Most battles are played at 10, 14 or 22k. Without good veterans you will be doomed.
There are basic thoughts about what you need and what you should have. To ensure, you can keep going and field a similar army every time, you will need your base setup twice.
As example: If you field 3x lvl5 loan swords, than you need at least 6 vets of these kind.
With only 43 veterans it is quite difficult to ensure to have base armies ready with just 43 vets.
Especially at 22k the whole thing becomes quite a problem.
We have 4 different clanspecializations:
1. Cav
2. Bow
3. Spear
4. Sword
We have 4 different main advances/abilities:
1. Inspire
2. Bansai
3. Hold firm
4. increased bow-range
These clan-specials are determined to the different clan-specializations. So can only a cav clan put bansai and/or inspire on a cav.
Same goes for spears or swords, you need to be a member of a spear clan, to put bansai, inspire or hold firm on a spear unit.
Important: These abilities can be put on units already at lvl 5 (you have to spent at least 4 points in the upper window), but this can bug!
The mouseover say "lvl9" and if you put that on a unit below lvl 9, it can bug. This means, you have a lvl 5 unit, pay 120 extra for the clan-skill, spent 20 clantokens, but wont have the ability.
Clan specialization.
The clan specialization is set by the first one who ever is online from one clan (steamgrp). You will be asked what to choose and than you choose and set the clan. If you want a certain specialization, than make sure YOU are the person who is first online or the guy who is online first KNOW what you want to have him choose!
You cant just change the specialization, you only can do that, if you leave the clan and "join" a new clan ingame.
If you do that, you will lose any "clanspecial" ability, the points will disappear and the costs as well.
Note. You actual DONT lose the clan-specialization if you leave you current clan, you only lose it, if you change it in game!
So you could just leave your current Steam-group and still be in the same clan in game. Its all done in game, there you can always choose the different clans.
Cav As cav-clan you have the option to put inspire and/or bansai on a cav.
It is actual pretty hard to get Cav-units to lvl 9 if you play normal online.
Cav clan is strong, there is a little problem with the different units, since you hardly will see many light cav in high fund games, the Katana-cav is hardly used, bow-cav is hardly used (bow-cav is rather in the "Bow-clan" section) and Great Guard you can only field 2 at max.
This said, you are pretty much down to Yari cav only.
Bow Bow-clan is weak imo, all you can get is increased range and rally for your bow-hero.
25 extra range is not bad, but with Monk-bows who get the 25 range for free, the extra range for other bows (who can get only to 175 max) is questionable. If the Bow-clan would ensure, that you can get best bows, than it would be powerful, but with units who crack that off, Bow makes less sense.
Spear Spear-clan is strongest right now, especially with Monks and naginatas being spears as well. A Monk can get Bansai and inspire, thats a heavy boost.
Note: Hold Firm isnt working right now, it seems completely bugged.
As Spear-clan you get your hands on the cheapest "inspire-bot" in game, the ashi. This unit will cost you 569 Koku (with 10 and 5% retainer). That is 2x defense, 2x attack and inspire. If Hold Firm would work, You probably will put that on this spear as well.
Spears got many good units, every single unit is good and used and you can get your hands on every single ability!
Sword Sword-clan is strong as well, you get 3 Sword units, Loan sword, Katana sam and No-Dachi. You can get bansai with each of it as Sword-clan. Bansai has the big advance of a quick apply once the battle started, while inspire is more micro.
What does what?
Inspire is an ability which you have to select and than click on a unit. It raise accuracy, reload skill and the melee stats. It is very effective on missle units.
Bansai gives a +7 Attack to the unit who use it, it also boosts the charge, the speed and the moral. It seems, that the unit becomes unroutable while bansai is up. The big advance is, you can very quick put bansai up on many of your units (as long they got it).
Bow range is useful. It gives you 25 more range, it may sound quite good in the first place, but if you consider monk archer with a 175 range and maxed to 200 (without bow-clan) the whole bowclan ability is not that good anymore.
I would like to mention the bow-cav here, a bowcav with 175 range can be extreme dangerous, but only till the moment, where the enemy got a 175 range unit on its own or use 200 range units. All in all, bow-clan seems weakest to me as it is right now.
Important Upgrades
I will work on this list and add units and upgrades with time, if you got suggestions or have experience with upgrades, than please add your findings.
Monk-bows: lvl 5 with accuracy, reload, whistling + range = a 200 range unit, with up to 70 reload, 70 accuracy (1209 Koku)
ashi-spear: lvl 5 with 2x attack, 2x defense + inspire (spear-clan) = around 8 defense, 8 attack and inspire ability (569 Koku)
Ashi-gun: lvl 5 with accuracy, reload + rapid shot = average reload and accuracy + rapid shot (569 Koku)
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