SP question: How to deal with those pesty muskets?

[Gothmog]

When you are on the attacking side that is.

AI seems to love mass producing those units and they could be a royal pain in the butt when attacking a province with a lot of gunners.

On flat terrain, they are not such a big deal. Cavalry in lose formation can take them down fast.

However, in highland provinces, or river provinces, or during castle assault, they inflict a lot of casualty.

Usually, I either choose a rainy day to attack whenever possible(muskets can still fire, but the low accuracy and slow reload rate make those guns virtually useless), or sneak in a couple of battle ninjas to distract the AI.

However, the "attack in the rain" is not so reliable since Murphy's law usually means you won't get any rain when you need it the most; battle ninja method usually means I'll lose a unit or two elite battle assassins.

In castle assault, gunners are just too deadly in clear weather. They simply blow everyone into pieces. And I can't even sneak the BN in, since most of the times the gate is blocked.

(Also, tried the "open the gate" using regular ninjas. Never got it to work)

So anyone cares to share some tips? I know this is a SP question, but since most of the MP veterans have a lot of experience with gunners anyway, so ... enlighten me.

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Also, I tend to bring less and less missle units in the army when I am attacking. In rare occasions I bring in a couple of gunners to camp them on the hill to greet the AI reinforcement once I defeat the first 16 units, but most of the time I rarely use missles at all (except for cavalry archers). I seem to be really bad at using missle units for offense.

Am I missing anything here?

[This message has been edited by Gothmog (edited 12-19-2001).]

[hecose]

Maybe don't attack castles. Just starve them to death instead. You'll eventually get the province, after a few seasons, and you won't have to lose any soldiers. But of course on the downside some troops will be tied down in that province for a few seasons, and the castle will be damaged / destroyed.

Or just starve them down to when the castle is about to fall, THEN attack. This will minimise your losses since the number of enemies will be less.

Another options is try autoresolve. I am not too sure about this, but I think if your attacking forces greatly outnumber the enemy, autoresolve will give you few losses.

[BSM_Skkzarg]

I have to agree with the question on attacking castles - I don't do it unless I just want to eek out another easy win for my General - and then I wait till the last possible turn to do so. Attacking castle's is not necessary, and often is more costly than its worth.

Now, on the other hand, taking on the AI in SP if I am invading and he does not retreat to the castle is another issue entirely. There are a number of ways to take out mass muskets, (although - I have never seen the AI have the numbers you seem to be facing) the easiest being flank or rear attacks. Send cav (or shock troops if they are near woods) around to the flanks or rear. Then, give the muskets something to shoot at, preferably Ashigura in loose formation for cheapness, or Naginata Inf in loose formation if you have them in gold armor. Make sure that your units take fire from extreme range only to minimize casualties. While they take fire, run the cav or shock troops in, leading with a single unit - the single unit will likely run into a rearguard, usually yari sams. Run the rest of your flankers AROUND the rearguard so that they can reach the muskets (or archers in some cases). Fall upon their rear and they will break like ocean waves on cliffs driven before a storm.

Another more dangerous but sometimes more effective ploy is to tempt the AI into having tunnel vision. Hide your units, and place a single, unprotected unit near range of the muskets. Advance till they shoot, then back away quickly. They will move down a bit to retain the range, and you can slowly pull them down the hill into a killing cross where your units can charge from either (or both) sides and decimate them and their melee fellows.

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BSM_Skkzarg
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."

[BakaGaijin]

Also, Kensai stand up to all types of missiles very well, especially with gold armour. You can probably get one to climb straight up the hill to the muskets without losing him. If he can make it to melee range, those peasants are toast. The important thing is to back up the Kensai with another flanking unit. The AI apparently tends to rush all of his units towards the Kensai in an attempt to outflank and kill him quickly, something that can be a HUGE help on river battles. If you send other units to climb the hill toward the enemy flanks, you can send them crashing downhill into the enemy when they all go to kill your Kensai. If you act quickly enough, the Kensai will probably even survive, and with a huge number of kills. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Disappear into the Darkness!!

[theforce]

Hmmmm l thought hat guns couldn't fire across the walls! Well in a multiplayer battle they were shotting for 1 hour and their kills were 0 so they can shoot above walls. Putting archers next to the walls can be irritating. Move some archers on near the walls. Six of them could do the job. Enemy in castle can do nothing to them if he has all his units in there. His archers will try to kill yours but that will have no effect. Send 2 each time taking out monks, nd and other precious units. Take a good defencice army! You will need it to hold the door until the arrows take out the key food soldiers. There is so small place in castkes that archers will be so close that their damage they will cause will be great. If they are out send to the castle door to help your army fightign there. It doesn't work surely as l haven't tried this in comp games only in frienlies and it has nice resaults.

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Don't use only honour, use theforce, too.
http://lod.nipogames.com/default.html

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

"Hmmmm l thought hat guns couldn't fire across the walls!"

Castle walls have apertures for guns and bows to fire through. You'll find these apertures in European castles too.



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Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi

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