monk]

Good to see you posting TW related stuff again, froggy.

Typically I send my ashigaru archers out in front in skirmish mode and loose formation. They do some damage and absorb the return fire. If I can gain the missile advantage I will keep shooting for as long as possible. If the enemy presses contact, or I need to close sooner, I let my infantry line (typically ashigaru unless I am filthy rich) take and hold contact with the main enemy line. My archers are withdrawn to behind that line and can continue shooting. I use my samurai to charge in on the flanks if possible, or to counter any enemy flanking attempts on me. Meanwhile my cavalry is galloping wide with two missions: charging enemy archers, or charging into the rear of the locked lines. Enemy cavalry is usually tied up either on my spears or my naginata at this point.

I've noticed the AI loves to pick its targets and stick with it. Very rarely it will swap, but more often then not it will stick like glue to the target it selects first. I've exploited this by keeping my archers out in front during the initial skirmish phase, then once the enemy has engaged me with archers (I see the 'under fire' icon in the unit cards) I withdraw to behind my lines and immediately push forward with my melee units. 9/10 times the Ai will continue to shoot at my archers while I refocus fire on the melee. In this way, i can direct the enemy fire to my archers while i pick at the main line.

The second thing - which is definitely more a consideration in need of more experience before a positive or negative conclusion is formed - is that it sometimes feels like the rout happens too quickly, too easily. That's in face to face combat. Charge with fresh and barely damaged units, lines met, oh, over already and I didn't even manage to run my flank attacks into place. That's with fairly equal unit classes.

I don't think vanilla is as bad as rome was, but I still couldn't take the speed - been using a mod that rebalances a lot of the stats. Only way I can keep sane and have some fun

I haven't been impressed so far with horse archers. They're best used as weak archers that can chase down enemy routers.

I agree for the most part. I think of them as mobile archers, something I can use after the main battle has been joined. Redeploy on a flank and start shooting. But I find it very hard to justify taking bow cav over, say, yari cav. The later gives me a really good anti missle/router unit as well as some protection against light cavalry, which is a huge plus in the early to mid games when the AI starts deploying 2-3 light cav in its 'main' stacks.

[frogbeastegg]

Likewise.

Funnily enough I played RTW on default speed without any problems. I must be getting old.

I noticed the same thing. I like to park my yari ashigaru line, turn on spearwall, and let skirmish mode on the archers do the rest. Automatic horse kebabs. Heh, the AI doesn't always play along. Often enough to keep me from getting confident it will do something which forces me to work hard to recover the situation, like sneak a fast unit or two around the back of my line while I focus on the kebabbing, or swerve at the last instant so it catches unit flanks. Sometimes it will halt and withdraw and try something else. If it has the right infantry types it will sometimes follow a cavalry charge up with a close infantry charge. Samurai smashing into lines still recovering from impact is ugly. A few times there have been so many horses hitting in slightly staggered charges that my line became overwhelmed; an immensely costly way to remove some ashigaru but I guess it worked.

I love it! Much better than the AI which used to do the same (typically stupid) thing every time. 50% chance of automatic horse kebabs and 50% chance of mayhem is good.

[andrewt]

Good to see you posting TW related stuff again, froggy.



I've noticed the AI loves to pick its targets and stick with it. Very rarely it will swap, but more often then not it will stick like glue to the target it selects first. I've exploited this by keeping my archers out in front during the initial skirmish phase, then once the enemy has engaged me with archers (I see the 'under fire' icon in the unit cards) I withdraw to behind my lines and immediately push forward with my melee units. 9/10 times the Ai will continue to shoot at my archers while I refocus fire on the melee. In this way, i can direct the enemy fire to my archers while i pick at the main line.

As Chosokabe, I've actually started doing the opposite. When their archers come into range of mine, I switch target and focus on routing their archers first before firing on their main infantry line. I've found naginata infantry to be the best as they can kill cav, survive for a while and are best for taking on the inevitable friendly fire.

Friendly fire is really terrible this game. Ever seen 2 different horse archer units skirmish into the same space and end up shooting each other from time to time? Even foot archers do the same thing when skirmished, which is why I ended up preferring to have the back row charge without turning skirmish on.

[HopAlongBunny]

Bows before her highness FBE

Holding and hitting seems to be the way to go. The Ashi in spearwall are tough!

Flanking seems a little harder for me in this game; everything just happens so fast; but if you back your lines with a cpl samurai (of any flavour) you can rout whatever the Ashi are holding. The key seems to be following up on success.

Haven't tried it yet but I think if you stack one flank and try to steamroll, it should work wonders.

[Azi Tohak]

I'm going to have to buy this game. I haven't been in the mood for TW since I stopped playing the SS mod a while ago. I'm loving how this sounds. You have to think for battles?!?!? Wow! I remember having to do that for MTW 1, but even STW was pretty easy for me for the most part. I'm excited.

[quadalpha]

Herself

Apologies! The avatar should have been a clue.

I rather miss MTW's wonderful set of missile cavalry, how they can tease an army apart at the seams.

Using archers to shoot archers always felt kind of redundant. I'd do it if I were attacking with clear missile superiority, but if not, it feels much cleaner to close to melee and make archer kebabs with cav. Missile duels are worse when their archers have a few morale bonuses and refuse to rout.

Here's what kocmoc says about morale:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. You can do masstests, by moving one unit close to 10 of the enemy, you see the flag-bar droping and a low moral unit will waver, it wont run! Its the outnumber factor, in old days it was 1:10 and 1:100. I believe its still the same today.

2. If you now move a unit in the rear of this one unit, you wont see any different, same goes for the flank.

3. now test all the other things, we got a wavering unit, almost routing and rearing does nothing, flanking does nothing, "scaring enemies" does nothing, whistling arrow does nothing...
Every single moral penalty in game, does nothing at all!

Simple tests, you can do by yourself, try to fatigue the unit and so on.

Im sure, most things are taken off, so far only kill and quick kill drop moral, same as gen not around or many units dead in army, not to mention killed gen.

...

1. It is possible that rearing and flanking is still around, but than it is extremely low (this means that we speak about 0,* numbers)
2. It is possible that certain moral penalties are not cumulative and only the highest penalty is taken

To give you a picture:

Since outnumber effects are still there (1:10 and 1:100) you can put the lowest moral unit next to 20 enemy units.
The missle will drop moral (you can see it at the bar) and even start to waver, now if other moral penalties would have any effect, the unit should rout at some point, right?

I placed one of the 20 unit in the back of this wavering unit, one on the flank. We got scare enemy next to it, whistling arrows and a monk with warcry. Guess what...
Nothing happened!

The 2 points mentioned above show you what can be possible.

If just the highest penalty is taken, than the outnumber effect will be stronger as any other penalty, so you wont see rearing having any effect.


Now I personal think its number 1, since you can put 2 units in rear and flank and nothing happens to the moral bar on the unit flag!


Im almost sure, that its taken off completely, online you can already say, that flanking and rearing is pointless. Rearing has only one effect, and thats a higher killingspeed.
The game is done to killingspeed, nothing else. Apart from a few moral effect, such as gen dies or gen not in range, rally.... there is no real moral anymore.

The tests I described you can easy redo yourself.

[phonicsmonkey]

I like to park my yari ashigaru line, turn on spearwall

Is this effective against other yari ashigaru / other infantry or just against cav? I've been trying to pin and flank with HI or Cav but I find my YA lines are either too whittled down by missile fire (in which case more missiles of my own will help as above) or just don't stand and fight long enough for me to complete the manouevre.

Slow-mo might help but I'd rather play the battle at normal speed if possible. Keeping my general close will also help I'm sure. Does the inspire ability make much of a difference?

[econ21]

Does the inspire ability make much of a difference?

I have limited experience, but it seems very powerful. You can only apply it to one unit and it does not last very long. I use it on most offensive spearhead unit just as it is contacting the enemy lines - for example, a katana samurai unit that has just climbed a wall or is wading into an ashigaru scrum.

The stand and fight ability from the skill "infantry general" affects more units and seems like it could be a powerful way of swinging a big melee in your favour. My generals' days of leading flank charges may be over now. I think they'll be picnicking behind the lines from now on.

[Rothe]

I'd also like to know about spearwall vs. units other than cavalry. I usually keep my yari ashigaru in normal formation with enough depth to avoid my line breaking.

[Monk]

I'd also like to know about spearwall vs. units other than cavalry. I usually keep my yari ashigaru in normal formation with enough depth to avoid my line breaking.

Spear wall is comparable to turning your ashigaru into a brick-wall. The only thing that will beat them is a determined assault that literally overwhelms their position. I've seen spearwall ashigaru beat katana samurai units.

The major downsides are their tight formation, making them easy targets for archers as well as slow speed. It makes an offensive movement very difficult to coordinate.

[phonicsmonkey]

So for a defensive stand the thing to do would be to use archers and cavalry to take out the enemy archers as much as possible, or draw their fire before turning on spearwall? It strikes me this could be quite a small window of opportunity before the two lines meet.

[Monk]

So for a defensive stand the thing to do would be to use archers and cavalry to take out the enemy archers as much as possible, or draw their fire before turning on spearwall? It strikes me this could be quite a small window of opportunity before the two lines meet.

Taking out archers or otherwise stopping their fire (by throwing some melee/cav troops at them) should always be a high priority. Until archery gets nerfed the Yumi is the deadliest weapon in the game, and should be treated as such.

Ideally you want to try to shift fire from your main line in the manner I said above. Wait until your archers are under fire, then pull them back. Hit spear-wall and take the charge. It's also a good idea to have some cavalry to screen your archers while they fall back. A few times the AI has been cagey, sending a quick cavalry raid against my archers resulting in a couple lost units.

[MCM]

The out of battle bonus to these ashigaru-cored armies is that they fix very quickly no matter where you are. Sometimes that's the edge you need: getting back into the next battle in better shape than your enemy. Sometimes it lets me push on for one more battle when I would not do so if I had more samurai, because I know one more round of losses will be replaced swiftly if I win that push and take the province. When you start adding honour and armour bonuses on the yari ashigaru, plus a ranked up monk for bonuses, plus some general stars and abilities, they remain relevant into the mid-game. And what does it matter if a few yari ashigaru units are totally destroyed? I can have them back in two turns.

I'm surprised by how much use I have found for the yari ashigaru units. I never used them in shogun 1, and didn't like them at all at first. Then something clicked and I have used 6-8 of them as the core of my armies since. They do the standing and dying so my precious samurai can do the safer killing. The bows are nice too. Teppu ... ah, need more practice.

I wanted to second this. In many ways I think this game is a bit unbalanced - ashigaru are so much dramatically cheaper than samurai, especially when you factor in the cost of buildings required to train samurai. Buildings in Shogun 2 are incredibly expensive, particularly when you compare how many troops you could have had for the same price. Often it's half a dozen units of samurai or more.

Which means even more absurd amounts of ashigaru could be had for the same price. At the most extreme, you have the Oda - it's a hard first couple turns, but I remember reading a guy who won a Legendary Campaign as Oda about 30-40 turns in, just by building nothing but ashigaru from the start. This pretty much matches my experience: in campaign mode, samurai just aren't worth investing in. If I capture a good AI training province, I will train them there, but otherwise, I'll just do ashigaru. Unit losses are not important; a decent-level general and Heaven and Earth and the fact that the AI always upgrades roads means that your ashigaru units fill back in just a couple turns.

[Rothe]

I wanted to second this. In many ways I think this game is a bit unbalanced - ashigaru are so much dramatically cheaper than samurai, especially when you factor in the cost of buildings required to train samurai. Buildings in Shogun 2 are incredibly expensive, particularly when you compare how many troops you could have had for the same price. Often it's half a dozen units of samurai or more.

Which means even more absurd amounts of ashigaru could be had for the same price. At the most extreme, you have the Oda - it's a hard first couple turns, but I remember reading a guy who won a Legendary Campaign as Oda about 30-40 turns in, just by building nothing but ashigaru from the start. This pretty much matches my experience: in campaign mode, samurai just aren't worth investing in. If I capture a good AI training province, I will train them there, but otherwise, I'll just do ashigaru. Unit losses are not important; a decent-level general and Heaven and Earth and the fact that the AI always upgrades roads means that your ashigaru units fill back in just a couple turns.

I agree that buildings, especially the top tier ones are too expensive. On the other hand, the economy is "controllable" in a way, so you can afford to get samurai stacks by 1565 - 1570 if you are playing the longer campaign. I got to 130k koku in reserve and 3 armies (around 60% samurai) before I really started my endgame fights.

I suppose a rushing tactic is valid too, but by no means the only way to win at the game. I don't play the game to get a record in speed. I enjoy seeing through the scale of units and armies.

[al Roumi]

I think Samurai only stacks are a waste. Any army has a requirement to soak up the enemy punishment -be it missiles, mellee or a combination of both. Ashigaru are the quintissential meat shield -designed to form and hold the line.

I liken my armies and deployemtn to that of a body. The Ashigaru form the flesh, the bulk of the troops and tissue. Samurai & Monks form the bones -the harder sections of the arm that provide underlying strength. My Ashigaru do most of the fighting in my battles and my Samurai are only committed at crucial points -in defense: when the spear wall thins or in attack to land powerful blows on the enemy (flanking or missile).

Ashis are comparatively much more versatile and powerful than units that have had the main meatshield role in other TW games -e.g. the peasants/town militia of MTW2. But I'm happy with this as it encourages a more historicaly consistent make up of armies (i.e. few Samurai).

I'd argue that Ashi only armies are sub-optimal, in the way that Samurai only armies are too. The good thing about the gamey RPS mechanics is that you do need at least a basic balance of troop types to succeed. I never liked the "guard" or "armoured swordsmen" armies of recent TW titles as I found them quite unrealistic.

Edit: And as for rush tactics, well, each to their own but IMHO -that's what starcraft is for.

[frogbeastegg]

Forgive me; this won't be a neat post. I can't see so well at the moment due to reasons but this topic was interesting enough that I wanted to read it and add a little more before it leaves me behind.

On morale
Having read that quote from Kocmoc I wonder if engaging in melee is the key? With that thought in mind I shall add to my earlier comment about getting results when I flank, and say that if I have a unit in a position to flank then it's attacking as soon as I can get it in there. So my post was based on only combat rather than only position. There has to be something more going on than loss morale penalties, otherwise the unit would break sooner in regular combat and/or hold out longer when flanked.

Another possibility is that position gives a penalty but that penalty alone cannot trigger the rout. So behind the scenes something is going on but nothing is really displayed. Along that line of thought, it seems hard to rout units with missiles alone, even ashigaru in an exposed position. You have to maul them very badly. However when I get close enough to touch a melee with a few men, bingo, rout.

Taken together that would mean that 'proving' you can carry out the threat is the powerful part, not the threat itself.

That's all pure speculation on my part, no testing or anything has gone into it.

On pure ashigaru armies, worth of samurai etc
Mixed is definitely the way to go IMO. Samurai are the supporting factor; they do the specialist and tough jobs, they are the iron on my fist. If the enemy are using samurai and you are not then you are in a harder place than you otherwise would be

It's one of the things I really like about this game: there is no junk unit, and units at all cost levels remain valid throughout the campaign. I never found much use for cheap units in any of the old games, and nearly always rolled with a stack made up out of quality and/or elite units. It's good to have a roster where each unit feels like it has something to offer.

I do have one use for pure ashigaru armies. Get a big or full stack of yari ashigaru, throw at Kyoto or other heavily defended super fort, auto-calc to cause casualties without wasting time fighting the battle personally, and then follow up with a proper army. Evil, cruel, and a lot cheaper than using real armies from the start.

On the general's morale boost
Anything inside the blue circle gets an automatic passive bonus. It feels like maybe 4 points, i.e nice and noticable without making them hardcore.

I'm not so good with the ability names. If inspire is the one I think then it's very powerful but has quite some cooldown and so is best regarded as a one off boost in a critical area. I use it if part of my line is hard pressed and looks like it may be broken; I trot the general over, trigger the ability, and can then trust that the unit will stand until its down to its last 1/6 of so. Hmm, sure that one is inspire ...

on spearwall
It puts me in mind of similar abilities in BI and onwards. It doesn't kill as quickly as a unit in regular formation but it does feel like they hold on longer and lose fewer men. So maybe it applies a defence boost and attack penalty, as we know happened in those older games? If that's so there must also be some bonus specific to fighting cavalry as they slaughter horses in this mode unless the unit manages to hit outside of the spear hedge.



Has anyone found much use for siege units, like the firepot guys? That's a category I have barely used so far; I want to get better with teppu, cavalry and missile cavalry first.