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First off, it was a lot of fun to watch Shoggie on the battlefield again...:bow: I wish I had the time to play, but I don't. Truth be known, since I upgraded my OS, I haven't even reinstalled the game...:shame:
I'll offer my comments, for what they're worth.
Hey ReluctantSamurai! It's good to chat with you again and I appreciate you giving the video a watch :bow:
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We've already had the discussion about the battle timer before, and it's a matter of preference. In the Hida battle, the timer actually worked in your favor as you didn't have to actually fight the entire Hojo army of 9000+. The flip side to that, however, is that if you had had to, and killed off the larger portion of that army, you wouldn't be facing that massive horde of rebels in Etchu...:shrug:
All true, in fact the more I record for my channel the more I realize that atm I just don't have the time to play battles without the timer. Just for reference I'm currently recording for two hours for every one hour video (after edits), playing without the battle timer just isn't practical for channel purposes. However I do still need to play a campaign with the timer off just so I know what I'm missing ~;)
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Everyone has their own way of fighting bridge battles while on the attack. In the Mikawa battle, I noticed you used Naginata as bait. IMHO, better to use cheap Ashi to do that, and line the river banks with your guns. Granted Mikawa doesn't have an ideal long stretch of bank to shoot from, but still ample opportunity to greatly whittle down the enemy forces. And this is an example of where the timer works to your disadvantage, because you can't "rinse-and-repeat" the baiting trick for too long. One of the better units to use after you've worn down the opposition enough to actually launch an assault, is Naginata Cavalry. The AI taught me this one. When present in an opposing army (me on the defense), they cross the bridge quickly, and are very good at getting into enemy archer formations...a lesson I learned the painful way...:laugh4:
You know I actually will try to use YA in the early game including for bridge baiting but I really do prefer Naginata once I can train them. When facing a defense force of 7+ SA + CA I find that the YA won't even make it far enough to bait out any units. In the early game when facing only a couple missile units that can actually be effective though.
Using NC however is an interesting idea that I hadn't heard of or seen before. Are you saying that you'll just rush them across immediately before the enemy has a chance to get set up and then you'll immediately follow up with the rest of your force? Sounds pretty bold to be sure. My Hojo army comp uses a lot of NC so maybe I can give this a try when I record that campaign.
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I also notice you don't use Cavalry Archers much (at all?). They are sooooo effective at getting the AI to approach your defenders where you want them to go (the AI almost always gives chase), while whittling down the attackers in the process. Enemy Yari Cav, you might argue? I learned to keep my skirmishers in tandem (I usually had 2 CA and 2 YC per army, though that varied depending on the situation). CA's to harass, YC's to cover against enemy YC. I'd skirmish them until they used about half their ammo and then returned them behind my main army to rest. They then could act as fast-moving archer support, and finally chase down routers. My love for Cavalry Archers continued into RTW, where my favorite factions were.............Horse Archer clans....OF COURSE!~D
They actually are my favorite unit as well! It's just that I've selected specific army comps for each faction just so that I can showcase different units/playstyles with different campaign playthroughs. CA will be used in my Takeda and Uesugi armies for sure. It's just that a 16 unit army cap is limiting and it's impossible to bring everything I want. Frankly I'm shocked that you'd bring 2 CA and 2YC therefore dedicating a fourth of your army to light cav. I'm not saying that I can't see it working...it's just that there's a lot of unfavorable ground for cavalry in this game. Just to clarify I do go cav heavy in my Takeda campaign but I get to cover my CA with a legion of heavy cav and just enough infantry support to flush the enemy out of forests.
Anyhoo my Oda army comp clearly has a more pike and shot feel to it, therefore I don't have room for all the funs things :juggle2:
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You noted in the Hida battle, that the Hojo had 9000+ troops available, but the first wave was small. The AI always sends in depleted units first to use up your arrows and bullets, and create fatigue before the main 'bodies' attack. I'm pretty sure that's a deliberate tactic the Devs built in, but I can't prove that. Without a timer, one has to be extremely careful with ammo use, even when you have shooters as reinforcements, as you might find yourself without that kind of support later on...:shrug: I always broke up the first wave without using too much ammo, and sent in cavalry to chase off any remaining units and routers. With a timer, you probably don't need to do that (I noticed your lone YC unit never even moved...:dizzy2:), but with no timer it's essential.
Actually my guess is that the army that the AI uses will always be the one that has the highest general on the campaign map. Often times this army is banged up from previous battles and for some reason the AI doesn't seem to replenish their "fighting" armies with their reserve armies in between turns. I don't think this is intentional but whether it is or isn't you're right in that it is a good strategy to send out a "vanguard" force to get the human player to waste ammo and energy on a false contest. The only issue is that by doing so they're conceding any favorable terrain that they could've possessed.
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I also noticed enemy cav got to your guns on your left flank...oooops:inquisitive: With a single spear/sword unit to protect two gun units, that was inevitable. In a tight battle where you are relying heavily on Teppo, they must be protected better, IMHO. The Hedgehog formation (no it's not in the Shoggie formation choices, you have to do it manually) stops that from happening, and keeps your guns from having to retreat behind protective units most of the time. There's a big discussion about that around here somewhere, I'll see if I can dig it up.
Now you got me curious, what is this hedgehog formation?
I did make a mistake in the battle and yes it can be difficult to keep the enemy off my guns with only one spearmen but I got caught trying to be too cute in this battle. If I had simply pressed the "2" key and switched my formation into a "melee forward" formation the spearmen would've covered the length of the two teppo units. Instead I was playing for the cameras and I tried doing a fancy Spanish Tercio type thing that ended up getting caught by the enemy light cav. Also the ideal version of this strategy is that my center takes the baulk of the aggro while my guns shoot in from the flanks...which isn't something I quite accomplished in this battle. What can I say I was busy talking and admiring the guns going boom :laugh4:
Still I'm curious, I've read a decent amount about gun usage on these forums and and can't quite remember this hedgehog formation. I'll see if I can come up with it when I have a spare minute.
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You also made mention of the devastating power of guns. What unit stats are you using, because in the original Shogun, Teppo stat balance wasn't too bad, but in the WE Edition, guns got tweaked in their favor much too far. Puzz3D was a long time gamer and modder around here for quite some while and he understood Teppo better than anyone, IMHO. I do believe he came out with a patch that brought guns stats back into a more reasonable place...:shrug:
Yeah I've seen of lot of Puzz3D's contributions to this forum! I don't know if I've read the linked thread that you posted in it's entirety so I'll give that another look when I get the chance.
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Anyway, a few quick observations, and a Thank You...:bow:
Good chatting with you as always! :bow:
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As an example of the fine detail of balancing stats (in this case guns, go to post#23):
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php/113542-STW-and-WE-are-not-the-same-game