There are too many units to learn!

[asdf123]

Ok I just got this game.

And I am majorly overwhelmed.

I played Early English on Easy and I've surprisingly won most battles.

But I do the SAME thing in every battle. I just do the rock-paper-scissors thing and that's it.

I mean, that's great and all, but there's like a million rocks and a million papers and a million scissors. When I bring up the military menu, I right-click the different infantry and I'm like "man, does it really matter if this person has a good charge vs. this one who has a so-so charge? WHO CARES it all feels the same anyway".

As you can tell I didn't play Shogun... I guess i'm used to like Warcraft and stuff where I can tell the difference between the different units. Right now I don't care if I have 100 urban militia or 100 rural man-at-arms or 100 rural milita women.

It seems so indistinguishable and overwhelming. I'm tempted to just churn out a thousand royal knights and throw them in droves.

So now that I have finished whining, http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif can you tell me how I can actually learn the difference? Do I really have to resort to printing out a stats page and comparing little numbers? And do the little numbers' small differences make a huge difference?

What were some ways that you figured out the differences between the units (other than resorting to a stat page, or is that how you did it).

[hrvojej]

I suggest doing the whole campaign by using only peasants........ http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[MajorFreak]

hmmmm....well, easy setting gives your troops +4 morale, so it kinda spoils any chance at your learning what not to do. (that much morale, pretty much anything goes...sorta)

For myself i prefer horse archers (i never tend to charge the enemy spear anyways unless routed)Byzantine Cavalry. try renting a couple merc units of that. bows, good speed, good close in[/list]Pavise Arbalesters are the best for killing horse and anything else (though they tire easily = lowered fire rate on top of slow rate of fire to begin with)though i prefer archers that can actually fight H-t-H[/list]I'd suggest renting mercenaries if you want to experiment. But, like i said before, "easy" setting kind makes an uneven playing field.

[ravenking]

Most of it is trial and error. Each unit has very different stats, and it is important to understand how they work. Try playing a lot of custom battles to familiarize yourself a bit. Also, there are many posts here debating the goods and bads of different units, you should check them out, they have helped me. Also, if you are a strategy guide person, this one will give you number stats on each unit. Attack, defence, speed...etc. If you like numbers go for it. But I just prefer learning myself. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Yoko Kono]

the easiest way to learn the units is to group them in your head
ie spearmen- use these vs cav
infantry- either shock for flanking or anti shock to defend against flanking
missle troops- good for decimating slow moving units
and finally cav who can be subgrouped into shcok cav anti and missle troops
this is pretty general but by identifying troops with unit types i was able to get the gist of things

[ToranagaSama]

No its not necessary pour over stats. Trial and Error is the most fun. Your playing on Easy, which on that level the AI troops' stats are "discounted" to make things, well, easy.

Once you've got the mechanics of the Campaign and Battle Maps down. Just keep moving up the difficulty scale, you'll find the need to try different tactics and units as you progress. Especially, when start to face the Muslim units.

Have Fun!