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 (Samurai efficiency vs Ashigaru.zip - 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
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