*********************************************************************** *********************************************************************** ***SHOGUN: TOTAL WAR, WARLORD EDITION by Fallon*** *********************************************************************** **************************=V2.09L=********************************* ************************20th July 2003****************************** *********************************************************************** *********************************************************************** ***************Copyright (2003) (Fallon)**************************** *********************************************************************** *********************************************************************** *********************************************************************** disclaimer read first! This FAQ is for private use only reproduction or republication in CDroms or unspecified websites is not allowed as this is my work and belongs to me and I worked hard for it. If you want it on your web site ask me @ fallonken@hotmail.com Most of the fluff in this FAQ is from experimentation having the AI do it on me , me do it on the AI , SD do it on me etc where things have been taken or contributed by somebody else it is noted and credited accordingly. I also accept NO responsibility for what happens from use or lack of use of this short FAQ so use at your own risk.Also please do not ask stupid questions as these will be ignored .Examples are what s the key for since its listed in the manual and the key command card , other examples are what is the average kill ratio between this unit and that unit on a hill on flat ground on bridges etc that sort of information would perhaps take me the rest of my life to find out and you only live twice. if you donot know about copy right then these are good links http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/index.cfm/catid /804B85E3-9224-47A9-A7E6B5BD92AACD48 http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #1.Introduction. -1.1 version history -1.2 System specs #2 definitions #3. Japanese troops -Infantry units -Cavalry units -Strategic units #4.Mongolian intro #5.The Mongolian forces: -Infantry units -Cavalry units -5.1 Map tactics -5.2 Combat -5.21 Flank protection -5.3 Gun combat -5.31 Arquebusiers vs musketeers #6 Misc notes - battlefield -6.1 Misc notes - map -6.2 Ninja Training #7 Castle attacks -attacking -breaking the siege #8 Bridge Tactics - holding a bridge - Taking a bridge / crossing #8.1 Taking hills #9 Clan notes #10 Ways to win the campaign #11 Mongol campaign - historical campaign mode mongol battles #12historical campaigns #13 Daimyo personalities #14 Christianity vs Buddhism + notes -making Koku and keeping it #15 advisor quotes and notes #16 Death poems + maxims #17 Observations -seen bugs #18 The chase #19 cheats etc #20 Misc questions #21 Credits and notes + things to come ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #1 INTRODUCTION I bought this game years ago but not the warlord edition it always seemed to lock up regularly on my windows ME system but I changed to a windows 2000 system recently and Nvida 30 something drivers which work well with shogun ,and from winning the game on normal twice in the past few days I am here to share what I have discovered to make your new career as Daimyo easier and to gain the all mighty honour points.(hmm sounds like Mechwarrior mercs but instead of C-bill its honour and koku.This is what I have learnt from several weeks of intense playing.I don't consider myself the best or an expert player since I have much better things to do like life this is just my observations and if you spot something not said here good for you I would also note that I live in the UK and I spell things in a slightly different way to Americans. honour = honor defence = defense tyre = tire metre = meter 4 feet = 1 metre Also some of my definitions are different , if you hear decimate in modern speak most people think it means to kill most of , though I use decimate as the roman punishment for killing 1 of 10 slaves.(Orguss 2 snuck this in btw with the 10% survival rate implied).My definitions are usually listed in the definitions section as in all my FAQs past and hopefully future FAQs. I would also like to point out my system for changing FAQ versions, major changes such as moving entire sections about are changed in primary FAQ numbers , minor changes , various edits are denominated by the number after the decimal point.Though I have no real hard fast rules since this FAQ grew enormously over the past week (it began at 49kb and is about 106kb). #1.1 version history (this FAQ not the game) #V1.1 completed 17/01/03 +20kb Added to notes of various units added some misc notes Added some kensai data Added some tactics Added some castle attack notes Added some castle defence notes Added tax rate data #V1.2 18/01/03 + 15kb Corrected a few things added religious +/- bits did some tidying #V1.3 + 25kb Added advisor quotes added death poems Added forced suicide notes #V1.4 +15kb 19/01/03 Added extra unit data #V1.5 + 4kb 111kb exceeded 21/01/03 Moved things around alot , separating musketeer notes into its own section Gun combat.Meta thoughts on combat in each province though this will perhaps be overkill as you ought to learn this yourself and would probably make the guide more than a few meg. #V1.7 skipped over 1.6 added 9kb 23/01/03 Added some Cross bow notes and tactics Added bridge combat section Added some observations #V1.8 28/01/2003 168kb exceeded This is getting old shogun is an old game (in game terms er does that make any sense to anybody?) and everybody seems to be moving over to medieval total war which is a fine game I suppose so this will probably be my last update unless I find some awesome undiscovered thing or nasty tactic to use in the game. Updates people spotting things maybe added if anybody is till playing but then again homeworld is even older and I know people who still play it.Its like the homeworld faq it just keeps growing and growing well at least its cathartic eh? #V1.9 5/02/2003 185kb exceeded! hurrah! monstrous this FAQ theres little niggles I keep discovering in shogun its like those kiddies in the midwich cuckoos they keep growing at a monstrous rate in gestation and after they were born.What started as something small about 30kb has turned into a monster. added uphill fighting did some tidying and some corrections #V2.0 7/02/2003 194kb exceeded Ha found out the film that gun sequence is in (meantioned in the muketeers note section) and added a few moot tactics which you may or maynot notice , somehow I think this will be the final update for quite some time since I'm getting a bit bored with this.But thanks to CjayC for correcting the credit this FAQ was credited to. #V2.01 14th February 2003 206kb exceeded. Not that long for an update eh? , just a few moot things added nothing of significance #V2.02 16th February 2003 211Kb exceeded On the path to becoming the largest FAQ at game faqs though theres lots of fluff , and it sucks up my time like er a vacuum cleaner and dust?. Added most troops japan can support at any one time Added Mongol historical campaign battle walk through #V2.03 18th February 2003 228kb exceeded Darn it this is like in keep the aspidistra flying where he can't keep focus and keeps adding correcting and changing little tiny bits in his super long poem pleasures of London.Beh the updates section is getting bigger than entire sections of this FAQ hmm I wonder how many pages it'd take up to print on paper? , it it far too big to be used on spell checks on my PC for word. hmm seems like 39000 words and 108 pages making this my biggest FAQ to date putting homeworld to shame. hmmh 211000 charactors I must get out more.... added historical campaign for Tokugawa and oda #V2.04 21st February 2003 262Kb exceeded Added some more Tokugawa historican campaign data Added some extra gun data This is getting big a bit too big wonder if on win9X it will actually open in notepad it does on NT4 and NT5 since its a better system than win9x but hey this is getting so out of hand that there is little to write anymore .The only thing to write is historical battles but most of the historical battles are in the historical campaign battles anyway and in the historical campaign battles cannot be played at differing difficulty!.Therefore if you can win it at the level it happened at then you ought to be able to beat it normally like that.Though this maybe updated someday if I have time and some luck maybe I will update that historical campaign battle I keep getting stuck at.. #v2.05 24th February 2003 I have no idea as to why gamefaqs truncated this document to 216kb maybe a mistake perhaps ? , this is just a resent so there isn't anything shockingly new here.Well except for anexplaination of the introduction which isn't exactly ground breaking or a super new tactic for beating this game into submission is it?. #v2.06 25th February 2003 This is narfed after sending it in several times it is still not right and apparently its something to do with hotmail things though the problem is 100% invisible to me (ie if I send it to another hotmail address its ok).Ah the woes of being a faq writter these days. #v2.07 1st March 2003 270kb exceeded. hey ho added a few things not much. #2.08 7th March 2003 289kb exceeded Right thats it too much #V2.09 24th April 294KB exceeded Another day another update little things which I cannot really remember where I put since I left a big 2 month hole between updates and haven't played shogun that much.But its not exactly likely I can name them but some good news is that somebody who shall remain unnamed till I ask him permission has offered to beat that battle I can only sometimes beat. #V2.10 2nd May Contrary to repeated demands I shall not at least in the near future be writting a guide for Medieval Total war , why is this you might ask , scholastic duties to perform work etc and the thing that happens between the hours when your eyes are open in till they are closed for several hours.Amd that MTW is so big and beefy and runs so slowly on my system its not exactly exciting to watch it chug along. #V2.10L 20th July Added solution to that battle I could not win consistantly curtesy of praisant. ***************************************************************************** #1.2 System specs (taken from readme) System Requirements MINIMUM CONFIGURATION Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, or Windows ME (Windows NT is not supported)* 233 MHz Intel Pentium MMX or AMD K6 processor, or 200 MHz MMX processor with supported Direct3D video card 64 MB RAM 4x CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive 650 MB free hard disk space plus space for saved games (additional space required for Windows swap-file and Direc tX 8 installation) 8 MB video card with DirectX 8 compatible driver; 3D Accelerated Mode requires a 16 MB Direct3D capable video card using the nVidia GeForce 2, nVidia GeForce 256, nVidia Riva TNT2, nVidia Riva TNT, ATI Radeon, 3dfx Voodoo5, 3dfx Voodoo3, 3dfx Voodoo Banshee, Matrox MGA-G450, or Matrox MGA-G400 chipset DirectX 8 compatible sound card Windows Media Player 6.0 or higher (not on CD; available at www.microsoft.com) Keyboard Mouse *NT4 is not supported NT5 ie windows 2K is supported at SP2 with an AMD CPU RECOMMENDED 300 MHz or faster Intel Pentium II processor 128 MB or more RAM 8x or faster CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive 1.65 GB free hard disk space plus space for saved games 32 MB or greater Direct3D capable video card with DirectX 8 compatible driver My test deck AMD 1700 Win2K SP2 512mb ram 32MB NVida Tnt2 card Big speakers Big 21 CRT screen lots of coffee I prefer to use win2K as alot of the time if games crash I can go to desktop and end the program unlike in win9X where a lock up nearly always means reset button.Not that shogun crashes that much for that matter on my system.I have no idea if this game works on winXP (hack spit) or on any other platforms like linux so please no emails or demands that I tell you how to work it (though it worked allegedly on a Amiga PPC something or other running linux with a emulator version of win9X though it was ghastly slow).I am not a techie working for dreamtime interactive or EA games please do not ask me why this video card or custom PC build does not work! , there are millions of different combinations of PC parts and I can't possibly know them all.This applies v much to windows XP know v little about win XP seeing that I don't use it or have any use for it. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #2 definitions (now in semi alphabetical order) Ashigaru = conscripts (literal of light foot) attrition = putting ones resources against another when ones resources are greater than another that person usually wins even with poor tactics though with superior resources , troops and tactics the opponent can be easily crushed , though brilliant tactics and less resources can mean defeat to the better supplied general. backstab = to massacre your allies on the field when they rout , though with daimyo aligned forces it has the effect of declaration of war with ronin they won't really mind. Battle field tactics = tactics relating to the battlefield Bush fighting = fighting in trees exclusively effectively turning cav into weak units Cav = cavalry Choke points = bridges and valleys between impassable ridges Cover = trees , impassable ridges where arrows can't pass note single trees donot count as cover nor do loose forests arrows can still nobble your troops.I would note trees only stop a portion or arrow fire and not 100% so its not really completely arrow free zoning so be careful. charge = double clicked attack which gives minor bonuses when troopers run towards the enemy weapons raised coup de tat = sudden change of power (say a revolt) or when a daimyo dies and has no heirs causing his large empire to collapse into chaos defeat in detail = where up to 10:1 is used to crush enemy units thus having barely any losses. Force retreat = when you enter a province outnumbering or having high honour troops that the enemy general decides that he cannot win and abandons the province. rout = running away with infinite energy in a disorganised manner retreat = withdraw in an organised manner rally = stop routing and regroup friendly fire = hitting or killing your own units friendly fire(2) = backstabbing flank = to move around the edges of the enemy formation and attack from sides or behind honour = experience Yari = unit with long spears pike men = yari units impassable terrain = high ridges , mountains and rivers and structures on the landscape. rear area raid = use of ports to attack non front line provinces tied up = occupying one or more enemy unit(s) with one or more of yours koku = the amount of rice needed to feed a man for one year (mis leading since you can reclaim koku from buildings and therefore really is more like gold since I don't think Dutch and Portuguese would have that much use for rice) overwhelming / swamping = fighting one enemy unit with more than one of yours eg: 2:1 minor swamp 5:1 major swamp 10:1 Super swamp 15:1+ etc though Kensai are naturally swamped to really swamp a kensai you need 180 : 1 (with kensai as 1) for a good chance to defeat him 500 : 1 or you can always use guns unit = group of 60 men (with default 60 men unit setting) except for battle field ninja kensai and Daimyo Squad = a beat up group that has taken heavy losses and therefore is significantly less than the number of men it started when it came out of training map tactics = tactics relating to the big map of Japan poppers = thunder bombers melee = hand to hand or close combat (can be forced with ranged units) ranged units = archers , gunpowder units cav archers thunder bombers skirmishers gun powder units = Arquebusiers or musketeers gunners = gunpowder units hand to hand = melee the chase = when entire armies rout and you chase them killing them before they can leave the map (one of the perks remember its only a game!) meat grinder = throwing units (cheap or expensive) into the fray and waiting for who routs first with minimal unit matching , used by Daimyo with lots of koku to waste pounder = throwing more troops into the fray much like a meat grinder effect sub set into : -pounder(2) = as in quarter pounder as in lots of meat as in meat grinder. -cheap pounder = throwing cheapo units into the fray like ashigaru or yari samurai (late) where the troops become the meat. -heavy pounder = throwing in expensive troops with good honour and upgrades into a battle like a meat grinder effect where they are the grinder usually. giant burger = when after a huge battle there is barely any grass visible where he main site of the battle took place common at titanic bridge battles , battles where there are cheap pounders and heavy pounders through bullets = aquebuses pellets that go through one man then another , which don't exist in shogun , but did exist in real life like in the British Zulu wars(but they used the awesome martini Henry .45 cal black powder bullet rifle which the Imperial war museum tested could go through 3 men at long range). meat = troops to die hidden units = units that do not show up on radar or the main battle screen usually out of eyesight range or in trees. stealth = battle field ninja ie you can see them but you can't order attacks on them till they get very close. stealth 2 = deep in tree so deep that you see enemy units run around looking for you (can be done with any unit) lost leader tactic = to use a unit against a unit that it is least effective against , say Yari on heavy cav while you use units that are easily killed by that unit say monks or archers , to attack from the sides or behind Kensai = sword saint = no datchi but with stupidly high armour attack and defensive abilities and can run just as fast as horses. Sun Tzu = Chinese general famed for his skill in battle and of legend when he did silly things my friend's father keeps telling me about like the burning of all escape for his OWN troops. skirmish = small battle skirmish 2 = small battle in a big battle not of the main battle pumping = variation of meat grinder , when one unit engaged then you put another in and another and another. pumping 2 = produce as many as possible ie set as many provinces to build the facilities required to train them then produce them en masse (best done at provinces with ports to minimise deployment times even better to have them with weapons and armour upgrades). rear area raid = sea borne invasion possible only with ports and spies sally = to charge out of a castle to break the siege possibly supported by troops from elsewhere. upgrades = when units are produced or retrained in an area with either an armoury or with a sword smith up to a maximum of +3 in armour and weapons .The associated upgrade is added on top of standard ratings , so a nagnita with std armour of 5 will have 8 and so on. upgrade 1 = upgraded morale much in the same way as upgrades but acts upon the honour rating (which is morale rating) a push = when your unit engages an enemy unit of his engages yours and they die nearly 1:1 oppertunity cost in that you have to give up one path to choose another say in a 960 man army you have 16 unit slots , therefore if you choose kensai as one of your units you lose the oppertunity to field 59 men and your max is 901 men.Or if you use one unit cheaply you lose the oppertunity to put more powerful units in place , due to training time oppertunity lost. Matching principle = where you match one of your most effective units against another unit that is ineffective against it ie Yari vs cav Rout confusion = when an enemy unit routs but runs the wrong way from battle into your troops , they do still fight their way sometimes through your troops. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ Notes: -Yamashiro (next to the inland sea) gives +1 honour for ever unit produced there which can be added to legendary production facilities to give up to +3 honour for combat units built there unfortunately you cannot tie this with iron sand and armouries so its a trade off between +1 extra honour or extra armour (good for strategic units I suppose since extra armour means nothing to them).Also if you conquer that province the emperor will pledge his support for your clan which means very little as far as I can see. -Heavy cav and nagnita cav need provinces that can support armouries and therefore can only be trained in such provinces. -effect of weapons upgrades and armour upgrades has not be considered much in the notes and effectiveness of units you can probably work it out yourself. -long range units may be able to fire more than the stated ammo limits I have written into this guide , there are several reasons for this: A I didn't count it right B not all men in the unit fire and therefore ammo is not used at maximum rate C Some men get killed , D arrows amiss via friendly fire in backs of nearby units -ranged units (archers and gunners) barely get any honour from their long range attacks even if they kill huge numbers of enemy troops, you can increase their honour quickly by having them charge after your main melee units have passed through them (so they act as support units) or during chase sequences. I play with fatigue , morale limited ammo and camera restricted so notes may or may not apply if you play with different settings settings other than mine are usually total meat grinders since troops often fight to the dead and don't run off scared and long range troops cannot be baited to run out of ammo. Also high honour units can engage anything honour 6 units can attack yari quite well for example , even though cav are extra weak against yari units.Though archers are the exception since they run so fast they can skirmish your forces to death in many situations. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ Japanese infantry Details: Training time: (in seasons) cost: cost in koku , self explanatory** Value : how much I think they are worth koku per man (training) : cost of koku for each man in a 60 man std unit size Clan that specializes in them: self explanatory Requirements: buildings needed to train them (+sub buildings) Maintenance koku : cost in koku per man per year after training* Provinces with honour bonus: provinces that produce certain units with +1 honour without such things as legendary / famous production facilities. Best vs : Best unit to use this unit against Worst Vs: worst unit to use this unit against March speed : self explanatory Running speed : self explanatory Charging speed: self explanatory Charge bonus : + attack when set in a charge melee bonus : self explanatory defence bonus: self explanatory armour level: self explanatory honour: (I think this is mistaken for morale in the troop data file) range(if a ranged unit): my guess is in feet since metres is too far for some ammo(if a ranged unit): self explanatory power(of projectile) : self explanatory availability : the year at which you can get them in ideal conditions ie you have the facility build times and training times *I have listed them per man per year since units rarely ever come out of battles intact even with winning easily status during engagements you can lose quite a few of your soldiers. **units are 25% cheaper if you specialise in them (this applies only to training not maintenance) Note taisho and daimyo are extra hard depending on how much honour he had this is not accounted for in this faq and guide so you can just over whelm him if you want use arrows guns whatever , this does pose an interesting tit bit to try have a kensai as general with full upgrades and that kensai being one of your sons = extra hard kensai unit.You may have noticed this when attacking castles the taisho always seems to take a while to die after you have cleaned out the castle or when you can chase him for miles having units slice him many times if you manage to get him to rout.Still you can always save some arrows to prevent him from massacring half your army before he goes down... ******Yari Ashigaru****** Training time:1 season* Cost: 100 koku. Value :low / medium koku per man (training) : 1.66 Clan that specializes in them: Oda Requirements Spear dojo Maintenance koku 0.5 koku per year per man Provinces with honour bonus: Tosa, Owari. Best vs : cav archers , no datchi Worst Vs: Kensai , warrior monks , naginita March speed : 7 Running speed : 12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus : 0 melee bonus : -1 defence bonus: -1 armour level: 2 honour: -4 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA avalibility : from the start *you get them given to you in the mongol campaign but you can't train any more it seems. Notes : Very cheap to train and very cheap to maintain named Yari due to the long spears they carry , they are also extremely fast , from their low morale ease of being killed they seem useless but not at all.Alright after a few seasons they get utterly slaughtered on any field with modern armed troops , alright they always get slaughtered , but they do have uses. They are also one of two units who have no shoes (the other being warrior monks) , and they are Napoleonic as stated in the manual they will pillage villages and peasants when not in battle as a perk of their job though its effect on loyalty is zero since I've had ashigaru armies as garison and they usually stay loyal.Also Samurai think less of ashigaru and their morale is not affected by their routing.They do live off the land and raid peasants (which is why they have 0.5 koku support per man per year) though this does not seem to affect population loyalty when I keep them as garrisons.A strange paradox comes about , if you really want to use them as part of your main forces use them with max upgrades and a legendary palace at the production facility.The paradox is that if you can afford all that then why on earth would you be buying them other than the bait reasons put below but I did say part of your main forces.But alas with maximum upgrades they are only about as effective as low morale monks which means its hardly worth the fuss...... Though in trees on a map where the trees are on a hill top vs cav they might have a good chance.I would also add weight in numbers is a no no since you can only bring 960 men on the field at any one time if you had 16 units of yari ashigaru then you can only get those extra troops onto the field when some get killed (entire units) or rout.But this then has a cascade effect since those men were either slaughtered or scared the new folks on the field get scared and rout pretty quickly and the cycle continues.I've seen titanic battles like this where 5000+ troops attacked me all cheapo units all falling at my feet. Additional they are best used in thick ranks in single file they fair badly against cav even , in 2 they do better but they do best at least in my experiments in lines of 4-6 thick formations held.Since they get no charge bonus defence or melee bonus its best to use them standing still. ===Uses=== -Absorbing arrows in loose formation When facing an arrow opponent and he has the highland and you are stuck in the valley and cannot flank your opponent you can always put these guys just inside the firing range of archers in loose formation to suck up enemy arrows , its cruel its cold and its nasty but shogun aren't in this business to make friends.If you can hide them in forests while absorbing arrows all the better , those arrows aren't unlimited. (they don't actually absorb the arrows they die from them but that serves the same purpose so go figure)Keep a general unit of daimyo close by to prevent them routing too easily. -Tiring out other units who chase and kill them Yari Ashigaru are fast at running about the battle fields probably due to their virtually non existent armour and light weapons , all other foot soldiers who chase them will have a hard time catching them if you make them run .Tired soldiers fight less effectively, try trap enemies by luring them with these boys and encircling units and slaughtering them. -Running over bridges quickly Again their high speed while running allows this and while they are being slaughtered by the enemy waiting for you on the other side you can get your slower troops across the bridges. -Chasing routed troops Again their high speed helps them with this , though watch out for when troops rally they can turn round and easily annihilate your yari ashigaru groups without much trouble. -Just about stopping Cavalry More of a deterrent on an open battle field but they do hold their own even against heavy cav in forests and other tree outcrops. -Tiring out kensai Oh yes , the most powerful warrior on the field CAN be stopped with yari ashigaru after extensive testing with 2-3 (units of 60) vs 1 kensai the kensai will be beaten with only 50-80%* losses to your yari troops.Killing and swinging that massive sword tires them out quickly so you can swarm kensai with 3 units of them in wedge formation so he quickly becomes attacked on all sides 9-12 men thick.Sometimes single units get lucky and can kill your kensai too.At higher difficulty level (in custom battles) a single yari ashigaru unit at 1 honour can kill 2 kensai. *at higher difficulty levels a kensai can only take out 10-25% of a yari ashigaru unit before biting the dust. -human sheilds Yari ashigaru are cheap , but since through bullets don't exist you can march them infront of your more expensive units to absorb bullets fired by christian enemies.In essence acting as sheilds but since they do actually move so fast and have better melee combat stats than the gunners you can beat the 17 second fire trap I describe later , even if they rout your troops behind can massacre the gunners.Though they don't do too bad against gunners anyway. But you can always use them as sheilds for kensai as well .Though to provide good cover you need 2-3 units to really plug up the holes in the formations since sometimes my gunners have completely missed the first unit.But had the bullets hit the units behind that unit though this is rather rare some bullets may slip through. -support units When a good unit is engaging another you can move them quickly to the sides to attack the enemy from 2 sides ,or keep them just behind to backup the attacker from one side and to prevent enemy from doing the same to you. -Honour baiting As described in the map section where they are used to beef up enemy general stats so you can assassinate them for more honour. -buying time If you know a battle is hopeless you know when you rout you get chased and lose even more men , if you keep a few groups of these guys on a hill standing firm , you can withdraw your expensive troops to a far back position then rout them.The yari will buy you and extra 15-30 seconds thus saving plenty of your better troops lives.This can also be applied to engagements since troops engage things within a radii of themselves you can move them in and in effect vacuum enemy to engage them while you position troops in an advantageous spot.Sacrifices for the greater good are sometimes necessary in shogun total war. -teasing out enemy troop concentrations in trees When an enemy is in the trees you can exhaust their arrows using these guys and also if you park them at the rim of the forest and march them slightly in and engage then rout .Enemies can seldom resist the chase and when they come out for the kill you can crush them yourself though it is seldom needed for foot units unless you have lots of guns and arrows for extra lethality. -garrisoning Due to their cheap 0.5 koku per man per year cost they are good for garrisons since they acheive the same effect though with lower maintenance costs.Still on your front lines and ports keep something stronger to prevent enemy incursions since even giant armies of yari ashigaru are easy to win against. -fake routs Using the rout button when near the enemy can start a chase (your samurai won't be affected) they turn and run hell for leather where the enemy engages in a chase his units are less ordered and in slight disarray.You can use them to breakup large enemy formations and counter attack with other units or wait till your ashigaru are some way up a hill turn and counter attack.That is after a sucessful rally.Their high speed means they can out run most infantry though against horses they will fair less well when running. -waterlooing Waterloo yes , putting gunners behind them either on a slope or in micromanaged lines so you can have your guns fire through the gaps , at waterloo muskets had bayonettes on them , here their spears combined with guns can sometimes make a nasty combination. ===Killing them=== Archers (though wasteful) are effective they also die from archers in melee too , though esp on easier levels with a large army they rout after a charge is initiated.However donot engage them on hills this is where they are quite effective when coming down the hills , you may be winning but you'll be losing quite a few men so many it may make victory a bitter one. ******Yari Samurai****** Training time:1 season Cost: 200 koku Value : medium - low high koku per man (training) : 3.33 Clan that specializes in them: - Requirements Spear dojo Maintenance koku 1 koku per year per man Provinces with honour bonus: - Best vs : cav (all types though naginita and heavy will hassle them) no datchi Worst Vs: archers (slow speed) , monks . naginita March speed : 6 Running speed : 10 Charging speed: 10 Charge bonus: 0 melee bonus : 2 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 2 honour: 2 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability : from the start Staple diet of the early Daimyo , they are much more useful than the ashigaru much much useful purely because they do not rout as easily and can stand up to heavy cavalry without too many losses , they team up well with archers and although weaker than naginata they make up with their better speed lower cost and chasing routed troops.At full upgrades they become really useful. ===uses=== Stopping cavalry Other than naginita cav and heavy cavalry (though in forests they do this extremely well) at 2:1 vs they will win against all cavalry Serving as a distraction They are staple troops to begin with and they become quite useless after a while but they can engage other more powerful units (and get slaughtered) keeping them busy until your main forces arrive (or you can retreat your Daimyo and his guard if you are losing badly!)This is a tactic you are forced to use many times in historical battles. waterlooing See above. ===Killing them=== These boys are a tough nut to crack with cav but use other yari samurai against them from high ground , if they have just charged through a group of allied archers then have the archers support them also. They also seem weak to high ground archer charges as in training it is possible to eliminate the yari samurai group with the smaller archer group with <5 casualties (use lots of arrows and running wedges sacrificing the first few front guys in the wedge) ******Samurai Archers****** Training time:1 season Cost: 300 koku Value : low high koku per man (training) : 5 Clan that specializes in them: Uesugi Requirements: Archery Dojo Maintenance koku : 1 koku per man per year Provinces with honour bonus: Totomi Best vs : monks , naginita (considering melee is harder to kill them) no datchi , kensai Worst Vs: cav March speed : 6 Running speed : 10 Charging speed: 10 Charge bonus:2 melee bonus : 0 defence bonus: -1 armour level: 1 honour: 0 range(if a ranged unit): 5000 ammo(if a ranged unit):28 power(of projectile) : 0.5 availability : from the start Notes Long range units , disappointing after reading English history about lethality of long bow armies (where Yeomen could fire 12 arrows a minute into approaching hordes of pike and swordsmen with 1000 men = 12000 arrows in a rough area per minute winning extremely unlikely battles) these guys just don't compare much though they CAN hold their own against yari foot troops with melee ability and their speed is useful in chasing down routed troops but as always beware of rallying troops who may turn on your archers during the chase. Firing into forests wastes arrows though firing out is only slightly better.Though as always it seems the CPU can get up to 3 men per salvo if he is in the trees but when you try it , it doesn't work half as well .Best you can EVER expect of them is 8 units per salvo (single line) but with low honour and basic weapons you can expect 1-3 per 2-3 salvos.* You may want to withdraw them when they use all their arrows but I use them much like super light cav , withdrawal isn't too bad if you have replacements that will reinforce your army though they may not be in position to be useful.Archers also fire in arcs so they can go over your troops into the enemy and enemies behind their front line troops as well as over impassible objects such as castle walls They work ok in lines of 2 in lines of 3 sometimes the 3rd row fire sometimes they do not , rain snow and wind affect their accuracy and range.They seem to lose their effect at about 1560 when cav can run them down easily , and baby sitting them with yari takes up vital unit slots which could be used for something else.They auto stop firing at their targets when your men engage that unit that was being fired at , but theres nothing to prevent you from reassigning them to fire at those same units , you might get some friendly fire though so its your choice. V2.01 update be very careful using them facing up a slope especially if you have them in deep ranks in short lines (squares) since you get some insane things that happen like archers firing into each others backs.They will keep doing this rearranging the formation to take the place of the killed archer and then the guy who walked in to replace that man gets killed , with 28 shots and it happening in 2-3 places you can lose up to 25 men doing this keep your eyes open and check.If it happens reformate them if you are not pre occupied. high value targets : (descending order) Warrior monks & troops inside castles No datchi cav that stands still yari samurai taisho daimyo when he is the only one left Low value targets Anybody standing in a forest** Naginata Charging cavalry *They carry 28 arrows each when used in a single file line. **some arrows will get through but not many ===uses=== -Support fire -reducing numbers before melee begins -Bridge massacres when its blocked by your troops you can fire over the heads of your own men killing the enemy enmasse. -Killing slow units naginita and monks to some extent can't run as fast as archers so you can have them skirmish in 2 units so that there is a leap frog effect on each unit attacking it. ===Killing them=== Use anything fast yari ashigaru supported may help but if they are firing on your unit open up into loose formation though this can also be a trap also to prep your unit to be charged by cav so keep those eyes peeled.You can also use other archers if you have more it just becomes a slugging match and dependant upon luck. It might seem obvious but the AI at least on normal and easy are slow to open their formations when under archer fire even in archer vs archer situations and you can open up your archers well in advance of being under arrow fire. Though note yari cav and cav are good against them they donot run under arrows as advertised in the tutorials the archers just compensate by firing at a lower angle the head of the column runs under it and it hits the guy behind him.So expect losses even if they are the best vs against them. Keep loose as possible and do not have massive crowds as this makes it easier for archers to hit something at least its the same principle as guns in the scenario of super deep no room to move ranks they will hit something.When units are loose or by themselves in tight formation they have room to avoid arrows and there is more empty space where arrows will go and do nothing but deplete archer ammo. +Additional Note archers are not capable of supressive fire therefore they must target one unit at a time , so if you are under attack from a single group to avoid archers scoring on another group have them walk round the unit under fire.As you will suffer less losses this way. ******No-Dachi Samurai****** Training time:1 season Cost: 300 koku Value : medium koku per man (training) : 5 Clan that specializes in them: Shimazu Requirements :Sword dojo (and legendary swordsman event) Maintenance koku : 1 koku per man per year Provinces with honour bonus: Satsuma Best vs : units losing badly , ashigaru units , kensai Worst Vs: any unit with good morale March speed : 7 Running speed : 12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus: 8 melee bonus : 6 defence bonus: -2 armour level: 1 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability :1533 Only decent on the offensive and then only against yari troops , gunpowder and archers (if you can get to them without too many losses) naginata , monks and cavalry will slaughter them easily.In fact after a little testing their low cost reflects their usefulness , the manual states that they are useful for use against wavering enemy troops and this is completely true.When you charge an enemy unit you will get winning easily for a few seconds then losing badly on almost all units.Their power and survival rating depends heavily if enemy troops rout it they do , they are spectacular and a unit can take out 4-5 enemy per second , if they don't rout the enemy they will lose 2-3 men per second.I would also consider them to be expendable and least useful of all troops since they rely too much on the routing thing and they die far too easily.They loose their usefulness after a few seasons though they are great for the chase sequences.If somebody attacks or starts charging towards your no datchi counter with your own charge so it is counted as an attack rather than a defence in a defence situation (which you should never use no datchi for unless its against ashigari) and quickly get some support.But if you can produce them with +3 attack and +3 armour they fair alright but I would probably be tempted to train other units instead.. ===uses=== Chasing routed troops Breaking nasty archer + yari combo lines down hill attacks killing kensai Normally kensai cut through your men like a government spending a budget surplus.But against no datchi they seem weaker they'll take 2-3 no datchi down then go down themselves.Maybe its the high attack factor multiplied by the unit size but they are great against kensai.Even against groups of 4 kensai they can cut them down to size losing less than 10 men. ===Killing them=== Try keep your distance and use arrows musket balls , if you have to get into melee with them try using monks cavalry or have them approach your naginita lines they will die quickly. Also try to catch them standing still so You attack them which causes them to be killed horribly since they defend so badly. ******Warrior Monks ****** Buddhist or renounced faithist or just trade with dutch instead Training time:1 season Cost: 500 Value : V high koku per man (training) : 8.33 Clan that specializes in them: mori Requirements: Buddhist temple (and tranquil garden before that) Maintenance koku : 1 per man per year Provinces with honour bonus: Kii , kaga Best vs : Infantry units Worst Vs: Archers , cav archers , naginita cav March speed : 7 Running speed :12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus:4 melee bonus : 5 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 1 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability :1534 Ever see those Chinese films where monks can get hit over the head with iron bars scalded with fire and absorb swords without being hurt , these are them , albeit slightly less invincible than those you see in films, they are highly useful for meat grinder tactics since barely anything can beat them , also Buddhist troops will rout fast against them Christians do not , however due to the trade (you lose monks production for gunpowder units) this is barely a matter of concern since you can just attack in the rain instead rendering gunpowder useless haha.Pump them out and have your 16 unit armies contain 8-12 of them and you can sweep the map , without any trouble , it also seems that they regain their energy faster than other units so you can march them all over have them charge fight , and a minute or two later march them fight etc (this happens lots in reinforced battles).They are utterly untouchable when used in trees ok you will lose some but not many.When you have a legendary armoury and legendary sword smith at the production facility they are unstoppable unless of course the enemy also has troops with such armour and weapons.They do however fill a middle ground between no datchi and naginita in that they don't defend as well but attack better than naginta but the opposite is true with no datchi.The main weakness as shown above is their terrible armour which means arrows guns and naginita cav have a field day.(you may notice in pictures monks weak cloth shaws to cover their bodies and face which if you ask me isn't armour). ===Uses=== Everything , bar long range death and holding off masses of cav ==Killing them=== Use arrows lots of them naginita cav also are successful against them other monks are also effective against them.Naginita will stop them in their tracks , though it takes monks to kill monks , yari and no datchi combos are good too , so is yari samurai down hill against them , don't even consider using ashigaru against them they die far too quickly even to serve as bait or a distraction or a delay tactic. ******Naginata****** Training time:1 season Cost: 400 koku Value : Medium / high koku per man (training) : 6.67 Clan that specializes in them: Requirements: famous spear dojo and armoury Maintenance koku : Provinces with honour bonus: Best vs : Cavalry , infantry Worst Vs: Cav archers , archers March speed : 4 Running speed :8 Charging speed: 8 Charge bonus: 4 melee bonus : 0 defence bonus: 6 armour level: 5 honour: 4 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability :1535 Dum dum dum dum dum dum captain scarlet! excuse that these guys are nearly unbreakable I had 3 lines of these and they were charged with heavy cav no datchi and by warrior monks .Though also rather rare in campaign use it seems the CPU never uses them on easy normal and rarely on hard (1-2 units per army and only in a few armies too),maybe its the high needs of armoury , legendary spear dojo etc hmmp.The status said winning easily losing badly then winning easily flicking from one extreme to the other , but each time the enemy unit losing a few troops with only 5-10 losses after causing attacking units to rout.However they have a terrible weakness they are so incredibly slow and get tired its even worse when it snows and rains but since you never move them (unless you chase routed troops) it is barely a matter of concern.(against mongol cav however it is a very different story they get slaughtered in droves when they go up against them as bridge blockers standing on high ground against them etc)Naginita can also be denied from the enemy by holding any area with iron sand deposits much like heavy cav can , if you also do intend any heroics with them ie holding bridges against insurmountable odds try get the max upgrades it really helps.But really they are only useful in a defensive role when you are attacked and as the cliche goes the best defence is a good attack.Team them up with no datchi and you have the best of both worlds extra defence and extra attack. Unfortunately they seem to barely ever get any extra honour at least in custom battles where I have had 10 units of them (backed up by 2 archer units 2 gunners and 2 ninja bitchu as defender) against 5 armies of 960 yari samurai barely anybody there got an extra honour point except for a few which got honour 3 when they had been in the thick of the fighting for such a long time that they were reduced to 23 men.I have no real solutions to this since you can't train them in yamashiro due to lack of iron sand deposits though you could have a legendary spear dojo and legendary sword dojo to give them a miserly +1 extra honour point.Still they are quite tough without extra honour anyway.If they could run faster and not get so tired so quickly they would probably be my main strike force instead of monks. ===uses=== They can tie up troops 1:2 for a very long time , they should replace* yari samurai when you have a stable economy and teamed up with archers especially if you have other units to chase routing troops. *though keep some around for cav defence purposes.Also their restricted avaliblity may not make this easy. Absorbing arrows if you have nothing else to do it as their heavish armour means they take less damage from archers though archers can run and walk faster and skirmishing archers can devastate your men since they can fire close up and run away. ===Killing them=== Ugh this is hard kensai can just about kill them , though he will be exhausted after killing 15 of them and can easily be killed in return!. Occupy them with weak troops and flank them with something else monks do well against them with major losses.Guns also work very well on skirmish mode as do arrows on skirmish mode , arrows in the rain do even better since they get tired even faster. ******Arquebusiers ****** requires foreign alliance. Training time:1 season Cost: 100 Value : high low koku per man (training) : 1.66 Clan that specializes in them: Requirements: trading post portugal / dutch Maintenance koku : 1 per man per year Provinces with honour bonus: Best vs : slow units Worst Vs: fast units fighting in rain. March speed : 7 Running speed :12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus:0 melee bonus : -6 defence bonus: -3 armour level: 2 honour: -4 range(if a ranged unit): 4000 ammo(if a ranged unit):40 power(of projectile) : 16 availability :1543 The yari ashigaru of guns , still guns barely do anything to your troops since they never seem to achieve high honour they never get more than 3 of your troops (usually because any cavalry unit will annilate them) and because the computer seems to use them poorly ie in short lines and in firing at maximum range too which is a no no of guns in this game.They seem worse at hand to hand than archers when testing them in custom battles , and they seem to carry butter knives instead of swords.Now if you could get bayonettes and have them stand waterloo style in squares they might be useful but they are not.At their maximum range I could put a (heavy damaged from a previous battle) 12 yari ashigaru and waste all their ammo without being hit.If it is raining or snowing they cannot use their weapons other than their butter knives.(you will see this in a training session) they carry about 40 shots each (in a single line formation).They can fire through castle walls and fire on line of sight.(I expected much more since seeing ajapanese film where there is a clan who is called the mountain and the Daimyo is injured badly but hides this fact with a double whos son double crosses the double and expels him and attacks an enemy castle losing everything and the double comes out of the tall grass with white hair after seeing the slaughter , as the enemy castle fired repeatedly with muskets through the slits in the walls oh yes.)If you read the gun tactics section and you want 2 shots from the you want to play with a 25 second gap between your gunners and the target enemy group ,though this is impractical since nobody except possibly exhausted naginita goes that slow. ===uses=== Defending maps with bridges with at least a 2 units as long as too many units DO NOT approach at the same time.. NEVER EVER EVER use them in automatically resolved attacks they die in droves when you do this and never take more than 1/3 of their number in heads , I've sent huge armies of them 7000+ and they only seem to get one shot per auto battle this applies to musketeers as well. You may also want to use them instead of Yari ashigaru for the purposes of bait , absorbing arrows etc , though they are v poor in hand to hand even worse than yari ashigaru and have no bonuses vs cav.So they are not exact perfect substitutes so use your descretion.This is because they cost exactly the same take the same time to train though they do require different production facilities.But with guns they can deal out some damage while being arrow sponges.(also if there is a major charge you might be able to get a single volley in before they are slaughtered and single volleys can take up to 25 heads beats yari ashigaru. ===How to kill them=== March ANY unit up to them and engage in hand to hand , archers can kill them with their arrows at maximum range without losing ANY in their squad. Its even better in the rain stride right in with any samurai unit and you will win with barely any losses.You can also sit at maximum range and run them out of ammo , also you can attack them non line of site fashion.Since gunpowder units fire in a straight line they cannot fire at things where a hill masks the enemy unit presence.Unlike arrows.You can also fight them in light rain without any danger from them .. well ok they will use their swords but these are extremely ineffective.Beware of using slow and or tired units against them since they move slowly and can be skirmished to death by these men or rather lose many many men before hand to hand can begin.Cav due to its high speed is obviously the best unit against them though do bewary although I have not seen the CPU do it or not noticed it, if super close range shots (as seen in the gun combat section) is used with multiple ranks your 60 cav or units engaging them may vanish after the the volley arrives.This gives way to a dilema open formation or close formation?.The reason for this is when attacking them in open formation your line is longer therefore you are in range of more gunners (often gunners at the edge of single lines cannot fire since they are too far away).But with a closed formation your men are much more bunched up , though bullets cannot be evaded like arrows anyway the choice I suppose is yours. ******Musketeers****** requires foreign alliance Training time:1 season Cost: 175 Value : high low koku per man (training) : 2.9167 Clan that specializes in them: Requirements: Dutch trading post or Portuguese with cathedral Maintenance koku : 1 per man per year Provinces with honour bonus: Best vs : slow units Worst Vs: fast units March speed : 7 Running speed :12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus:4 melee bonus : 5 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 1 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): 4000 ammo(if a ranged unit):40*** power(of projectile) : 16 avalibility : 1551 See above , just as useless except they can fire in light rain though they still carry 40* shots and after tests they can kill up to 8 units in a salvo though only at high honour and max weapon upgrades. note as in the manual - musketeers is misleading these are just upgraded Arquebusiers and still ashigaru troops armed with them at that.I would also note that they are ashigaru units , therefore they still rout pretty easy when things get hairy.Somehow I would have thought cav musketeers would exist but they don't.I also wish the lines you organise them in could be much much tighter al la British imperialistic red coat formations (shoulder to shoulder) so you could cram many many more of them in the same space and therefore increase firepower heavily.At present lining them up they end up in formations so big that the men at the ends of the formation are either out of effective range or are at max range therefore inaccurate.The cpu can fire through its own troops hitting yours only which is strange it can also fire in heavy rain when in castles which is even more strange.Though very heavy rain makes them just as useless as the cheaper gun units. *I cannot accurately count the number of shots they have as in single lines sometimes not all of them fire , in ranks they don't all fire also so I cannot count the number of shots 100% *v1.5 update - I moved these tactics to the gun combat section as it was getting quiet large and ungainly and though it ought to deserve its own section. v1.7 update - You can get guns without agreeing to trade you wait for an enemy daimyo to convert then send in spies to see where he has built (hopefully) a ducth trading post or less prefered a portugese trading post.Its usually at a province with a port , if you capture it and the facility is not destroyed then you can produce gunners as if you were christian but still build temples and train monks , excellent... portugese will still try to convert you so no hard feelings I suppose. ***40 shots may seem alot and it is considering how long it takes to reload but in some titanic custom battles which can last up to 2-3 hours (gametime) they can run out of ammo ===uses=== Killing kensai , as kensai seem extremely vulnerable to them * *to do this have a rank of gunners in 2 then have them hold fire until he (the kensai) gets extremely close then then click the fire at will button and they wil llet loose seconds later and extreme close range. At this range something will hit the kensai since even if you have a 1 in 10 chance of hit multiply that by 60 and that kensai will go down. Unfortunately you need to be Christian to be able to use them and therefore buddhist daimyo cannot use this method , unless they agree then renounce later after various units are produced.Or you wait for the dutch which come a while after kensai can be produced Also it might not be exactly clear where the kensai is in the heat of a huge battle.Though to demonstrate: 4th kanakawa 2 lines of gunners as enemies have 5 or 6 kensai line your boys up in 2 double lines and watch as the kensai approach let loose close and you have 6 dead kensai in 25 seconds. ===how to kill them=== Attack one unit per one unit of gunners , if you focus your attack on one on one say like C&C tactics sure you will kill them faster but other units nearby will have ample opportunity to fire 1 2 or even 3 shots into your attackers , which can serious deplete your forces. If you are outnumbered by them force move your troops inbetween their ranks so that both units are enaged at the same time , gunners can only really win in hand to hand when at 3:1 esp against cav and monks.I wouldn't bother too much about running them out of ammo at long range with yari ashigaru since they take so long per shot it can seriously eat into the battle timer and I hate losing to that.Donot even consider Napoleonic wars where you go muzzle to muzzle since if you do this you are going to lose the person who walks into the standing gun line dies much like the real thing when gunners walked into English gunner lines.They have to walk into range , then prepare to fire then aim then fire , which will give the standing enemy a few seconds advantage. ******Kensai****** Training time: 4 seasons Cost: 600 Value : high koku per man (training) : 600 Clan that specializes in them: Requirements: Legendary sword dojo Maintenance koku : 1 koku per year Provinces with honour bonus: Best vs : yari units , archers , cav , monks , naginita Worst Vs: mongol cav , cav archers , poppers , guns when they have a clear shot space and , no datchi , large units March speed : 10 Running speed :16 Charging speed: 16 Charge bonus:8 melee bonus : 18 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 8 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability : 1542* *I have seen ronin have them at 1534 Kensai , huge bloke with a huge sword the ONLY unit in the game you can use in melee to fight non attrition battles , although they are powerful they can easily be defeated it may not seem so but they are easily swamped. A case of can dish it out but can't really take it , a clue to this is in the manual can engage many units winning often coming out untouched, due to their ability to defend they have no need to get hit though this as before has limits with one sword you can only block so many swords and spears.And that is why swamping works so well against them arrows do too (though during the credits sequence I think you get to see a hand drawn kensai with 8 arrows in his back still fighting) .Their power lies as much as the power lies with no datchi as in if the enemy routs by the time the kensai gets exhausted then its ok you can continue killing, but say if the enemy has a legendary palace and therefore excellent morale he might be swamped and in trouble.Though they run nearly as fast as cav don't rely on them too much , they do gain honour extremely fast though.The time is rather long though and you can get 4 warrior monks for the time it takes to train this guy.DONOT attack kensai 1:1 kensai vs Kensai you ALWAYS lose if they are equal armour and weapons skill and still lose even if honour is higher by up to +3.Also never have your sons become kensai as they can die suddenly and you lose 100% of the unit wheas if he is say a heavy cav unit he becomes Daimyo you lose 1 horseman and keep the other 59 , esp if he dies suddenly which can happen randomly.I would also state that if you have no datchi samurai in your armies then you mix them in with your kensai they seem to wear the same colour uniforms and in the heat of a battle are hard to distinguish. In a castle siege they are perfect for defence and attacking.Beaware of gunners kensai are extemely vulnerable to them even when he is in the thick of it and killing them in droves since other gunners in their group can back off to a firing position and he is pretty much dead (well no matter how tough you were being hit with a 3 inch ball of hot steel that would shatter after going into you you would die).2 shots will kill him (this I found out when he ran into my rank from behind and killed 40 of my units until I had them hold position and allowed them to fire at will when he approached the end of my column two of my men turned reloaded and fired about 1.5 inches on my monitor at him killing him)If you see his stats say evenly matched quite a long time rout him or have him rest he is probably going to die soon.Also I would note he isn't the end all of units he is just one man and in battles (titanic 5000+ battles) he'l kill 1-200 whereas a monk unit or a gun unit well controlled will kill over 900. V1.8 addition I would also note Kensai honour is differently calculated else it is a bug in the game , kensai in a battle can gain up to +5-6 honour points but when you get onto the big map it registers as 1 extra point or something equally annoying.In my guestimation is that kensai gain +1 extra honour points every 6 honour points they gain on the field. Else they would become utterly lethal killing machines far too quickly , which they are to a certain extent , just train them in yamashiro for that extra honour point that province gives any unit trained there though this has a disadvantage of no extra armour benifits so its a trade off (as retraining is a waste of time) I personally prefer them to earn their honour and to have +3 weapons and +3 armour using them near exclusively in non gun battles or to clean out castles with normal troops following in support can get them to +8 honour in no time.Also surprisingly you can get them extremely early even earlier is a ronin province happens to be producing them I have seen them about as early as 1535 at which I tried to bribe one but they didn't take it at which I conquered the province and with luck the facilities survived. You can also get them quite quickly after 2 years you really ought to have gotten the legendary swords man event then another 4 years building up sword dojos and another year to get armouries and sword smiths which make them extra deadly.Ronin will also produce them which surprised me the other day when I invaded the 3rd smallest island in the south. The accordion or the compactor Also there is a terrible tactic you can use with kensai when you have 2 or more when you have 6 or more with +3 weapons and +3 armour a high daimyo leading them you can have just these 6 kensai defend a bridge and enemy columns can throw themselves at these kensai (keep those archers away) and they fold like an accordion men run and nearly instantly die.Its even worse when enemy are routed when as an experiment I had 8 kensai and the enemy crossed the bridge to engage me as I had 177 men (daimyo heavy cav and kensai only) while he had lots of no datchi and naginita, I kept my kensai as a flanking tool and blocked off the bridge at the far end , my daimyo came out (and he was ranked +5) and all the enemies routed.Which was a surprise since his army was well in excess of 2800 men , this was the nasty bit they ran into my kensai wall and were near instantly killed by the kensai and there were so many bodies the bridge was not even visible.Some enemies got smart and decided to run away and they ran into my cav units utter slaughter. ===uses=== Spear heading assaults Chasing routed troops Tying up troop formations Distractions , on normal and hard in defence missions sometimes there are outcrops of trees ahead put a few kensai in them and wait , as they are hidden they won't be noticed , then you can run them out into the enemy.Attacking from behind killing plenty of enemy , the AI will think blimey and turn many of his forces (on easy normal and hard) to face these kensai , at the same time you can flank the enemy formations for a 3 sided attack.Which has super benifits in that the enemy defence is inverted ie its weakest units are those you encounter first and get trapped between his strong units for a few moments leading to slaughter. ===killing them=== Naginita is the first choice combined with another unit attacking so that he is swamped in a massive circle of troops he can't escape you will loose many troops but you may prevail (thats a big MAY).Though as said in the ashigaru section a lucky hit can kill them quickly.Guns as meantioned before are another excellent tactic. Trap them with hold formation and hold position stand firm your line and if he attacks the middle of your line he'll keep going in and in and go up against more and more men first its 3-1 then 5-1 then 6-1. misc notes: *this is kensai alone vs said unit on a 1:60 also tested over a 10 second period multiple times (why you get halves etc) with kensai starting off as fresh as the attacker on a standing unit.Also depends on the random nature of attacks sometimes they retreat back a little the go back into the fray sometimes they continually attack so this data is not absolute. V2.06 Update I've been experimenting with larger unit sizes as unit sizes go up kensai become weaker as kensai numbers and strength does not increase as with other units even a single yari ashigaru unit can defeat 3 kensai when they are at 1 honour and your kensai are at 2 honour and +3 attack and +3 armour.This makes it no datchi power as in if the enemy units are impetious and do not rout pretty soon after attacks they die quickly so they ought to be supported.To better the odds attack from the sides of enemy rectangles the CPU likes 4-5 men thick formations which puts 12-15 men in a line at the front.It reduces the number the kensai has to take on at any one time.But then no unit can survive completely surrounded anyway.Note that they are ALWAYS 1 man in custom battles or sengoku jidai even if the unit size setting is at 120. VFinal update On the gamefaqs boards it has been said the kensai unbalances the game , I disagree unlike many others , in the 4 seasons it takes to train him you can get 4 more units of your choice if one of those are no datchi and they face off kensai he is dead.As said easlier gun units really take this guy down and when completely swarmed with even a single unit he goes down fast.He can even go down to yari ashigaru if you can keep their morale up enough , they will keep reforming their lines and do tiny amounts of damage each.Even worse if they get a lucky hit you could lose a kensai after only a taking a few yari. ******Battlefield Ninja****** Training time 4 seasons Cost: 600 koku Value : High koku per man (training) : 50 Clan that specializes in them: Requirements:battle field ninja dojo (with sword dojo and infamous ninja house) Maintenance koku : 1 per man per year Provinces with honour bonus: Best vs : all foot units , generals , daimyo Worst Vs: cav March speed : 8 Running speed :18 Charging speed: 18 Charge bonus:4 melee bonus : 8 defence bonus: 4 armour level: 4 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): 1200 ammo(if a ranged unit):100 power(of projectile) : 1 availability :1543 Notes : A group of 12* men who in the manual carry bows but the animation suggests throwing stars or knives of some kind , you can get 4-6 troops with each salvo fired from samurai and they can also hold their own when outnumbered 240 : 12 though only against no datchi and yari units and with up to 10 losses.Don't use them often due to the time needed to train them you can get lots of warrior monks , they are also poor in chasing routed troops.However they can remain hidden on open terrain via stealth unless a unit gets fairly close to them , there is a nasty tactic you can use with them , hide them in trees during a defence battle.They are darned impossible to find , the computer does this with ordinary units during defence battles.You can try it out against human opponents but the computer always seems to know where you are and can kill them before the time limit runs out.They carry 100 throwing stars.The disadvantage is that they are easily overwhelmed being 12 men much like the kensai problem , but if you keep 5 units of them put them in lines you can reduce enemy columns to near nothing on their approach its even nastier in trees since their archers can't get you back and units can't see your ninja until they are extremely close.Much better investment than kensai in my opinion but they take far too much infrastructure (elite ninja houses then another dojo , when kensai take legendary sword dojo etc).nice unit if you can afford it.Also they seem to need to be manually targeted even with fire at will they seem reluctant to fire at enemies. *if you increase unit sizes in the performance menu the unit size will increase up to 24 at 120 men unit setting V1.9 update I cannot be certain about this but higher honour ninja seem to be able to remain unseen up close when I tested some honour 9 ninja against some monks the monk had to get extra close to be able to see and engage my ninja.Also they take more heads per volley of ninja stars at higher honour , which can make them quite deadly in that enemy units will come under fire from the longer before they can "stumble" upon your units (stumble as in the CPU knows darned well where your units are). ===Uses=== killing generals and Daimyo on the field occupying enemy troops while reinforcements arrive Killing kensai (3-5 stars kill them) ===killing them=== Try to cut them down with monks naginata or cav of any kind no datchi they seem to cut easily through no datchi archers and gunpowder units.Guns also work well if they are engaging your unit and you fire at them , you'll lose quite a few men but hey you get most of the ninja. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ Japanese cav notes: #1 Cavalry count as 2 units when retreating into a castle though the koku support is the same though horses eat grass and I suppose there is lots of that though rice is actually a grass but then so is wheat. #2 Cavalry are weaker when in trees apparently they are avoiding the trees and not so much focused on combat. ******Yari Cavalry****** Training time :1 season Cost: 500 Value : medium koku per man (training) : 8.33 Clan that specializes in them: Takeda Requirements: Horse dojo (with spear dojo also) Maintenance koku : 1 per unit per year Provinces with honour bonus: Shinano Best vs : cav archers , archers , gunners , Worst Vs: yari samurai , heavy cav , naginita cav,monks , naginita March speed : 10 Running speed :24 Charging speed: 24 Charge bonus:8 melee bonus : 2 defence bonus: 3 armour level: 3 honour: 2 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability :1535 I love these you can get them extremely early and they utterly raze archers gunpowder units even no datchi and naginata cav , they also come in extremely useful during the chase against routed units.They are weak (as most cav units are) against yari units , though in a supporting or flanking role they are good. They also act well as bait when you have a beat up unit with only a few left to bait those yari troops hiding behind enemy archers. ===uses=== Breaking archer formations Chasing routed units used to flank engaged units ===Killing them=== Bait them with archers and when you hear the charge horn move your yari infront of your archers at the last moment and use those archers in support they will get massacred , you can also chase them about with other yari cav and other types of cav.Naginita also stop them in their tracks solidly allowing you to flank them.Also if you can lead them into trees you can kill them easily since cav are weaker in trees. ******Cavalry Archer****** Training time : 1 season Cost: 500 koku Value : medium koku per man (training) : 8.33 Clan that specializes in them: Takeda Requirements: Archery dojo , horse dojo Maintenance koku : 1 koku per man per year Provinces with honour bonus:Shinano Best vs : Anything their arrows can hit Worst Vs: fast units. March speed : 8 Running speed :20 Charging speed: 20 Charge bonus:1 melee bonus : 2 defence bonus: 3 armour level: 0 honour: 0 range(if a ranged unit): 5000 ammo(if a ranged unit):28 power(of projectile) : 0.5 availability :1533 Faster due to mounted on horses I'm not 100% sure but they seem to have either the same or just a little more range than their foot counter parts they do however seem less accurate in getting max of 3 units (in my own tests) per salvo and that is up close. They carry 28 arrows , with their swords they make good to chase routing troopers but they get killed easily by yari cav. Excellent for use with skirmish tactics since they can back up fire back up and fire to all but other cav units and ashigaru units.I like to use them to run down no yari units when they run out of arrows.projectile.txt suggests a shorter range than that of foot archers.I personally hate them the CPU always uses masses on me on skirmish so they are hard to catch. ===uses=== Harassing enemy units Chasing routed troops Skirmishing to death powerful units such as monks ===Killing them=== Its hard to catch them except with yari cav but you can box them in on impassable ledges and the edges of the map don't try to catch them with std foot units they'll rout well before your troops can effectively enage them if the enemy commander has set them to skirmish (I once lost 2 troops of monks to this tactic). ******Naginata Cavalry****** Training time :1 season Cost: 450 koku Value : high koku per man (training) : 7.50 Clan that specializes in them: Takeda Requirements: Horse dojo , famous horse dojo and spear dojo Maintenance koku : 1 koku per man per year Provinces with honour bonus:Shinano Best vs : Foot units Worst Vs: heavy cav , yari units March speed : 8 Running speed :16 Charging speed: 20 Charge bonus:4 melee bonus : 5 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 4 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability :1538 Cav with naginata swords they are powerful and useful against almost anything but they are somewhat slow and die easily when attacked themselves , they CAN actually attack yari units quite successfully but they will take some losses more than in normal combat. ===Uses=== Chasing routed troops Breaking yari formations (just) Breaking naginita and monk formations ===Killing them=== They seem vulnerable to yari cav and 1:2 combat of yari and combined naginita Also you can lead them into trees of hide in trees to get them its even better if they have to march uphill to get your troops in trees. ******Heavy Cavalry****** Training time :1 season Cost: 600 koku Value : V high koku per man (training) : 10 Clan that specializes in them: Takeda Requirements: Famous horse dojo and armoury Maintenance koku : 1 per man per year Provinces with honour bonus:Shinano Best vs : Anything you want Worst Vs: yari , cav archers (skirmish mode is too fast for them) March speed : 8 Running speed :20 Charging speed: 20 Charge bonus:8 melee bonus : 2 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 3 honour: 2 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA availability :1538 most dangerous unit that can frontal assault anything and win though only in 1:1 situations as when they go up against 2:1 or 3:1 odds you will lose them.Pump out lots of them and enemies will fall at your feet easily awesome in chasing routed troops also.An effective method is to just use the charge bonus as in attacking in rotating waves , walk a unit near the enemy unit charge then rout and disengage ASAP then seconds after lead another charge in , to distract the enemy units to let your first unit go.Then charge your 3rd unit in to distract away from the second unit then back to the first , just make sure you have enough room to accelerate your men to max speed for max charge bonus. Daimyo are 10 heavy cav guards and 1 Daimyo on heavy horse , they seem to get replaced for free if any but the Daimyo die.If the daimyo dies from illness or is killed on the field then this unit becomes standard a standard heavy cav unit.The daimyo is extra tough but isn't that tough so don't go assaulting 600+ ranks of yari he will take 20 maybe even 50 with him but will eventually go down.But at honour level 8 he has these abilities (his unit vs). 4 Archer groups* OR 3 Yari samurai units* OR 6 Ashigaru units* OR mix of cav archers and yari* *note that although him and his guard can take on so many enemies on higher difficulty (other than easy normal and hard) he may take less and die faster due to the rout factor.Also the rout factor may be decreased if the enemy general is at high honour also , use good judgement and don't be doing wild charges against rank 6 generals or 8 honour daimyo! .Your own daimyo may well die doing so. Btw horses and daimyo don't cost you anything to feed each year (the riders of the horses not in the daimyo unit don't cost anything though in life or death) The extra advantage of daimyo is that when his troops die they get replaced for free and you can attack with impunity losing all but the daimyo in each battle increasing his honour massively making him and all he commands unstoppable.Still be wary that he will die sometime after 40 years old from illness age or ninja blades.So be sure to keep your troops trained up so if he dies they donot instantly become jelly in battles. ===uses=== Everything except rooting out units from inside forests and assaulting large columns of yari , unless its ashigaru since they often get scared easily and run off. ===Killing them=== Overwhelm them or attack them from above .Push yari samurai at them or lead them into trees. ********************************************************** Japanese strategic units Notes - these units require no koku support per year once you have built them they are yours until the day they die and you don't even have to feed them. ******Ninja****** training time :1 season Cost: 200 koku. Clan that specializes in them: Imagawa. Production building: Ninja house. Provinces with honour bonus: Iga. Best vs : emissaries , low generals , opening castle gates Worst Vs: geisha , daimyo , heirs , border forts availability :1531 Useful but only at high honour it seems that it is highly dependant upon your random number generator in your CPU since I once had a 1 honour ninja kill a Daimyo butthere you go....You can also open castle gates with them which is not documented in the manual which I discovered after laying siege to a citadel and wanted to assassinate the enemy Daimyo inside , which = castle garrison dead.NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER finally EVER neglect them have some practicing on emisaries priests and low generals.As if you do negelect them and you are super superior in battle then enemy may turn to stealth tactics namely geisha tactics which means you can't stop her when she comes. ******Shinobi****** training time :1 season Cost: 100 koku. Clan that specializes in them: Imagawa. Production building: Teahouse. Provinces with honour bonus: Tajima. Best vs : Christian daimyo Worst Vs: any where with border forts.* ** availability :1531 *high honour shinobi can evade border forts easily **in regions with counter spies and border forts you can lose more than 1 shinobi per season I once lost 5 when I put one into shinobi production province and border forted area. Ninja without the assassination ability they act well only really as counter spies and you can stack them up and have loyalties of over 1000% (max I have ever seen is 1399%) so you can produce many of them keep 2 in each province and keep the tax rate at punitive without civvies getting roudy.Beware border forts and other counter spies kill them easily even at high honour.Or incitement of revolts.I also much prefer to use them rather than border forts since : A you can't see them (if you are enemy but then again the CPU knows all and sees all) B it doesn't take up building space C It can't be used against me if the province is conquered. V1.2 I kept getting messages that peasant revolts came about either due to unhappy population natural disaster poor harvest or shinobi action and I always wondered how you made a revolt. When one of my provinces with lots of shinobi was taken by defeat in detail the province just kept revolting against the enemy.o have a shinobi incite revolts you just move them into enemy provinces (owned by daimyo as ronin are revolters) and have them sit and wait stacking them 5-6 for peasant revolts. Its even better if the daimyo is christian as you can incite ikki ko buddhist revolts when you use 10-15 shinobi.If you invade they sometimes side with you but rarely with the enemy daimyo , sometimes they even come under your command.If you do this combined with rear area raids then you can tie up units on the map by making them have to crush rebellions in their rear areas or suffer losses in koku.Which ties units up by their movement back and forth , another side effect is enemy often tries to garrison provinces to keep them happy.This also ties up units , and if daimyo are involved in the crushing of rebellion they can be killed in battle (as each turn you keep 20 shinobi in enemy turf the rebel buddhist army keeps getting bigger) beware though as you may have to face them yourself.Also another downside is that if the revolts are mostly peasant revolts enemies can crush them easily (usually ashigaru units and archers) and gain fame and rank as generals making them extremely deadly on the field. V2.02 update I like to have my daimyo unit , with 3-5 shinobi in support to prevent ninja attack and to prevent other shinobi attacking them or investigating the army he commands.It may also stop geisha for a few turns.You may also want to do this with your high honour generals , which is semi more important since generals (as long as you don't get them killed in battle) live forever daimyo age and die from diseases. ******Emissary****** training time : 1 season Cost: 100 koku. Clan that specializes in them: - Production building: Tranquil garden. Provinces with honour bonus: Best vs : NA Worst Vs: NA availability : from the start Unit for negotiation ie bribes to enemy armies , and make treaties , though I bribed a unit once he took the koku and then instantly turned his back on my to become ronin then became hojo a season later.You ought to have the throne room turned on later when you have crushed most of the enemy forces and have him surrounded on all sides with shinobi and border forts on all sides too.The enemy emissary saves face so much he says troubles between you and him were caused by ronin and bandits rather than you crushing his armies and punishing him.Oh and by the way if you are at war with an enemy daimyo you have to call a ceasefire first then you can send a request for an alliance.If you are winning heavily against him he will always agree to both , when he is even or stronger he may agree then disagree , but you ought to remember alliances and ceasefires are non binding so if you want to invade right after then you can this also applies to the enemy treatment of you. ******Jesuit Priest****** (Christian only) training time :1 season Cost: 50 koku. Clan that specializes in them: - Production building: Church.* Provinces with honour bonus: - Best vs : Christian daimyo Worst Vs: Buddhist daimyo availability :1545 Same as emissaries but cheaper also they never die when used against other christian daimyo.Also if you use them you can train them at +2 honour if you use a cathederal which is a bit pointless since you need major infrastructure to be able to get that. V1.8 update bribing Christian soldiers with a priest is actually more successful than using a Buddhist priest , you might think how do I get one then? simple: >1 invade a Christian province you think there is a church which can be researched with spies , though the church maybe destroyed by your invading troops >2 Bribe the ocupying army so no damage is done >3 Assassinate over and over to clean out the province and move minimal troops in to prevent damage >4 Ally with Portuguese then build a temple immediately after renouncing Christianity *church requires alliance with Portuguese though it can still be built if you renounce your faith , though this still affects your population religions. ******Legendary Geisha****** training time: 8 seasons Cost: 500 koku. Clan that specializes in them: - Production building: Geisha house, with legendary tea house and legendary ninja house Provinces with honour bonus: - Best vs : weak generals , emissaries , daiymo heirs Worst Vs: geisha , daiymo (due to failure rate) availability :1540 geisha , sometimes good sometimes bad , if your CPU random number thing is having a good day she can kill ANYBODY easily and no ninja can ever touch her , but if your CPU number generator has a poor day she will never kill anybody (in that she can never find a suitable time to make her move) and ninja with 0 honour will get her each time though her usefulness is that borderforts and counterspies don't do anything in stopping her and her odds in killing Daimyo and his heirs are better.8 seasons is insane though you could have 8 monk units 8 heavy av units , 8 naginita cav units 8 archers or 8 yari no datchi or 2 kensai or 2 battle ninjas.Consider this before you produce any of them. V1.1 update Geisha can miss the tea ceremony (geisha vs geisha) and you can increase enemy geisha fail rate by use of huge armies (I kept 9000 troops in a provice once) saw geisha attempting to kill my daimyo. She kept failing and failing eventually turned to my weaker generals instead. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ About the Mongol Campaign I haven't played this campaign through thoroughly though I have used the units in some tests in custom battles and here are my general observations .It is supposed to be what the war would have been like if the mongols had actually landed in japan rather than be destroyed in a giant typhoon named kamikaze. I would also comment meat grinder and quarter pounder tactics work great on the mongols at a logical level at least , because mongols do not train on the japanese map they are reinforced each winter you can beat them in attrition by taking as many heads you can till his armies can be crushed easily.Oh also you can prevent reinforcements by surrounding the mongols and outnumbering them heavily since mongols can only get reinforcements by sending loot back to kubai khan and they can only get this conquering your provinces you can keep them at bay for a while at least.Though keep garrisons in your northern provinces that face the sea. V1.9 Update Weapons upgrades and armour upgrades apply mostly to custom battles since you can't actually control how and what condition you get units in from kublai kahn.It makes it rather a red herring compared to units that are trained on the japanese main land. Mongolian invasion infantry NOTE since you don't actually train your units in the mongol invasions things such as cost training facilities specialised clan and honour bonuses is not applicable for these troops.Also there is no diplomacy in the mongol campaign as hojo or as kublai khan , well there is but its only hojo ninjas cutting the necks of mongols though rather than ratification of treaties. ******Korean Spearmen****** Cost : NA Value :NA koku per man (training) : NA Best vs : same as Japanese counter part Worst Vs: same as Japanese counter part March speed : 6 Running speed :10 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus:0 melee bonus : 0 defence bonus: 1 armour level: 2 honour: -1 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA Notes The manual says trained better than ashigaru but less well trained than yari samurai , they seem to be nearly identical in my view maybe they rout slightly easier and suffer slightly heavier losses in engagements. ******Korean Guardsmen****** Cost : NA Value :NA koku per man (training) : NA Best vs : same as japanese counter part Worst Vs: same as japanese counter part March speed : 5 Running speed :8 Charging speed: 10 Charge bonus:4 melee bonus : 2 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 4 honour: 0 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA Naginata but in Mongolian uniform and therefore to be deployed and used in the same way ******Korean Skirmishers****** Cost : NA Value :NA koku per man (training) : NA Best vs : Slow units Worst Vs: fast units March speed : 7 Running speed :12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus:0 melee bonus : 0 defence bonus: 5 armour level: 0 honour: 4 range(if a ranged unit): 1500 ammo(if a ranged unit):4 power(of projectile) : 6 These are nasty they carry about 4* spears but they do have a terrible weakness they have terrible range but this leads to greater accuracy , of a 120 man unit firing on a 60 man unit after 3 tests they get from 20 up to 40 troops at a time which can utterly destroy enemy lines , best saved for use against those pesky kensai and naginitas. Though beware of using them against cav since they travel so fast your skirmishers have little chance to loose off their spears before the cav have them.Also they seem to carry little more than butter knives if even those at all so they die in huge numbers in melee so keep them protected.Up to the 3rd row can fire with skirmishers though expect reduced accuracy though as always with ranged units.Still the beat skirmishers in AoE2 in which they were truely awful A final note is that friendly fire can be nasty with them since they DO fire in arcs their spears can go over friendlyheads , but its not particularly high or far so you can destroy your lines if you keep them behind other units. *manual says 3 but in tests its 4 ******Thunder Bombers****** Cost : NA Value :NA koku per man (training) : NA Best vs : Anything that is standing or stopped either through being tied up fighting or in a castle Worst Vs: fast units good at melee , archers during their own attack March speed : 6 Running speed :8 Charging speed: 10 Charge bonus:0 melee bonus : -6 defence bonus: -3 armour level: 2 honour: 4 range(if a ranged unit): 1300 ammo(if a ranged unit):4-8 power(of projectile) : 6.0 Ha ha I love these , ever remember in command and conquer in red alert as the soviets when you made a huge group of grenadiers or flame thrower infantry? when a allied soldier or emplacement shot your grenadier while he was just about to toss his grenade he would drop it causing a massive chain reaction wiping out your entire group.This too can happen to your thunder bombers if they are in the swinging animation which is quite amusing .A good use is to tie up an important enemy unit say heavy cav kensai etc then have your thunder bombers throw grenades into the melee you WILL take losses but so will the enemy but thats the life of a simple soldier.I also noticed that when the forget to put the pin back in whenthey die the chain reaction will take out units in close proximity friend or foe which can take out important units in their death throes cruel yes.They do not even seem to carry a bladed weapon so they die in droves when fighting them hand to hand , unit sizes are 20 grenades are about 4-8 though I have never had them survive long enough to make a more accurate count. In some historical battles you can get units of 100+ of them which makes them extremely dangerous(mostly to allies) V1.2 addition In flat terrain ranks of 2-3 are ok in close formation , wedge is dangerous to themselves , when using them up hill or into castles have them in loose formation in no more than ranks of 2 since they can hit each other in the back or hit the hill infront of them and have it explode in their faces.Though wedge often limits them so that only a few can fire at a time which is good since enemy ranks standing will reorder themselves into neat lines.So you can keep having 2-3 men throw grenades at the same spot killing many many enemy. V1.6 update using them to fire into blocked bridges into the rear of enemy columns will score massive casualties and therefore they are most effective in this role since there is nothing to hide behind , and they will hit something though potential for friendly fire is medium to high. Unfortunately you need to under write the risk of using them in a recent bridge battle between hojo and me with me holding the bridge with korean guards men and korean spearmen with 4 groups of poppers behind them throwing bombs at the middle of the bridge they carried the day.unfortunately bombers often missed their mark and hit my men or aimed too close , each group had 250+ kills about 70% enemy 30% friendly fire and suffered -3 honour penalty for that.I very nearly had that battle lost since he had reserves he didn't put into the meat grinder but they routed just in time.Test it in custom battle you'll see obsene results holes where infantry were just appear after a grenade attack nasty that is. V1.9 Update Their grenades are as far as I can tell are linear radii based which means to you that they have a damage radii which is about 1.5 inches on a 17 inch screen.All units in this radii seem to suffer the same damage as if it was hitting them directly.Unlike in UFO enemy unknown where grenades would be blocked by the bodies of your troops and enemy troops.And in UFO there is diminishing damage from the centre of the blast this doesn't happen in shogun to save CPU time I suppose. V2.0 update Grenades are impact explosives and donot bounce and donot have a timer if they can be thrown they will go off no misfires like in myth the fallen lords. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ Mongolian Cav ******Light Cavalry****** Cost : NA Value :NA koku per man (training) : NA Best vs : Anything but yari March speed : 10 Running speed :26 Charging speed: 26 Charge bonus:4 melee bonus : 2 defence bonus: 2 armour level: 4 honour: 4 range(if a ranged unit): 5000 ammo(if a ranged unit):28 power(of projectile) : 0.5 Notes Think of japanese cav heavy cav that is , then give them a bow that more or less describes them a little weaker perhaps in melee but enough to take down anything but yari.This in effect makes them even more annoying than cav archers (japanese) since japanese cav archers get slaughtered by yari cav and yari units if you can get them close but they don't do half as well against these.Excellent against troops on skirmish if you have somewhere to run back to to prevent engagements though. ******Heavy Cavalry****** Cost : NA Value :NA koku per man (training) : NA Best vs : Anything Worst Vs: Yari samurai just about March speed : 10 Running speed :20 Charging speed: 24 Charge bonus:6 melee bonus : 4 defence bonus: 4 armour level: 5 honour: 8 range(if a ranged unit): NA ammo(if a ranged unit):NA power(of projectile) : NA Darn unstoppable things put them in any formation you like charge them against anything and 1:1 they will tear them apart yari samurai 1:1 will take them down but when a mongol dies one of you men in that group usually dies also.Though with any upgrades they do much better.Btw they cannot be stopped via naginita or heavy cav (in 10 tests 60 naginita then separately heavy cav they lost 3-6 men while I lost 58-60 depending on if they caught men who routed at the back), and trample your kensai easily.Wedge seems extra effective with them.Strangely they are actually yari cav units in mongol dress though they are much much much more powerful.Grenades work ok against back runners if thick and long lines are used. Ashigaru Crossbowmen (Mongol Invasions)+ historical campaign enemy NOTE these are SAMURAI forces and not Mongol Training time 1 Cost: 100 koku. Value :low koku per man (training) : 1.67 Clan that specializes in them: hojo only Production building: Archery dojo. Provinces with honour bonus: Tosa, Owari. Best vs : Slow units , standing units Worst Vs: Melee units , fast units cav , archers (due to superior range) March speed : 7 Running speed :12 Charging speed: 12 Charge bonus:0 melee bonus : -6 defence bonus: -3 armour level: 1 honour: -5 range(if a ranged unit): 4000 ammo(if a ranged unit):16 power(of projectile) : 3 availability :from the start Terrible terrible units think of musketeers they are nearly exactly the same but they can fire in the rain and fire in arcs* but they shoot slow take years to reload and are also ashigaru after all therefore they rout easy. They carry 16 cross bow bolts they can fire off more than 2 rounds typical firing time is 10-15 seconds per volley.Also their range is poor compared with archers.Also I noticed that the CPU can fire through its own troops and hit yours which is rather strange . *very very very shallow arcs , the manual says they can't fire over the heads of their own men but they can to a very limited extent and you can always try the ofsetting solution so they have a gap to fire between your own men. Update - you can use them much the same as gunners so see the gun combat section for shared tactics. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #5.1 Map tactics (these relate almost exclusively to the full campaigns but make of them what you will) #1 He who controls the spice , if you ever read Frank herbert's Dune or seen the film (the original with sting as feyd) there was a bit where spice is explained , he who controls the spice.... (it might have been in one of the games spun off the film).But here it is he who controls the koku controls Japan.Why is this? , well with masses of koku say at least 10000 profit per year you can produce units with impunity and pump them out endlessly and throw tactics out of the window , your main tactic will be 4 heavy cav units 2 yari cav , 8 monk units and two other units of your choice (I still like archers or kensai).In a battle you lose you may take 1500+ heads losing 960 yourself in the long term the poorer daimyo cannot win.(this is a badly frowned upon tactic called pounding which Napleon and monty did many many times and cost many lives , since lives in this are not real its ok!).Daimyo often play the pounder with cheap troops like ashigaru which works early but is truly deadly with monks and advanced units. #2More more more! This relates to tax rates , once you have a stable economy pump out shinobi (which are free to support anyway) and put 3-4 in each province and you can set taxes to punitive without rebellions. #3 Kursk I name this tactic after the WWII tank battle where superior panzers were destroyed by larger numbers of inferior T34s , if you move a huge army or even multiple armies of 16 units (say 960 men in 60 default size units) on easy and medium 7 out of 10 times the enemy will retreat .Though the 3/10 times they do not can be messy especially if they have over 1500 troops the more the worse , not because you can't take them on but due to time limits and the random positioning of enemy reiniforcements.Which the CPU loves to hide in forests miles away so you would be defeated in that manner rather by losing in the normal way or being slaughtered or routed. #3.1 Unfortunately when enemies do retreat and you control the province its nice , but you do one day have to face this growing army and this can grow into the high thousands (worse case when I controlled most of the japanese islands with 3 provinces still held out by hojo by forcing his retreat he had 4000+ troops against my 9000+ troops).With the time limits set on attacking side you can lose often in this way.There are ways out of this : *1 automatically resolving the attack - I hate this since I loose too many troops vs kills *2 Having mostly heavy cav and warrior monks so they can march quickly to each part of the maps and destroy enemy reinforcements that usually only come in single units until you rout another unit. *3 Send in ninja geisha etc to assassinate enemy generals (or even Daimyo and his heirs) then attack since this makes enemy units rout easier shortening the time needed to dispatch units *4 not chase enemy units who rout and keep an eye out for reinforcements keeping troops in a massive diamond shape so they can kill reinforcements and support each other in times of need. *5 use Emissaries to bribe the enemy armies to a reasonable size. #4 Rear area raid , send in an emissary or ninja or geisha to an enemy held province on the other side of the map then the next season send in a large number of troops often rear areas are not garrisoned or have small garrisons , this only works on provinces with ports. You can burn the port to prevent the enemy from quickly moving troops to recapture the province and protect yourself from it by heavily defending your own ports or burning them. #5 Rear area raid sacrifice , if you have an opponent who uses the above tactic you can protect yourself for up to 5 seasons , repeat as above but after you capture the province evacuate all but a cheap unit. When the province is attacked burn the port , have the skeleton crew fight to the death and you are safe from tactic #4 for up to 5 seasons.Or if the enemy does not rebuild then for much longer. #6 Barbarian denial , if you keep getting traders request an audience and you have lots of koku without the port bonuses burn your ports. #7 try keep a shinobi or ninja with your famous / legendary / Daimyo generals since they will nobble any ninja trying to get them most of the time anyway. #8 mine complexes require at least a fortress #9 ports are excellent in koku bonus and cost nothing to maintain so if you are not too afraid of rear area raids then build them in all costal provinces. #10 Have 3-6 ninja on a diet of emissaries and weak generals (or train them with + honour facilities or provinces or both tactics) as even with 95% chance of success against the enemy you can still lose your ninja since they cost nothing to maintain its ok to keep a few around. #11 Start aggressively since weapons are pretty weak to begin with , generals are inexperienced and you can easily wipe out 2 or even 3 Daimyo before they start to have sons or conquer more provinces and get much stronger units. (my record is wiping out takeda oda , hojo, Imagawa ,and lots of ronin regions.)Also my record to finish the game is 1573 #12 if you have lots of koku build castles in each province so you have fall back positions and backup training facilities should you need lots of replacements in a short time , they cost nothing to maintain and you can reclaim about 40%the cost of building them if you know a province will fall. #13 Cheaper unit support if you clan specialises in a unit is false it is only the cost of training that costs less. #14 You can see who owns what in the throne room map on the close up map provinces you are not adjacent to you cannot see who owns them unless you have spies in them. #15 the amount of red shows how big the army is without spies though this can be skewed by daimyo , kensai and ninja since they are full units but less than 60 men significantly.You can use this as an early assessment of if you can win or not , if you can't burn all your facilities reclaim some koku. V1.7update #16 You maybe unbeatable in battle but geisha especially hostile ones are nasty very very nasty , I always seemed to win battles even at 1:2 (me 1) and I held major blockades all around enemy daimyo provinces , so what does he do he makes geisha and kills all my heirs on by one then kills me = game over . So the lesson? , keep heirs safe , accompany some heirs with shinobi to safe them from ninjas more often than not.When a geisha comes she will have to work her way through all your heirs or if she goes for you first then you have heirs to take your place. Even better you can make your sons sub generals so they are safer , since only the higher ranking general seems to be targeted. But then how do you stop her once she goes on her rampage? well try train as many ninja as possible especially from yamashiro and the province above (one in between) and have these honour 1 ninja attack her she gains honour up to 3 for surviving assassinations, and you may get 14%<-> 1% chances but if you throw enough at her luck will eventually run out.You can keep you daimyo semi safe by surrounding him with troops whenever there is a full army or more she always can't find a suitable opportunity .But as said eventually your luck will run out.You could also cash in your forces ie since geisha come in so late in the game you can go hell for leather and conquer the daimyo she is loyal to once he dies she vanishes. Another is port safety if you have a port transport your daimyo to the furthest part of the map and burn the port on the next turn , she will have to walk , which can buy time enough to throw more ninja at her. But the best cure is prevention , if you start spying provinces with legendary tea houses or even geisha houses then attack that province you probably have 7 seasons to do it in if there is a geisha house , more if there isn't.But the CPU seems to cheat now and again I've had geisha come at me when the enemy has no geisha houses , perhaps he had trained one earlier and kept her in cold storage till she was needed. It might be a bug or something but sometimes when you kill off a faction their ninja and their geisha vanish after a turn (I controled provinces surrounding takeda once killed him and all that were left were ronin).Takeda's geisha was still alive and I was still capturing ninja and would still relentlessly persue my daimyo and his heirs.So killing a faction isn't always 100% sucessful in wiping out enemy geisha though ronin do not seem to train them more rather they gain them when a faction dies. Tactic for teams of shinobi to force revolts can be reversed with horrific effects , I played once and had about 49 of the provinces several were ronin ,I was going for a record time to complete the game and therefore left my rear area somewhat exposed , but left minor garrisons and shinobi at my ports with ninja support to prevent rear area raids.Now hojo had a port free and he crammed hundreds of shinobi through that port through my port losing lots in the process , which led me to think haha can't do that on me.Unfortunately with one in the net a few extra go through and after 3 turns , (I didn't keep an eye properly on the loyalty ratings due to trying to save my last daimyo from 2 geisha stalking him.) 42 of my 49 provinces ally oop'd and revolted against me lots of ikko koku revolts as well which really ruined my day since I thought it was in the bag.The counter for this is when you start aggressively very aggressively slow down if you can't win by 1555 and start garrisoning your rear areas with at least 2 units and keep an eye out with shift on areas that look shaky. At major ports (I like to keep 6 major ports with have iron sand with citedels , and production facilities for most units so I can quickly train units of 3 armour upgrades and 3 weapons upgrades at +2 honour and put them in areas that need help) keep 3-4 shinobi maybe more and never leave them unguarded unless you land lock all your enemies. This may apply (the garrisoning and shinobi) if you decide to side with the Portuguese. Time is precious ok I have fought all the way up to 1623 before without winning but it is precious in one respect you need to kill everybody before geisha start to become common later on real late enemy CPU daimyo think its funny to use 4-5 of them.While keeping huge armies that can't easily be attacked in all his provinces and picking off your men (and clan sons) one by one , oh and it is possible to kill an entire army with 1 geisha it took me 60 seasons to do this but she does not conquer provinces the province stays aligned to the daimyo it was before but without any troops in it. To gain honour for your troops either: #1 train them in better facilities #2 have them fight more #3 Bait siege Bait sieges mean that you attack a province with a castle with equal size army as that of the enemy , try defeat them with good tactics and minimum losses forcing them to retreat to the castle as usual.Then leave the province on the big map and wait until that province is reinforced and repeat as often as necessary. You don't want the enemy army to retreat immediately which is what they do if they are massively outnumbered , just remember to let all your men have a slice of the battle to increase honour collectively. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #5.2 Combat Note these are only opening moves and basic tactics that can be developed and as combat is random these tactics may or may not work for you and the ever changing battlefield. note 2 I also never use group formations if anybody can comment on their uses then feel free to mail me and credit will be given ,I just find that line formations combined with close loose and wedge are effective enough. X = melee unit (non cav) o = cav unit H = archers The sweeper:(attack and defence) Requirements : at least 6 melee units not cav or ashigaru some archers some cav With your 8 units you can form a line of squares 4 men thick almost all the way across the map if you have more units then you can keep them behind in reserve to support any enemy action , if enemies have archers keep in loose formation or bait arrows to any ashigaru units you have or send in cav to deal with them. X X X X X X o o o your intent is to march slowly across the map so that their line meets with yours best to use monks as the Xs and charge at the last moment as lines meet , if enemy forces are smaller or archers are pulled back from the battle then your melee units can support each other and put up to 3:1 from 3 directions which can make enemies rout easily.If enemy formations are much smaller than yours you can even work is as a giant pacific island wedge being: X X X X X X X X o o Your intent is to lure them to attack or be rounded up into the dip in the V shape and encircle , when this happens they CANNOT run away and it becomes a slaughter fest if your encirclement is correct very few enemy troops will survive and your archers can fire into the middle of the circle from close range and your cav catch any troops who escape. The funnel (defensive) Requirements : Daimyo heavy cav some sort of cover at the sides of the battle field some melee units other than cav This is a dangerous baiting tactic , Daimyo make extremely tasty targets for the CPU keep him with 2 cavunits (just not to make it too good to be true) and wait for the enemy to advance wait till the enemy formation is ahead of your hidden lines and attack them completely from behind when they turn to engage from the ambush send in the 2 cav units and the Daimyo to crush the enemy formation from all sides.This does require that the enemy units are not 100% yari samurai or naginita however and doesn't work always since the CPU KNOWS your troops are there cover or no cover.The Daimyo can also be replaced by a single archer unit or gunpowder unit. Chicken (defensive) I don't like this the CPU tries it on with me all too much , but against a small slow force if you have a group of yari cav just have them run in huge circles around the enemy formation until the time runs out or lead them into small monk ambushes in trees. The meat grinder (offensive and defensive) If you are the richer than rich Daimyo with over 25000 koku per year you may want to train armies of 12 monk units and 4 heavy cav units , have them 6 wedges with squares of monks behind them and heavy cav at the sides and one in the centre.Press ctrl+a click on the nearest enemy unit , with a force of that size they WILL almost certainly be crushed. Kill archers that are getting into position to shoot into your monk formations with your cav units .You want to try to do a leap frog if you want to be tactical the wedges move then the squares which keeps your monks rested , PREVENT FLANKING by horses at all costs or you may lose the entire army.The meat grinder can also be done early on after 2-3 years with yari samurai allowing you to play the big powerful unit meat grinder. pelting Pelting is a horrible tactic I find hojo keeps using on me he has 2 archers units for every melee unit , a melee unit is set to engage my unit then he moves archers close to the sides and fires into my melee formation , usually I prevail but lose plentyof troops this is a variation of the bridge block tactic.Its nasty and annoying try it yourself.Its even worse with gunners and xbows since they do so much more damage.It can be done on a massive scale too when entire armies do this on your army. Pawns all of them You need several yari ashigaru units have them proceed out gingerly to attack the enemy units , hide your more powerful units in trees or keep them well back , approach an enemy unit then click rout after a very short fight.The CPU (and many other players) can't resist to chase them which the probably will do , chasing will tire them out (while routed troops can run endlessly more or less) and they will meet your powerful formations and be too tired to fight properly , though beware this can be reversed many times in battles , just don't be too eager to chase routed troops. Bridge baiting Often say bitchu there is one bridge lots of enemy forces (say archers cav and yari or worse) send in a squad of fast troops say yari cav and enemy troops will move forward often to protect their archers retreat , if your bait is still in good morale do it again it will waste enemy arrows.If they are not or you can't be bothered to wait that long send in yari cav while the yari troopers are turning around to go back to the positions they occupied earlier you may catch many off their guard.Then pour your troops across the bridge head and flank and encircle. Daimyo death Daimyo without heir can die on the field , in a battle if you kill a Daimyo you can end the battle right there and then his forces turn into ronin and although sometimes cooperative are easy to take apart one by one. You can also force suicide him by attacking him in a portless province where he cannot escape to a friendly area (ronin and other daimyo owned areas do not count as friendly provinces) He who runs away Lives to fight another day this is especially true since the CPU rarely destroys his own beat up units so if enemies rout , and you know there are no reinforcements destroy them.If the entire army routs then ctrl+a then hold alt and double click the furthest unit and the chase will begin .If you want even nastier surprises try to flank early so you have encircled entire armies there will be very few to tell the tale. Waterloo Since musketeers with bayonettes do not exist a huge group formation with naginita archers and cav inside can work wonders if you have the koku its nearly impossible to break into the square since naginita are so deep and archers can fire at fairly close range into the hordes who cannot approach.Unless a huge heavy cav and combined monk force is sent in to break one side of the square at which you are doomed. ***************************************************************** 5.3 Gun combat (*) <- this denotes a tactic you can use with crossbows I would note many tactics where relate to musketeers only since they repeat much faster (12-15 seconds compared to arquebusiers which have a repeat of about 20-27 seconds so modify these tactics for those cases when you can't afford that extra 75 koku or trade with the dutch instead)Also I would note that body counts when large formations approach my gunners are conducted after the main meat of the battle I remember where the enemy formation was and count the bodies there without chasing , it works since I often retreat my gunners behind my melee units behind my gunners. (*)Your main aim is to fire at deep targets that is units behind units and units overlapping and crowded which means they utterly cannot miss they will hit something.The deeper and more crowded the target area the more kills , try this experiment. bitchu defender (*)3 daimyo vs you with 10 naginita units and 4 units of musketeers 2 yari cav for bait and maybe some no datchi good weather no rain , enemy is 48 units (2880 men) of yari samurai a simple battle which you can barely lose though on paper its very poor odds so many of them so few of you.But its not so simple the bridge acts as a funnel choke point and the start of a horrendous meat grinder that if in real life you saw the river would turn red al la than film I saw once and your hair would go white. You want to line your musketeers to the left and right of the bridge in double row with the 3rd unit on the left side double rank above on the slope the front gunners.Now wait , enemies will come a chargin' at you (keep gunners on fire at will , hold position and hold formation and naginita at the mouth of the bridge).With so many enemy daimyo they often attack together and overlap each other and crowd each other massively.Now draw an imaginary line 25% across from the bridge (from your side) now let them come keep your naginita fighting altogether (all 10 units) on the first 10% of the bridge and charge only at the last moment.Watch how many men gunners take down you can get near 1 gun = 1 man with the crowds and if you keep this up (and bait enemies to keep coming at you never chasing and never moving your units past the 10% marker) and look at the stats at the end I have had stats of each gunner unit taking 3 casulties from friendly fire and each unit taking 500+ enemies each a mamoth 2000 +/- enemy killed just by them since my total kills was 2462 only 512 kills were from melee.Still this is a special case since its obvious this can only be done on bridges but it demonstrates why you need to go after crowds.Though some of my gunners decided to be snipers and took some good long range pot shots which missed their initial targets but hit something behind that target ha.Which demostrates the depth principle on a normal field of battle sans river 2-3 units working in partnership or choke points you form yourself can be used this way.A good example is yari and archers they are often together which is a fair gun target.With 4 gunners you can take around 60-120 men per full volley (if you have synchronised their firing).Each unit has the potential for 2400 kills you can get up to 30-40% of this potential in giant battles such as the above , or even more if you consider that they don't actually fire off all their shots. The counter point to this is that when near the end of the battle when enemy units rally and come at you in drips and drabs (unit sizes of 3-15) your gunners miss quite often and you will only get 3-5 men per unit per unit volley. There is another demo shown here in that you should try your gunners at different honour levels when they are at 0-2 after the battle the concentration of enemy dead are around the end and span of the bridge.At 5-9 honour the enemy dead are scattered further away from the bridge at the opposing end rather than before on the bridge (although there are lots of dead on the bridge and close to it).Although the range of the guns does not change it is the honour that affects the accuracy and confidence of their shooting. As with fire at will high honour units will fire at longer range since they are much more confident of hitting something than lower honour units.So you may have to order your lower honour gunners to fire manually when at longer range to get the 22 second shot gap.(note this assumes that you donot chase the enemy and never cross the bridge itself as a static defence , though you can have your melee units charge enemy units on the bridge you hald them once the enemy resolve fails). I would also like to note that in rain muskets can fire but depending on the severity of the rain a number of your men will misfire , watch them in a 2 man rank during the rain.Only about 5-15 men will be able to fire in the rain which seems to be confirmed by the amount of ammo depleted. (*)I actually experimented with these guys they work well with yari ashigaru if you have 2 gunner units and 1 ashigaru unit then you use the yari as bait , and form a giant V shape : FFFF G G G G G G F = yari ashigaru G = gunners The logic of this is that the yari are a tempting and weak target which the AI goes after alot in a charge skirmish setting ashigaru formation the enemy will berak rank and become a swarm.Your gunners can fire in ranks of 2-3 and take out up to 23 troops per volley.Since they are at very close range and are caught in a cross fire and the approaching formation has no open space to avoid the shots , this also works well with arquebusiers .However there are fundamental disadvantages to this , for a start you need 3 units at least to do this tactic in a 16 unit army 3 monks or 2 monks and some cav will serve you much much better.Also it does not work in rain and needs somewhat flat terrain to succeed , also you may need defenders for the gunners which tie up even more of your units , just in case the approaching unit turns on your gunners in which case you are in serious trouble.In single line they can manage a shot from 12-17 seconds.Multiple lines I can never tell since enemies always seem to engage them before a second shot is fired. After careful experimentation against all troop types in a 1:1 basis (foot troops not cav) they are actually useful if you can get them to at least to honour 5 and with 3 weapons upgrades , to use them hold them from firing until they are about a river apart (measure the river in bitchu on your screen) then let them rip in single line (it is better on bitchu since there is a horrible choke point of the bridge) and you can take out 23 units on the first shot.On the second shot (which even with enemy charging at you) will come just before hand to hand is engaged (remember to turn off skirmish to hold formation and hold position) you can take out up to 35 troops.The way to use them is to stop them firing until the enemy is 17 seconds away to fit in a long burst and a super close burst.Much of the time the enemy routs (who wouldn't when you are suddenly surrounded by your comrades most of them die).Though the conditions for this sort of use is the enemy stays bunched up in close formation , wedge or a bridge crossing column , when ever an enemy changed to loose formation I got about 9 per volley , then 13 max on the next which still leaves many to engage your gunners. Still I prefer warrior monks and cav.Also your gunners will not gain honour for this but they do still have 38 shots left which means if you rotate gunners you can (say 3 units single line fire , run back , have a line just behind them sort of a manual line rotation when you use ranks of 2-3 you can utterly take down approaching enemy lines) though cav WILL destroy your gunners and archers will also outrange them.. I have changed my mind , though I do still prefer monks they have their uses , and can be extremely nasty to the enemy ,though you need 2:1 and a relatively slow unit (any cav will still cut them to bits) turn on hold formation , turn on hold position and turn off fire at will. have them in single file , if there isn't room or you have support from more gunners have them in a 2 man thick rank , fire at the 18 second gap.Have your other group fire at the same time , the next volley will come in about 5-7 seconds from the back row waterloo style , and you can take out 45-59 units in these 18 seconds only suffering 1-2 losses if you are careless in their placement or your men shoot each other in the back, though somehow whenever I did this the enemy did not rout.Still if they are engaged you can sacrifice your men by having them fire at will , some will target the strays you missed on the 4 volleys , some of your men will target other approaching columns.I have to note though it has extreme power it has extreme vulnerability as before to cav unless you can catch them in a 3:1 (3 gunners units all 2 man deep rank in a huge V and you will create a giant trap which anything in the crossfire will not survive except a few lucky (or rather unlucky since they will have to engage enemy units alone and they aren't kensai). Also it relies heavily again upon not being attacked with more units than you have gunners , in 1:1 (unit 60vs60) you will take a huge number of heads but you will most probably lose your gunners unless you have extreme luck. But it doesn't work in rain and as said before is vulnerable dependent upon your luck of the CPU number generator so best have some naginita / yari samurai defend them.Which is bad since it ties up units. (*)With gunners and melee units after the first exchanges and with melee units if you can move your gunners round to the side or better the rear of the rabble fire at the enemy from behind. Often the enemy is tied up and cannot disengage and queues up behind the front line folks and you can pick them off easily though you may lose a few troops it is terrible for enemy morale. (*)NEVER EVER EVER put units amongst or ahead of your gunners I once did this in the heat of battle and misclicked , they can devastate your own forces , units may try to shoot through the gaps between your men but they often fail , since it is so close you can lose 40+ units in a single volley and it can really spoil your day.the only exceptions to this are height differences between your gunners and front ranking units and when your gunners have high honour (at about 5 which is pretty hard to get to in reality but that is what custom battles are for)where they have great accuracy. (*)But you can do this if there is a height difference a the bigger the better put a defensive unit in front of it to absorb the charge and your gunners can fire over the heads of your defending units but it works best usually on a unit waiting behind the fighting unit (enemy) since there is a bigger elevation angle and there is less chance of friendly fire.With those huge differences on some maps you can keep musketeers super close and take 30+ per volley and your defence team can clean up.If they rout you can chase with the gunners.An example is Bitchu where there is a slight hill to one side of the bridge (if you are the defender then looking down the bridge it is on the right hand side) you can keep a small squad of gunners up there and fire into the crowd just behind your defence team.Just make sure that your defence team isn't flanked so they go for the gunners , which is double trouble since they attack from a height advantage AND attack your weaker units first.The way around that is a possible complete line across the map though your mileage may vary on this since not all maps are perfect. (*)With height difference if there is a slope that means a 2 or 3 rank deep gunner unit is standing on it sometimes the gunners behind can fire at the same time as the front runners , this does mean than you can't keep a constant rate (ie one line runs to the front fires , runs to the back reloads while another line runs to the front and fires etc) which means you can cram more firepower into much less space.On the defending side of Bitchu the edge of the bank (on both sides of the bridge) is just enough of a incline to allow some of your troops on the rear ranks to fire at the same time. In rain if you are pretty confident you have enough melee units to protect your gunners or can keep them out of harms way the keep them on the field.use them for the chase when the enemy routs , since they are ashigaru units they can move quickly and take many many heads , which is an excellent way to gain honour for them since shooting doesn't really earn too much.This extra honour can make them lethal. (*)There are exceptions though when you can have skeleton crews of dedicated melee units , when your men get high honour (the gunners) you can really play 16 men deep lines its better as always on hills since you get extra safety.have 12 units of gunners in single line with the 4 extra units in the wings for support and prevention of flanking.And you can have them hold position fire over and over over each others shoulders which means you can have an horrible kill zone in front of your men one entire unit long , you will lose a few but hey that is the price of kill zones.If enemies come in 2-3 units they get shot to pieces and often rout , if enemies come in force and attack with huge numbers of units you get the chance to fire into huge crowds and take massive head counts.When the get close you can rotate the front row to the back and have a backwards moving waterloo type line.With such losses the enemy will be seriously weakened and your 4 units can fight quite effectively.At which you can move your guns round to the sides and fire into the enemy sides and rear awesome , and hard to do.A note is to keep ranks straight have hold position and hold formation turned on and when people start to walk halt them. (*)Using them again with bridges you can have them at 45 degrees to the bridge away to the sides , if you put troops in to fight and block the bridge you get a huge traffic jam.With your gunners firing into this mass of men your gunners cannot miss and will score huge casualties on the enemy , you maybe surprised how much the green bar grows if you get it right , don't use free fire mode though you may kill your own manually target the middle and rear of the column, archers are good in this way too. Guns on cav , this is a difficult one you just want to go 2:1 or 3:1 vs cav firing a couple of seconds after they come into range and gambling on if you can get a 2nd super close shot.With multiple lines you can waterloo , that is to have 3 units ranked 2 men deep.Of this you fire twice (once for each rank) then have them run behind your next line , have them fire repeat with the last line , the problem is that cav are so powerful vs gunners that even a few left can seriously damage your forces . There is a minor tactic that sometimes works and sometimes does not with high honour daimyo on the field (yours) it might work well.Or could fail badly , its the English gun line combined with the highland charge , you want a single line fire once at max range then once at close range then charge , since both shots will reduce numbers of the enemy heavily you will win on weight of numbers.Which is quite sucessful all units have trouble when they are heavily outnumbered. (on the training mission where you have a group of archers on a hill top and yari samurai approaching you , you can defeat them by reducing their numbers so you get 3-2 odds and therefore win marginally). Multiple ranks on hills seem able to fire over the heads of units infront of them , either that or it was a lucky miss since I have not tested this conclusively. I have done this only once on that large province on the right of the map after which I was routed (they had as a counter attack 8 heavy cav and 2 monk squads while I had 2 gunners and a rank of monks) You can experiment on line formations of 2 men thick and put men in-between each other so that they do form a near solid line and do not hit each other , this needs patience to form up and often they donot stand on the same place after a few shots.But it can be extra devastating since you get the full firepower of a single burst (ie 50% x2) but a fast repeat when the men from behind do the same.All this is in the same area of effect rather than spread out when you use separate ranks standing independent of each other.Gives a shot once every 8-10 seconds at full power , and makes these boys nearly impossible to approach , just remember to have hold formation and hold position on and manually adjust the fire at will button , you can also do this staggered to have a 50% power shot ever 4 seconds which is quite effective but I suppose I enjoy it when my men fire and 40+ men fall example is: X = gunner X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X However don't stack them too close or have 2 units in the same space etc XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx When I say this I mean a melee unit in the x space since some of the gunners will think I haven't got a clear shot and will not fire reducing the effect of each volley though this only seems to be troublesome in 120 man unit sizes. Guns on guns is an iffy one if you are standing waiting for gunners to come into range you will win , if you are approaching and want to fire on a unit watch his men.The second the kneel and aim , open formation and stand firm they'll fire at maximum range taking at most 10 men.Run forward and take your shot and you'll get it closer and have deadlier effect.Since I'm assuming (dangerous) that you will use muskets that have a higher cycle rate and well ordered troops. OR Stop just outside maximum range to goad the enemy into walking forward a few steps therefore being in range , you shoot first , many of his men fall therefore those dead cannot shoot.Run back a bit to stay out of range then repeat. Same as the C&C tactic those who are dead cannot hurt you so get the first shot if possible.Though remember this is guns vs guns with any supporting enemy units the outcome is unpredictable.Though with more enemy units you may score more but there will be more of them left to massacre you. The fuse , I name this the fuse , when faced with small units say ninja or daimyo or beat up units .After the customary shots and they surviving enemy engages your troops you want to turn the formation into a 2-3 man thick line with the thin part facing the enemy unit. They will be busy killing your men at the end this buys the time for the rest to reload , and either shoot up close or get a shot in when the man next to him falls.Which will slowly reduce the enemy formation to nothing.Though this is extremely wasteful but its better than losing the entire unit , especially when you have no options. Rout lines This is an interesting tactic I tried once when I was really being battered on all sides had little koku to spare to invested heavily in guns I held 9 provinces (Western Japan) all with ports which were conquered from Hojo.All had ports and all had guns each port had 6 shinobi and many had border forts and I was poor.But to my advantage was masses of guns and many many rank 5 generals. Thing is the other side (takeda I think) had lots of troops ready to pounce , since he could not sea attack me he had to come through the small island to the west.He also had a rank 6 general and lots and lots of foot soldiers.So here is something to try (adapt to your own situations) (works best on foot troops cav is v hard to keep rank and file and destroy large groups).Also note you have to sacrifice territory for this (sort of like NATO vs WARSAW pact) Defence battle 1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DDDDDDDDDD 2xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 4xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 5xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 7xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 8xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 9xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 10xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 11xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 12xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 13xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 14xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Legend x = gunner DDDDDDDDDD = daimyo / high general What you want to do is start like the diagram with all units at hold fire and the high general (make sure it is a fast unit daimyo is on horse therefore fast enough).First line fire two shots one max range (have high honour gunners at front for longest range).Then rout that unit move the high general behind line #2 infront of line #3 .Have line #2 fire ASAP rout line #2.Repeat the enemy will have 16 volleys of hot lead fired at them which causes massive damage. now if you have room on the map try to reform this line again with the daimyo / high honour general you get easier rallies and reform as many lines as possible.Fire as many as possible till the enemy is near then sacrifce 2 lines of gunners (one infront of the other so the rear can fire while the front line is being massacred) If possible reform again further back , if not run like the wind off the map you should have done major damage to the enemy forces paid ideally only 2 units and one province.And gotten 600-1300 heads which makes a counter attack easier , true the enemy general will get +1 battle win but with less troops it might be easier to take him on in a later counter attack. ************************************************************************ 5.31 Arquebusiers vs musketeers When going about my daily business I heard somebody once say arqebusiers are more lethal at close range than musketeers because once at close range I let loose a volley and 30+ heavy cav units fell at my feet and routed."Yeah" he said ," but musketeers have much better ability to shoot at long range"."The assumption being that enemy will never get close to enemy units" So what did I do I tested it here are my results based on the map 4th kanekawa on the flatish bit of land just to the left of where you start in a custom battle vs 1 unit of heavy cav.All units 0 honour no weapons upgrades and no armour upgrades.At the range when heavy cav have the status of attacking when they run up to your units.All gunners had hold position and fire and hold formation and were allowed to fire at will when the enemy status was on attacking played at normal all without rain. Arquebusiers double ranked men Test: >1 = 17 kills >2 = 14 kills >3 = 18 kills >4 = 18 kills average = 16.75 kills 0.2791 kills perman Arquebusiers single ranked men Test >1 = 19 kills >2 = 11 kills >3 = 12 kills >4 = 14 kills average = 14 0.2333 kills per man musketeers double ranked men Test: >1 = 22 kills + taisho and rout >2 = 21 kills >3 = 19 kills >4 = 20 kills average = 20.5 0.3416 kills per man musketeers single ranked men Test >1 = 22 kills + taisho and rout >2 = 21 kills + taisho and rout >3 = 19 kills + taisho and rout >4 = 20 kills + taisho and rout average = 20.5 0.3416 kills per man So in my tests I find on average in 4 tests that musketeers are deadlier at long and short range though these are no way 100% conclusive tests and such situations may or may not be repeated in battle.This sort of makes musketeers deadlier since they can shoot with ok accuracy at long range and due to their shorter turn around time get a close up shot. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #6 Misc notes - battlefield Don't always chase routed troops there maybe reinforcements on the way check troop numbers before each battle even just with a passing glance , it could be a trap. Outnumbered troops fight very poorly , try defeat in detail tactics Remember shogun is an attrition combat game not a loss less combat game such as homeworld where your fighter squads can fight kill the enemy and be barely damaged , Losses are normal even when troop status is at winning easily , unless the enemy routs almost instantly. When I first began to play I was over protective of troops and withdrew them at critical moments losing battles let them fight it out. Ronin can actually fight as allies for you though after the battle you will have to fight them. When fighting with allies let the allies attack first no matter what the status of your units neglect that extra head count and honour , let the enemy get tired killing your allies , as eventually allies break apart and you will have to face those troops yourself one day.If you don't like your ally or if they are stated as neutral and may fight anyside you can alt click them to kill them also.I would note who has the most men standing at the end of the battle takes the province. Unless a general is seriously demoralising his troops never destroy units use them as scouts , bait or suicide troopers. I cannot vouch 100% for this but winning battles seems to = heirs when I first started to play I was highly defensive and kept mostly to myself and got a heir after 9 years when fighting and winning I got a heir after one year. Unless there are too many enemy troops (5500+) command attacks and defence personally you will almost always take more heads than the computer auto resolving will and possibly even win (by cheap tactics like the timer perhaps note I used to have this at 1500 but it seems I got better)*though you can try *during a recent massive massive massive battle my 1752 troops went up against 9800 troops and it was an utter massacre , I think maybe the CPU gets busy or something but in that huge battle enemy reinforcements often stood around doing nothing , even getting pelted by my arrows, in front of my units,If you spot this you can get an easy massacre by using a mutlidirectional attack 2 , 3 or 4 side attack and you will barely lose any men.But when in titanic battles yari cav are useful to chase routed troops while your main force engages reinforcements. When it says reinforcements have arrived it means your reinforcements , enemy reinforcements do not announce themselves they march onto the map. When armies are divided and the camera cannot reach double click on the unit banner (the bar at the bottom of the screen) and it will fly to that unit To speed up the flight movement press any of the arrow keys and the transition is instant though sometimes disorientating. daiyamo should not really be led onto a battle field unless you are short on troops their unit is of 11 heavy cav which is signifantly weaker than a full unit.Also on the field they can die somewhat easily an arrow here an arrow there a surprise attack and you are toast , taisho are much more disposable. morale states- Impetous Steady* Uncertain Wavering Running away [withdrawing] The presence of warrior monks usually makes units start at steady rather than impetous. Combat states Winning easily Winning slightly Evenly matched losing slightly Losing badly Though these should not be taken at face value when attacking with naginita it often swings from both extremes. Energy states Fresh Quite fresh tired quite tired exhausted competely exhausted It can take up to 6 minutes for any unit to recover from complete exhaustion to quite fresh , I don't know the full effects of energy states but charges can't be maintained and I think attack defence and speed would be affected. There are errors on the beach maps an in kublai khan maps , where enemy units can get into places where your troops cannot , this can cause losses through timer which is cheap.try to approach the stuck enemy unit from a different angle if they are stuck or use archers to reach out and touch those units. That also applies to map edges units stop the chase after they get to near the edge of the map , you can catch a few more units with arrows in the back. In massive massive massive battles where every daimyo (rare) is against you and there are ronin also positions may change.Normally on each map there is a defender starting area and an attacker(s) starting area , in these huge battles the computer sometimes runs out of space to put all these enemy and put them on your side of the map.This can really knobble tactics like at bitchu normally you are defending against a bridge crosser but with huge battles sometimes they start on your side to the left and the right. Which makes it just that bit harder. ***************************************************************************** #6.1 Misc notes - map Geisha are expensive in time terms don't use geisha against geisha you'll kill the enemy geisha but lose yours also , use a ninja or something. You can keep your ports semi safe by garrisoning them or keeping ninja / shinobi or border forts in them when an emissary ninja or shinobi (enemy) comes to try instigate a rear area raid you can assassinate emissaries and capture enemy shinobi and ninja. Heirs , daiymo and famous generals cannot be bribed no matter how much koku you try to give them.Still , if you use a ninja to kill the heir then they may or may not sucumb to your pots of gold. It is possible to make a general , like manufactured bands , if you just combine weak armies into bigger ones the status of generals becomes better as the army size increases so you gain honour bonuses without having to fight.Though it is rather hit and miss. You can deny enemies heavy cav and naginita cav by conquering provinces with iron sand deposits. Diluting isn't as serious a deal as the manual makes of it mixing 0 honour with 5 honour units will reduce the overall honour but I find honour doesn't make that much difference the major factor being numbers and koku. Never let heirs become ashigaru heirs are useful when a random event kills you this also applies to kensai.And ashigaru die so easily in battle , they are much better as heavy cav monks or naginita since there are good honour bonuses for troops under them. Never let ashigaru become generals either have them as support units let the samurai be the commanders , so you don't get the "your general is doing you a great dishonour and is running away like a dog" as this may not turn the battle but causes morale to fall. When going up against an evil ninja favoured daiymo pump out shinobi and build border forts to keep your best generals alive.Or invade provinces where there are advanced ninja facilities , this also applies to geisha though they are less of a problem due to their training time of 8 seasons. Enemy units cannot be starved to death outside castles , when you lack koku units are destroyed since you can't feed them I assume they starve to death. late in the game I forced major retreats to the hojo capital and surrounded a province with 5 960 man armies in each.His retreats consolidated all his troops into a 220 koku area with a mine complex potentially giving him 440 koku from improved farm land and 800 koku from mines and 500 from trade.that is about 1500 koku = 1500 max troop support per year, (I exhausted his spares through forcing him to produce units to defend against my raids I think).However he kept over 12000 troops in that single province only a few hundred being ashigaru units.After 23 seasons of this stalemate none of his troops died from lack of koku , maybe they are cannibalistic against the peasants of the region. Once you have land locked an enemy clan you can build castles and ports at all of your coastal provinces beefing up your income heavily even if you reduce the tax rate. tax rates Very low = 75% Low = 90% normal 100%* high = 110%* punitive 120%* *I'm not really sure how somebody would pay 100%+ of his income I suppose it includes labour though a low tax being 75 and 90% are pretty insane anyway.But at punitive you get 10 koku more than the farm income and at 5 at high tax levels.Though tax isn't really a way to effectively control the peasants in my view shinobi and garrisons are much better. on maps where the description says it is easily defendable with you as an attacker ALWAYS attack personally since the computer gives this as a massive advantage often putting 5000+ men into a region vs 900 and automatically resolving the attack with me losing 2000+ and the enemy losing less than 200.The inverse is true though. You can see what areas have what specialities by just looking at the map a bucket indicates minerals either ironsands or something that you can mine for extra koku.A horse represents better cav al la shinano. A cheap(ish) way to gain extra honour for you ninja and or geisha (up to 6 I think correct me if I am wrong) is to attack a ronin province (ronin is better since they donot reinforce each other as much as daimyo do) with 1 yari ashigaru unit then you can do two things: have the computer auto resolve the attack where you will most likely lose , repeat until the enemy general gets high in rank and practice you geisha and ninja against this general , repeat over until you have +4.Or look for super high ranked generals at a max of 6 which will boost your geisha stats up considerably. And make her impossible to stop even with other geisha since sh (yours) can evade the enemy geisha's tea ceremony. At +4 your ninja (if he survives that long) and geisha can go after bigger targets to attain the +6 rating. Go into battle and immediately rout your general will get -1 but who cares its only yari ashigaru and he leads no units but his own and eventualally you won't even have to rout them they will run scared themselves.This counts as a win and you can repeat over and over (at the expense of time only) and use your ninja and geisha on them to beef up their honour levels.Ninja for countering geisha , geisha for kills.As the message : even loyal retainers sometimes cannot be trusted is annoying and pretty scary since it can mean game over no matter how many troops you have on the field about to inflict that killer blow on that last enemy daimyo... Still against daimyo you can assign more than one geisha for assassination mission.On expert mode I have had 3 chase my daimyo sometimes. alliances with portugese and the dutch are also worth 200 koku units per year. You don't actually have a capital as I first thought your sons are born wherever and they become generals when they mature at the place where a unit is next produced I think from the left of them map to the right.Though do make him a general as if you donot then when you (daimyo) dies your heir will not take over your position. You might sometimes see clans come back from the dead unfortunately when your last daimyo dies the game is over. Be swift when you have no heirs left and it is past 1590 since I never seem to get heirs after then , if you can certainly die from old age and lose the game , if you are the only daimyo left all of japan becomes ronin.Sort or much like the 1580 start where about 52 of all provinces are ronin. Its a lie ronin and bandits can act in in unison and will gang up on different provinces acting almost like daimyo but without the strategic units.Though rear area raids seem rare still though. Ninja are a big pain especially when the enemy has a high honour ninja and eh is killing off your generals one by one although the CPU knows where your shinobi are you can stop ninja by putting high value targets relatively alone in an area full of shinobi.Unlike towers they cannot be seen by the enemy and you can execute any ninjas they send to you .Targets that the CPU always seems to go for are my emissaries heirs and high ranked generals. There is an excellent cheaty way to get troops of all types for very little investment , on your front lines put up to 25 shinobi (2500 koku + 1000 odd for the facilities to train them) .Then if an enemy attacks and conquers the province (which you can leave it skeleton crew'd if you want to act as bait) they easily revolt and turn into troops under your command. At which you can fight or rout them to a nearby province with enough shinobi you can get 600+ troops of varying kinds for free each turn.Until the enemy puts in many shinobi of his own or is killed and does not try to hold the province. Though I have yet to get kensai heavy cav or gunners.If you retreat them into a friendly province you can build up huge numbers of them so quickly that it would take years to train them all (some of them sometimes come with upgrades as well) that you can do this for 8 seasons then move your own troops in to force them to retreat.At that you can clean up his provinces by force retreating. A general at -4 ranking will automatically commit suicide oh the shame the shame..... #6.2 Ninja Training I've been asked repeatedly on how to build up your ninja since they die so easily , I'm not a huge fan of ninja myself but I'll run you through what I know , this is from a basic ninja house but you can adapt them to beef them up even more.They start out really fragile and they need some more real life training as the stuff they learn in the ninja house just doesn't cut it (excuse the pun). First ninja are a game of numbers ever play roulette or lottery? well if you decide to go ninja you want to make lots of them about 30 since we expect most of them to die (put aside the 6000 koku for them).Now we can go two routes : >1 lucky >2 Long haul >1 Lucky I'm not a firm believer in luck I prefer skill to luck but find a high honour general / high command general or diplomat or priest and keep attacking him with ninja eventually one will get him and earn rank according to the target rank.Though this is wasteful and very dependant on chance you often play 1%< on odds of getting a good kill and still have to escape detection after you get the kill nothing quite as annoying as that. >2 Long haul Ok you have your ninja so lets wipe out weak targets like diplomats and low general (ronin generals are excellent since they don't often build border forts).Now a few will die in this process and steadily keep attacking for a year or so (keep producing ninja) as more will die (yours and theirs) and you will get several survivors, now you want to use these survivors on higher generals. So this means going to the enemy but wait border forts can really easily kill your ninja so lets see make a diplomat and a shinobi.Put a diplomat into an enemy (or allied) province. End your turn and check if there are border forts , if there are not and the emissary does not get murdered there is probably no ninja there either.Send in your shinobi to check on shinobi presence if he dies quickly then don't send in your ninja as he will probably be caught and die.Target another province and repeat. Steadily work up to more generals trying not to get % odds of less than 60% (remember it might be 50% odds but that also means 50% odds of getting your man killed).In the mean time keep training up ninja to repeat the cycle and eventually you will have several 5-6 star ninja , but that does not make him invincible.Keep several around to take out geisha.For the time of one geisha you can make 8 ninja so go figure playing lucky on her for quick rank gains. >3 Logistics Ie get +2 honour ninja from Geisha houses though when you have one of those you might want geisha , then use the tactics as described above to get them to +3> honour. ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ ************************************************************************ #7 Castle attacks Castle attacks are pretty easy and extremely unrealistic (see Ran for some castle attacks) in that they are tiny castles with pathetic walls which you can't set fire to or use siege weapons against. Note castle attacks are all the same* they are always one of the maps you can choose on the custom battle map choosing screen so you can practice attacking and defending them with different combinations of troops.I personally think a castle with many naginita cav archers and 2 kensai with monks filling in any of the spaces or yari to stop your horses is a tough combination.Yari ashigaru are slightly more dangerous here too as they cannot rout and they must fight , normally in an ashigaru engagement after killing 10-20 of them they rout but here they fight to the death as rout is not an option. *in historical battles and campaigns castles are different from the default few that you see in sengoku jidai.Still the castles in the historical missions are much the same or even easier to overcome and defend since they are built on flat ground and not always a plateau. Ending a siege by storming the castle: Essentially you want to wait until archers and other long range units are dead through attrition of waiting.When you do this you can use your own archers to fire into the castle , on easy you can sit just outside the gates and exhaust all your arrows depleting a major number of troops inside before putting your melee units in.Kensai (2+) are almost perfect for this. If there are archers behind the men at the gates exhaust their arrows(since they are particularly lethal due to the choke point effect of the gate) with yari ashigaru units at maximum range it may take 5 minutes off your attack timer (this does not work for unlimited ammo settings) then charge in.You have to remember the siegees cannot rout except back into the castle if you have them send in ashigaru units to tire out the defenders , then match units and charge in once you have a foot hold ctrl+a and charge in and overwhelm enemy units.Ideally this only works if you have many many more troops than they have in the castle , though you can reduce their numerical advantage through waiting extra seasons. At higher difficulty levels enemies will charge out to meet your forces so you need to defend those archers as they fire into the castle, if you haev multiple armies you can even self rout (or with draw rout is faster but = -honour) and have more archer reinforcements arrive if time allows it.There is also no real need to target the general since that only reduces their morale and since they fight to the death (defenders) they won't rout anyway. Gunpowder units should be attacked in the rain or baited with ashigaru units at maximum range to exhaust them and their ammo or even wait for rain. a really easy way to get a castle is to use a ninja to open the gates you lose 0 men but the enemy suffers 100% casualties. If you are rich rich rich and have kensai lots of them that is have them in the thick of it as much as possible too beef up their experience points and have them with 3 armour and 3 weapons upgrades , alone they can handle up to 900 men if you use about 5 of them since alone they are strong , but they synergise and become even more lethal. Keep your eyes open also , often I've seen the CPU do this it doesn't keep all its troops inside the castle and tries to do a two way attack on you surrounding your frontal units , as a counter keep a few back if you can spare any or anticipate that.Or if you have time kill them first then attack the castle. Breaking a siege This is actually quite tough especially if you have a small army in the ideal world you have archers naginita etc , keep naginita in tight formation around the gate (loosen them if arrows start a flyin') and keep archers firing at the gate , you want to produce a funnel effect.A kill zone if you will naginita hold position while enemy have to run the gaunt let of massive arrow barrages walk up the hills and get tired.You only need to hold out for 35 minutes max.Though your arrows may not last that long have your archers hold fire unit they are very close as you get a better hit ratio.If the enemy is a meat grinder your naginita can hold the front off and a huge queue will develop behind the front liners which is easy meat for archers as every arrow will hit somebody if not kill them outright. Whatever you try don't just stand there and get pelted to death by arrows remember the castle is built on high ground so you have an attack bonus outside the castle but not inside (except the attackers will be tired climbing up the hill into your castle). A extra effective funnel effect is much the same as bridge defence in that you let them get tired running up the hill and let them come slightly into the gate so you can attack the enemy unit(s) that gets through from at least 3 sides and use arrows. Units right next to walls of the castle (from the direction arrows are coming from) also seem to take less casualties from arrow induced death I suppose the walls act as a barrier that can't be arced over when they are so close. If you don't have the units to form a kill zone march out your troops onto the field and take them on as normal , with maximum unit matching and use of trees to hide your units and reduce cav advantages.You want to try kill generals to reduce morale since attackers can be routed.yari units can also be sacrificed to buy a few minutes from enemies chasing them around the map. If you have units to spare then use another army to break the siege this is fought exactly as if it was an attack on a province and may or may not make it easier to take the province back.Though potential losses are more potential kills are more too. extra notes: If you play a custom battle and have thunder bombers attacking a castle they are incredibly effective against anything inside , since inside most of the smaller castles (