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.

[Sp4]

When you play as Chosokabe, you can, at least on non legendary difficulties get away with training only bow units =p Bow Samurai have some nice melee stats.

[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.

[Nowake]

Hello Stratege, you are most welcome to the .Org!


Jungle Rhino, a couple of suggestions from my part as well
Lets start by stating that Yari Ashigaru plus the sword infantry du jour are the optimal units during single player campaigns. There’s no doubt that they are the most proficient melange for your standard army korps. Ten units of Yari Ashigaru together with eight units of Katana Samurai (the default, but as Shimazu you would of course use the clan-version, as Mori you would use Wako Raiders, as Date you would use No-dachi) will plough through full samurai armies at half the upkeep cost. Archers mess up the cornerstone of what should be your single battlefield tactic, to always engage quickly and rout them before any significant bloodshed – missile units prolong the confrontation and thus inflate casualties unnecessarily.

Basically, you do not want to destroy a unit by massacring it in combat or rout it individually by inflicting casualties from afar, you want to create a position which will cause the enemy line to feel insecure and thus the subsequent flight of only a couple of units will be enough for a chain rout, and that can only be achieved through a fast, massive charge in close-combat, outflanking as much as possible.

Also, using only two types of units makes providing replacements trivial and helps you save up on construction costs (while you will upgrade to Castle even before Epic Architecture is nigh to completion simply to obtain your third unit training slot, you otherwise only have to tend to your Sword Dojo and Armoury) .
The nineteenth unit is pure flavour, though I normally use Bow Ashigaru, the AI always begins its charge right before entering shooting range no matter how few missile units you deploy, thus it will run longer – plus, one line of arrow screens is often perfect to cover just that small spot you would want blocked.

Jungle Rhino: 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.

frog: 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. (...) 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.

I would like to nuance frog’s statement.
In my opinion, when an approximately equal number of missile units is facing off, as you describe, focus fire is on many occasions ill-advised, especially in the manner recommended above. The drawback is that each unit targets individually, even when selected together. That means that a great many times arrows in the air are heading for the corpses that just fell to the previous volley coming from the other unit(s); even if synchronized, these will unnecessarily double up or more to produce a death that would have taken a single missile. It is probably the reason frog also notes that an enemy unit under 50% strength makes a suboptimal target: arrows coming from a single volley of the entire unit are wasted on the same handful of bodies too frequently. As a principle, that speaks against focus fire even more at a larger scale.

Thus, the case in which focus fire is warranted limits itself to a situation where you face low moral missile units which will rout or at least waver before 50% of their effective dies – the perfect case in point here would be constituted by RotS naval encounters. If you face the experienced archers you talk of, any above two chevrons or so really, you won’t be able to touch that sweet spot where focus fire compensates for the wasted arrows by causing the rout of the entire unit.
To clarify, by wasting arrows I am not necessarily referring to the economising of missiles, even when deploying a primarily archer-based army korps, you won’t always be in the situation to deplete your quivers. No, I am addressing the fact that you are wasting volleys – in a missile duel between multiple units of equal ability, by focus firing you are basically inflicting less casualties in the same amount of time unless you cause the actual rout of said unit.

frog: 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.

Stratege: Luckily I found out yari-ashigaru are optimal defense units if their spearwall-ability is activated.

Two things to note here.
First, on the use of spear-wall – always activate it at the last moment before the lines clash, because spear-wall tires the unit even if it is not actively engaged in combat. In fact, it often can be used against the AI – during defensive battles, low ranked AI generals (below three in my experience) activate spear wall right from the beginning and they do not disable it when their units become tired (for you chaps who picked up the game just now, or never paid attention to it, the moment when this happens can be observed by checking on the appearance of the Foot Icon at the top of the unit’s banner – yellow means tired, orange very tired, red stands for exhausted) and thus, you can wait for them to become very tired before charging in – usually translates into an easy rout which is a blessing in the very first years. This AI mistake is independent of your difficulty setting by the way.

Secondly, on how to deploy in an archery duel. It is, of course, normally better to place your archers forward and retreat them behind your infantry lines before close combat is engaged. However, before entering into the enemy’s missile range with your own archers, consider advancing a single Yari Ashigaru unit in loose formation and running in range of its arrows from one flank to the other. Advance your archers and let them fire away while you toy with your lone Ashigaru unit, stopping abruptly, changing course and so on and so forth. You aim to concentrate the attention of at least two-three missile units onto it. Make sure, while you run it around, to not place it out of range of the NPCs which targeted you initially, because they will refocus their attention and the units into whose range you are now in will not target it if they have already acquired a target themselves. Ideally, you will end up using two Ashigaru units on loose, one for each flank, but experiment with only one in the beginning.

I wanted to make a point on the chequered pattern in which you should deploy arrow-screens in some cases, yet I would’ve needed to actually show it to you – it seems you cannot use them during Custom battles and I have no screenshot available from my campaign.

Stratege: 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.

frog: 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.

There actually is a correct choice, and it isn’t yours Stratege; in my opinion, of course – unless you plan on frequently engaging your archers in melee, I must argue that Accuracy is by far the stat to go for in an archer-based army korps; you will deploy rank four taishos after 1548-49, 1550 at the latest, and while Stand & Fight and Armor have zero synergy, the significant boost to Reloading Skill the former provides complements a high accuracy rating amazingly well and is the single most important maneuver, if you can call that activating the ability, you will perform during the actual battle. This proficiency from the part of your archers will actually spare you an experience-decrease from losses inflicted by prolonged archery duels and will prevent most desperate measures like engaging them in close-combat - which you should seek to avoid by default.

[Jungle Rhino]

As a general thing - does anybody know why archer units have to turn to face a new target that is within their fire arc? was this a conscious decision by CA to reduce focus fire micro? Whatever the case it is a pain in the backside!! :)

Going to star my first RoS campaign shortly, which I have heard is heavy on bows.

[frogbeastegg]

It's important to remember wider context when considering the value of unit upgrades. The battlefield isn't isolated, nor are all battles the same. If casualties can be replaced very easily then preventing deaths is a little less important. If you're frequently outnumbered or outclassed extra accuracy can help balance the odds a fraction. Accuracy comes into play in every battle, whereas armour only counts when something is attacking the unit and there are battles where bows can be kept completely sheltered. If you make an army with many samurai archers and want them as melee backup then armour has more worth than accuracy. There's a psychological element too; some people want to minimalise their losses, others are keen to cause as many kills as they can. It's all swings and roundabouts, many situations where one or other can provide a slight edge.

[...]

Nowake, the idea behind focusing fire is twofold. Firstly it greatly increases damage against the target, even if all arrows at launched at the same time. It's very easy to get the units shooting in a staggered pattern too so waste is minimalised. Secondly, the fewer men enemy missile units have the less damage they can cause; once a unit reaches around 30% left it becomes relatively safe to ignore. Thus reducing them quickly lowers friendly casualties. My goal in a missile duel is to remove enemy units from the equation as quickly as possible, not by wasting arrows routing them but by reducing them to a minor pest. Then I've got more arrows and men to use them against the enemy infantry.

It's a common MP tactic.

As a general thing - does anybody know why archer units have to turn to face a new target that is within their fire arc? was this a conscious decision by CA to reduce focus fire micro? Whatever the case it is a pain in the backside!! :)

I heard that is an engine hangover from ETW/NTW. Gun units have to line up neatly to fire.

[Nowake]

I would like to nuance frog’s statement.
In my opinion, when an approximately equal number of missile units is facing off, as you describe, focus fire is on many occasions ill-advised, especially in the manner recommended above. The drawback is that each unit targets individually, even when selected together. That means that a great many times arrows in the air are heading for the corpses that just fell to the previous volley coming from the other unit(s); even if synchronized, these will unnecessarily double up or more to produce a death that would have taken a single missile. It is probably the reason frog also notes that an enemy unit under 50% strength makes a suboptimal target: arrows coming from a single volley of the entire unit are wasted on the same handful of bodies too frequently. As a principle, that speaks against focus fire even more at a larger scale.

Thus, the case in which focus fire is warranted limits itself to a situation where you face low moral missile units which will rout or at least waver before 50% of their effective dies – the perfect case in point here would be constituted by RotS naval encounters. If you face the experienced archers you talk of, any above two chevrons or so really, you won’t be able to touch that sweet spot where focus fire compensates for the wasted arrows by causing the rout of the entire unit.
To clarify, by wasting arrows I am not necessarily referring to the economising of missiles, even when deploying a primarily archer-based army korps, you won’t always be in the situation to deplete your quivers. No, I am addressing the fact that you are wasting volleys – in a missile duel between multiple units of equal ability, by focus firing you are basically inflicting less casualties in the same amount of time unless you cause the actual rout of said unit.

Nowake, the idea behind focusing fire is twofold. Firstly it greatly increases damage against the target, even if all arrows at launched at the same time. It's very easy to get the units shooting in a staggered pattern too so waste is minimalised. Secondly, the fewer men enemy missile units have the less damage they can cause; once a unit reaches around 30% left it becomes relatively safe to ignore. Thus reducing them quickly lowers friendly casualties. My goal in a missile duel is to remove enemy units from the equation as quickly as possible, not by wasting arrows routing them but by reducing them to a minor pest. Then I've got more arrows and men to use them against the enemy infantry.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you

Say you have an exchange between eight units of archers, four on each side.
No unit flees until the bitter end, same amount of arrows spent, same timeframe.
If each unit focuses its direct opposite they inflict ~X number of casualties while the opponent will cause ~X as well.
If one side will focus fire one single enemy unit, they will inflict ~X – M (where M stems from the decreased casualties inflicted upon the total number of archers comprising the four enemy units due to futile duplication of volleys on the same target or due to arrows falling on individual targets who were just neutralized by the other units’ arrows) number of casualties, while the opponent will surely cause ~X+N (where N stems from the fact that, on the whole, the four enemy units have more men than in the previous case still standing).


EDIT: In MP, the tactic is common because the archers seek to protect other, more important units, not themselves, because they are targeting a superior unit or because they do hope to cause a rout.

[frogbeastegg]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you .

To a degree, I think you may be. I wasn't terribly clear; I was in a bit of a hurry.

Numbers don't matter to me. Or rather, not in the way you are looking at them. Targeting a pair of my units at a single enemy bow means that I knock unit after unit out of consideration quite rapidly, and soon reach the point where I can begin aiming my arrows at the enemy melee units. For example, if both sides start out with 4 bow units then I only need to reduce 2 of theirs before I can spare 2 units to shoot at the enemy's non-ranged units. Shooting one on one I need to take out all 4 before I can start aiming for the better targets. Each kill I score against those better targets reduces my melee casualties, thus I lose fewer men in the main fight. Time is always a factor; my archers often lack the time to launch all of their arrows before the AI comes to melee. I'd far rather put arrows where I want them NOW than work the system to gain a couple of extra kills against units which are less important.

Targeting a single unit with 2 does not produce much duplication and it's easy to avoid. Honestly I don't notice your -M exists unless I have 3 or more shoot at a single target; if it was noticeably wasteful I wouldn't be doing it. I order one to start shooting a few seconds ahead of the other I'll be using on that target. That staggers the targeting so that each one is aiming at living men. If I'm desperate to neutralise an enemy unit ASAP I will use 3 bow units to shoot at it; that usually does the job in 2-3 volleys per bow unit, depending on the arrow type and target's armour. Sometimes putting a dangerous unit down is worth far more than a handful of theoretical extra kills, and there's the counter-question of theoretical melee deaths prevented.

Since this is quite micro heavy I only do it in battles where missile targeting is important, either against an army with a lot of missile units or when facing particular units I need neutralised ASAP. Most of the time I leave it in the hands of the AI and its 'fire at will' individual targeting. Sometimes I will do a hybrid approach, and micro a pair of archers whilst the rest are left to the AI. If I could use 'fire at will' all of the time I'd be happy to; I'm not the fastest general and could use the extra micro time to get more out of my other units. I used to use individual targeting all the time until someone persuaded me to try this type of targeting back in MTW's final days. Haven't looked back since.

I do use my archers to protect the rest of my army. They are one of the fastest types to replenish and, once no longer able to shoot, not so useful. The only exception to this is when I am digging in to hold a defensive position with the intention of letting the enemy break itself on my lines. In that instance I will deploy at least some of my archers behind my melee line. I never use suicide squads, like your unit of arrow absorbing yari ashi. To me that feels very wasteful, probably as wasteful as my doubling up on targets does to you.

[Nowake]

No, mmmm, I was, kind of, yeah!
I was specifically referring to massive archery duels. I kept having in mind your example of armies comprised of eight units of archers and eight units of YA, and I was thinking how those eight units of archers would face off against an equal number of similarly skilled archer units – since Jungle Rhino was having to deal with archer heavy setups. And in that situation focus fire seems to really leave you worse off.


Your later example of being able to free off archers to target close-combat units faster must be envisaging a free-flowing positional engagement, where the lines have already clashed and you just want to stop their archers from damaging your melee troops and then quickly attempt to give those an edge by shooting the main line in that specific point your own self – not the type of archery duel I thought JR (can I use that abbreviation? sounds so awful, there were still reruns of that Dallas soap opera when I was born in ’85 and a bit after, I somehow remember that guy’s face and I must’ve been three at the time - damn thing is forever plastered onto my synapses) to be confronted with.
My –M was also mentioned with that in mind, hence I was exemplifying through an extreme about four on four duels with one side completely focusing one single unit. I thought, if you tell me it’s possible to desync four units so that one targets, shoots and kills before the other three land a volley or take aim, I was seriously having to reconsider my approach. Pairs of units FFing is very doable of course, though when manoeuvring four-five pairs at once, the slightest change in positioning gives you headaches.


As to suicide squads, hmmpff, well, what I can say – I don’t let them be shattered first of all, just calculating the number of losses that can be recouped in two-turns or so.
By micromanaging them (the two YA units I am talking of) I can prolong their witling down to around half strength until about my own Stand & Fight boosted archers can throw in around ~15 volleys, more if my YA are benefiting from full armour and if that accuracy I was adamant about earlier is high enough to significantly massacre the enemy from the first 3-4 salvos.

[frogbeastegg]

I use that tactic with 8 units too and have used it with 12 before, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it alongside that 8/8/1/3 template. Although I'd never go above 8 if I can't pause. I pair my archers so it works with any even number, and I'm only ever needing to desync 2 units which is easy to do. If I'm desperate enough to put 3 units onto a target I don't care about anything except getting maximum arrows in the air ASAP; in that instance I'm using one hotkeyed group plus whoever's nearest to click on. I can't tell you how to desync 4 at once because I don't do it; I do keep saying 2 units or 3 at maximum.

The AI decides early on whether to stand off until its archers are mostly gone or to swarm in a charge without much of a duel phase. I react according to the early signs. If it's not swarming I'll move my archers further forward to catch good targets once I've freed up some missile capacity. If the AI is swarming forward then I'll be pulling all of my missiles back and/or advancing my infantry, and in that case I'll be able to position my freed up missile units that much sooner and have more time to shoot into the advance. If I advance my freed-up missiles and the AI comes at them in small numbers then I can use my reserves to cut the isolated units up. Having the AI sprint halfway across the map with swarm me without ever pausing is the worst possible outcome; there's only time for 2-3 volleys before its running infantry gets too close, and no time to mess about with positioning. On the rare occasions where the AI does it the battle turns into a brutal slugging match with both sides' archery mostly neglected. The fact the AI's units are tired from the long run usually scrapes me a win.

As I've said, I want to damage the melee units before they reach mine. That's the whole point of doing this. I do not purposefully shoot into a melee unless I am using guns or bombs; I don't like friendly fire. Once everything has gone to full-out melee I leave my bows in a safe location on 'fire at will' and mostly ignore them. If they get some kills, great, if they don't never mind. They have to do their damage before the lines join. By the time the lines join I want as many enemy units as possible to be weakened, frightened, and on the verge of routing. Particularly when it has stat boosts like those on very hard and legendary. Even if this doesn't trigger a chain rout it allows me to gang up on a few more enemy units. At this level a good melee is a short melee - provided I'm not the one running away ;p

Parts of my army are designed to take care of themselves. When playing without pause I'll concentrate on my bows before the melee, then concentrate on my infantry and flankers once the melee begins. At any given time I'm pretty much ignoring half of my army. I don't use much cavalry and avoid fiddly units like guns and bombs, and choose melee units which can tackle almost any job without the need for me to specialise. That 8/8/1/3 template is all about micro reduction in some areas so that I can pay more attention to others. Sometimes I'll reduce it to a clean 8 bows 1 general 11 naginata to make things simpler still. If a battle is very demanding then I'll cut some corners like not bothering to desync the archer pairs.

Suicide squads do not fit my play style. I prefer to have the casualties spread out so all of my units remain effective; I don't like spending a slot on a unit which has no role except getting shot. Nor do I like to take advantage of the AI's foibles; it makes the game feel hollow for me.

These are the tactics I have found most successful against the archer heavy armies if I too am using a lot of bows. If I didn't find them successful I wouldn't have mentioned them. Better generals than I could use the concept more effectively; I'm average skill at best.



EDIT: On reflection that could be read as my being somewhat irritated. Please don't read it that way. I'm trying to be clear, that's all.