Katana suspect morale

[Hawkeye74]

What's up with the Katana Samurai, I mean they are samurai right?

Well, why do they keep running away, after losing maybe 30 or 40 men?

Whereas the ashigaru peasants usually stand until almost the last man.

Every time I've put the katana samurai on the frontline, even with the General right next to them, with ashigaru on either side, they buckle first leaving the ashigaru. Should it not be the other way round?

Up against lesser troops, like ahsigaru, the katana just seem to have no backbone.

Is this a bug, or are they designed to be pussies, it doesn't really fit with the mystique?

Don't have FOTS only Jadai and ROTS

Peace.

[Lito]

Last time I checked they seemed fine for me, maybe not fantastic, but ok.

Versus 2 lets say yari ashigaru they might have problems because of the sheer numbers, specially when sandwiched in, but vs one unit they should cut trough without routing and taking max 20 casualties.

Is this in all battles? Maybe some monk demoralized your army/you have some penalties.

[Elitewolf]

All troops tend to run away really fast. I'm playing a ROTS campaign and battles take about 5 minutes, after the initial clash most units just run away, even when they've not yet lost a quarter or anything.

[Hawkeye74]

This is in every battle, I'm usually playing on hard, but man for man, it would seem the ashi's stand up to the attrition of an enemy onslaught much better than the katana.

Every single battle I have fought with katana they are the first to go, without exception.

This I have to factor into my set up, even if they are behind a defensive line of ashi's and I throw them in once the enemy have made contact 9/10 times katana flee.

It's got to be a bug.....

[Lito]

Maybe a bug.
However I prefer a strategy using naginata samurai + katanas, naginata take the damage, but katanas strike in the sides or back. Awesome strategy, specially if you have the armor upgrade for naginatas, then they can hold on for tens of minutes versus a superior force.

How about the forces you fight with? Are you outnumbered or does it happen no matter the size of your and enemy army?

[CTD_or_Bust]

I've found units rout like crazy in RotS.

[cyox]

I've found units rout like crazy in RotS.

ya i saw this in ROTS aswell. everything broke incredibly fast regardless of unit type. not in vanilla though.

[Lito]

I"ll have to check ROTS campaign too, want to see if its only you guys.

[Elitewolf]

I've found units rout like crazy in RotS.

MY problem exactly.

[CTD_or_Bust]

It never bothered me so much.. I don't know I just swept the whole thing under the carpet with the sentiment: "Well it's ancient Japan, even Roman Legioneers routed often" (See Book II of Julius Caesars Gallic Wars off the top of my head). I mean, what was an army at that time period but organized thievery under the guise of the will of god/diamyo/emperor. Given the developmental state of Japan it annoyed me less than it did you. BUT that being said, I only played two campaigns of RotS and promptly returned to vanilla. Out of 433 hours of Shogun 2; maybe 12 were RotS. I don't think it was DM so much as the entire game and premise was kinda .

Could stand to have heavy morale tweaks though I'll agree.

-You know what RotS reminds me of? Third Age Total War. The (only campaign I sampled) High Elves only decent unit are generals for the first hundred turns. Everything else just gets slaughtered if a malicious butterfly floats nearby them. RotS is the same way; you can't play it like M2TW or S2TW you have to carefully sacrifice certain units so other units can do damage while your generals take on most of the heavy labor.

[AuroN2]

Get warrior monks
Then its your enemy that runs away in the first clash.

[Anjin-San]

I had no morale issues since I built my units almost exclusively in a province with shrine specialilty (as fukuhara taira you can take one such province easily from kitabatake).
I once even sent one naginata levy against 3 other levies and held them off long enough for my flanks to win the battle.

Generally, I can only recommend building one war-producing province up as fast as possible, be it with a blacksmith or with a shrine, so your units get a slight edge, and produce units almost exclusively there. Let the units produced somewhere else be the garrison or supporting army, and move your best units into your main army. Then it's just a question of scouting and good strategy so you don't have to fight losing battles. Although I have to admit, from all three games, ROTS is the most unpredictable one.

In my current campaign, I can recruit level 7 monk archers with high morale boost and +1 armor from ise.

[Rond]

I cant help to think that you must not be playing katana's right. I always use them, they are THE unit of choice for me. And if you upgrade their weapons you just slice through enemies like butter, regardless of what kind.

[Hawkeye74]

as Darth said, with the hot fix the tables have been righted, so I can imagine this issue has been cleared up.....using them right *snigger*

[BigTambo]

Yeah I think its fixed.I had this issue too and I made a topic about it.Now my ashigaru run like little girls while my katana samurai die glorious manly deaths