Choosing Provinces: Armoury or Unit Bonus?

[Wilbo]

The title explains it all really. I'm interested in finding out what kind of province everyone finds effective based on the bonus it supplies... Ignoring aspects like koku produced or location, would you guys prefer a province that gives a unit bonus (e.g. Ashigaru from Owari have +1 Honor, Totomi +1 Archers, Yamashiro all units +1) or a province that can support an Armoury (e.g. Nagano, Hitachi, Sado)?

Another example: if you had Satsuma (+1 Honor Nodachi) and Nagano (armoury), where would you produce your Nodachis?

[Biggus Diccus]

I wonder about this as well. Just got the legendary swordsman event (btw: got it when rushing 3 ashi units against a archer unit with 2 men in a fortress. The archers killed like 15 of my peasants before they died...), and I must choose where to locate nodachi production.

[Drisos]

Another example: if you had Satsuma (+1 Honor Nodachi) and Nagano (armoury), where would you produce your Nodachis?

i would make them in satsuma, i consider honour more important then armour.

i usually build up castles and dojo's in every bonus provincie(totomi, shinano, some others and especially yamashiro), but you never have much of those, that's why i do use armoury provincies(you know what i mean ) in the beginning, to train naginata and later heavy cav. .

[Si GeeNa]

I will rely more on Honour than Armour. Especially if I'm Oda.

Owari cranks out +1Hon Ashi. Max it up with Legendary Spear Dojos and you can find yourself with 3Hon Ashi pretty quick. With a decent Taisho, you'll have 4Hon Ashi. Pretty deadly.

To top it off, I get them retrained at Omi or Mino for the max Weapons and Armour. I end up with a budget force that's pretty hard to grind down.

Of course, I trade that extra turn for the retraining.

[ElmarkOFear]

Honor increases are much more valuable than armor. Here is why:

An honor increase does 3 important things:

For every level of honor increase:

1. Morale increases by 2
2. Attack (weapon) increases by 1
3. Defense (armor) increases by 1

The other province, you first have to build an armoury then the only bonus you get is a +1 to your defense, +2 with the next building, and +3 with the last armoury upgrade.

The +1 honor province give you a greater, cheaper, and immediate benefit, whereas the province with the iron, must have an armoury built on it, is costly and time consuming.

Hope this helps. :)

[Wilbo]

Awesome, good response EOF, just what I was looking for! Thanks also to Si GeeNa for suggesting retraining the units in an armoury filled province. Good work those men!

[ichi]

Honor bonuses are the most important, as everyone has so well stated already, but armor is valuable also, especially for archers, monks (lightly armored to begin with) and of course necessary for some troop types.

I make a point of building troops where they get the honor bonus, but early on in the game I usually need to build troops in additional provinces, so I try to use the armoury provinces.

This was a good question for a thread. Along the same lines, in what order would you build in a province that you wished to be your primary producer of Yari Sams, after you had the Spear Dojo: armoury, swordsmith, palace, or go for the next level castle and dojo?

For me its always palace, armor, weapon, next level.

ichi

[Wilbo]

Uh oh - I never build palaces... Do they make a big difference?

[ichi]

I wouldn't say that Palaces make a big difference, but the extra morale means they are more likely to hold where I ask them to, at least a little longer.

Armor is good too, because of the relief the unit gets from missile fire and the increased defense bonus.

ichi

[Si GeeNa]

This was a good question for a thread. Along the same lines, in what order would you build in a province that you wished to be your primary producer of Yari Sams, after you had the Spear Dojo: armoury, swordsmith, palace, or go for the next level castle and dojo?

For me its always palace, armor, weapon, next level.

ichi

I assume that you refer to provinces with the capability to build armoury. I tend to build my units in some provinces and get them retrained elsewhere where there's some armour and weapon bonus.

Why? Maybe it's due to my playing at 120 sized units. I spend 2 turn cranking them out and everyone is doing the same. There's no arms race in the beginning.

It tends to be weapons, armour, palace, next level.

[Ed TW]

I have no disagreement, but I usually am more effective with upgrades in armor and weapons. Missile units are pretty deadly with upgraded weapons.
I like to go for that first, and then go for a middle of the road approach with honor. I usually play the Mori clan with rich iron deposits. I find that the AI is usually one or two steps behind me.

[LittleGrizzly]

im an upgrading machine on stw, i always go for the honour bonus then the weapon bonus, amoury if available and the palace is usually my finishing touch.

always have super units by the time my and the hojo horde meet (shimazu player) for some stupid reason though i never thought about retraining units to get the armour bonus... thanks for the tip!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

To be honest, I could never be to fussed with upgrades...3 yari sam in the hand are worth more than some slightly improved ys in the future...one dojo upgrade usually as far as I go.

[Togakure]

I have no disagreement, but I usually am more effective with upgrades in armor and weapons. Missile units are pretty deadly with upgraded weapons.
I like to go for that first, and then go for a middle of the road approach with honor. I usually play the Mori clan with rich iron deposits. I find that the AI is usually one or two steps behind me.

FYI: Weapon upgrades do not increase the effectiveness of a missle unit's ranged attack--only its melee attack. This has been confirmed time and again in posts here historically.

My priority is upgrading dojos, not so much armories, swordsmiths and palaces. However, I will often build an armory in the provinces where I build archers and musketeers (this gives them an edge in a ranged vs. ranged war), and in provinces where I produce cavalry (as horsemen are bigger targets for ranged attackers). I eventually build palaces in the provinces where I train units with low base morale (yari ashigaru, yari samurai, archers, cav archers). Palaces cost a lot so I don't usually build them until I'm rolling in koku. I almost always build palaces in Owari though (usually the only province where I will produce ashigaru that aren't going to just serve as garrison units).

[Biggus Diccus]

Did you know that upgrading a unit with low unit honour (say 0) in a province that would produce +3 honour units of the same type, results in a honour 'upgrade' of +3 for the unit. I did this by accident with a 0 honour WM unit, full sized and no other upgrades were available in that province, yet it turned out as a 3 honour unit the next turn.

[Togakure]

Nope, didn't know that. Interesting. I don't upgrade units though. I just make sure that each province that has been designed to produce a given unit type produces that unit type each and every turn. After a battle, I merge units that are not up to maxiumum strength, and then pull out the partial units into a reserve group, which I garrison one province behind the front lines. I then us them to top off partial units after subsequent battles. This group of partial units comes in handy sometimes to temporarily garrison a newly taken and turbulent province when my main army moves on to further my attack.

I've always thought it disruptive to my attack flow to transport units back and forth for upgrades. I just us them as is, and upgrade by merging in new, better units as I produce them.