Arrow Fire and Routing

[A Nerd]

I was playing a campaign as Hojo on Normal when I encountered a Useugi army in Dewa that outnumbered me by about 250 men. This is what happened. His army was mabey 4 SA's, 2 Ashigaru, 1 depleted YS and a diaymo. My army was 2 SA's, 2 YS and 1 depleted ashigaru and my diaymo. Both diaymo were 3 star generals. I was defending and chose a ridge to defend. Our archers began to exchange fire, his four units were quite widdled down where as mine had lost about 30 samurai each. His ashigaru attacked thru a wooded area and one of my YS engaged them and routed both. The YS (as I didn't notice), ran down the hill toward the archers still firing on mine, the YS waiverd so I walked them back up the hill. They were in the woods yet being fired on and soon routed, my diaymo wasn't too far away. His Diaymo charched my arches who fell back so I engaged him with my YS, depleted ashigaru and my diaymo and one of my depleted SA's who were out of ammo. THe other continued to fire on his archers. Now I thought at this point I would kill his diaymo and win the battle for sure. What surprised me was after his diaymo had mabey 3 samurai left, everyone engaging him routed. Soon after so did my diaymo who had about 6 samurai left. Would the archer fire on my units have caused this rout? I thought with so few of them left, my diamyo figthing, my numerical superiority and his diaymo about to die this would be impossible. VERY frustrating. After losing then on the next turn taking back Dewa, I'm afraid to keep on playing. He is now in Sado and pumping out archers! Any insights?

[Brandy Blue]

If it works like MTW, then missle fire causes a temporary morale penalty. The archers only have to kill one guy for that to happen. If one of your units morale dipped too low because of losing just one guy to missle fire, it might rout. If it was a samurai unit, then its rout would demoralize all of your nearby units, and might make them dip below the rout cut off point. The whole army routing past your diayamo might tip his morale too low. Its like knocking down a domino (diayamo) and making the whole row of dominoes fall. If the enemy have only a single archer left and some other troops to protect him, then that lone marksman might get really lucky and "chain rout" a small army! Its not too realistic, but you know how computers are. They apply the rules whether it makes sense in a given situation or not.

Of course the enemy archers may have killed a bunch of guys at the same time. I illustrated with a "just one" example to show how unexpectly vulnerable your army can be, if you get really unlucky.

[chaouki]

had a similar problem a few days back. i used my daimyo to draw two units of archers away from the main enemy army because they heavily outnumbered my own army constisting of ashi and archers (was in the beginning of the oda campaign) and kept him walking around that those two sa couldn't fire upon him. after a couple of minutes my daimyo suddenly started to rout despite being "fresh and impetious" and without having lost a single hatamoto. i really wonder what might have caused him to rout...in the end i managed to win the battle nevertheless by routing the monks with the flanking ashis

[Jef Costello]

The daimyo is always a tricky proposition, they are tougher than normal heavy cavalry.
Dealing with Archers can be tough, tired troops do not like being fired upon when they can't strike back. I've seen two units of yari samurai routed by one unit of well-marshalled samurai archers.
I think you might have done better to keep the SA nearby, using them against cavalry is always going to be risky and I wouldn't be surprised if the SA triggered the rout.

[chaouki]

to which post (a nerds or mine) is your answer? if it is an answer to my post i'd have to explain my problem better. it was my daimyo who was fired upon and fled with all his hatamoto being fresh and impetious. my own archers dealt with the rest of the enemy army

[A Nerd]

I always thought firing upon a diaymo with archers was kind of a waste of armor. They still seem incredibly hard to kill. Especially if the army accompanying him is quite large. The AI seemed to be provoking me into firing upon his diaymo durning my battle, marching them close but not charging. Firing a few vollies on him while killiing only a few would have seemed wasteful, especially with the bulk of his army continually inflicting casualties on my men.

[Jef Costello]

to which post (a nerds or mine) is your answer? if it is an answer to my post i'd have to explain my problem better. it was my daimyo who was fired upon and fled with all his hatamoto being fresh and impetious. my own archers dealt with the rest of the enemy army

nerd's.

in your case it was probably a case of the combined morale loss of being fired on by lots of archers and being isolated from the rest of the army. I'd also bet that you had your back turned to one of the archers. It's annoying but it happens

[Brandy Blue]

Once again, my experience is mostly with MTW, but could part of Chaouki's problem be that his daimyo was outnumbered locally? After all, its a small unit, and it was dragging around two units. If those units were at full strength, then he was locally outnumbered ten to one. I don't think that would alone rout a diamyo, but it might contribute.

[chaouki]

thanks for your ideas on the topic jef and brandy. it was just that unexpected

[gollum]

Being under fire does cause morale penalties and friendly fire does too. Also what of the enemy troops' honor? Is it possible that they were higher honor troops?