Battle tips?

[egervari]

Would anyone care to share any battle tips for the start of a game, like how to take on armies that 1:1 or even slightly losing but still coming out ahead, if it's possible?

I'm still learning what does what, so I'm not sure. The cav. units don't work like I expect them to as they route or die in huge numbers against units I would not expect them to

I'm not looking for detailed advice - good general tips that make a big difference for the beginning fights.

[Raimeken]

In the beginning, ashigaru will basically...be your armies, so be prepared to face armies that are almost exactly the same as yours.

Some tips to say:
-Yari Ashigaru actually fight better (defensively) in Yari Wall, use it to your advantage, a charge into a yari wall is alot more devastating than normal.
-positioning of your bowmen count. Make sure you have A LOT, preferably more than your opponent. If your opponent wants to have a skirmish before the main fight, put your archers in front of your infantry, if your opponent moves in with the infantry immediately, positions your archers behind your infantry.
-Prepare for some "useless" cavalry. I say that because unlike in previous games, cavalry will not hold their own in extended melee combat, even an anti-infantry katana samurai unit can beat them that way
-Not really a battle tip, but always go for efficiency over power when choosing what units to build your army with, Ashigaru are a lot more efficient than samurai, they are much cheaper and replenish a lot faster. Armies should consist of 30% samurai at the most, preferably of the samurai/special unit that your faction specializes in
-Keep your general CLOSE, REAL CLOSE to your front lines, if you don't your ashigaru will break almost immediately

I have much more to say...but I don't remember it, I'm traveling right now and my laptop is not exactly meant to play Shogun (I can play it...but it looks like )

[Eikki]

Use your archers in loose formation ahead of your melee infantry. If available, make their first volley with fire. After that you may zerg rush your opponents melee/archers and deal a crushing blow to hopefully mass rout pretty quickly. Keep your general within range of the mass melee that is about to ensue. Try to crush one flank...then use the freed up archers and melee infantry to envelop the other flank. Pretty much what I do when my army is made up of archers, ashigaru and a couple of katana samurai.

[YD23]

Moved to Gameplay & Strategy Discussion.

[egervari]

Thanks for the advice. I have a campaign save just before I a battle, so I think I'm going to run the battle multiple times, just to see how efficiently I can clear it without losing much troops... or at least having minor balanced loses on all the units so replenishment works in my favour in the short-term.

Any advice on seiges? The enemy bow guys seem really strong, and I'm not sure what to do. Charge for the walls and hope for the best?

It's weird because according to the auto resolve, I should win a lot of these battles by a huge margin, but that ends up not being the case when I actually play the battle out. LOL.

[Raimeken]

Thanks for the advice. I have a campaign save just before I a battle, so I think I'm going to run the battle multiple times, just to see how efficiently I can clear it without losing much troops... or at least having minor balanced loses on all the units so replenishment works in my favour in the short-term.

Any advice on seiges? The enemy bow guys seem really strong, and I'm not sure what to do. Charge for the walls and hope for the best?

It's weird because according to the auto resolve, I should win a lot of these battles by a huge margin, but that ends up not being the case when I actually play the battle out. LOL.

Good luck, a near 1:1 battle will always end up with heavy casualties on both sides, just more him than you.

[Death_Sheep]

Know how to force the opponent to commit his troops to a position.

Once they are pinned, you can move around to strike them.

The essence of combat is movement, formation, and flanking.

Without movement, you are pinned and liable to be flanked. Without formation, your troops will be unsupported and morale will be shaky at best, non existant at worst. Flanking saves the lives of your men, in return of the lives of your enemy. Do this often.

An unsupported charge of infantry will take far more casualties than a supported charge. Support all actions with your other troops, even if it is a shifting of position, or a volley of fire arrows.

Reposition as necessary.

Be sure of your actions, but be ready for their consequences.

[Quivis]

How do you fight battles on higher difficulty levels? With a campaign difficulty set on high and above AI’s army composition is very nice, so samurais with bonuses are really tough. For instance which tactic do you recommend if AI is charging me with an army with lots and lots of katana samurais and no-dachi?

[Shabby_Ronin]

Would anyone care to share any battle tips for the start of a game, like how to take on armies that 1:1 or even slightly losing but still coming out ahead, if it's possible?

I'm still learning what does what, so I'm not sure. The cav. units don't work like I expect them to as they route or die in huge numbers against units I would not expect them to

I'm not looking for detailed advice - good general tips that make a big difference for the beginning fights.

It's probably just light cav, so they aren't tough, get a lot of ashigaru spears and bows. Make a boat asap and cruise the coast discovering new clans and try to make trade agreements. If your in the "west" try going for the trade nodes.

[Kazuhiro]

Hmm besides whats been said I'll add that one of the big things in this game is killing the enemy general. KILL THAT DOG-FACED IMPOSTOR ASAP!

*Exceptions:
- when the enemy has more than one general, kill them when you can but dont waste time chasing all of them
- when you're against a lot of samurai, the general is important but not as much so do it at your...umm...leisure
- when youre up against artillery, depending on the situation it might be better to kill the arty first

[gunnarmarine]

#1 Kill the General
#2 Flank. Flanking the rear and center of an army formation with cav is wonderful. you reduce the moral if a unit is fighting from 2 sides.
#3 Use your Archers: Archers are very useful if you use them to worry enemy units on flanks you want to crumble quickly.
#4 Keep your general alive and don't be afraid to use him to provide moral support to your main body of units in the fight. See an opening in the enemy formation, take it and then flank using your general.

take every little factor into account such as terrain, trees, ect to tip the scale in your favor.

[TdM]

You need a solid centre of either Yari ashigaru backed with your general behind them or Samurai units of your own to take the charge and hold them. Don't worry if they aren't going to win an extended engagement as long as they can hold position of a while.

You then want to have some reserve units behind your main line to encircle the enemy and hit them in the flanks/rear. This will break them and allow you to break the enemy force into smaller bits and encircle them at your leisure. You should now be in control of the battle. It also disrupts their use of reserves if you can break through their lines.

Also if they are high on samurai and no-dachi but don't have much missile, then try to move your missile up a bit in front of your army (not too far and support with cav if necessary) so that you can rip them apart before they get into charge range - you will do huge damage to both their numbers and morale with volleys of arrows.

[Dodge]

kill em all

[Jackhammer]

In the early game I use a line of Yari Ashigaru units in Wall of Spear formation fronted by a line of Yumi Ashigaru in skirmish order. I have the 2 Yari units on either flank in a refused position to avoid my line being flanked. I like to have at least 2 generals present positioned immeadiately behind my Yari units to stiffen their resolve. The battle usually plays out like this:

My archers shoot up the advancing enemy then retire behind the Yari spear line & then shoot over it. Yari units in Wall of Spear formation are extremely hard nuts to crack when assaulted head on; enemy units have to do this even if they attempt to flank as they are faced with my 2 flank-guard units. When faced with both leveled spears & being peppered with arrows, enemy assaulting units usually rout in short order. Then I order my general units to hunt down the routers, carefully avoiding any enemy melee units sill in good order. Generals are great at taking out any non-routed enemy archer units as well in flank or rear when the opportunity presents itself. When used carefully, any danger to my commanders in combat will be minimal.

All this has the effect of quickly gaining my generals' experience, enabling me to develop their skills & add to their retainer following. My Spear & Archer units also rise quickly by getting lots of potential kills. Later in the game I replace my main line Yari Ashigaru with Naginata Samurai as these are very tough with high defence & morale factors, but I still keep my flanking Ashigaru units to secure the flanks.

[tarvu]

In the early game I use a line of Yari Ashigaru units in Wall of Spear formation fronted by a line of Yumi Ashigaru in skirmish order. I have the 2 Yari units on either flank in a refused position to avoid my line being flanked. I like to have at least 2 generals present positioned immeadiately behind my Yari units to stiffen their resolve. The battle usually plays out like this:

My archers shoot up the advancing enemy then retire behind the Yari spear line & then shoot over it. Yari units in Wall of Spear formation are extremely hard nuts to crack when assaulted head on; enemy units have to do this even if they attempt to flank as they are faced with my 2 flank-guard units. When faced with both leveled spears & being peppered with arrows, enemy assaulting units usually rout in short order. Then I order my general units to hunt down the routers, carefully avoiding any enemy melee units sill in good order. Generals are great at taking out any non-routed enemy archer units as well in flank or rear when the opportunity presents itself. When used carefully, any danger to my commanders in combat will be minimal.

All this has the effect of quickly gaining my generals' experience, enabling me to develop their skills & add to their retainer following. My Spear & Archer units also rise quickly by getting lots of potential kills. Later in the game I replace my main line Yari Ashigaru with Naginata Samurai as these are very tough with high defence & morale factors, but I still keep my flanking Ashigaru units to secure the flanks.

Does anything effect general's experience other than simply the type of victory (heroic, decisive etc.?).

I find it better when building up general's experience to leave enough routers for a second battle. Be careful sending your general out against archers and routed enemies I have done this on a couple of occasion only to be surprised by a hidden spear unit when I was looking elsewhere (should be most careful of this against Hattori).

My tip would be to keep your cavalry moving by either charging them through a weak enemy or hitting them at an angle where you can charge, easily disengage and then charge another unit or retreat+charge again, but that is pretty standard strategy in all TW games just important here maybe because cavalry can't hold their own as well (unless you are a Takeda cavalry beast!).


What I want is some tips from the autoresolve AI... how they win lopsided battles with so few losses or none at all I haven't figured out... especially when the enemy has archers!

[Dodge]

During all battles I always try to drink a lovely cup of tea. and kill everyone

[Wismer]

During all battles I always try to drink a lovely cup of tea. and kill everyone

I like your style

[Dodge]

I like your style

Thanks, mate

[StrongIsland]

Don't underestimate fatigue. When engaging the other army in melee, try to achieve as much as possible with as few units as possible, if you catch my drift. Don't send in your 8 melee units at once and create a big mosh pit, because they won't all be attacking anyway, just wasting fatigue. Try to conserve the fatigue of your better units for when the battle begins to open up. Think of it as trading pieces in chess. Whoever has the last piece ready to attack wins the trade.

[Banedor]

I'm confused by Guard because if I hold my line and they charge in sometimes my units don't attack automatically so if I have an extra line unit on the side they don't auto engage if the enemy is in melee range unless they are attacked directly?

Also are there any battle movements with the keyboard or mouse clicks I should know about because when I march forward towards the enemy I have to click where to attack instead of just march forward and attack automatically so it confuses me very badly.

Also how do you flank with cavalry effectively? Especially in a castle defense as in plains and castles we're usually giving a small area to set up and whenever I try to move them to flank the AI immediately knows even if I sneak in woods since when you first click the unit auto runs and it breaks stealth so if I reclick to hide the AI knows they broke for a second and knows the general area so I'm not sure how you circumvent that.

Also naval battles confuse me, I can never position the ships right with the spinning, how do you fight those effectively?