Worthless units?

[Teng Fuh]

What is the purpose of No-Dachi and YA in the game? YA are wusses and run from large mice, while ND can take forever to access if you don't get lucky with a YS and they are only 200 koku cheaper then WM, while WM can blow right through them (admittedly WM can blow through most anything) but I have always thought of ND as cheap rip offs of WM (like YA is worthless in comparison to YS). All the other units have their own special uses (except Arq but I classify them as YA, about equally worthless).

Any answers?

[Tone]

The higher the difficulty level the more use these units are. Primarily cos of the cost and therefore quantity you can field. Used correctly they can match anything on the battlefield. take a look at this thread.

[High Voltage]

YA have their purpose. In the beginning they are the cheapest unit, and you can get them in high numbers. If you win early on then their honor will get higher and you will find them more useful. Don't use them for charging into a fight unless you're charging muskets, archers, or other YA. Their speed is second to cavalry, so you can quickly flank an army or chase routing units. If you have YA that you don't plan on using, either use them to deplete enemy arrows and not harm your stronger units, or put one on every two or each province incase of riots.

ND's are very useful. Whatever you do, try not to charge monks straight on with ND's, unless their honor is much higher. ND's work great in wedge formation and plow through most units, except cav and monks. If your army is under fire, send a ND or two at their missle units in wedge formation. Or slam into their YA, YS, Nagi's, or other ND's. you'll notice that you can wipe holes in their line if these are used correctly. It all depends which units attack which. For example, you obviously wouldn't have muskets charge at monks, but maybe at arqs or other mukets. ND's also work well with flanking. Send a unit of ND's around and hit them from behind.

Try thinking about things other than one line clashing into another. 1on1 YA suck against YS, but considering their cheapness, you can usually make those odds 2on1 or 3on1.

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- A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
- The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

[Shuko]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Teng Fuh:
[B]What is the purpose of No-Dachi and YA in the game? YA are wusses and run from large mice,


please don't exaggerate, we all know that YA will flee at the sight of fresh mice droppings..................

[KumaRatta Yamamoto]

(formely The Bear)

Shuko, now you are exaggerating. We all know that Ashis will only flee at the sight of LARGE fresh mice droppings.

[Krasturak]

Cut head off of Bear, name changes ...

Krast's work is never done.

*sigh*

[Shuko]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Krasturak:
[B]Cut head off of Bear, name changes ...

you will need a special katana to even try to get his head..........may I suggest a kenuki gata tachi (tweezer shaped sword) which is large curved Japanese sword.


[This message has been edited by Shuko (edited 06-02-2001).]

[BanzaiZAP]

I like ND very much. Give 'em one or two swordsmiths, and they'll hack through just about anyone. Cheaper to build than WM, both in unit price and construction, so you get them much earlier. Give 'em one or two armor upgrades, and they can hang in a fight much longer. Finally, they run faster than most other foot-soldiers, so they are good for mopping up and running down cowards. If you're playing as Shimazu (green), then you have no excuse for not using them.
My prefered use is to have them blast holes through enemy lines, then swing around and attack the poor saps from behind. Enemy will rout quickly at that point.

Give Ashigaru any kind of enhancement, and they'll stop any cavalry unit you throw at me. For the price of your one Yari Cavaly, I can get one ND and one YA, and still have enough koku for an honor bonus. I'll be glad to take you on.

-- B)

[This message has been edited by BanzaiZAP (edited 06-04-2001).]

[theforce]

I like YA in high honour. They are they faster foot unit in the game... they are very good against horses if they are high honour. Good for taking out projectile fire while your monks and make the attack and also they enemy underestimattes them thus leading him to death if you use them carefully.

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Don't use only honour, use theforce, too.
http://darksideclan.fateback.com
Enter the Darkside...

I don't use much YA in online play cause after all their praises and whatsover they still remain the crappest units. No...they're not worthless of course but their the crappest in hth after guns.

ND! Ah my favourite units! These guys are the flankers par excellence. They're fast and from behind they give a lethal hit, whatsover the unit they're fightinh against. March them quicly behind ur enemy when you engage and hit the behind. You'll rout the enemy in no time...

Tera


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Honour to Clan No Fear.

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

[High Voltage]

Terazawa, I can't agree more. I've defeated honor 8 YA's with my honor 2-3 monks. I tried the YA monk combo but YA weren't that good even in high honor. Now I use Nagi's to replace YA and I've won many more games. I put them in front to take fire, then charge with my monks, and have Nagi's filling holes in the line. Or I charge with Nagi's and use monks to flank and fill holes, having Nagi's take the musket fire. Never realized before how underrated Nagi's are.

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- A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
- The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

[solypsist]

no such thing as useless units in this game

[Shuko]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by solypsist:
[B]no such thing as useless units in this game


true, few people use the N/D effectively and even fewer the Y/A. It is a big learning curve before you really know how to use them, many players just default to using W/M N/D and H/C and try to run over your army. These players avoid all the low koku games.

[NinjaKilla]

I don't agree.

Obviously they are useful for on-line play, but against the computer I don't reckon ashiguru or no-dachi are any use.

I find that no matter what level you play it on, you can't help exploiting the weaknesses in the game's AI. The game usually culminates in you encircling a couple of enemy territories which are packed with an obscene amount of men. You just then rotate small powerful armies in order to gradully wear them down.

[Shuko]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by NinjaKilla:
[B]I don't agree.

OK we agree to disagree. In my last Post I was only talking about online play.

For playing campaigns I find the N/D are excellent attacking troops, especially if they have a bonus in armour or honour eg. from Shimazu. They are very good value for money and fight well against everything except H/C.

[edRonin]

YA are very valuable in the early part of the campaign. Early on you have little koku or troops. Being able to generate alot of YA to add girth to your armies and for garrisoning captured provinces is vital. in the mid and late game when you have alot more koku they become less important.

I usually only use ND when playing Shimazu. The cheaper price and honor bonus when built in Satsuma are very valuable. When this is done you get a H1 ND for less than half of what a WM would cost that is almost as good as a H0 WM. When playing other clans I usually just go with WMs in a province that has an armory or a honor bonus.

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All your base are belong to us

[NinjaKilla]

Quote Originally posted by Shuko:
[B]

Originally posted by NinjaKilla:
I don't agree.

OK we agree to disagree. In my last Post I was only talking about online play.

For playing campaigns I find the N/D are excellent attacking troops, especially if they have a bonus in armour or honour eg. from Shimazu. They are very good value for money and fight well against everything except H/C.

I think that No-Dachi are my favourite units for on-line play. The RED TIDE has served me well over the last year! As for ashiguru, I have been following the thread relating to them and I have to admit that I've never bothered to use them in two player. I guess that as soon as I've fixed my poxy Geforce 2 driver problems I'll have a crack with em and see if I can put em to any use. I guess a lot of it depends on your style of play though.

I agree with most of the posts here but theres a distinction between mp and sp. In sp I would prefer getting hc with good honour in fact.

But in mp, the speed and power (and very very good price) of No-Dachi makes it actually one of the essential unit in low koku games

I prefer low hon nd than normal ys.

Quote Originally posted by NinjaKilla:
I guess a lot of it depends on your style of play though.
[/QUOTE]

Also, yes I agree. Some players prefer a calm and easy-going way of playing. These guys usually like yaris for example. Others, like rushers prefer a lot more shock troops like no-dachi and monks because if they get YA and rush with them; they're dead.

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Honour to Clan No Fear.

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

[ShaiHulud]

Teng....

Here's another good thread on uses for Ashi..
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000704.html

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

[Zacharat Hennataga]

personally i think ashigaru(yari) are just there to make the battle field more bloody!, espacilly if they charge on a unit of Naganita!

[solypsist]

Quote personally i think ashigaru(yari) are just there to make the battle field more bloody![/QUOTE]

do us all a favor and stop thinking, then. It's only showing how little practice you have at it.

SP is the perfect place to use all the "useless" units (for example, HC) like Teraza says. Also, keep in mind that in MP you can't currently upgrade units, but in SP you can, making some troop-types especially deadly and effective with the right armor/weapon/honor upgrades. I think you'll see a rise in the use of less than common troop types once upgrades become available in MP



[This message has been edited by solypsist (edited 06-07-2001).]