Oda campaign

[Sasaki Kojiro]

My Takeda campaign got boring real quick...it was just like playing the Mori. Also the devs got cheap and used the same map 3 or 4 times up there...

So I began an Oda 1550 campaign. Expert, no Geisha, no mass Shinobi, no port hops, no monks once Christian.

Most importantly, I make it a rule than I can only train one samurai unit per 500 men killed(can retrain units if they are over half strength). Also, I can only have a limited number of ashigaru(1 if no castle, half capacity otherwise) per province as garrison.

Not going to put a time limit on it...we'll see if I can finish it at all.

The idea is that I will have to play historically, with mostly ashigaru armies. Samurai will only be willing to fight for me if I accomplish much on the field of battle. Also as a handicap

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I've started this campaign before, did just the first turn one time and took all 4 of these provinces. Ise monks can be a little tricky but I've plenty of practice with them so I'm only sending 3 units plus my Daimyo down there. Mino is a pushover since they have mostly cav and I'm sending all spears. The last time when I did this attack on Mikawa the AI pulled out some troops so all they had was a couple archers and their Daimyo...who attacke me across the bridge and got routed. Risky attack though.



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Omi province. 2 ashi's vs a sam archer and a YA. The ai decides to come to me. Loose formation for the arrows, one unit shifting out to the flank.



Flanking the ashi unit. AI rarely uses it's archers in h2h in a situation like this and the ashi will rout as soon as I hit it, so this is a safe move though it looks risky.



Ashi has routed and now we chase the archer unit which is on skirmish.



Eventually catch up and engage, hitting him from behind. Battle over. Killed 92 lost 37



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Ise. Monks in the center, 2 archers are off in the woods as always. Shooting the monks with my archers to lure them down of the hill. You can barely see my flanking ashis off to the right and my Daimyo running around the flank on the left. Didn't kill too many monks with arrows, maybe 20.



As the monks charged in I retreated with one archer unit. The ashi unit hit the monk unit in the flank as it ran by and my Daimyo came in from behind. Archers are attacking now as well.



Monks moved in too fast here, they were charging before I moved my archers back and so I couldn't keep them out of the way. Maybe because I was too busy taking screenshots :) Engaged them on the hill, send the other 3 units to hit the monk from behind, it routs.



Enemy archers have moved in for the fight, I engage in a shoot out with my height advantage. They outnumber though and I can't really win it so...



Charging in, archers in loose to the center, ashi's right flank, heavy cav circling around behind.




Closing in, ashi's catch up to the archers and engage. Daimyo is around back now.



Daimyo charges in from behind. Rout.



Final result. Nice honor gain for Daimyo.



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After turn one, I have captured three provinces. Mino was a pushover like I expected (killed 146 lost 15), but Imagawa moved 3 units of honor 4 and 5 archers into Mikawa along with an ashi unit so I withdrew from the battle, losing a star from my taisho :(



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All three provinces were red and I expected to be attacked so I just ended turn. The coloring kind of looks like it is Imagawa in Mino but it's the rebels really, they moved in with about 500 men including monks. They also sent two monks into Omi from Yamashiro. Nice actually, because that weakens Yamashiro for later. Took Ise castle in an assault, killed 27 lost 0. Moved one of the archer units from Ise to Owari to retrain, the other had lost to many men for that though. Also swapped to weakened ashis for full strength ashis. Since I have less then 10 ashis I can train some new.



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AI attacked Ise with 2 hon5 monks and an archer unit. They sent the archer unit too far ahead as you can see and it routed, unfortunatly I was not able to chase it because there monks came up, only killed 15 and it rallied once it passed the monks.



Enemy taisho decides to chase my Daimyo :)



I shoot the other monk unit killing 15 or so and it decides to charge.



I flank it,



Surround it and it routs.



The other two units chased my Daimyo all the way down the map, after routing the other monk unit I lead them back. The enemy taisho charges in, I hit from all sides, it routs and so does the archer unit which I chase down with my Daimyo. Killed 167 lost 44



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Killed 644 lost 172 so I can train a new samurai unit now :) I'll go for a monk unit in Ise :)



21 screenshots might be overdoing it a little bit. I was just snapping away during the battle, I'll try and remember to pause it and take nicer screenshots from now on.


Oh, and this should put to rest what some people say about ashi's being useless...about 90% of the time in these battles my ashi's were doing things that yari sam could never do. Yari sam are only better if you don't know how to flank, divide and conquer, etc. Of course having ashis at hon3w2 helps, at hono they are not too good.

[71-hour Ahmed]

Nice...... seeing your screenshots reminds me of how together and genuine Shogun always looks compared to MTW.

I have a quick question though: are you planning to restrict your locations/ infrastructure for troop recruitment at all?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Not planning on it...I should have lots of extra koku since I'm not training very many troops and won't have big armies of samurai. Most likely I'll train cavalry in mino or omi, ashis in owari, ninjas in iga, and no-dachi in Yamashiro...not sure where for my archers though.

[Togakure]

Ahhhh .... flashback nightmares! So many times it was my army getting ginsu-ed like over-ripe Fuji pears on the field like this by this guy. GAH!

Very nice. I can see how having superlative tactical abilities and deft unit control would alter one's campaign strategy considerably. Indeed that is some nifty use of archers and ashigaru in tandem, particularly against monk/archer armies. I will give these battles a try later on. I have a feeling it's going to be quite a few battles before I can mimic what you have done here though. Timing and control ... I've just never quite found the groove consistently in this game. Sometimes, but never consistently. Hopefully I'll get it eventually.

Thanks for sharing this. More of this kind of thing is what this site needs.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Next year or so was pretty uneventful. Nobunaga came of age (in a monk unit ). Another easy defense of Ise which I didn't even bother to take screenshots of (which made my Daimyo rank 4). The rebels were pretty weakened by then so I sent in a small force to take Iga. Next turn the big ronin army from Yamashiro attacked (600 men or so, lots of monks), so I retreated back to Ise and reinforced it hoping for an attack there. The odds were not to his liking however until I sent 4 ashis to take Omi. Then he sent 400 troops against my 300 in Ise.



It was a nice battle. They had 3 samurai archers and 3 warrior monks and and ashi vs my 3 ashi 1 monk 1 sa 1 Daimyo. I deployed in the center initially, but they moved 2 of their monks off to my left and were sending all the archers towards the center so I moved my army left. I sent my daimyo down towards the 2 monk units and lured one of them over to my army(forgot to take a screenshot of this), shooting it with the archer unit.

I paused here for this screen and tried to take a nice shot but forgot and cut the Daimyo out of the picture. He is just off to the right, about to charge in. The monk unit is routing in this picture.



Lured another monk unit over. This time you can see the Daimyo unit. The monk unit got shot up even worse because he changed his mind and decided to go after my flanking ashi unit instead.



The monk unit got shot up even worse because he changed his mind and decided to go after my flanking ashi unit instead. Monk and Daimyo came in and hit him from behind, he routed.



Here you can see me routing the samurai archers. The monk unit has taken care of the ashigaru.



This is the monk unit I lost track of. I had put two ashi's in the forest and saw him running in there a little late. Yanked them out real fast, and then he came after my archers who were shooting at him. You can see my ashi unit positioned on his flank. The other ashi from the woods is off killing a stray archer unit.



He chased in after my archers. Monks and ashis coming in behind. He routed quickly.



Final result. Bumps me over the 500 kill mark again :)



Campaign map afterwards. You can see the rest of the army form Yamashiro is in Iga, while Yamashiro itself is now empty. After taking Iga I'm not sure where I'll move next, I seem to remember there being a large rebel and ronin army in Kawachi which could be tricky. The army in Mino should be taken care of, but I have no way to garrison that province so I'll have let them have it for now.

I built a horse dojo in Owari. Cavalry archers soon :) those kills will be easier to get now.

Killed 1125 Lost 255

[Wilbo]

An old topic I know... I just wanted to say that this is one of the best threads I have ever seen: It is extremely interesting and educational to see how Sasaki employs his units, especially the Ashigaru.

I hope you have time to do another one soon!

[gatoshin]

I'm giving Ashigaru more of a shot in my current Oda campaign, inspired by what I read here. At honor 2, they've proven useful, and they absorb hits in place of more expensive units. Beats taking casualties on my Samurai Archer units while they move into position. When they accompany my Daimyo or a high-ranking general, they stay in battle and give a good accounting of themselves.

[Irinami]

Excellent thread. There's a difference between theory and practice, and this helps see the theory in practice.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Wow...thanks for the compliments here...

I think it's a testament to the complexity and brilliance of Shogun that all I've described here is some basic tactics with only 3 units...imagine how long the thread would be if I tried to show the hard stuff...and with some other units.

[Wilbo]

I'm well up for seeing a slightly more complex battle Sasaki

Your tactics here really improved my Ashigaru tactics, so I'd be interested in seeing a few random choice battles fought by you that demonstrate some other advanced tactics

[LittleGrizzly]

wow really good thread sasaki, grizz is inspired to start that expert oda campaign he never got round to, think ill use some ashi to make it more realistic as well

btw still have a score to settle with you, not happy with 7-1 ratio!

[Wilbo]

Actually, Id quite like to see what you (Sasaki) would do with a large army, say 12 full units... I cant handle micro-management with huge armies so I get all the Yari units in a thick horizontal line and march them straight into the enemy

I try and use the edges of the line to flank but I lose 50% of my tactics with an increased army.

[Adrian II]

Great stuff, Sasaki Kojiro. Keeps the fire going!

[Just A Girl]

Ive stolen 1 of your Pictures ok??
I want to use it to point out the diferent Icons and stuff.

"show people where fatigue is exetera"
Was easier to steal 1 of these pics than start a game.

if you prefer for me to go use my own pics.
feel free to tell me.
undoubtedly il be playing a game soon any way.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

No worries.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Somehow I find the idea of Nobunaga appearing in a monk unit so full of irony.

Secondly, the attack on Ise saw the loss of an rank 3 archer general. Personally I would find such a loss undesirable as I tend to horde and protect generals.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Secondly, the attack on Ise saw the loss of an rank 3 archer general. Personally I would find such a loss undesirable as I tend to horde and protect generals.

I didn't even notice...not having high rank generals keeps the battles passably entertaining

I do enjoy getting my daimyo rank up though.

[Wilbo]

I haven't popped into the Sword Dojo in a while, but it's great to see Sasaki still advising the new Taisho!

This was always my favourite Sword Dojo thread - It gives you real tactical inspiration and some great tips.

Poor rebels & Ronin

[Drisos]

I do enjoy getting my daimyo rank up though.

Last campaign I did was Sengoku Jidai Expert with the Mori. Motonari won more then 32 battles and achieved rank 6, and at certain moment even 11 honour. (his 10 bodyguards were dead by then, and he died in the same battle)