A beginner's guide to province specialisation

[Daveybaby]

I suspect the charge stat has the same effect as the melee stat, but lasts only while the unit is in a "charge" mode (it accounts of the high initial casualties of the charge, but then fades if the cavalry are stuck in melee). It's just that +5 charge seems underbudget compared with +4 attack (or +3 armour) from the smith. I'd rather have +4 all the time than +5 when charging. I'm even ambivalent on the +5 charge from proving grounds compared to the +2 alternatives, but will give CA the benefit of the doubt. One guide to TW units computed a "combat power" stat that weighted charge at 1/4 of melee attack (and defence), although that was probably arbitrary and not focusing on cavalry specifically.

My take on cavalry is that it's all about the charge - if youre using cav in extended melees vs (melee) ground troops then youre going to suffer regardless of where you put the bonuses. Cav are your highly mobile shock troops - if the enemy dont rout soon after charging then youre going to start to lose horses very quickly - the idea (IMO) is to boost that initial charge damage as much as possible.

I can see the advantage in a smithy if you choose +4 attack (almost as good as +5 charge), but the problem with this is that i will almost always choose to go for the defensive path of smithy upgrades - it seems so much more useful in the early game because of the boost in protection against arrows for your (otherwise cripplingly low armour) early units. And this +3 armour wont give any boost to your cav charge at all.

So i'd tend to go for a horse province over smithy for cav. Maybe once i've got a second smithy province i'd devote that to +attack to turn out uber katanas & nagintas (IMO you should use bonuses to boost strengths rather than reduce weaknesses) and in that situation maybe it would be worth producing katana cav in that province too.

Same goes for the encampment - i'd much rather have another +5 charge over +2 armour.

On an unrelated subject, I noticed one bad thing about getting +4 agents straight out of training - you get the skill points but not the retinue. I think a more "organically" grown agent would have two retinue by level 4.

Yeah i noticed this too. Hoping it's a bug.

You can now look at it in-game.

Wow!

[TheLastDays]

My take on cavalry is that it's all about the charge - if youre using cav in extended melees vs (melee) ground troops then youre going to suffer regardless of where you put the bonuses. Cav are your highly mobile shock troops - if the enemy dont rout soon after charging then youre going to start to lose horses very quickly - the idea (IMO) is to boost that initial charge damage as much as possible.

I can see the advantage in a smithy if you choose +4 attack (almost as good as +5 charge), but the problem with this is that i will almost always choose to go for the defensive path of smithy upgrades - it seems so much more useful in the early game because of the boost in protection against arrows for your (otherwise cripplingly low armour) early units. And this +3 armour wont give any boost to your cav charge at all.

So i'd tend to go for a horse province over smithy for cav. Maybe once i've got a second smithy province i'd devote that to +attack to turn out uber katanas & nagintas (IMO you should use bonuses to boost strengths rather than reduce weaknesses) and in that situation maybe it would be worth producing katana cav in that province too.

Same goes for the encampment - i'd much rather have another +5 charge over +2 armour.

I agree on the cav issue, I put maximum +charge buildings in my warhorse province and produce mainly yari cav there... pulling them out to recharge once the charge is done...
I also have my smithy province built up for +armor

Now in my current Oda campaign I just recently conquered a second smithy province and will put that high attack plan into action, so I'm thinking Encampment->Jjujitsu Dojo, Sword chain, Stables, Master Weaponsmith
not really a need for spear dojo there as I'll use it mostly for No Dachi and Katana Cav, maybe some katana samurai if I want more flexible shock infantry,

Also, econ, I think ships profit from the accuracy bonus of a smith province so I would say that's better than the lowered recruitment cost from a pine forest, still coming second to naval tradition...

[econ21]

Also, econ, I think ships profit from the accuracy bonus of a smith province so I would say that's better than the lowered recruitment cost from a pine forest, still coming second to naval tradition...

Good idea, thanks. I've incorporated it into the guide. I've also added in the idea of five "tax towns" as suggested by Slaists.

I've changed my mind on the armor vs weapon upgrade issue. After experiencing the attrition from archery fire over the course of a full campaign, I think the armor upgrade is the best choice for your first smith town. I'm still inclined to have a weapons upgrade in a second smith town to produce shock attack units (although even then, I would less emphatic: the AI is very good at targeting your elites for archery fire). However, I think protecting your frontline is a higher priority, especially in the early game when you have few elites.

[Narcisista]

Are you sure ships benefit from the accuracy bonus? I haven't paid much atention to it, but Craft provinces tend to be hard somewhat out of the way.

Another good site for ship development are Iron provinces. Ships also benefit from the discount on all units, so there is really no point in targeting Lumber provinces over Naval Tradition or Iron Mines.

[Harleyquin12]

Are you sure ships benefit from the accuracy bonus? I haven't paid much atention to it, but Craft provinces tend to be hard somewhat out of the way.

Another good site for ship development are Iron provinces. Ships also benefit from the discount on all units, so there is really no point in targeting Lumber provinces over Naval Tradition or Iron Mines.

The current encyclopaedia does not list accuracy for ships anymore, so it's safe to say craft provinces for drydocks is a luxury.

There's only 1 iron province (Miyagi) compared to 2 prime forest provinces which have coastal provinces (Tosa and Fukushima). Compare that to the 5 naval tradition provinces which are somewhat evenly spread out through the Japanese islands. The only faction to really benefit from iron naval provinces early-game is the Date (maybe the Uesugi and Hojo too if they try). The aforementioned clans and obviously Chosokabe get a head start for cheaper ships.

[Narcisista]

Yeah, my experience is coloured by ROTS where there are 4 coastal iron provinces, 3 of wich fairly acessible, versus 2 Forest Provinces.

[Harleyquin12]

I didn't realise the specialties for RotS were different from the original campaign, then again I haven't got around to starting a campaign there yet so that should be interesting.