Bridges

[Plant_head]

Just got Shogun for Christmas so still a rook....
but can someone tell me a good way of crossing bridges, I loose most of my men everytime :-( Especially when the province only has one bridge, the enemy archers murder me.

[johnmcd]

No, that happens as far as I can tell. Just pray they don't get shot, rout when they get there and shot on the way back. It sucks.

[Doragon_Ajidrik]

If the enemy has only 1 to 3 SA units, send in ur ashigarus to let him waste his arrows on them. After they run out then send in your YS. While lining up ur own SA along the river shore. Engage ur YS with his bridge defender while raining arrows donw on them. This is for early in the game when the armies are relativley small. If this doesnt work, then line up ur SA and fire into his YS that r blocking the Bridge. If they retreat, send in ur Daimyo and run him across the shore, 2 to 3 units should start chasing him. Then cross all ur tropps, while using ur SA for cover fire. I find that running the Daimyo along the river shore works early in the game.

[Ii Naomasa]

As johnmcd points out, high casualties are part of good, nutritional breakfast...I mean a good, victorious bridge battle.

Some things that may help your situation:

1) If the enemy starts some distance behind the bridge and you have cavalry, charge them across and try to have then end run the enemy. Either he'll become obsessed with that unit and you'll have to micromanage them (but you'll be able to move across the bridge with less casualties), or he'll ignore them. If the latter, move just just out of his range and let them catch their breath. Begin a cross and if the enemy general becomes exposed, attack him. With luck, he'll panic, making a chunk of his men move off front line bridge defense.

2) If the enemy has archers, you can use either your archers or (better yet) a group or two of ashigaru (in a wide formation) to move up and start to absorb the arrows. Then you can try to assault the bridge proper with your shock troops.

3) Try to have archers on your side move up to the bank close enough to hit either his bridge defense unit (especially if they're weak when it comes to such) or the archer units shooting back at you.

4) If he has little to no archers, send a group of your men halfway across the bridge (or as close as you need to attack his defenders) and then pull them back slowly, allowing your archers to take down the enemy that try to chase them.

5) Always keep an eye on enemy movement. Lines that either break, move, or fall back should be exploited if possible.

As you've found out, bridge battles are nasty affairs. Establishing yourself on the far back is a major key, so you need to weaken both the group defending the bridge and (if possible) their ranged support. Otherwise you'll keep getting the same vicious cycle of men crossing, engaging the spearmen on the other side, getting peppered by arrows, then running.

If possible, assassinate the taisho of the bridge defenders during the same round. You could always use the extra potential of his men running instead of yours.

[This message has been edited by Ii Naomasa (edited 01-08-2001).]

[BanzaiZAP]

I love bridge battles! Then again, I'm insane.
You can either go for the epic battle with hundreds of casualties, or you can try dirty tricks. For example, attacking a bridge with NO missile units, and doing it in a thunderstorm. Instantly, most of the defender's key tactics go out the window! Get creative!

-- B)

[Slyspy]

If you have them send naginta first. Line your side of the river with missile troops, and have assault troops ready and reserve troops nearby for some moral(e) support.

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"Put 'em in blue coats, put 'em in red coats, the bastards will run all the same!"

[Slyspy]

Sorry posted same thing twice due to shoddy connection, and I can't delete it. So this post has nothing useful to say!
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"Put 'em in blue coats, put 'em in red coats, the bastards will run all the same!"

[This message has been edited by Slyspy (edited 01-08-2001).]

[Plant_head]

Nice to know everyone suffers as much as I do.
Tried the thunderstorm idea and it worked great.

[Jackson]

Great advice here, particularly Ii Naomasa’s to-do list.

One more thing you might want to consider: As the game drags out, and your armies are marching across Japan, you will eventually run into a horde camping in a bridge province. At this point you have to assume that you just may lose the battle. This is when you are going to want to plan for _two_ battles instead of just one. This requires having two armies in the same province that you are attacking from. The first army will be mostly infantry (YA, YS and WM if you got ‘em) with a mediocre Taisho. His job is to inflict as many casualties on the enemy as possible, while slugging it out over the bridge in a springtime battle (pray for rain). Attack, attack, attack. Your units will rout back across the bridge, but should regroup on your side. Send them back into the meat grinder once you’re out of fresh units. This is basically a throwaway force. The main army, led by one of your best generals, is a combined arms force. This is the second attack in the following summer.

Another part of this strategy is to surround the bridge province before attacking (if possible). This cuts off reinforcements to the province, and often results in the death of the enemy Daiymo, who tends to camp in such provinces.

Good luck, and high honor to all!


[This message has been edited by Jackson (edited 01-09-2001).]

[BanzaiZAP]

Good stuff! Glad you like the "storming", Plant Head!

Jackson's idea is good, too, about surrounding the bridge province to cut off reinforcements. You can take it one step farther:
Once he's surrounded, pull most of your units OUT of one of the provinces. You can leave the defenders as high-defense units. The point is to lure the enemy into attacking, and having his forces leave the bridge province. You don't even need to win this battle, just kill off more men. If the remaining defenders are naginata and muskets, his attack may even get halted in its tracks! This will reduce the number of men in the bridge province, and you won't take as heavy losses. A good general wins, not by beating the enemy in combat, but by stacking the chips in your favor BEFORE the battle is joined!

-- B)

[Jackson]

Ooh, I like that idea Banzai. Anything that helps bleed-off that horde in the bridge province is going to make life much easier. The other night I had my throwaway force with a rank 2 general attack a surrounded Hojo Horde in a bridge province commanded by his Daiymo. As I said in my post, I went with mostly infantry, a YC and a few SA. My army of about 950 faced a Horde of over 2,500. As my last fresh unit of WM engaged the bridge defender, the enemy finally withdrew to regroup. His reinforcements were pouring over the distant hill. I only had three WM, a YC and a YA in fighting condition, so I enveloped his reinforcements as they marched in column, and actually routed the whole army. I could not believe it. Hojo lost the whole 2,500, and the game.

[Che]

I love how in Owari the attacking AI often forgets about the second bridge. And how you can sneak a few units onto the attacker's side of the map, near the big forest. Sneak your second bridge force onto the other side and around the back, jump out of the forest, and go straight for their general or daimyo!

[Plant_head]

Still trying out bridge crossing suggestions.
One way that works (if you're rubbish like me) is too build up a huge force, much bigger than the enemies and then let the computer auto-calc. The computer seems to work out the battles on size of army.
I do it like this coz I'm still really bad at crossing bridges.

but....

It seems to me that early in the game when you only have SA and YS it all comes down to attrition. Throw your men across the bridge in an effort to draw the enemy forward into your archers range, if the enemy pursues your routing units so much the better. (I always use Ashigau for this bit, as it doesn't lower my mens moral when they leg it.)
Then its in with your YS who usually rout.

The only times I've won a bridge crossing is when I rushed my Generals unit in, my men don't rout (at least for a little longer) and hopefully (like Ii Naomasa said) I can knobble their General before my men go chicken, and my own General gets slaughtered.