Samurai Wars Unit vs Unit Chart

[Togakure]

Hi R'as (John, formerly Toga, here). Sounds good to me. I was mainly curious to hear the rationale. I realize the team has been over the stats with a fine-tooth comb. Thanks for the explanations.

Yes, when I looked at the stats of the YC, the speed and manueverability stats are the same as Alans. So indeed it must be perception, likely due to the animations. I've only played a handful of SW games, and have been playing STW SP exclusively since I left VI. I need to re-acclimatize to the VI engine to get a better sense of things.

Yep, unless the costs are different in actual MP than in Custom Battle "MP" for BETA8, raising the honor of Cavalry Archers from zero to one increases the cost from 600 to 1020. I think this is a good deal considering what you get. The morale in BETA8's version of the CA is much more robust than the CA of old (STW MI). Unless I'm reading things incorrectly, the base morale of CA in BETA8 is 6; in STW MI, it's 2. In MI their low base morale made them fragile; a player had to be very careful using them in melee at all. With a base of 6, and 8 with an H1 upgrade, they should be expensive as they are more useful from a melee standpoint. CA are still ineffective in head-on melee against anything but archers and guns, but they can be very useful flank- or rear-attacking an already engaged unit, and running down routing units. Combine this with BETA8s improved archery capability, paying the same price as you would for a YC for a highly mobile range unit that can hang in and provide support melee when needed seems reasonable. Now I understand why Tosa's CA were running around attacked units in Wedge formation .

The same applies to Naginata Infantry in regard to base morale increase in SamWars over MI. I think this is a vast improvement for the unit. NA were rarely used in STW MI (except when using the 1.03 stat, which doubled its base morale), because the cost/performance ratio just didn't pan out. I am looking forward to experimenting with them; they look like they could be effective for the cost when using multiple units as a defensive wall against shock troops, supported by YS vs. cavalry.

Back to cav: other H0 cav slaughter even H1 CA 1v1, as they should. Tested that last night. On 1v1 tests on the horselands map, I was suprised that HC beat YC rather decisively in about a dozen tests. NC defeated YC also, another surprise, but took more losses, and didn't do as well if the YC got a solid charge in and the NC didn't. It doesn't seem like the spear bonus/penalty quite compensates for the YC's reduced morale based on a handful of, granted, simple tests.

Having fun. Thanks for all of this.

Edit: Regarding YC versus NC and HC: an unobstructed high-speed charge makes all the difference. The tests I ran last night were NC under my control charging YC under the AI's control at high speed. When I reversed this, YC under my control devastated NC controlled by the AI head on. They had a harder time against HC, but won more than they lost, though they suffered considerably more losses against HC.

[Togakure]

Ah! I didn't see Puzz's post. Excellent explanations, as always. Thanks.

Aha ... the +2 morale penalty inflicted by monks when they attacked a unit was a hard-coded STW feature, and as this is the VI engine it doesn't apply? Makes sense to me. Good to know--I was factoring in the attack penalty as I matched up units yesterday (I rarely use monks because of their cost, but they scare me when an opponent has them ... *laughs like Masakage Yamagata in Kagemusha*).

Thanks for the reminder about cav inflicting a morale penalty on infantry--I'd forgotten about that also. TW MP has been out of mind necessarily for a while. Now I can afford to join you all on many Sundays for SamWars though. I am really looking forward to some more fun.

Interesting about the defense stat in regard to the Naginata. Some very good VI players taught me how to use Byz Infantry more effectively in the manner that I described. But that unit also benefits from 100 men, so maybe that contributes to why the technique described works well with them. I tried the technique in a few custom battles with Naginata after we played last night, and it didn't seem to work so well. They also got chewed up by cav, which supports the grade system which you've provided.

Your explanation about YC response time makes perfect sense also--that the unit leader must move to the front, that the unit size is bigger. I will have to use them like I did in STW, which is fine.

Yes indeed, the surprise value for upgrades is the only reason why I've been investigating them. I imagine that a unit might be more experienced (valor) or have higher quality weapons or armor than the average. As only one point of added valor, weapon, or armor is practical cost-wise in BETA8, upgrades can't get too out of hand. Really, the surprise "benefit" is well paid for, so I'm not so sure they're practical. I will try a few things and see how it goes, but to be honest, I love being able to not worry about them and just choose a H0 army that works well. Puts the focus where it should be--on field strategy and tactics, and team play.

If any host-capable SamWars players would like to meet at other times to play, I am willing. I'm off today, and am usually around de-workifying at night during the week from 8-11 PM EST USA. I would enjoy the practice and good company. If anyone is game, PM me. I check the forum a couple of times a day usually.

Thanks again, Puzz3D and R'as (and Tosa, CBR, Toda-Watanabe, and Warman for the fun games and company yesterday).

[R'as al Ghul]

Hi R'as (John, formerly Toga, here).

Hi mate!
I saw your posts in the tournament field and I figured that it's you.
I deliberately left most of the points for Yuuki to answer. I assume it's all clear now?
One thing, YC can seriously harm HC when they get their charge right but in a melee fight they loose with heavy casualties.
A good approach for manouvering YC is to imagine a string attached to the unit, as if you pull a toy on wheels around. With some practice you can achieve an almost continuous movement. As with the toy, you need to keep the string tense, meaning before the YC've reached their target you need to issue a new order and the angle of the new movement order must not be too acute but rather straight. (Does this make sense to you?)

Hope to see you this Sunday.

R'as

[Togakure]

Hi mate!
I saw your posts in the tournament field and I figured that it's you.
I deliberately left most of the points for Yuuki to answer. I assume it's all clear now?
One thing, YC can seriously harm HC when they get their charge right but in a melee fight they loose with heavy casualties.
A good approach for manouvering YC is to imagine a string attached to the unit, as if you pull a toy on wheels around. With some practice you can achieve an almost continuous movement. As with the toy, you need to keep the string tense, meaning before the YC've reached their target you need to issue a new order and the angle of the new movement order must not be too acute but rather straight. (Does this make sense to you?)

Hope to see you this Sunday.

R'as

Yes, very clear. Yuuki-san schooled me in a couple of games last night, on Yamato (wow, forgot how fun--and how hard--that map is!), and Nagashima. The maps were great! I have so much to unlearn and learn, it's exciting. I took two HC and he had two YC on Nagashima. The strengths and weaknesses were illustrated well in our contest. Yuuki, thanks so much for the excellent training and fun games.

Yes, thank you for that analogy, R'as. These kinds of tips help a lot. I will practice the technique using Custom Battles to develop a feel for it. My biggest challenge will be to let go of MI preconceptions and "subconscious" tendencies, and adapt to the SW Way. I'm jazzed.

Unless something unforeseen comes up, I will be there on Sunday. Once you teasingly called me "devil" after an MI game lol. I have this funny feeling the situation is going to be reversed now, hehehe. All in good fun. Cheers.

[Puzz3D]

Masamune,

Don't forget to set the mouse speed and map scroll speed in the game options to something that's comfortably fast. The default values are a bit slow, and can put you at a disadvantage against players that are using a faster speed.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Footarchers in that era were most likely ashigaru. While there were certainly marksman among ashigaru, these archers were mixed in with teppo to sustain fire when the arquebus had to be reloaded. Coordinating the rate of fire was important. The cost of this is, typically, reduced accuracy and power (drawweight).

The samurai of the old (we assumed the CA to be them, sort of) were destined to be warrior/archer from birth and had to hit a moving target. That requires accuracy, they probably also had stronger bows and better arrows.

The hatamoto resembles a mounted archer better, be it that the engine doesn't support shooting while moving.

I like M2TW in that it supports individual looking soldiers in a unit. It's (mostly) cosmetic only, but maybe we'll get the mixed combined units (gun, archer,spear ashigaru squads and sword, poleaxe, mace MAA) and get an even better approximation of battles.

[Togakure]

Hello,

Footarchers in that era were most likely ashigaru. While there were certainly marksman among ashigaru, these archers were mixed in with teppo to sustain fire when the arquebus had to be reloaded. Coordinating the rate of fire was important. The cost of this is, typically, reduced accuracy and power (drawweight).

...

This was well-illustrated in the game on Sunday where you defended with R'as against Yuuki and Tomi. Both of you were using archers in this manner.

It would be interesting to play a pre-firearms game or two or three. This would bring archers and archery into focus.

[TosaInu]

This was well-illustrated in the game on Sunday where you defended with R'as against Yuuki and Tomi. Both of you were using archers in this manner.

Yes, during the rainpatches. Tomi did that too. What the ashigaru squads did was that the archers fired when the guns were reloading.

It would be interesting to play a pre-firearms game or two or three. This would bring archers and archery into focus.

Yes, it would. The mapchoice will also make a difference. 8 guns per army on an open map can work, a map like Tano asks for more archers (patches of small hills and trees).

A hatamotos only game is fun too.