How to win as Oda?

[Jef Costello]

Some great advice so far. I'd agree with it all. What difficulty level are you playing on? AI is more aggressive on higher levels. I would take/hold Owari and kawagucho and get yamashiro. Ise and Kii are good and you also have an armoury province there too. If you want to take the central area be quick, you don't want to tie up troops down there.
With Ashigaru you basically have to make sure they don't really do anything, they even get scared chasing down routing troops. Ashigaru need upgrades and a good general. personally I never build any.
I normally play with 60 man units which makes reinforcing quicker.
In general you should expect to win all of your defensive battles with rebels. archers on a high elevation and some ashigaru in case they charge you. Careful about chasing them when they rout because WM have a habit of turning around and slaughtering ashigaru.
And when battles are tight don't use the speed up, I have messed myself up so many times doing that :)

[TWD]

Hey all !

(Re)installed Shogun recently, played as the Sengoku Oda a lot, searched through forums for fancy strategies a bit, found this thread and registered :)

With Ashigaru you basically have to make sure they don't really do anything, they even get scared chasing down routing troops. Ashigaru need upgrades and a good general. personally I never build any.

Well, may I respectfully express the most complete disagreement, here ? :D

Ashis are arguably the best unit in the game. And Oda's Ashis are very special.
Yes, the best ! (and yes, arguably...)

1- Ashis are the cheapest units in the game ;
2- Ashis are the fastest runners on foot ;
3- Ashis slaughter cavalry.

1- Cheapest means :
- You can pump 4 a year out of your initial castle, which is not the case for other units. This provides you with massive reinforcements to fund your expansion AND lets you invest your kokus in farms, large castles, etc. Once in a while, you can build an archer, if your economy lets you.
- Ashis are excellent to garrison newly conquered provinces. Better use a 100 koku unit than an archer, right ? The alternative would be to use a spy, but it requires you to invest time & money in building the shinobi house, whereas garrisonned Ashis provide you with fast reinforcement to your front lines.
- If the losses of a battle are about equal, the Ashi user is tremendously ahead in kokus invested & lost : your Ashis fight units costing 2 to 5 times their price !
- You can plainly sacrifice a unit once in a while. Say... for crossing a bridge.
- You can have so many Ashis that you can use them to cover your lowly protected striking force (No-dachis). Having a few elite units that don't get flanked and overwhelmed sounds better than a bit more that do get decimated by ennemy archers & runners.

2- Fastest runners :
- Sooooo easy to maneuver & flank ennemy units. You can deal a lot of damage very fast.
- When you've routed the ennemy, you can keep on decimating them. That's so many units you won't have to face later on.

3- Slaughter cavalry :
Cavs are amongst the most fearful units in the game, no ? And when you're facing infantry, you should have ranged support.
This means that an army composed almost exclusively of Ashis and Archers can compete with almost anything (right numbers & general provided).

This starts to make some (debatable ?) points.


As for Oda, their Ashis, as mentionned above, are special.
The clear point is that they cost less to train and maintain. This basically strenghten what Ashis are already the best at : being cheap.
The less obvious point is that Owari is specialised in Ashigaru production. This is as if you started with a Sword Dojo when playing Shimazu : dreadful !
You can start building a farm or a port in Owari, right. But if you expand, you can build farms elsewhere. So you can also go : Large Castle, Famous Sword Dojo, Palace, Armoury. 14 seasons after the start of the game, you pump 4 Ashis a year with 2 honour, enhanced weapons & morale... I can tell you they're pretty good vs most of the field at that time...


Feel free to disagree :)

[Togakure]

Well put, TWD, and welcome to the Org/Sword Dojo. I am not the master ashi user here, but I do use them for 1) garrisons, 2) maintaining parity with enemy troop numbers on my borders to dissuade attack, and 3) arrow fodder on bridge assaults or in attack vanguard escorting shock troops as you described. Only in the Oda campaigns do I use them in combat often, but this may be because I got used to not using them at all online (they were forbidden because early on, players discovered that you could honor/upgrade them up to level 7-9 and make them "Super-Ashis," which could defeat just about anything for the koku, and broke the combat system).

You are using the Huge setting for unit size? I'd not considered the point you make that when using this setting, ashis are the only combat unit you can produce in a single turn. This is very interesting and something I will take advantage of when I finally get off my butt and play a Huge unit game (I play the standard unit size; that's what we almost always used in multi-player so I got used to it).

Their weakness is low morale, so keeping their morale up is key to success when using them. Sending a unit off on its own is usually a death sentence (but can be very useful in drawing the enemy out of formation, particularly archers for your cav to eat when they stray too far), but if you keep them together with flanks/rear protected, they can do some amazing things. A high-honor taisho is pretty much necessary if facing an enemy with a good general. I very rarely build combat improvements other than dojos, but an exception is palaces and swordsmiths in Owari/Tosa (I tend to produce only one type of unit in any given province except early on in my capital, and if I control the bonus province, I produce them there).

Ashis don't slaughter cav as readily as YS, but can certainly tie them up long enough for other units to come and help clean up. When I was playing the SamWars mod for MTW online, I often used an army of 4 gunners, 4 ashigaru, 3-4 monks, and 3-4 yari cav, and would put the ashis in pairs on either flank, slightly behind the gun line (back far enough not to take too many stray hits from gunfire, but close enough to protect the gunners from cavalry raids). Surprisingly, this worked very well when they were supported by the cav units if things got dicey. I also used them to tie up tough units for a short time, buying time for my other, better but preoccupied units to get there and deal with the problem. The SamWars mod eliminated the problem of "Super-Ashis" by making upgrades unnecessary and cost-prohibitive.

Thanks for your input, and again, Welcome.

[DEB8]

If you play on the old STW ( 1.12 version ) you cannot bribe anyone...

so here you must build up your forces and attack Ise & Yamashiro ( preferably in that order ).
Again maintain a small YA garrison in the next door provinces or the Rebels will attack, more likely here than with STW-WE. Build an armoury and a swordsmith and get ND. Match ND : WM and SA : SA and add a couple of YA ( at +1 honour ). Silver armour and improved weapons ( for the ND ) with a +1 or +2 general and you will beat the WM easy even with similar army numbers. Otherwise as posted for WE.

[gollum]

Indeed in 1.12 you cannot bribe with emissaries (that is another point of attraction for me) and Ashigaru take 2 turns to build. They cost however 1/2 a koku to maintain (unlike other infantry that cost 1koku and cavalry that cost 2 koku). I haven't played MI/WE for ages now, so can't remember how long they take to build there. In any case, yes, ashigaru can be used en masse and flank en masse at the opening stages of the game, and they are devastating as such. From the middle game onwards they need to be used a little less as the other clans get more advanced troops and an ashigaru heavy army may not do the same impression.

[DEB8]

Indeed in 1.12 ... and Ashigaru take 2 turns to build.

Is this correct? If so how and when does it apply?
A Unit setting of Huge ( 120 men ) appears to take one turn only for Ashigaru whilst others take two turns. The normal ( 60 man ) unit setting takes one turn for ALL units.

I haven't played MI/WE for ages now, so can't remember how long they take to build there.

I have only ever used a 60 man unit setting. They take the same time here as in the older STW.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I use the right hand hill, and line up behind the central ridge, between the "valley" and the wood.

Just about the same spot I use. But I find it a bit easier, for the first attack, to defend to the left-rear. There's just not enough cavalry, at the start, to prevent a flanking maneuver by Takeda's cav. The biggest advantage for this site is that your muskets can begin to take the enemy under fire from a longer distance, whereas on top of the hill you have to wait until they crest. Of course your archers have no such problems

I've used every and all favorable terrain spots, even the left-hand hill, which takes a little more micro-managing but still effective.

Don't come off of this hill when pursuing either.

Sage advice! The first time my YC got caught on the downhill side of reinforcement cavalry arriving, was the last time I ventured that far (unless it's definitely the last wave of attackers).

[TWD]

Well put, TWD, and welcome to the Org/Sword Dojo. I am not the master ashi user here, but I do use them for 1) garrisons, 2) maintaining parity with enemy troop numbers on my borders to dissuade attack, and 3) arrow fodder on bridge assaults or in attack vanguard escorting shock troops as you described. Only in the Oda campaigns do I use them in combat often, but this may be because I got used to not using them at all online (they were forbidden because early on, players discovered that you could honor/upgrade them up to level 7-9 and make them "Super-Ashis," which could defeat just about anything for the koku, and broke the combat system).

You are using the Huge setting for unit size? I'd not considered the point you make that when using this setting, ashis are the only combat unit you can produce in a single turn. This is very interesting and something I will take advantage of when I finally get off my butt and play a Huge unit game (I play the standard unit size; that's what we almost always used in multi-player so I got used to it).

Thanks for the greetings :)
I'm glad my post gave you ideas for a new strategy but, no, I don't play with 120men units. I can see how pumping 480 Ashis a year out of a single castle is appealing, though.

My point was mostly economical :
Without Ashigarus, you start the game either teching or producing troops, especially if you're not playing Oda. I do hate having a sword dojo that does not produce troops.
With Ashigarus, you can both develop your infra and train troops. Whatever the clan (except maybe for the Uesugi&Takeda) I now systematically start with 2 Ashis in the starting castle.
As usual with Ashigarus, the strategy gets stronger with Oda and lasts longer.

--> Ashis allow a powerful rush because of the limited starting koku supply (expert difficulty). And... a successful rush snowballs into a won game.
I'm sure many do better, but as an illustration, here's the state of the game for SJ campaign Oda save I have.
Summer 1636. All clans are alive. War with Imagawa, Mori, Hojo & no alliance :
Annual income : 8200 ; Profit : 6500.
Western frontier : Harima, Yamashiro --> raids on Mori to soften him.
Eastern frontier : Shinano (Shinano !) & Musashi (Musashi !).
Fortress in Owari (but no farm, yet), fortress in construction in Totomi, where there is also a Sword dojo --> this was accomplished almost exclusively with outnumbering ashis and some archers. Now No-Dachis come online.
I don't have an armoury, yet (I said I was sure many did better, right ?)

It should be stressed that Oda, in the SJ campaign, starts with a 1000+men total army AND a very large farming income if he secures Ise and Yamashiro. Provided you mass your men under your Daymio's command or your heir's, you can storm any direction you want. Personally, I target the kokus then whoever looks like a future danger.


I have no experience of the later campaigns. I imagine Ashis become less effective :
1- against a human player ;
2- as the tech level rises (but they allow a rush which, in turn, prevents rivals to rise their tech level...).

[ReluctantSamurai]

Oda 1580, while it has some things in common with earlier campaigns, is also vastly different. The first major change is that everyone's infrastructure is quite well developed right from the start, and there are two other clans besides the Oda who are Christian and therefore have access to guns.

So you will be facing BFN from Tokugawa, cavalry with gold armor upgrades from Takeda, Nodachi and Kensei with +3 attack bonus and teppo from Shimazu, lots of monks from Mori, and....if you haven't disabled the feature, geisha within a decade or so from Hojo.

So yes, while the ashi still help to get the economy off the ground, and help to bolster the line during the initial onslaughts, they are not nearly so effective against guns and gold armor cavalry. I still have several ashi in my armies well into the 1580 camp despite the lessening of their effectiveness. They are usually have been recombined from very high honor depleted units and usually are garrisoned in Owari.

[Jef Costello]

I took yamashiro, and held it for a fair while and I took mikawa and totomi (I burned Totomi down because I wasn't sure if I could hold it).
I lost Hino and retook it and I also took Wakasa.
Now Shimazu just hit me with 5000 troops in wakasa! I retrested to save my army and hopefully he'll split his forces a bit. I threw a few units at border provinces to distract him as well. Hojo and Takeda are fighting over western japan (I forgot I took the province southeast of Musashi) Tokugawa is broken after I took his provinces from him, he's alive in hizen and might be hanging on to some other provinces. Shimazu has taken the western half of Japan and is powering towards me.
Also Iga (?) will only produce shinobi and cavalry even though I have all the buildings necessary to produce YS, naginata etc. They can be queued but they are never produced.

ReluctantSamurai - thanks for the advice, Tokugawa's BFN were difficult. They are invisible to my teppo until they are too close to be fired upon. I managed to destory most of them in one big battle, I lost a lot of men but when I remembered that he'd lost over 100 BFN I felt better :)