Share Your Clan Specialization & Discuss Reasoning

[KittySN]

I recently created my own clan so I could enjoy specializing in the bow, a surprisingly unpopular choice. Since I was one of those terribly annoying people with a reputation to skirmish people to death in the earlier games like RTW, forcing them into the battles I wanted to fight, it seemed natural to continue my strength. Granted, skirmishing is not as easy to micro or succeed in, but the few following benefits really sold me, especially after looking into the other specialization benefits.

- Bow cavalry range increased.
- Ashigaru range increased with fire arrows, great for lower money.
- Handily winning the long range skirmish secures your advantage to unleash intact matchlocks.
- Sniping! You need to come within matchlock range (!) to return fire, unless you wasted points in spotting.
- "Stand Your Ground" increases reload rate! This makes my veteran units obscenely strong, firing twice the speed of my enemy.

Thus the persistence of annoying archery tactics permits me to force my opponent into defending, abandoning tactical positions, else quickly lose a skirmish, retreat just the same or attack me. In most cases, I've secured a position where I'm content to defend, even against melee and cavalry spams (assuming my opponent rushes). Then I can continue using my archers in conjunction with my matchlocks to rain horror on whatever comes into range. It really doesn't matter what other specialization I face: Unless I'm caught in a bad position and rather unprepared, I'll shred your assault with my powerful missile advantage.

So what is your specialization and why is it important to you?

[Nemizr]

My clan is specialized in cavalry. I believe cav is very important to the game. I usually win the archer fight as I use my cav and attack from the flanks simoultaniously, which A: kills his archers or B: he pulls his archers back and my archers gets to fire on his yari/naginata which is behind the archers.

After winning both the cav fight AND the archer fight I'm usually in a good spot (unless there never were any enemy cav/archers that is ^^). The enemy will then be forced to go in melee which allows my archers to fire on him and my matchlock may unleash the havock.
While my infantry is engaged in melee my cav can charge his gen or his melee troops or eventually archers that survived or have returned fro routing.

(note: this is if all goes as I want)

Btw: Why have no one else posted? :|

[AggonyKing]

Banzai Yari cav, enough said

[Knowing Crow]

Been going Sword because... I don't know, Katana Heroes are awesome?

But damn, you've sold me on Bow. Now I need to find a Bow clan...

I've found as I've streamlined my army into the roles I want, I predominantly use polearm units over sword infantry, where the only sword unit I even field these days is the Katana Hero. Sword specialization is looking increasingly strange.

[vanadis]

Maybe a stupid question, but where can I find all the clan specialization bonuses? It's not in the encyclopedia afaik.

[Thefallenhun]

Sword specialization. If Date Masamune brings Six Katanas, the least you can do is bring ONE.

[Abe86]

Yeah, I'd also like to know if there's a site where we can see all the upgrade paths available for veteran units, including those granted by the clan specializations. It's hard to make a choice otherwise.

[Thefallenhun]

Just unlock all units and get 1 veterancy in them, you can see it then.

[Abe86]

You make it sound easy.

[Thefallenhun]

You'll do it eventually anyway, just from fighitng a bunch of battles. The advanced abilities tend to range from increased attk/def/armor to bansai, hold firm, all of them have 'replenish unit"