How To Cross A Bridge And Live To Talk About It

I Have A Tactics On Bridges That Has Worked For Me Very Well. But First Let Me Say That I Too Have Always Hated Trying To Attack Over A Bridge. It Always Puts You At A Huge Disadvantage And In The Real World I Would Never Even Attempt Anything Like This.
But Since That Wont Help You Much...i'll Tell You Something That Will.
Okay, First Things First, I'm Not Sure If You've Noticed But How Your Troops Are Formed At Your End Of The Bridge Makes A Huge Differance Regarding The Manner In Which They Cross It. You May Have Noticed That They Sometimes Come In On The Sides Leaving A Hole In The Center. Or Will Go Over Nearly Single File!!!!and Never Be Able To Get Much Done Before The Are Massacered. So Heres How To Form Up Your Attacking Troops. As Sun Tzu Said "the Truely Skilled Commander Seeks Victory...then Battle."
Archers: When Crossing A Single Bridge You Should Have At Least Four, And If You Can Spare Them, Six Archer Units. Now I Know What You're Thinking. Archers Are No Good On A Bridge Attack, Only On A Bridge Defense. But This Is Not So.
Move You Archers Into Position To The Sides Of The Bridgde And Slightly Back. Basically What You Are Looking For Is An Upside Down "v" With The Tip On The Exit Point At The Other End Of The Brideg. The Whole Of The Defending Army Will Back Off Out Of Range When They See Your Archers Coming. This Allows You To Form Up To Attack Without Rushing It Cause Your Being Shot At.
Line Them Up In A Orderly Fashion 2-3 Units In Closely Packed "perfect Square" Formations Off To The Left And Two Or Three To The Right. The Square Formation Is...i Think...the Best For Archers. Its The Best Chance You Have Of Having Them All Able To Fire At Thier Targets Fully.
Yari Ashigaru And Samurai: For A Bridge Attack You Need At Least One Unit Of Yari Samurai Or Ashigaru. Even If You Have A "perfect Army" (7 Monks,4 Archer,4 Heavy Cav, All Fully Fully Fully Upgraded Under A Rank 3-5 General.) That's Only 15 Units. And In That Last Place You Can Put Whatever You Want. In This Case Make It A Unit Of Ya Or Ys As Upgraded As You Can. If Your Enemy Has A Larger Defensive Force You May Want Two Ya Or Ys Units For This Strategy To Be Effective.
Form-up: Form Your Armies In Perfect Squares 8-10 Men Across (just As Wide As The Bridge Itself, Some Are Skinnier And Some Are Wider) And Just Slightly Back From The Bridge. Put Your Yari First And Your Attack Units In Sigle File Squares. When You Order Them To Cross...magic Happens...and If You've Done It Right Your Yari Will Cross The Bridge In Waves. And 8-10 Men Will Cover Every Inch Of The Bridge And Hold The Line Much Better. Trust Me On This One Its A Little Hard To Get The Hang Of But Once You Do Your Golden.
Now Don't Send The Rest Of Your Primary Attackers In. Group Them Together And Mover The Next Square With The Five Others Behind It Into Position At The Entrance Of The Bridge.
By This Time Your Yari Will Have Started Taking Fire From Archers But Don't Sweat It, None Of Them Were Meant To Survive Anyway. That's Right, I Said It. That Yari Unit...is A Suicide Unit. There Only Purpose Is To Draw The Enemys Powerful Hand-to-hand Defenders To The Bridge Exit So That Your Archers Can Decimate Them. This Is Why The Positioning Of Your Archers Must Be Exact. You Want The Arrows Coming In From The Side...not Not Not From Behind. The Defender Force Will Surround Your Yari On Three Sides. And With Fire Coming From The Sides You Will Mostly Be Killing Enemy Defenders. (by The Way, Don't Let Your Archers Be On Fire-at-will. You Want Them Targeted On The Sides Of The Massed Enemy Force. Not Shooting Wherever The Freaking Please) Of Course You Will Kill Some Of Your Own Men, But They Will Allow Your Archers To Send Volly After Volly Into The Enemy Defenders. As Soon As Your Yari Are Nearly Gone (depending On How Upgraded They Were) Your Archers May Have Already Exhausted Their Ammo. But Regardless, Send The Next Unit In Line In. But Just One And Move The Rest Forward.
When Your Archers Run Out Of Arrows. Most Of The Defeders H-2-h Force Will Probably Be Gone, And Those That Are Left Wont Be Much To Stand Against The Monks That Are About To Come Over The Bridge. But Remember, Send Them One Unit At A Time. So That Your Unit Waves Can Keep Up. Never Select Them All And Say "go" They'll All Be Dead In Minutes .
Once The H-2-h Force Is Gone Send Every Body After The Archers That Are Left If They're Not Already Retreating. Once The Bridge Exit Clears Up...send Cav To Chase Them Down If You Have Any. But For The Most Part Cav Will Only Clog The Bridge Up In Any Other Function.
And That's How It's Done. Personnaly, I Turn The Moral Off...always Have. I Fight To The Death, Or I Kill Every Last Enemy On The Field...and No One Retreats Once The Attack Starts. Unless Of Course They Attack, Run Around The Field For A Moment, And Then Turn And Retreat Without Even Trying To Engage Me Because They Simply Could Not Find An Opening ( Yes I've Won Many Battles In This Way.) So I'm Not Sure How Long It Would Take Them To Retreaet But I Don't Suppose They Will Stay Long When Thier Defenders Are Gone And You've Only Lost A Single Yari Unit.

With All Respect,
Shonen

Interesting typing style, Shonen. :dizzy2:

You have some interesting tactics there, but I think you'd greatly increase your enjoyment of the game with morale turned on. Of course, with morale on, your Yari will probably rout too quickly to make your lure trap work so you can shoot down the enemy.

What's it like playing with morale off? I've never tried turning off any of the realism settings in any TW game. I imagine you have little use for gunpowder troops? (As their major asset is the affect on morale?)

Well to tell you the truth, I had been playing for quite some time before I actually realized that you could turn them off. And trust me, it wasn't because my troops were being routed. On the contrary, I enjoyed the game 100% more once I could actually fight an enemy without them tucking tale the moment I started winning.
Granted, at the moment I had only gotten up to playing on normal. But later when I began playing on expert ( which I have been playing on ever since) there were many battles that were nearly lost and were turned around using tactics and strategy and balls. From what I have seen of the moral aspect, my entire army would have routed long before such a turn-around could have been orchestrated.
As for the effects of guns on morale I have only this to say: In the late Meiji period, as the time of the Samurai was coming to its sad end, there was a rebellion in which a great Samurai led a the last true Samurai army against a modern conscript army and were duly massacared. This event was, of course, the basis for the movie "The Last Samurai." (though it was not particularly accurate to the actual events of that final glorious rebellion)
My point here is that the morale of a Samurai depended on the morale of the Samurai,that is to say, it did not matter who or what they were fighting, they fought with honor, and they fought to the death unless their commander told them to retreat. (Which you still can even with the morale turned off.)
Also, Ashigaru will still turn and run if they are being really messed up and they are low honor. Now that is realism.
To tell you the truth Ric, I rarely have to fight anyone with guns cause even on expert I simply don't let the campaign go that long...and I never use them...never. I won't even waste my time granting audience to traders.
I highly suggest turning the morale off. You will experience a whole new kind of game play. :charge:

I've only played two games using gunpowder, actually, the first time to see what it was like and the second time to throw in a little variety to my games. I find a lot of the time you can rout the enemy before they make melee contact-it makes for a rather dull game after I while.

As for turning morale off: I'll give it a go, Shonen!

I've seen the Last Samurai (in fact, I have the DVD). I think as a film in it's own right it's great, but I'm aware of the historical inaccuracies in it existing, but I don't know what they are. How much different was history from the film? (To be honest, if they'd thought about tactics a little more, they could have send an ambushing force up the side in the trees you can see in the film and have killed the men that were operating the big guns on the hill. But obviously even winning that battle would not have won their survival.)

Just FYI: 99.9% of those who play online always, always leave morale, fatigue, restricted camera, and limited ammo on. It is also the standard for every tourney I've seen out there. Morale is one of the biggest factors that differentiates between TW games and the semi-strategy games like Starcraft, Command and Conquer, etc. I, personally, would not play a morale-less game because it would be far too easy to win (it's easy enough with morale on from my point of view). As far as morale-less battles against another human online goes, it would eliminate one of the most interesting factors of the game, and unbalance unit strengths and weaknesses severely (they are already unbalanced enough, imo).

But hey, please don't take offense, I'm just sharing this information with you guys. To each his own--play as you enjoy, cuz FUN is what it's all about.

I can't resist this though (hehe, here I go again): If you would like to test your strategic and tactical capabilities using the Shogun game as a basis Shonnen m8, read the threads about Shogun MP, grab the internet.cfg file, and join us online. I would be honored to face you in a 1v1 battle or three, though I would insist that the most commonly accepted standards be used--10,000 Koku each, 4 max of any one unit type, and no Yari Ashigaru, on a relatively flat map (and the aforementioned parameters on, of course, especially morale). I am not one of the best players, but I'm decent, and I think maybe I can challenge you strategically and tactically.

In truth that was just a ploy to get you to join us online ... I'm shameless in my efforts to get more people to play! ~D

The notion that the Samurai were fearless and fought to the death--never routing--is beautifully romantic, and flattering to those of us who are Japanese, but it is simply not true. They were human, and ran when terrified and overwhelmed, like any other humans. I'm sure there were a few, near-fearless heros, but they were definitely not the norm.

Would be appealing vs the AI since it is so easy to chain rout...the battles would be much harder. But I enjoy sending enemy armies fleeing seconds after contact too much.

This is to Togakure,
You are very right my friend. The Samurai did flee...and I'm aware that it is a fairly romantic ideal that I'm acting on. But what can I say, I've spent the last ten years of my life studying Kendo, and the Samurai, and watching them run (epecially when it's my enemy running) just kinda bugs me. I like that the battle isn't over until one side is toast.
However, for the sole purpose of honoring the great warriors in this forum, For the past two nights I have been putting the morale back on. I realize that it was only my thirst for the honor in battle and in the interest of gaining experience when I first started playing the game that led to my distaste for the morale setting. And though I still honestly prefer it off, because I honestly feel it make for a more challenging game, I would still very much enjoy playing online someday. I don't have the system for it at the moment, and for some reason every time I try to play a game online it goes wacky. But how bout this....you guys tell me what I need to have to play online, and I'll go get it as soon as possible. Deal?
And to Togakure... I'll see you on the field brother. ~:cheers: :bow: :charge:

To Ric...
I am always glad to answer a question about Samurai history. And yes, I do know all this off the top of my head.
The true final rebellion of the Samurai was call the Satsuma rebellion. It lasted from 1876 to 1877, and was led by a man named Takamori Saigo...a former loyal retainer of the Satsuma clan who had fallowed the laws of the Meiji government for years until finally the dishonor became to much for him. He gathered a Samurai army numbering about 20,000 when all was said and done, around his former masters domain in....uh....uh...Kyushu Island. (holy crap I need to restudy this)
He took his Samurai against a total of 60,000 heavily armed "modern" Meiji troops in a series of battles, and lost all of them. until finally Saigo and about 300...I think...of the last Samurai retreated into the hills of an area called Shiroyama where they were surrounded and shelled with artillery until Saigo was finally wounded and committed seppuku along with the rest of the remaining Samurai on sept 24, 1877.
Many years later though, the Meiji government, posthumously pardoned Saigo and all of the Samurai that served under him. And to this day his memory is honor, and his courage, his shrewdness and his skill in battle.....are legend. ~:)
Seriously though, he was honored as hero to the Japanese people.
So I say...fight like them :duel: ....just don't die like them. :charge:

Ahhh ... now THAT is the spirit, Shonnen m8! :bow:

Most, including myself, are using STW/MI (Shogun Total War, Mongol Invasion), and have patched to version 1.02. TosaInu has recently provided links to the Mizu clan site--in the STW MP thread stickied at the top of the Sword Dojo, where you can download the 1.02 patch.

So, hopefully you have STW/MI. If you do, download and install the 1.02 patch. After you do, you can verify that the patch is indeed active by launching the game and looking up in the left corner of the red background of the menu screen. It should say 1.02. If it does, you have upgraded successfully.

If you are running the XP operating system on your PC, also get the choice.com file that is needed for XP machines to recognize and execute old DOS batch program files (.bat files). I'm not sure why it's needed to play online, but today we confirmed that those who were getting stuck at "Logging in" resolved their problem by putting this file in their c:\windows\system32 directory. The file is available here for download, but I'm not exactly sure where it is. I can also send it to you if you contact me via e-mail.

There are two fakeservers that I know of that are currently active and being used. TosaInu's is up on Sundays. 47RoninMethos' is up during the week. To access these fakeservers, an internet.cfg file must be obtained (or your current one edited), and put in your main Shogun game folder (replacing the default one, which points at the official server which no longer exists). You can only have one internet.cfg file in this folder at a time, so what I do is create a folder in my Shogun folder called Internet Config Files, and within that folder a folder for Tosa and a folder for Methos. Then, I put the internet.cfg file for Tosa's server in the Tosa folder, and the file for Methos' server in the Methos folder (both files are named internet.cfg, so they must be in separate folders). When I want to play on Tosa's server, I COPY (not cut) the file from the TOSA folder and paste it into the main Shogun game folder. Then I launch the game and log in normally. If I want to play on Methos' server, I do the same thing but use his cfg file. This way you always have the files you need in your storage folders, and can copy the one you want to use into your main game folder depending on where you want to play.

Tosa's internet.cfg file information is posted here, in the STW MP thread stickied at the top of the Sword Dojo. There is also a link that will allow you to download it, rather than edit your existing file. If you want to play during the week on Methos' server, click on the link in my signature (CHUSHINGURA - 47 Ronin) and sign up in the BUSHIDO HALL - Shogun Online Warriors forum. Methos will send you his internet.cfg file via e-mail.

There are more options available--specifically the abilities to use the 1.03 and 1.05 community stats in addition to 1.02, and the ability to swap between them as desired. But we can get to that once you've successfully logged into a fakeserver. If you have any questions, it's best to post them here as there are many people who can help you. Good luck in getting patched and fine-tuned, and hopefully I'll see you online soon.

Thanks for the info, Shonen. I loved the subtle Shogun ending quote thrown in there. ~;)

NOT A PROBLEM RIC. LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ELSE IN THAT ARENA.
AND TOGAKURE...I'LL GET BUSY ON UPGRADING. i REALLY CANT WAIT TO PLAY YOU GUYS. YOU ALL SEEM LIKE VERY CAPABLE PLAYERS.
BY THE WAY CHECK SOME OF MY NEW POST. ~:cheers:

I KNOW THIS IS KINDA LATE BUT I ALSO HAVE A DISTASTE FOR GUN POWDER. i am a firm believer that a gun is a cowards tool.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

As I'm sure you well know, many, if not the majority, of samurai felt that guns were a coward's tool. Many Europeans felt the same way about the crossbow. However, in the Sengoku Jidai period, who emerged victorious and are remembered as the great leaders of the period--those who embraced gunpowder weapons, or those who shunned them?

Commanders that allow subjective personal biases to affect their decisions in war strategy and battle do not survive for very long. History has shown that, regardless of what the "elite" thought of gunpowder weapons and crossbows, they were extremely effective tools of warfare. In war (key phrase), a good commander makes use of all available resources to accomplish his goal--win the battle, win the war.

That's my opinion anyway, and the basis of my way of warfare.

TOGAKURE.....You have proven your skill once more.
You are very right...and mind you I say that as someone who never has and probably never will use guns when it comes to STW.
But that is a game, after all. In reality I am just as trained in the use of firearms as I am in the way of the sword....and trust me, that's saying allot.
I feel that the game captures the essence of the Samurai. If you look at just about any game on the market today with the Samurai in it or set in feudal japan. They are set during the Meiji restoration era when the Samurai were on their last leg, and the true glory and honor of the title was dying...and in many ways, already dead.
I enjoy being in the midst of a true Samurai battle swords clanging and glistening in the fading sun. And the roar of the survivors as the thrust their bloody blades into the air crying victory. This is the essence of battle, the greatest moments in the lives of the warriors. And as long as it is just a game and a game, like a book or any other form of art, tells a story and is whatever you want it to be.
Let us not dig to deeply into the realities of the matter...lest we forget the joy of the game and of the story and of the places that it playing and telling take us.
Yes, a gun is a more cowardly weapon in the hands of a coward. But the man who runs into 100 men with a single gun, 16 rounds and his honor, is no less honorable and no less brave than the man who runs into 100 men with nothing but a sword(katana), and backup sword(wakizashi) and his honor.
Honor is in the man...cowardis is in the man. And the fun is in cutting an army of lil' digital enemys to piece up close and personal.
And so to both sides of this long debated point I say only this: The truth of your greatness is within you...gun or sword.

With all Respect,
Shonen