You know.. after FINALLY winning a mongol campaign on expert, I have found out a MAJOR bit of info - those cheap little ashigaru units that most ppl don't use cuz they rout quick and are - well - ashigaru.... surprise - they are KEY to stomping the crud outta the golden horde. The little buggers are quite tough against arrows, and on a hill have as good (or better) of a range as the cav archers at the bottom shooting at them. Combine that with the fact that they gain honor quicker than samurai units and that they are bloody hard hitters makes them a bane to the horde. You can't JUST use xbowmen, but if you have 4 or 6 yari sams to get their back, they won't rout on ya and you can put them in hold mode and the nothing can touch em. The best a unit did was a group of skirmishers who were able to fire one small salvo at my xbowmen before breaking - seems they lost 2/3 of their strength getting in range. The only mongol unit not outright eaten alive by these cheap little buggers are mongol Heavy cav... and 4-6 upgraded yari can and will take any MHC apart that the horde decides to bring to the party. Especially if you can fight downhill! 8-)
so - for 100 koku a pop - these guys are an investment that cant be beat. Back em up with a few sam units to help their morale, keep em away from heavy cav and the horde will break on you like the tide on a reef. Of course - armor upgrades only make em tougher....
On expert, just because of these little guys, the mongols never got past the westernmost island except for some northern landings. Which thanks again to the packing farmers of the west I had enough of an army to contain those 2 landings quickly. Less than 5 years from start to finish - the game was won...
To give credit where it is due however, the other secret lies in emissaries.... since you can use them to bribe Mongol armies! Who said you can't fight Mongol vs Mongol????
ROFL!
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BSM_Skkzarg
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
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