Muskets or Bows?

[InterestingTimes]

OK, Which is better and why? I'm just curious that's all.

[borisus]

I like bows and never use the musks,the bows work much better for me,and thay fit perfectly in my tactics.



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"A WISE MAN ONCE SAID,LETS KICK THAIR ASS!"

Musks of course!

Big ammo
Morale penalty to enemy

determinant in battle!

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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

[lei]

as with everything, musks have their uses. there's times when the only thing deciding the battle is who can out-shoot the other. but when push comes to slaughter...

i recently took part in a 2 vs 2, medium koku battle. my ally picked an entire army of high honour ashi, which immediately (and i mean first 2 mins) routed under the weight of 6 musks. his taisho survived after i told him to stick near my troops. as the musk army came to bear on my very vulnerable flank, just as my archers had run out of ammo against the musks in front of me in the other army, i ran my archers to the flank.

to cause a distraction, i thought, as i brought all my hand to hand units to finish them. so there i was:
2 depleted ammo archers VS 6 musks, 2 yari cav and 1 heavy cav. this isn't a good situation to be in at the best of times, but outnumbered 4 to 1 to troops with severe combat bonuses? hehehehe

before either of us knew what was happening, i charged my archers straight into the lines of musks as they were setting up. the cav got distracted by flanking monks and the heavy cav gradually met my no dachi and monk army. just as the real troops got round to the big flanking army, my archers had ripped the enemy apart, slashing through the lines and finally broken through the musks, and they wavered and broke! the cavalry watched the 300 men flee like girls and followed suit!

meanwhile my musks had noticed that they were not only firing, but being fired upon by enemy musks. so they also fled after taking minor casualties, leaving my taisho completely open at my side/back. needless to say which unit i favoured after that battle! btw, that was about the most fun i've had in any battle ever, thx to the completely ludicrous 2 vs 1 odds, where i somehow pulled through!

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TIGER LILY!!!
check it out for yourself at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tom.surman/frames.html

[Steeleye]

Well, I've got to say that I prefer archers, basically because they're more flexible (rain n'all+ melee capability), but more because I dislike the unbalancing effect of musk's on the game in multiplayer. Unlimited ammo and relatively high accuracy, as well as the afore-mentioned morale kicks mean that a gun-heavy army with appropriate back-up is neigh unbeatable except with the same.

Go with the archers, and prove yourself an honourable general!

[Alastair]

Somehow I think that's a wrongheaded statement, in light of lei's story...

[Dark Phoenix]

Well this was discussed about a month or so a go in a fairly long thread, I m sure one of the admins or mods will find it and post a link here coz I am not going to. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

Musks and Archers are to diffeent roles. SA are used to do a lot of damage where as Musks arethere to try and give units morale checks. When using Musks coz they are just farmers tehy need to have support and not sent by themselves.

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DoragonPhoenix of the Clan Doragon

[The Bear]

When possible i like to combine both (one or two musks with 3-4 archers). They compliment themselves very well. Needless to say, i don't use a lot of musks defensively, unless i have cav archers as reinforcements waiting, because of the rain. But don't forget musks are ashis, once in a close combat situation, it's routing time for them.

[Takeda Shingen]

As has been said muskets have their uses but depends on the weather.For example if it's snowing or raining muskets can't be used,whereas bows albeit slightly reduced can still be used.Just think what might have happened at Nagashino where guns made a huge impression on the Takeda Cavalry.Now i'm not saying that the Takeda would've won but who knows.As for me i prefer the bows they are more reliable in any type of weather.

Michael

[borisus]

...and cooler http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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"A WISE MAN ONCE SAID,LETS KICK THAIR ASS!"

[Steeleye]

Well, sure Alastair, that's a situation where the opponent was able to catch the musk's on the cuff, so to speak, and they didn't have the appropriate backup.

Now try and charge an enemy with many musk and YS units. If your men don't rout on the charge, his yari's will move up and engage, whilst his musks continue to fire through his units (which is bugger silly), constantly depleting your morale. Even if you try and flank, this is a seriously dodgy army to attack.

Some gun units in an army are fun to use/deal with, many units and it gets silly, fast.

Kyodaispan

[lei]

painfully true steel, the morale kick would be perhaps realistic the first time you met them in battle (first campaign i ever played they scared the **** out of me!) but after you've seen them once, they get tiresome to fight. it's not fair. true samaurai would charge them, yet every time i see hordes running from the smallest group of lowly peasants. shouldn't those scummy ashi run like they do when you give them spears?

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TIGER LILY!!!
check it out for yourself at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tom.surman/frames.html

[This message has been edited by lei (edited 05-02-2001).]

[EricNoFear]

i only use guns when i know its not going to rain, but i prefer archers as they can defend themselves against an ambush, guns will flee

[InterestingTimes]

I was wondering, The kill rate of muskets is relatively slow but the ammo is almost unlimited. the kill rate of archers is very quick but also the ammo very very little. Is the no of kills still the same overall?

[shingenmitch2]

Interesting -- my guess is that archers actually kill more troops than the musketeers. At the end of battles my musket kills compared to what my other troops killed is actually quite low.

HOWEVER -- what they are, and what makes them better than archers, is a force multiplier. They make your attacking troops more effective. By keeping up a continuous steady pounding on the enemy throughout the entire fight, they lower the enemy morale, and make them break quicker--and that's really where the game is won or lost. In this way, the muskets can contribute more to the victory than archers.

[Alastair]

On the contrary, I think musks do more damage, especially if they are allowed to empty their entire supply of ammo. I've seen gun volleys kill from eight to twelve units at once. Now, archers, most of the time, do 2-3 kills per volley. It's just that the musks are ashis, they need LOS, and they need good weather.

[shingenmitch2]

Alistair - I'm not saying they can't have an effective kills per shot, or even rack up quite a few kills in a long gun duel. But if you play the multies, especially in the ones that don't degenerate into gun duels -- which is most of the 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 and you look at the number of kills by troop type at the end, on average your muskets won't have as many as the melee units, and I believe there will be less kills than kills for your archers.


[This message has been edited by shingenmitch2 (edited 05-04-2001).]

[Didz]

I try to take a mix about 50:50.

Interestingly I have found muskets worse than useless against castles presumably becuase of their low trajectory.

[Vanya]

It no matter!

Before firing a gun, the gunner must first bow before his honorable target.

Before firing an arrow, the archer just guns for his target, as he is a samurai, and he is not bound to show the same explicit respect towards his caste as the ashigaru are forced to...

In fact yes I tested that as well didz and musks don't seem to do lots of damage in castle fights.

But in bridge fights musks are essential...

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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

[shingenmitch2]

Terazawa - yeah, in castle fights the guns are hitting the walls -- direct fire. With bridges the sustained fire helps a lot.

[Tachikaze]

I think in smaller numbers, archers are more effective, but when you pile on the units, teppo can scare anyone away with concentrated fire.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Terazawa-sama and Tachikaze-san hit the nail on the head once again. The key is masses, both a mass of your own teppô (four is insufficient, six is nice) and a mass of enemies. In fact, teppô become almost a different unit in bridge fights - the number of kills they get on units that are tightly packed on a bridge skyrockets. It's just crazy insane. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif Plus, with their ammunition supplies, they can keep up with it a lot longer than archers.

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"The unhappiest of all unhappy states is the republic or principality which cannot accept peace and cannot tolerate war."
- Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

5/6 musks with 2 CA helping with their great mobility would do perfect in normal battles.

Remember that archers kill more in 5 minutes than guns do but guns kill more in 15 minuted because archer ammo would be finished http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

So, first with the archers to reduce quickly the enemy's numbers and then guns to inflict the final morale penalty.

P.S. historical note:

Imagine how good would be the famous dragoons. These were mounted musketeers used by Europeans mainly in the 16th/17th century. The swiftness of CA with the power of muskets! wow... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif


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Honour to Clan No Fear.

Visit my resource centre at: http://terazawa.totalwar.org

[This message has been edited by Terazawa Tokugawa (edited 05-05-2001).]

[maroberts]

Muskets are good bridge defence/ assault weapons IMO. Put some YS (or Naginata) holding position on the bridge and some muskets either side and noone is going to cross that bridge without getting the s**t kicked out of them.

Muskets are great provided the weather is fine, but you need some archers just in case the enemy invades your province on a rainy day. One thing about musketeers is I prefer them 3 ranks deep, and arhers 2 ranks deep; this means that musketeers keep a better rate of fire up and if you have have enough of them you have more musketeers on your front line.

Actually one of my complaints about Shogun is that you don't really get to pick the INITIAL defence team when you are being attacked. If a musket heavy army happens to be in that province when you are invaded, and that gets used as the initial force, you are in BIG trouble!

Assaulting castles with muskets is probably not good either, but you can still use them to shoot through the front door. I wish Shogun supported things like breaking down wooden castle walls - my assault policy for castles basically just involves throwing as many troops through the front door as possible.

I'm also surprised there isn't a rule which says the defence can use muskets within castles, after all, castles do have roofs and hoardings to keep powder dry.

On this subject, can anyone tell me any good reason for building arquebusiers, or converting to Christianity ?

[Anssi Hakkinen]

On Christianity (and some stuff about guns), see this thread (http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000809.html).