Looking for tips: Tactical battles with a lot of bow

[Jungle Rhino]

Hi Guys,

I have recently been playing a Lengendary Chosokabe campaign, and while it is going pretty well (20 provinces + bags of money) I've never lost so many tactical battles before in my life! Being Chosokabe I obviously want to make use of their strength and incorporate a lot of bow into my stacks. But I'm finding that without the ability to pause and micro the bow they either 1. don't shoot at a sensible target leaving perhaps 10 men from the entire unit shooting at the flank of an engaged unit, or 2. with the inevitable gaps in my line the AI slips through and turns my boys into swiss cheese.

Early on I had no difficulty securing Shikoku against the undeveloped armies of the clans there, however as soon as I hit the mainland and started taking on a more developed clan field full stacks of samurai things started to unravell. My intial stack composition was soemthing like General + 2 Yari Sam + 6 Yari Ashi + 4 Daikyu + 4 Bow Sam + 2 Yari cav + 2 Bow Ashi. This performed phenomenally in my first battle that was a siege defense (obviosuly), feeling rather chuffed I then marched forth to do battle with a series of Hatekayama stacks. The first one turned out to be roughly *gulp* 6 Kat Cav + 10 Kat Sam + some ashi's while I inflicted plenty of casualties it was a bit of a catastrophe, losing one of my generals in the process. My battle plan worked - I was able to engage his Kat Sams with my Yari wall but they (expectedly) didn't last long and I simply wasn't able to inflict casualties with my bow - he closed too fast and once engaged the bow couldn't really shoot effectively. I was however willing to rack that one up to an unfavourable matchup, and resolved to make better use of Ninja recon next time.

Round 2 and his Daimyo shows up with a huge stack of vetted units mostly Kat Sam + about 6 Bow Sam and a couple of Kat Cav. I've adapted slightly and I'm down to 2 Daikyu, 4 Bow Sam, about 4 Yari Sam (after the Kat Cav armageddon), 6 Yari Ashi, 2 Imp. Teppo Ashi, and I think a single Yari cav. This time I go in confident of being able to match him in an early bow duel, then watch his Kat Sams break into my Yari Ashi and be flanked by my Yari Sam. Actually what happened is my bow got MASSACRED by his bow - the legendary bonus the AI units get, particularly to reload speed is simply absurd. My guys allegedly superior bow went down in a screaming pile. After that his vet melee just lawnmowered through my spears and simply didn't break. Again my Yari ashigaru wall was not able to hold long enough for the flanks to develop (not to mention the flanks gettign shot to bits by his Machine gun Bow Sams). My Daimyo dies that battle and that was probably the all time low.

Round 3 and I'm getting dubious on the value of Choskabe bows. I've never had problems with tactical battles playing as other clans - I just went through an entire Leg Tokugawa campaign with a combo of primarily Naginata sam + Matchlocks and I didn't lose a single major engagement. I just can't seem to make these bows work for me. Anyway I try a new, more aggressive strategy this time, breaking my army into two halves with about 6 Yari Sam to form the main thrust and all my bow grouped to the side in order to shoot the Yari in on to target. Taking the initiative works and I am able to engage his melee on my terms and win the battle. BUT I still get mauled heavily, no Yari Sam unit came through with more than 40 survivors, and my bow had terrible kill stats, 30-50 per unit. It seems to me that the Bow just aren't pulling their weight. The real stars were 3 Yari cav who won it with a massive flank move.

So, what am I doing wrong with my bow, what other techniques do people use on Legendary (micro not realy an option) especially to counter the incredible power of AI bows? Should I ditch the bow/spear combo and get some Katana's in there? I'm Christian btw so warrior monks not an option - but I have been using the odd unit of Imported matchlocks who I find are pretty good for the morale hit.

I should also note that I'll always upgrade my guys before going into battle - these are all accuracy upgraded 4 chevron bow sams and my Yari Sams have max armour (from Bizen smith), now that I'm the territories near Kyoto I'm going to start fielding morale boosted Yari Ashigaru to try and hold my center for longer.

[frogbeastegg]

I'd say part of the source of your problems is using yari samurai in a role they are not well suited to. They are too easily countered by units like katana samurai, lack heavy armour, have a small unit size, and can't use spear wall. They are a reserve unit and anti-cavalry unit, intended to use their speed to rush to hotspots on the field. In the main line they don't fare so well. I never field more than one in an army. Katana samurai are a far better choice for killing power, and naginata for survival and versatility.

I don't think the legendary AI gets a bonus to reload. I've not heard of it before and don't remember seeing that when I played on legendary. I think you're being scuppered by your Daikyu - they have the attribute "slow reload speed". They are more of a sniper unit than a front line archer.

Under similar circumstances I and a few others adopt a keep it simple approach:

I'll use 8 archer units. They will all be of the same type so that range, capability etc is identical. Thus, either bow ashigaru or bow samurai. Bow monks are too expensive and don't have the durability for this role. I'll then have 8 strong infantry units, either yari ashigaru or naginata. These units are intended to hold, not die, and do some killing. Survivability is the key factor for them. With a general in the army this leaves space for 3 units. These are a bit open to choice. I'd go with heavy cavalry, or samurai with high killing ability like katanas or no dachi. If you want you can try using a single sniper unit like the monk archers or daikyu, although personally I find that makes my army feel a bit too lacking in hand-to-hand potential. I would never use gunpowder in this bow heavy army; it's not a good synergy as it demands a lot of micromanagement right at the point where I already have my hands full bringing my infantry line into play. Units like yari samurai are great as reserves in other army styles but I don't like them in this one as they lack the ability to inflict heavy casualties quickly. Remember: fancy or uncommon units replenish more slowly on the campaign map. This can lead to your army being held up for a long time while it recovers after a tough battle, and on the highest difficulties that's not something you want.

I'll aim to recruit the bows in a province which gives bonuses to accuracy and armour, with accuracy being the most important. The infantry and cavalry get attack and armour bonuses. Research the arts which give your archers a bonus ASAP, particularly extra ammo and fire arrows. On the infantry side, research arts which boost up your naginata. Focused, deep research is worth more than wide, low-level research when using this army as you are only fielding a few unit types.

Because there are exactly 8 units of bows and infantry, I'll deploy in two parallel lines. The bows go in front in a single line set to loose formation. The infantry in a single line behind them, a little way back but not too far. I'll look for terrain which supports this by protecting one or both flanks. If there's no useful terrain it's not a total disaster provided I keep my eyes open for flanking attempts by the AI. If it's a defensive battle where I can deploy screens I will do so. I'll shoot great clouds of arrows and fire arrows at the approaching enemy, and when they get close to contacting my bows I'll either pull my bows back behind my infantry line or run my infantry on forward through my bows to engage. I tend to advance infantry when using naginata and withdraw bows when ashigaru and their spearwall. If all has gone well you have a bunch of half dead, scared units engaging your infantry line. They will hold and start doing some damage. Now you need to ensure all of your bows have good positions to keep shooting, and to start using your other units to flank the enemy and begin dicing. From there it should be a simple matter of directing your melee units towards new targets as enemy units begin to break.

Unless there is a specific target I want to shoot I let my archers pick their own targets by enabling 'Fire at will'. This reduces micromanagement considerably, and generally they will target intelligently.

If the AI has a large number of bows and sends them forward ahead of its infantry I'll order my archers to shoot the enemy bows, focusing fire so that several of my units shoot at one of his. The AI doesn't like to use loose formation so my archers will do more damage than his unless there's another factor in play like superior unit experience. When the target is down to around 50% strength I'll target the next healthy bow unit. The aim is to weaken the bows and render them fairly safe to ignore until a more opportune time. Destroying them in an archery duel takes a lot longer and uses many arrows, and tends to leave me too weak to inflict sufficient damage on the enemy infantry. Alternatively, I'll let my bow units play with his and run my infantry forward to aggressively attack the enemy army. In this scenario I want my bows to be taking most of the incoming damage so that my infantry arrives mostly intact.

On higher difficulties it's entirely normal to have costly victories and to lose battles. There's no way to avoid this as the AI in Shogun 2 is far better than in the older games.

[Jungle Rhino]

Thanks for the advice FBE - I'm a long time admirer of your guides btw!

I've got a few more major battles under my belt and I'm a lot happier now. I took some of your advice and simplified my deployment and tactics - I was trying to do too much previously. But I have kept a couple of Daikyu units in my armies - they must do a bit more damage than regular bow sam as they always have as many if not more kills despite the slower reload - like how bow sam arrows have beter penetration that ashi bows? I've also stuck with the Spears, but I've gone deeper in the tech tree and my guys are now coming out at 4 chevrons which has made a world of difference - can actually hold Kat Sams now and I like being able to murder cavalry (which I am coming across a lot).

Nowadays I'm deploying in a simple double line as you said, and covering the flanks with Yari Sams. The bow in front on skirmish seems to work much better as they have clearer shots and it draws the enemy into my Yari wall. I also think much of the issues I had with my earlier battles is because I was taking on an AI super stack of mostly all samurai - you know the type that charges around constantly winning until all the units are 6-7 chevrons and unstoppable. That is the reason the enemy boes were shooting so fast, they were just very experienced. Now I am frequently winning the early exchange of bowfire, the two units of daikyu are very helpful here for baiting the enemy bow into range of my Bow Sams so I get the first stationary volleys in.

So yeah, now that I've cracked the elite enemy units and made some adjustments to my deployment and in game maneuvures I'm happily chewing through their replacement stacks of unexperienced troops. Fortunately I was in a strong position during my initial troubles so my campaign has survived me losing 3 stacks + generals.

Also - i've noticed that it is often not a good idea to try and fight defensive pitched battles - depsite the advantage of having field fortifications availalbe I frequently find the enemy will choose to attack me in fog - which in addition to the range penalty to my bow also makes it incredibly hard to keep track of things without a minimap or pause!! So I usually attack simply so I can have fine weather and actually see what is going on!! :)

[Stratege]

I wanted to respond earlier but at that time I did not have an account. Now I am glad frogbeastegg uses similar tactics :).

I became a bow tactician in Medieval 2 but had severe problems in Shogun 2 too. Here bow units are not as good as in Medieval 2. There it was possible to annihilate or rout entire units with long-range units before melee would begin, even when there were equal numbers. This is most often not possible in Shogun 2 because there are no real long-range archers.

I experimented a lot with different army compositions. Either I did not have enough melee units to protect my archers or I had so few archers that I thought about fighting completely without them. Too many battles ended in a disaster that would not have taken place if I had melee units only.

Luckily I found out yari-ashigaru are optimal defense units if their spearwall-ability is activated. In general 8 units are enough to hold off a full stack enemy army until your 8 archer units are able to cause significant losses. The yari-samurai who do not have this ability are not so good. Naginata did not work so good as well and are expensive.
One should not underestimate the spear wall-ability. Especially get Long-Spear-Ashigaru when playing as the Oda. The encyclopaedia and other tips suggest this gives only an effect against cavalry. But this is not true.

I would also try to recruit units for your main armies in the optimal provinces. It is possible to get +5 armor (which especially makes a difference for ashigaru) for your melee units and more precision for your archers in another province. I would give archers +2 armor from an armory as well to make them survive longer. +6 precision which is an alternate camp upgrade does not seem to be so much. I wonder if someone disagrees.

I would keep my forces homogenous as well so that it does not happen that the wrong unit gets the wrong task in a chaotic battle.

I tend to place my archers behind my melee units from the beginning. I want the enemy archers shoot on them and not on my archers. But maybe I will try this. Archers can be set to loose formation so that they do not suffer so many losses from enemy archers. Luckily the AI does not use this.

[Sp4]

The AI is not better on higher difficulties, it just gets a lot more bonuses, that make it seem better.

[faker01]

I know it's not very tactical, but sometime I use only good archers+daymo. they kill nearly everything, even 2-3 Stacks in a single battle if necessary. They win, when not to much of them are engaged in hand-to-hand fighting and the ammo is used wisely. So I sometime sent some in the front to hold off the enemies and usually they survive. I let the archers change their targets, when the targets charge and are only some meters away, so that they don't hit my front-archers often.

[frogbeastegg]

Pleased to hear you have cracked it, Jungle Rhino.

I would give archers +2 armor from an armory as well to make them survive longer. +6 precision which is an alternate camp upgrade does not seem to be so much. I wonder if someone disagrees.

I would expect players to be fairly evenly split on this. Some will value the few extra kills whilst others will prefer to take a few less casualties. I doubt that there is a 'correct' choice.

[feelotraveller]

I would take the armour every time.

But you are probably right, 'frog on a lily pad'.

[Stratege]

I would expect players to be fairly evenly split on this. Some will value the few extra kills whilst others will prefer to take a few less casualties. I doubt that there is a 'correct' choice.

I would say if a bow samurai unit would begin with 40 accuracy and 4 armor then the +2 armor makes a greater difference than the +6 accuracy.
And: Accuracy improves with experience, armor does not. In the long run it could be better to keep the precious veterans alive with more armor. So that not every unexperienced ashi can shoot them too easily.
And it helps if they are engaged in melee.