Vulnerable Generals, Mangonels, Firearms and Campers

[TheDude]

The generals in MP are way to valuable to your own army(bonus to morale, melee, reducing enemy morale etc.) and vulnerable to enemy ranged units i.e. Mangonels, bows of all types esp. ashigaru, and most importantly cannons, Mangonels and matchlocks.

I have finally come into contact, after 4 days of playing, with campers using art and matchlocks to camp their spawn and destroying me. I field an attacking army of 3-4 vet. and 1 reg. naginatas, 2 katanas, 3-4 vet. yari cav and maybe an archer with left over funds. If you try to attack the camper he will target your general and most likely kill him. If that doesnt get you his matchlocks will and your attacking forces will suffer a great morale hit and will loose.

I believe that no tactics can defeat this camper because your high level general (mine's a 7 and costs around 1300 for upkeep) will be kept from the fight by the mangonels or ranged units if he isnt killed early and his cost greatly reduces the amount of men you can bring to the fight. Even controlling the 3 dojo's wont help that much when your general is dead and can't impart his bonuses on your attacking troops.

Camping is too easy and ruins MP. CA went in the right direction with this game for sure, but it seems that the generals are too vulnerable and too valuable and morale hits to your army when he is dead are too extreme when you loose him.

What do you guys think?

[naro]

Camping is a problem, i'm not as high level as you but myself and a friend had a 2v2 battle against 2 others who camped around a unit of mangonels. To be honest we weren't sure about how to approach their troops. Through co-ordinated use of our archers and using a forest to intercept a proportion of the incoming mangonel fire we were able to pull their infantry away from the siege unit. Which i then proceeded to batter with 2x units of yari cav. which had been hidden from the start. Honestly i think that our biggest success in that battle was that we were patient and careful on our approach (mainly as i'd been battered last time i tried to rush the mangonels in a mp battle).

And yes the general was i suppose very lucky to keep at full health. I expect that i was just slightly lucky in that regard as i just rushed him in to apply bonuses and then retreated him to cover again

[pointwolf]

^^^ Use cover (forests, hills, ect.) Sacrifice a unit or two and use them for bait while your army moves fast to attack. Camper never defeated me . Most important use bait!!! Cav are especsiali good for that cause they re harder to hit. If you succeed in shortening the distance at least by half without getting too much damage then you probably have a strong chance for a win

edit: Forgot to tell ya to try and spread your units.. so they don't take too much damage. If you have naginata samurai put them in front because they have a lot of armor and can take a lot of damage

[Evan MF]

The enemy are just asking for cav rape!! all out charge, archer flank, heavy infantry straight in!!

[Death_Sheep]

CA can always increase upkeep of siege weapons in non siege battles.

[bushranger]

The enemy are just asking for cav rape!! all out charge, archer flank, heavy infantry straight in!!

Look cav is great,but all this talk about cav win everything is just retarded.Your forgeting there is a 350 unit that has a 20 bonus against cav,so to say cav just wins is ing ridiculous.There is plenty of counters to cav and the cheapest aswell.

[TheDude]

Charging cav in is a great plan but in reality the campers have yaris protecting everything and matchlocks ready to rape your horses from all angles. If that doesn't get you the mangonel will at least get one or two hits in severely reducing the numbers in your units. Trying to charge in with your units will tire them out before they even get to their lines all the while being bombarded and loosing men.
Trying to use your generals fatigue resistance aura is useless because the mangonel will target you so he is basically nullified unless you are a pro mico Starcraft rts player.

The key buildings are a great addition but it takes too long to capture and if they are withing range of artillery you cant capture them without heavy losses. They need to either have a bigger bonus or they should be like capture points in Battlefield where if you control all 3 the enemy's ticker will count down to 0 and you would win.

Basically one unit can completely nullify one of the most important and expensive units in your army and cause you to most likely loose the battle.

How would you guys go about attacking an army with 1 Mangonel, 5 matchlock ashigaru, 5-6 yari spears, 1 yari horse, and possibly a katana or 2?

[daniu]

How would you guys go about attacking an army with 1 Mangonel, 5 matchlock ashigaru, 5-6 yari spears, 1 yari horse, and possibly a katana or 2?

Put one yari ashi into loose and position in max range of mangonel, wait until out of ammo. Use same to catch matchlock volleys, charge.
Mangonels really aren't a huge problem; cannons are.

[The Bobba-Job]

Camping is not as big a problem as it was back in napoleon, what with the cps now implamented which benefit those who are aggresive enough to capture them.

I had a fair few run ins with match lock and archer spammers, and to say the least, im tired of it! But hey, they are easy to get round, if you know how

What i like to do is send up a yari or bow ashigaru in loose formation to soak up the bullets, then dart in a light cav whilst also charing in my melee inf.

So far i have seen only 2 reactions to this.

1: The opponent withdraws his archers and pushes up his spear units which are normaly nestled in behind his archer line. In which case you oncoming melee units will make short work of them, whilst you pull your cav out and circle them to the flanks

and 2:They will sit there and let thier archers get raped

[daniu]

Cannons targetting generals are a huge problem indeed. Anybody who doesn't agree just hasn't come across it yet (or gotten unbelievaly lucky).
I'm in favor of disallowing siege weaponry in field battles.

[Point_Man]

I'm in favor of disallowing siege weaponry in field battles.

Who are you and what did you do to Daniu you imposter!!! I've never would have thought I would see a TLG member disallow arty or siege weapons. Blasphemy Daniu!!!

The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!

Don't hurt me!

[Stil]

It's not as bad as it could be. My reponse to mangonels is to not react at all - sure, I'll take a few casualties, but they are locked down to an area, 800 funds and a retainer slot short. Cannons are a bigger problem Especially when backed up with matchlock line - sure you can charge em with cav, but if they have yaris and matchlocks with overlapping fields of fire, it's very dicey

[angelofwar12]

a combination of 1 mangonel 4 monk matchlock 4 naginata monk 1 great guard would nearly be impossible to defeated, monk high morale, war cry abilities, good against both sword and mounted
CA really nerf there 2 unit (mangonel and monk)

[debelizmaj]

Taking down a camper is not impossible, it's only hard.
I'm general using mix of strong sword/naganita infantry and 4 units of yari cavalry, no archers at all, mostly all veteran units.

So first of all what you need to do when attacking is put your infantry in LOSE formation. this is reducing effect of mangonel fire all most to nothing.go back to tight when very close.

Second is to advance slow to the range of mangonel and then start running like hell (use banzai when your close).

Dont ever charge whit cavalry in middle best to use them for total flanking, and do not mass them in one group best use 2 groups.

and dont walk in middle whit general it's stupid... leave him a bit back from infantry or take him whit cavalry , but maneuver whit him and run.

On start count enemy units and try to see how much did he left in ambush. He will have some reserve if he is good camper. flash them out whit cavalry.

If you got a skill for it you can maneuver whit you cavalry and drag some of hes units to chase you, whit any luck even ambush them.

Since i did start to use this unit combo i did not lose any battle of this kind, but whit balanced army you need much better maneuvering and a lot of luck coz tbh then it's 50/50.

[swoosh so]

Theyre really not that hard.

[Thefallenhun]

Mangonel can be a bit annoying, but honestly send your cheapest units on lose, you will lose maybe 80 guys total by the time the mango runs out of ammo, as for the matchlocks, bring along bow, bow has better range, micro it out of matchlock range. Katana heros are also helpful due to their nigh invulnerability to missile fire and high morale.

[Uraikol]

If your opponent is camping with matchlocks, use bows (you should have at least 2 units of bows in your army at all times). Keep your units back and out of range until you have dealt with the matchlocks
If your opponent is camping with a mangonel, go around it. It may have long range, but it can't move. And as many others have said, use your cavalry to flank or as bait.

[Nigel_Loring]

The generals in MP are way to valuable to your own army(bonus to morale, melee, reducing enemy morale etc.) and vulnerable to enemy ranged units i.e. Mangonels, bows of all types esp. ashigaru, and most importantly cannons, Mangonels and matchlocks.

That is why in the olden days fo MTW there often was a "no artillary" rule agreed upon between the players in most MP battles.