Legendary Swordsman (yes!)

[Magraev]

Bugger - I just deleted my post by mistake *sniffle*

I'll recap. In one campaign game with shimazu I had a unit start at honour 1 and go to honour 4 and still no swordsman.

In another game with Mori I had a unit that didn't go up in honour at all, but I got the swordsman.

Pretty Ironic - I need the swordsman as Shimazu since I'm christian, while Mori can easily do without.

[Didz]

The legendary swordsman event has nothing to do with unit honour.

You may not realise it but STW actually keeps a seperate record of the performance of each of your individual soldiers. The unit honour and morale is only an average reflection of all the individuals in a unit.

The legendary swordsman event occurs only when an individual soldier reaches the required level of experience.

It is therefore possible for the average experience of a unit to rise without any individual reaching the standard required. It is also possible for one exceptional individual to reach the standard required without seeing a general improvement in the unit.

This also explains why some units appear to fight a heroic battle but not gain any honour. (dead hero's don't count).

I have seen posts both here and on the official forum suggesting ways to encourage the legendary swordsman event to occur. Perhaps someone will repeat their suggestions here.

[This message has been edited by Didz (edited 10-31-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Didz (edited 10-31-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Didz (edited 10-31-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Didz (edited 10-31-2000).]

[Magraev]

Ok - thanks for the reply.

I remember from somewhere, that honour has to increase by two, surely somebody in my honour 4 unit has done that?

It's annoying, that it's so random. I'll start a new game as Shimazu, and then restart until I get the swordsman in the first year, but surely this isn't the intention.

Does autoresolve increase or decrease the chance of the event ?

[The Black Ship]

Anyone else ever notice you get the Legendary event immediately when you use .conan. I guess it's more honourable to be Ronin

I still think this is an almost random action. I've gotten it by simply invading a province, then when the AI adjusted with overwhelming force I abandoned. How could any soldier gain honour in an abandoned invasion?

[Catiline]

I seem to remember that if you assault a castle and autresolve you stand a much higher chance of getting a legendary swordsman event. Also eary on use your daimyo's bodyguard to slaughter as many enemy troops as you can, you get massive jumps in honour as I'm sure you know

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It's not a bug, it's a feature

[Dwimmerlaik]

Yes, Catiline is right, autoresolving castle battles is effective but I find that doing the same with bridge battles works just as well.

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To be happy it is necessary not to be too intelligent

- Flaubert-

[solypsist]

using the Daimyo's bodyguard (only 11 men) to cut down fleeing enemy units virtually guarantees the event. Especially during the first year when not everyone may have cavalry (or much of it) so your Daimyo get's lots of running enemy all to himself.

[Nelson]

I think Didz has it right.

I seem to get the swordsman event early in every game. Now I do use the samurai archers in melee a lot. Perhaps this helps. They are wielding katanas after all.

That said, I don't use nodachi all that much anyway. If I'm Shimazu I do but otherwise I only raise a few mostly just to vary the OB somewhat.

[Magraev]

About cutting down routing troops to gain honour:

I read someplace (the FAQ?) that you don't gain honour for killing routers. Is that a mistake ?

Otherwise I agree with the person saying, that no-dachi aren't the most essential army. They are great for flanking and ambushing, but so are monks.

[Didz]

No-Dachi are the only affordable shock troops the Shimazu get in the early and mid-game so the Legendary Swordsman event is critical to the Shimazu war effort.

I think the trick is to rack up as many H2H kills as possible. Which is why castle battles and Bridge defenses work so well. Pursuing routed troops ought to help also.

[lanza27]

Didz is right again. Bridge battles almost always trigger the Event for me. Its obviously due to the massive amount of kills one can rack up during the assault/defense. I have gotten the event in the first year of battle when playing Takeda, Mori, Imagawa, Hojo. However, for some reason when I was Uesugi it took forever! Maybe b/c my battles consisted mostly of me shooting the hell out of everyone. So that bought me to the conclusion that kills doesn't trigger the event, but Hand to Hand kills triggers the event. I mean I had one archer group kill 300 men in one battle. If kills was the trigger i'm sure that would have done it. But not until I got my Samurai wooping up on people did I get the event.

Just my thoughts

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Lanza
Shogun Totalwar Hints and Strategies
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Please feel free to stop by and contribute your strategies...
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[Didz]

Makes sense.

Turning 300 enemies into hedgehog sculptures is hardly going to increase your skill with a sword.

Whereas standing at the exit to a bridge and hacking down hundreds of enemy warriors as they struggle to fight their way across is either going to improve your sword skills or end up with you being trampled to death

[This message has been edited by Didz (edited 11-01-2000).]

[The Black Ship]

I always thought it was bizarre that inorder to train a swordsman I had to have some guy with a long stick, or another guy with a bow and arrow, kill his peers so efficiently that he becomes Legendary. Then, instead of training others with the weapon he displayed so much skill using he decides to chuck it and become a sword sensei.

I really don't see the point, it must be something they thought would add some randomness to the SP game.

Oh yeah... I've had just as much luck getting the event using autoresolve as I have had trying to deliberately create a high kill unit

[Anssi Hakkinen]

Quote I always thought it was bizarre that inorder to train a swordsman I had to have some guy with a long stick, or another guy with a bow and arrow, kill his peers so efficiently that he becomes Legendary. Then, instead of training others with the weapon he displayed so much skill using he decides to chuck it and become a sword sensei.

As lanza said, bow kills don't count against the "legendary swordsman" limit. Spearmen's kills, however, do. Why?

It's pretty simple really. I've always assumed, to stay sane, that the STW battles are simplified at least at the individual sprite (sorry, WARRIOR) level. All my history books expressly state that sengoku jidai battles never degenerated to the simple "spear push" so evident in the European conflicts of the time. So why do YS and YA just stick people with their spears in the game? Well, they don't. It's just how we see the battle (you know, the fog of war and all). In reality, when your Yari Samurai again stabs one ashigaru dead in a head on attack, he doesn't just stick him with the spear. Instead, their spear heads and shafts strike one another for a while, until the samurai gets bored with the staticness of the battle. He suddenly drops his yari, grabs his katana, CUTS the ashigaru's spear in two, CHOPS the hapless peasant's head off, and then he's among the enemy formation, striking left and right. That's how legendary swordsmen are made!

*cough* I'll take my pills now.

Quote I really don't see the point, it must be something they thought would add some randomness to the SP game.[/QUOTE]Maybe that too, but it's also that the No-Dachi is a pretty good unit; it costs the same as SA, is faster and has better kill capability. It's also the best unit to use against early-game spearman formations, until WMs can be acquired. So the LS-event requirement is something to spice up the early game from the tedious camping it easily becomes (at least on lower difficulty levels). It's not there just to frustrate you. And the event animation is one of STW's finest.

[This message has been edited by Anssi Hakkinen (edited 11-01-2000).]

[solypsist]

i can see a basis for not gaining honor in striking down routing enemy, but....theres nothiong like seeing your yari samurai have a tally of over 200 kills at battle's end. and yes, they have gone up in honor, but whether thats from actual combat kills or router kills is unknown. I'd like to see where you read that info.
plus, killing routers helps insure that (in campaign mode) the enemy wont have as much to bring against you a second time, or wont have as much when you strike backand invade his province.

[Magraev]

To Solypsist

Quote from the faq (downloaded from the org strategy section:

"Honor can go up by:
- joining an army commanded by a taisho with higher honor than the unit. This honor increase is temporary, or “conditional” and only lasts as long as the unit stays with that army, or as long as the taisho’s honor isn’t reduced.
- killing enemies (not fleeing enemies)
- your men with a low honor are killed in battle (the unit average gets higher)"

Dunno if it's true though