The fourth battle for Kawanakajima

[Drisos]

Hello fellow Samurais,

In another attempt to keep Sword Dojo alive at least a bit, here's a report of a Singleplayer 4v4 battle. I've got loads of screenshots of it and will try to make it into a story.

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Attackers and Defenders get 20.000 Koku. Uesugi, Shimazu, Oda and Mori defend. Takeda, Hojo, R&R and Imagawa attack. All armies exist from 8 units. The battle will take place on the Kawanakajima area, in the summer. I set niveau to expert and time limit to 45 minutes.

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Lord Kenshin is inspecting his troops. He has brought 180 No-Dachi Samurai, 180 Yumi Samurai and 120 Heavy Cavalry Samurai. His army is positioned at the West of the Kawanakajima grounds.



Kenshin decides to join up with another group of his forces, at the hill in the center of the Kawanakajima grounds. At the right is one of Uesugi's artillery units.



Kenshin's forces have taken the high ground. Meanwhile the Uesugi Clan's Sohei have move forward to back him up.



At the eastern part of that same hill Uesugi's artillery and his more infantry are getting ready for the defense.



The General's cavalry unit of the Uesugi Artillery force has defeated some enemy cavalry archers and is chasing them.



Suddenly another enemy unit of Cavalry Archers moves into firing range. The Lord's 180 Yumi Samurai target them.



The enemy's damaged unit of Cavalry Archers flees. Meanwhile one of the Takeda Force's groups is advancing towards the defenders position and has almost reached firing range.



At the eastern side of the hill, another group of Takeda forces has moved in and is engaging with Uesugi forces.



The Uesugi artillery routs another Cavalry unit of the Takeda, but a third group of Takeda forces is rapidly approaching. Combined with the other group the Uesugi artillery is outnumbered. Kenshin knows he will need to help there, but he knows there is a fourth group of Takeda forces approaching to his Samurais.



The forces of Shingen himself have moved close to Kenshin's forces and his the Sohei group. Kenshin's archers start to fire at Takeda's Yari Samurai, while his No-Dachi are running down the hill to their enemy. He moves his own unit to the east, to back up the Uesugi artillery.



A unit of Naginata Cavalry is fighting one of Shingen's guard units, Kenshin's No-Dachi Samurai are engaging with the enemy Infantry.



Uesugi forces are doing what they can to hold off Takeda's troops, Kenshin himself charges down at one of their generals in the hope to break the enemy's morale.



At the eastern line of defence, suddenly Kenshin and his forces flee. At the sight of three groups of enemy Samurai, half of the defenders flees away. Some units of artillery and cavalry proove their great honour and keep fighting, but Kenshin knows they won't stand a chance while so heavily outnumbered.



The eatern defence is now broken foregood. Here the last artillery is trying to make it to the border alive, while chased by Takeda Infantry.



Finally, the Uesugi Sohei move in to help the other Samurai in the fight with Shingen. Quickly, 480 Buddist monks carrying Naginata charge at the Takeda cavalry and Yari Samurai.



Surrounded by No-Dachi-Swords and Naginata Shingen's Honour is not enough. He and the rest of his group flee.



At the left, Takeda Shingen gets killed by the Uesugi Sohei. Meanwhile the leftover forces of Kenshin move back on the hill, where to the eastern attack forces of the Takeda Clan are moving.



The Uesugi Yumi Samurai have taken postition and are in ranged combat with enemy Teppo Ashigaru.



Uesugi archers are trying to attack enemy Samurai from behind, while other Yumi Samurai hold them off. It works and the enemy Yari unit flees.



After short engagement and some ranged fire about half of the leftover attackers flees, to be chased by some Uesugi Cavalry and a unit of Sohei.



Then suddenly there appear to be more enemies left then the Uesugi thought. Having only few infantry left, they are defeated and only some Yumi Samurai remain defending.



The last units of Kenshin's group are fatigued, and rout at the sight of the enemy infantry charging. They decided not to keep up false hope any longer and flee to the border of the Kawanakajima grounds.





But the enemies have not noticed the last two units, Sohei and Cavalry. Those just stay away from the enemy and time passes by. The enemy is not looking for them, but just stand still where they routed the last Yumi Samurai. This way the day ends, and the Takeda forces have to retreat back to their own lands because they couldn't defeat all defenders in time.

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Victory for the defenders! Takeda Shingen was killed in battle by Uesugi Sohei and Kenshin is still alive! Looks good for Kenshin, though he did not proove to be as honourable as skilled as a taisho.

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Wow! That was a lot of work.

I hope you enjoy reading.

Drisos.

[Drisos]

Hi all,

here is another battle report.

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I'm playing the historical battle '4th Kawanakajima' this time. I play at expert.

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Shingen's army is positioned on the central hill of the Kawanakajima grouns. The clan has brought 540 samurai for the attack on the Uesugi.



The army is in formation and advancing towards the Uesugi deploy. Yumi samurai are at the front, Shingen's cavalry is behind the infantry.



The archers have taken position on another hill. The enemy is in sight but not in firing range yet.



The archers have moved forward a bit more and the enemy units lay under fire.



The return fire of the Takeda Yumi samurai is weak. The entire right flank of their army gets shot down. Both Kenshin and Shingen hold their infantry on the high ground meanwhile.



After a while the Takeda army runs out of ammunition, but by that time they killed many of the Uesugi Samurai. Here Shigens infantry is charging running down the hill towards their enemy.



Due to their speed and the number of Yumi samurai losses of the enemy few get shot on their way to the enemy deploy. Here Takeda troops have engaged. Thanks to their superior melee skills they are destroying the Uesugi infantry, which is bigger in number.



Takeda Shingen has moved round the engaged infantry lines, and is charging the enemy from behind. Shingen himself runs in the middle of many enemy Yari Samurai, but he surives it. At this sight half of the enemy infantry flees, to be killed by Shingen's men little later.



Most of the Uesugi Clan's men are fleeing now. Kenshin fights on, but he is outnumbered and Takeda Cavalry is about to block the way to safety.



The Uesugi lord sees it's hopeless and runs away, but too late. Takeda's mounted Yumi Samurai block the way and Kenshin is surrounded by enemies now.



Few time later, one of the greatest generals in Japanese history is charged by several Yari Samurai and falls down, never to stand up again.

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Victory for the Takeda! The last Uesugi infantry is fleeing away. Kenshin has fallen and the result is 627 kills for the Takeda clan, vs. only 275 losses!

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I really hope you enjoy reading this, guys!

D

[Togakure]

Yosh! Thanks for this. I MISS MY GAME and WANT MY DISK NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

Hmm ... the 2-year-old's behavior is beginning to affect me [composes self].

Nicely done Drisos. Keep it coming!

[Ludens]

Very good, Drisos! Keep them coming!

Though, if you would accept my advice, I suggest you try to make it a bit more of a story. As it is, it's rather dry. But that's just the opinion of the Mead Hall's story critic.

[Drisos]

Very good, Drisos! Keep them coming!

Thank you, Ludens! Feels good to hear such words from a Mead Hall AM.

Though, if you would accept my advice, I suggest you try to make it a bit more of a story. As it is, it's rather dry. But that's just the opinion of the Mead Hall's story critic.

I'll at least try to accept your advice. Do you mean, a bit more text? Or you mean the way I write the text? I know I write a bit like 'the infantry is engaging' or 'yumi samurai are moving to..' I think you mean that I must write it in another style? This way of writing I used is, I think, more useful for beginners to learn some strategies from, but I know it'll be more fun to read when I write less dry. I'll try to fit in both.

As you see I made a mistake with the third screen of the second battle. I acidentally hit F1 before I hit F2..

Yosh! Thanks for this. I MISS MY GAME and WANT MY DISK NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW WWW!!!!

Hmm ... the 2-year-old's behavior is beginning to affect me [composes self].

Nicely done Drisos. Keep it coming!

Thanks m8! I hope your disk gets there soon.. your warhorse is probably getting lazy?

[Ludens]

I'll at least try to accept your advice. Do you mean, a bit more text? Or you mean the way I write the text? I know I write a bit like 'the infantry is engaging' or 'yumi samurai are moving to..' I think you mean that I must write it in another style? This way of writing I used is, I think, more useful for beginners to learn some strategies from, but I know it'll be more fun to read when I write less dry. I'll try to fit in both.

You write this battle-report to explain tactics, but (and this is were the Mead Hall critic comes in) for me the facts are of less importance than whether it reads well. You see, you basically write it like: "This happens, then that happens, next that happens" and so on ad infinitum. It contains all the facts, which is what you intended. However, it is not particulary interesting unless you want to know exactly what is happening. So you and I expect different things from your story, which is why my comments should be considered carefully.

The main thing that prevents it from being a story (as opposed to a report) is lack of emotion. It is very dry and factual, and you don't seem to care whether Takeda or Uesugi wins. You don't even introduce them (and you don't tell us untill the end which faction actually represents artillery, infantry, and so on). Most people here know who Takeda and Uesugi are, but it would be better that you give them a motivation. Why are they figthing? Why is important? Or are they just fighting a battle as a hobby? Treat both the generals and the soldiers as people, not as the computer-generated sprites, and you have the beginnings of a story .

That is the advice of the Mead Hall critic. As a battle report, you only need a few overview pictures, and it's perfect .

[Drisos]

Thanks again for the comments.

You write this battle-report to explain tactics, but (and this is were the Mead Hall critic comes in) for me the facts are of less importance than whether it reads well.

That's the problem... it's either good for explaining my strategy or nicer to read. I try to fit in both but I'm not good at it...

You see, you basically write it like: "This happens, then that happens, next that happens" and so on ad infinitum. It contains all the facts, which is what you intended.

I know I write like only the facts. I've thought of writing in 1st person, that way I'd be able to put some emotion in it, but in 1st person it's hard to tell all things which are important for someone who wants to read about the strategy.

However, it is not particulary interesting unless you want to know exactly what is happening.

I don't know yet - perhaps I'll just leave it like this, and don't inform Mead Hall. basically this is meant for people playing stw to read and for some inexperienced players to gain some ideas on tactiks in stw. but It would be nice to know that also others can enjoy it. however that would be hard to do for me.

[Ludens]

That's the problem...

I wouldn't call it a problem. It is just a different skill. But don't let this stop from informing the Mead Hall. And remember practice makes perfect.

[Drisos]

But don't let this stop from informing the Mead Hall. And remember practice makes perfect.

Thanks, Ludens. I will.