Size of Shogun War armies?

[ney]

I'm having great fun playing Shogun but know little about the historical period. Can someone tell me just how big the armies got during this era? Are we fighting battles or just skirmishes with STW?

Thanks,
ney

[Anssi Hakkinen]

The game's battles are supposed to be of historical significance, not skirmishes, but they were much larger in reality. In the battle of Sekigahara (1600), armies of 80,000 and 74,000 clashed. The game's battle size is mostly due to technical reasons: there's no way tor reasonably manage even 10,000 individual soldiers. The standard ~1,000 is very well for a game: most "hard-core" tactics games like Steel Panthers can only manage a few hundred men, even though they have the men in 10 man squads.

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"Never, youths, however wretched, / Nor in future, upgrown heroes, / Whether you have large possessions, / Or are poor in your possessions, / In the course of your lifetime, / While the golden moon is shining, / May you woo a golden woman, / Or distress yourselves for silver, /For the gleam of gold is freezing, / Only frost is breathed by silver."
-The Kalevala, Poem XXXVIII, verses 241-250

[Tachikaze]

I think the average number of soldiers for a sengoku era battle was about 10,000 to 20,000 per side. I don't know if that includes support or just combatants.

In most wargames, each human figure represents multiple soldiers. But the numbers in Shogun are so high, you can imagine it's a full battle, especially with the 120-per-unit setting.

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A murky puddle becomes clear when it is still.

[Tenchimuyo]

Yes, one of the reasons I bought this game is because the large number of troops I can control on the battle field.

[Hirosito]

yep the thrill of sending 1000 men to attack a province is much greater than attacking a base in C&C with 10 tanks even though they are supposed to represent more

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Hirosito Mori

A warrior's wisdom is shown in the treating of his defeated opponent

[ney]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I'm thinking I should do some reading on the Sengoku period. If battles had combatants in the range of 150,000 like at Sekigahara, it must have been a dramatic and epic era.

Yes, the STW battles are very immersive and give one the impression of far greater troops then the computer is managing. I'm still holding out for Napoleonic conflict in future TW releases. I don't expect Wagram or Borodino, but we're not getting Sekigahara with STW either.

ney