Anyone try a Traditional units only campaign in FOTS?

[fumle]

I played as Jozai on Hard with battle realism, after i won my first campaing (that was on legendary) i never ever returned back to that difficulty, because i only find it more tedious and not more challenging than a hard campaing. Therefor im also very confident that its possible to do this in a legendary campaing, also you could create a republic (i stayed loyal to mr. shogun), however you will probaly have to run on normal/high taxes and recruit units from most of yours cities (good thing theres a master dojo in all of them!) instead of only in the province with the legendary dojo as i did.
I can only imagine how annoying it will be due to how autoresolve rates traditional units, in my campaing i slaugthered armies of 7000+ men with 500-700 loses, but autoresolve will let my armies lose 300+ men to simply just kill of a few battered units.... Thus on legendary you will probaly wish to figth every got damn battle.

/Fumle

[Drtad]

If it's possible with anyone I'd guess Aizu since they get the best traditional bonuses. In my first campaign I tried my best to maintain traditions and utilized the special shogunate units to the best of my ability (Shinsengumi Police Force+Shogitai) but in the middle I ended up modernizing mostly.

Oh yea, forgot to mention, I think the Naoke (can`t remember name) of the Shogunate get Levy spearmen with extra experience right at the start which made them better than most everyone.

I could've sworn the Nagaoka (shogunate) got serious technological boosts and modernization bonuses (they had 2 of Japan's three gatling guns during the conflict), while Aizu got the traditional bonuses.

Out of town so can't check..

[General Maximus]

Aizu seems best for a traditional campaign. Satsuma is way close to modernized warfare, especially with all those starting modernization benefits they get. Choshu, well, is the worst one if you are a traditionalist, but best for a modernization.

[Spajjder]

I would like to ask the opposite actually, did anyone ever find an effective way to use fots tactics in the original? I mean, fielding mostly guns and have spears and horses mostly as support? or are the 16th centuary guns just too slow for that tactic?

[General Maximus]

I think they are same. The difference is the impact then-and-now.

You might scare away a large number of Ashigaru or even Samurai with your matchlock arquebuses, but that is for Sengoku era. Guns were new at that time, and few in number. And many clans who are good with Ashigaru like Oda or Ikko-Ikko, and convert to Christianity, get better matchlock Ashigaru. Samurais work well too, but they are able to defend better than Ashigaru.

And in FoTS, there are no more Ashigaru. Only Kachi and Ki, which represent most of the weapons of the Sengoku Jidai. There are only matchlock Kachi, direct successors of matchlock Samurai. I have not noticed, but there may be some changes in range and number of men in matchlock units.

The most prominent change I have seen is the impact then and now. Units of Sengoku era are not used to guns and cannons, so they may run away easily if a decent impact is made. The Ashigaru are somewhat afraid of hearing the noise of guns at close range.

In FoTS, time has changed. Troops lose lot less morale from arquebuse fire. Most troops are used to the noise and smoke by now. And wooden cannons, well, are a high trajectory improvement of the old breech loading cannon of 16th century. What used to be a major mass killing weapon two centuries ago, is now a minor weapon thoroughly eclipsed by the rifles.

You see, if you put those matchlock gunners on the walls, they can still have some good impact because of high ground and a wall as a shield. In battle, they may save you in the early game. But their importance is lot less now. Exception is, they are still good at melee.

[Erwin Rommel]

Not really though I have no desire to recruit modern cavalry. I loath to see the great and awesome equines by rode upon by men who are not of samurai ancestry.

The Shogunate and its caste and feudal system will remain. No horses for you of the farmers, artisans and merchants class. MWUHAHAHAHA

(Except the White Tigers and the Denshutai, they are reruited from sons of samurai. Not to mention I love hearing them scream "TIGERS! TIGERS! TIGERS!")

*waits for IGood to make a post*

[zhiphius]

I'm trying out such a campaign with my Genpei + Shogun 2 units in the FOTS setting....

Really, really fun.

hum, is it possible that you will release a mod introducing those units to FotS? ^^

*drools*

i tried radious unit pack 3 (think thats the one) and while its a really good mod, adding many funky traditional units, it demanded the player to go part modern to unlock some of the traditional units (if i remember right, the monk units required cadet school pff) effectively preventing the player staying a true traditionalist if he or she want to use those units.

so aslong as the units require traditional based buildings it would be awesome =)

[zhiphius]

I was wondering if anyone managed to complete a campaign on any difficulty by only using units that you get from a dojo (Or units like Wooden cannons that I believe are the equivalent of European cannons from Shogun 2)

I suspect it would be quite hard and maybe even impossible...Anyone try and have success with such an endeavor ?

hey, modernisation from arts is "Ok", eventually the game forces you to research them anyway.

you only need 3 military arts anyway (6 if you include iron plating, for that read about nobunaga's iron plated ships vs the mori fleet during sengoku jidai to find a reason why its ok). Shih being the obvious, the ninja one another. then the cavalry charge bonus to all cavalry (even if it does unlock revolver cavalry). Basically anything that boost traditional units.
Rest of the time should be spent on researching policy arts (happiness, economic and honor/allegiance ones specifically).

for buildings, well i think you got an idea there

[IGdood]

Not really though I have no desire to recruit modern cavalry. I loath to see the great and awesome equines by rode upon by men who are not of samurai ancestry.

The Shogunate and its caste and feudal system will remain. No horses for you of the farmers, artisans and merchants class. MWUHAHAHAHA

(Except the White Tigers and the Denshutai, they are reruited from sons of samurai. Not to mention I love hearing them scream "TIGERS! TIGERS! TIGERS!")

*waits for IGood to make a post*

Was I supposed to post pics?

hum, is it possible that you will release a mod introducing those units to FotS? ^^

*drools*

i tried radious unit pack 3 (think thats the one) and while its a really good mod, adding many funky traditional units, it demanded the player to go part modern to unlock some of the traditional units (if i remember right, the monk units required cadet school pff) effectively preventing the player staying a true traditionalist if he or she want to use those units.

so aslong as the units require traditional based buildings it would be awesome =)

When CA says it's not illegal anymore then I will release it.

[fishball]

i tried on easy, basically melee all the way with bow supporting, weak against artillery though.

[Sun Jetzu]

expensive and not fun or viable for domination, i tried with aizu, and eventually i finally got my second city and decided to go with infantry and one traditional army. Once you get a good portion of japan you can start getting the units without it affecting income much. i mostly use the cav, ninja, or shogutai, maybe some samurai regular. haha i actually tried a hun type army, with bow horse and reg horse and samurai hero. yea....i wouldnt recomend it, i use it to mop up small armies, but its just for fun. against an army the same size i get ripped to shreds from guns haha

[Vice]

i tried on easy, basically melee all the way with bow supporting, weak against artillery though.

I also tried it on easy myself as the Aizu...It wasn't too hard...but I imagine that was more because it was on easy rather then anything else...I'd be amazed if anyone could do it on hard or higher...

[Winterspawn]

I recently picked up my traditionalist Aizu campaign, and playing traditionalist is pretty doable, you really have an advantage during the first part of the campaign because you don't have to research buildings anymore for your militairy. A bad side about that is that dojo units take 2 turns to recruit instead of one.

During battles it's important to use the terrain to your advantage, because some elite line infantry is deadly when charging them and they aren't that bad in melee as well. One of your other biggest concerns it artillery. They can cause a lot of casualties to you if the enemy uses them right so it's best to take them out as soon as possible with some kisho ninja that you place behind their army during the deployment phase. Cavalry is important as well, you can use them to lure away some units from their main line, use them to charge them in the back so they'll rout fast (train them in a province with a temple for extremly high charge damage), or use them to take out a general if possible to break the entire armies morale.