What are your early, mid and late game armies made up of?

[GoldenToad]

Shogun 2's campaign hasn't fully gripped me yet; as such I haven't reached the upper echelons, or even the middle echelons, of the technology tree yet. Therefore I haven't really begun to think too much about my army compositions. At the moment I am currently playing as the Mori with Naginata samurai and bow ashigaru; my next step is to make use of the Wako Raiders and also rank up my economy enough so that I can sustain some Bow samurai and sword units.

So what are your preferred armies?

Not sure that my writing is as flowery as FBE's, but I gave it a good shot!

[Sp4]

Ashigaru, Ashigaru, Ashigaru.

At first, when I thought army composition and good mixture was necessary, I used to have late game armies made up of mainly Katana Samurai with Yari Samurai or Ashigaru to support the flanks against cavalry and lots of low quality bow infantry to shoot at whatever is not taking a beating, or rather slashing yet.

[Narcisista]

My armies are always Ashigaru heavy. 6YA+ 6BA. The samurai component is usual 2 Katana, 2 bow and 2 Yari Cav, the General and the last slot is for some kind of specialist unit frequently a Trebuchet if movement points are not an issue.

As time goes by the Bow Ashigaru get replaced by Matchlock Ashigaru. I rarely replace them entirely because of range , but Matchlocks become truly fearsome when there are 3 or more of them, so I alway try to have at least four and trust my bow samurai to be enough to cover the range gap. If the economy permits I also slowly replace the Yari Ashigaru by Naginata Samurai.

Of course different clans imply slight variations. With Shimazu and Date I prefer Katana Cavalry. With Hojo I might include some rocket Throwers instead of Matchlocks, The Mori get Wako raiders instead of Katana, the Chosokabe never switch to matchlocks etc.

Basically I adjusted my playstyle to a balanced army that is fairly easy to reach from the start

[Sp4]

I never really did like matchlocks much. Ofc, nice to look at and all but I never was able to use them to a great effect. If you are trying to shatter lines with them, use firebombs instead. They are much better at causing mass routs.

Shame you cannot hunt down fleeing troops with this new patch anymore.

By causing lots of routs, you are going to fight a large army 2 or 3 times before it desintigrates.

[Narcisista]

We can't chase routers any more? Why???

I've noticed that xp works slightly different now. The main general earns 10xp, a supporting general gains 3xp, but a general in the main stack now gains 1xp as well. I need to try putting a second general in a reinforcement stack to see if they gain xp as well.

[Sp4]

I dunno, we just can't.

[Peasant Phill]

I dunno, we just can't.

Again, what do you mean?
Aren't your cav chasing the routing units anymore? Are th routing units fighting back in an organised way?