holly damn, need help

[Patton21]

I played my third mp game ever a few days ago. I selected 8 ys with honor 4 and three wm honor 2 and one yc. A great army you say? I thought so. I could have conquered the world with that army, huh? I was defending so i set my army up in one long line. YS then WM in intervals like the romans used. When i pressed start the enemy was in a neat formation not far from me on a hill. This was the 4th yamastmocka or whatever the hell its called, and he was arranged with four muskets at the base of the hill, then four high honor WM, then four ND-sams. I kept cool and created a small flanking party. He converged on my flanking with his whole army and destroyed it. I then attacked him and was slaughtered. His muskets destroyed me even through his own men. Was my army selection bad. Arnt ys with honor 4 very strong? What is the advantage of ND-sams? How do you best attack an army like that positioned on a hill. THanks for the help. I look forward to playing you guys online. I am a little annoyed because roman tactics dont seem to work on this game. THanks guys, your the man! Ps. I started the Hannibal clan for history people who know tactics and would like to compete fairly. Let me know if you would like to join. I dont want to lead it but someone else could whos played the game longer then two days.

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The bastard

[NinjaKilla]

Two principle reasons why Roman tactics don't work:

1. The Romans didn't have guns.

2. The Romans didn't have guns that could shoot through friendly ranks without inflicting any friendly casualties.

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- Our girls fall for samurai and they'll go chasing after them.
- If the bandits come they'll cut our heads off. We'll worry about the girls later.

From: Seven Samurai

Your army maybe cool and good honoured but it is not going to make much success in the MP world.

Let's find out all your army's bad points:

Number: In the MP world, numbers are essential and having 16 full units in 3000 koku + games is essential. More units necessary. In Multiplayer games, I have to say that numerical strenght is more powerful than honour, most times.

Missiles: In this game, without missiles you won't go far. You need either guns or archers or else a combination of them. Archers kill more per volley but had low ammo. Guns have much more ammo and inflict the morale penalty to the enemy; but they are slow reloading and extremely sucky in hand to hand.

Value of Guns: In that battle you saw on of the most important things in this game. The value of guns, particularly muskets. They give a harsh morale penalty to the enemy and some units may rout without even engaging in hand-to-hand combat if shooted against with these beasts. Especially on flat maps always have those nice 4/5 muskets to help you out. I can without problem say that they are the most important unit in the MP game, even at par with the much discussed warrior monks.

Shock Troops: Those YS that you had are considered as defensive units and especially when you attack you need very good, fast shock troops. These are mainly the No-Dachi (which rule the low koku games) and the Warrior Monks. These guys are absolutely deadly especially the Monk which is unstoppable and the No-Dachi which is grandeus for flanking. A rear from one of these guys can provide a major rout for the enemy. They are susceptible to missile fire and always try to shoot at these units, they would go down like fleas.

Cavalry are also good attacking units but their value is considered not to be very high since they die and rout very easily and many say they need a general 'beef up'. But always have at least 1 Cav unit, just to pursue enemy units when routing.

And that was about your army. In short, take more units, less YS more shock troops and missiles.

As for attacking uphill what I can say that a rush would be a suicide. Try to attack from many sides and flank a lot. On small hils like those of 4th kawanakjima it should work.

Thats it. Hope I helped.

Terazawa

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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre here! (http://terazawa.totalwar.org)
Evil is within us...
http://terazawa.totalwar.org/evil.jpg

[qwertyuiop]

Just because you used a famous strategy it doesn't mean you used it effectivly.

You can't just pick one of hannibals unit formations out of the hat and think it will win all the time.

For things like that you need to know the timing, who you are facing,what they have, what they are going to do, what kind of units you need to use,the terrain, etc...

It takes a little more practice to master all this. Hannibal, Alexander, the romans didn't just draw out some plan a week before a battle and just put it to action and win.

Maybe that will help you out a little. Practice, situational awarenes, and experince are key when using these stategies.

I don't feel like checking spelling so bare with me http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
-T-

[Koga No Goshi]

Even muskets aside, I don't believe you can apply Roman war strategy to Japanese feudal combat, even in a game. I just don't believe the two translate in Shogun's case. If you want to emulate the centurions put every unit in hold formation, hold position, and see how badly most do. lol



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Koga no Goshi

Why did you bring 16 Female Ashigaru? Keep clicking weather, they're only strong one week a month.

[Irving]

i have effectively used less higher honour troops in MP with no missle units... don't know if i played someone who sucked or what.. but i won 10 games in a row like that... hey go with what works!

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Chaos is born from order.
Cowardice is born from bravery.
Weakness is born from strength.
-Sun Tzu

[Shuko]

Quote Originally posted by Irving:
i have effectively used less higher honour troops in MP with no missle units... don't know if i played someone who sucked or what.. but i won 10 games in a row like that... hey go with what works!

[/QUOTE]

when can I play you http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Puzz3D]

Patton21,

In addition to the excellent advice given above, I would add that the two main approaches to a battle used are to either win the ranged battle or rush the hill with mostly monks and no-dachi.

To win the ranged battle take more guns than the opponent or take a combination of archers and guns. Don't over do it on the ranged units because you must be able to handle the charge that the enemy will make when he realizes that the ranged battle is lost.

The second approach, rushing, requires that you engage the front, and flank one side or both sides simultaneously. You have to be able to manage many units at once to be successful at this. Some high honor YS can be used to form the center of your line in such an operation. No-dachi or monks would be the preferred unit to flank with.

A third approach would be to use cavalry archers to harass the flanks and rear of the enemy, and target the enemy's valuable hth units. You could have great success with this if the enemy has an all infantry army. If the enemy can be weakend and disrupted enough, you can make a frontal assault with infantry, and attack with the cav from the rear. It takes more experience to handle this type of operation than the other two. You can take other types of cavalry as well, but if you overload on cav you will be at a disadvantage because cav is relatively expensive compared to YS which chew them up in hth fighting.

Splitting off small groups of infantry units for independent operations is very risky because they can be attacked an easily routed by the larger body of enemy troops as happened to you in your game. It also leaves your main body weakend, and the enemy might choose an all out attack on them once the detached group has moved away.

MizuYuuki ~~~
Clan Takiyama ~~~

[Kraellin]

well, my question here is:

'He converged on my flanking with his whole army and destroyed it. I then attacked him and was slaughtered.'

why did you wait to attack with your main body AFTER he slaughtered your flanking force? if he went after it with his whole army, why didnt you attack his flank with your main body?

K.

[Satake]

If you split and are caught offguard , sometimes u've got to let the split part be.. charging in when the army is collapsing will cause ur "fresh" units to rout along without inflicting any damage. (ok a bit off the point but it seems a lot of players don't realise this and charge in as i have just crushed their flanking force http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif )

[KumaRatta Yamamoto]

I would give you MP advice but i suck, i have clicking problems, not fast enough, that equalls bad timing and that equalls a lot of defeats.

Timing is so important as is knowing about some "bugs" like the magic bullets shooting trough their units without touching them at all or the rout bug (check this thread)

You got to ask around and know the mathematics of this game....

[Vanya]

I believe you are taking the 'roman strategy' a tad too far. It is fine to use it (I do sometimes, quite effectively I might add). But don't try implementing some of the historical uses. The greatest benefit to be had is the legion formation, for it is very flexible and can be used equally well against those that attack you from the front as well as the sides or back. Therein lies greatness. But dont fall in the trap of using the formation to simply smack a phalanx at the enemy (which is what the romans did anyway -- they waited until the enemy committed and then squeezed the legion into a phalanx).

A little anecdote that may give you some ideas:

The greatest weakness of the phalanx was that if units marched out of sync, they would create a gap in their lines -- and this could prove fatal to the formation. The Legion got around this weakness by incorporating the gaps into the formation itself. This way, there was no weakness for the enemy to exploit if units marched slightly out of sync or at different rythms.

[shingenmitch2]

Patton,
Your first mistake was that u approached this game as if it operated by true life standards. It does not. It is a game, and the neuances of the GAME must be learned and exploited.

A solid understanding of true classical warfare tactics is necessary (and in MP, a good understanding of WWII german Corps tactics helps as well) to be a decent player--but to excell you must understand STW as a computer game.

See the Deadly Shingen (linked under clans) website training dojo to give you some basic pointers.
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Vanya -- it is a matter of debate among historians about whether the Romans fully closed gaps upon contact with the enemy.

The brilliance of the roman tactics--and the reason they could move in small units, is that every unit was equal down to the single man--the legionaire could fight by himself--sword and shield.

When then combined into a 100 man unit this independence was retained. Since they all had easy to maneuver swords, the flanks of the formation could be defended without turning the entire formation. The 100 man unit was then as effective by itself as it was when combined to form a maniple -- and legion.

By contrast a single Helenistic Phalangite was useless--just a man with an unweildy spear. A group of 256 phalangites was more successful, but it's flanks were still very vulnerable to attack. The unit could only fight in 1 direction at a time and had to completely turn to meet flanking attacks.

Only as a monolitic, full Phalanx--so large that the edges couldn't be reached easily, was it truly effective.

[Vanya]

Thanks for the info, Shingen! Good stuff! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I guess that means that to use the closest thing to a roman legion you'd have to get either all Yari Samurai or all Naginata!

(Or all arquebuses if you attack in the rain or promise to not let them fire! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif )

[Patton21]

Thanks for the comments. I have to leave right now, but I have a few more comments so visit this post again. Thanks guys. Have a great 4th.

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The bastard

[shingenmitch2]

:-)

[Khan7]

Patton, ur problem is that you study study study Hannibal and Caesar and then completely abandon what made them great. What made them great and succesful was not the tactics they used, it was the intelligence and the attitude through which they were able to develop those tactics, i.e. they were good problem solvers (Hannibal much more than Caesar.. why are you trying to emulate Caesar? He was a great leader of men, but had a better-than-average at best grasp of strategy.. his main advantages were in the fact that he was using either superior numbers or superior troops and equipment 90% of the time, or that his enemy was moronic and he properly exploited it).

But anyway, to swear by the names of Caesar and Hannibal and then go and try and emulate their TACTICS is to scandalize and dishonor their names. Look at the meaning behind the picture, and go after THAT, and THEN you will get something out of your study of history.

The same goes for ANYONE studying history or military theory to try and improve their understanding of war (see my post in the Words of Wisdom thread).

Also, yours and everyone here's study of their history seems to be a bit incomplete in a few respects, but I don't have time to discuss sit around and have a long history talk with you all right now, so maybe another time.

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Khan7

[Maltz]

Every strategy, tactics, and units has some sort of counter. I also dislike people who are proud of using the same method and claim invincibility (and to the worse they think they invented it).

However, in STW battlefield tactics there are unfortunately some general "rule of thumbs". For example, you need to get your formation wider - wider - and wider... bcz flanking is everything.

[shingenmitch2]

We seem to have a high opinion of our knowledge -- but so little time, eh Kahn7?
I merely was making one very brief point. and Vanya's was completely correct as well.

True - using a tactic straight out obviously is stupid, but understanding why it worked and duplicating it in the appropriate setting is standard military stategy. And I don't recall Patton saying he just used the "Cannae" set up right out of the box--merely that he was using ancient warfare principles to guide his play. (but as I posted that won't work, becuse this is not ancient warfare--tho some ancient tactics are helpful)

[Khan7]

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[This message has been edited by Khan7 (edited 07-05-2001).]