help with chosokabe strategies DM 3.9

[yutterh]

im using the sengoku period cause i havent bought the expansions. I tried playing with the chosokabe because i liked the island thing but it ltook me forever to take over the first town because i had to fight rebels then build up a huge army to take on the first clan. i noticed the bows are not that much better as it is supposed to be. i got a lot of kills but they didnt exactly change much in the battle. figured they rely on bows more then anything else but they are still jsut a support. Most likely im playing them wrong but any help with using them in the DM 3.9? oh and dont know if its a glitch or not but the bow samurai werent made in one turn.

[Elitewolf]

Be sure to enable projectile boost. Bows are rather useless without it. I find them balanced with it enabled.

Use lots of bow samurai and monks. When you can get them, build Daikyu samurai. Those things murder everything. Once you capture the entire island go for the smithy province on the mianland (Bizen, I think) and upgrade it to a master armorer with an armor encampment. Use that to churn out naginatas who are near invulnerable to arrows (armor of 14) and capture the nearby craftworks province. Build a master fletcher there, a bow range and a hunting lodge for +25 accuracy and the chance to build daikyu's. Make your army: 33%/33% daikyu and naginata samurai, use the naginatas to hold them off while letting the daikyus fire at the enemy. The insane armor will keep the naginatas safe. Fill up the remaining space in your army with cav (yari cav to kill their general, charge from behind and run down routers) and perhaps a mangonel. You are now free to pwn everything with impunity.

Also: Accept the nanban trade port. The extra trade lane is invaluable. Be sure to build a temple and a monk in that town though.

[rob-a-dogg]

Bowmen are almost always a support unit. With yari ashugaru units at 375 men per unit my bow ashugaru get 200-400 kills per unit consistently without projectile boost. The key is target selection and positioning. And try not to keep your archers on auto fire as they will start shooting the nearest target to them at the time and continue to fire at that untill it leaves their killing range even if other things come in closer in the mean time. It is ok to start with, when the bad guys are moving into range for the first time, but once they get to about half range I start to pick targets myself.

Once your main lanes clash and are locked in melee, you should be moving your archers around the flanks or through any gaps in the line so they are behind the enemy. Now you can have your archers fire into the melee from point blank range into the bad guys backs. As Chokosabe I personally like to use my ashugaru archers primarily to counter the enemy archers. The clan bonus' I agree are a complete joke, but stats wise man for man your archers are superior to all other couterparts so you do have a small edge here. Archers (BUT NOT CAVALRY ARCHERS) are also cheaper to build and upkeep for Chokosabe, dont over look this.

Also look for gaps in the line where the enemy is protruding through onto your side. If you can see a mass of bad guys without many of your own in there, start firing. Normally this situation is bad for you, as your line is split and bad guys can start enveloping your unit, which is bad because it usually means the enemy has more troops then you and is smothering your own troops. However, if you have archers there BAM they just start murdering people with their bows up close. Completely reverses the situation, the enemys advantage just became a dead weight. This is an excellent place to lay a volley of fire arrows.

Daiku samurai need a bit more special handling to be fully effective as they have a low rate of fire like ashugaru, but boy howdy do they kill things with their volleys or what? Yes they do. Dont waste Daiku volleys on ashugaru, or monks - wherever possible hit samurai and preferably not naginata samurai as they have higher armor. That said if you have other things to deal with samurai (Monks, katana sam) the Daikyu is not to shabby at softening the naginata samurai up.

Remember that you wont be killing entire units with bowmen. They are there to sap the strength of the enemy so your melee units do better when it comes down to brass tacks.

[Prnn]

Be sure to enable projectile boost. Bows are rather useless without it. I find them balanced with it enabled.

Did you even play vanilla?
Arrows were murder, and could finish entire battles before the samurai got to the fore.
Hell, if you made effective use of your Ashigaru it was entirely likely that the enemy would never even touch your Bowmen.

Most of your other advice is sound though, though I have to note that it is entirely possible to go fully Christian as Chokosabe without it being much of a downside.
You don't really need the monks and the upsides immensely outweight the downsides for an island clan.

Also Yari Ashigaru are made of love and candy and you should have many of them at all times.
Their only job is to hold the enemy still while you deploy arrows.

[rob-a-dogg]

Christianity should not be dived into without a decent economy, or without some kind of preparation. You will get killer unrest when you convert due to religeous differences between your clan leader and the population. Monks and Missionarys are virtually identical. They have 'different' skill trees inso far as they order of the skills you get are jumbled up but neither is better then the other really. Harder to incite rebellion with missionaries while they are lower level but other then that nothing else sticks out in my mind.

[Elitewolf]

Did you even play vanilla?
Arrows were murder, and could finish entire battles before the samurai got to the fore.
Hell, if you made effective use of your Ashigaru it was entirely likely that the enemy would never even touch your Bowmen.

Most of your other advice is sound though, though I have to note that it is entirely possible to go fully Christian as Chokosabe without it being much of a downside.
You don't really need the monks and the upsides immensely outweight the downsides for an island clan.

Also Yari Ashigaru are made of love and candy and you should have many of them at all times.
Their only job is to hold the enemy still while you deploy arrows.

Yup, I did. Stopped rather quickly because arrows were too strong. Which is why I like the projectile boost, it makes arrows useful as they should be, but arrows alone won't win you any battles.

It is indeed entirely possible (and preferable. Christianity is ALWAYS preferable. I never use monks anyway and the church boosts and easy rebellions are just icing on the Nanban Trade Ship cake) to go christianity. However, it is difficult and requires a bit of practice to pull of easily and you will need time anyway until you are able to convert. Once you have the entire island is probably a good time. Until then you want as little unrest as possible, hence the monastary and monks: They will slow down th econversion.