Chosokabe archer stacks

[johannlo]

How the ---- do you defeat those super veteran chosokabe archer samurai stacks.

Nothing seems to work except for possibly out-teching them?
Due to the excessive archery in this game nothing can even get close when a dozen triple XP samurai archer units are firing at you. Pls don't make me resort to modding (though I am used to darthmod in the older TW titles) but it definitely feels cheap.

Is this going to be like the mongols again i.e. throw away multiple stacks just to wear them down.

really p-ssed off at this game right now, just got slammed by realm divide (WTF is that it is super unfair to inflict it on an unsuspecting player. Had I known what it was I would have prepared for it properly...). Now trying to invade chosokabe and its impossible to fight two stacks with >50% fully veteran samurai archers. I suspect I"m going to have to roll back just to take into account realm divide alone

[DannyTh3Man]

How the ---- do you defeat those super veteran chosokabe archer samurai stacks.

Nothing seems to work except for possibly out-teching them?
Due to the excessive archery in this game nothing can even get close when a dozen triple XP samurai archer units are firing at you. Pls don't make me resort to modding (though I am used to darthmod in the older TW titles) but it definitely feels cheap.

Is this going to be like the mongols again i.e. throw away multiple stacks just to wear them down.

really p-ssed off at this game right now, just got slammed by realm divide (WTF is that it is super unfair to inflict it on an unsuspecting player. Had I known what it was I would have prepared for it properly...). Now trying to invade chosokabe and its impossible to fight two stacks with >50% fully veteran samurai archers. I suspect I"m going to have to roll back just to take into account realm divide alone

Yea I had the same problem conquering chosokabe. 13 vet bow samurai. Luckily my armies consist of naginata samurai so I charged and grinded the shite out of them. Lost alot to arrows but it worked

[Konfuzfanten]

This is on VH:
I normally go with stack of 16 infantry melee, 1 general and 3 katana cavalry.

The center of my battle line is 9 units of yari ashigaru with either 4 No-Dachi + 3 Naginata monks or 5 No-Dachi and 2 Katana units.

The No-Dachi on the flanks, Katana/monks behind the main battle line. Everything in loose formation and build in a max armour province(armour smith+encampment).

Just hit them head on, no fancy tactics or anything. As you are about to engage in close combat you hit the close formation/spearwall button. You will not get a big charge bonus but you will ripe any AI range army to pieces.

[bars]

Yea I had the same problem conquering chosokabe. 13 vet bow samurai. Luckily my armies consist of naginata samurai so I charged and grinded the shite out of them. Lost alot to arrows but it worked

Same. Charging them in loose formation works best.
Also, assassinate their general if they have one.

[johannlo]

OK so basically I have to out tech them and that with a province with an armorsmith.
Given that I only have one smith province and its weaponsmith, er, not sure what my options are. How long would it take me to build a full stack w/ upgraded armoursmith, like 30 turns + lol.
disgusting, I totally agree with all the comments in this forum re: overpowered archers. This ain't middle earth and they ain't elves lol

[Konfuzfanten]

OK so basically I have to out tech them and that with a province with an armorsmith.

You don’t have to out tech them. I won on legendary with Uesugi, without teching into anything but the basis bushido (so I could get no-dashi + the passive bonuses).

How long would it take me to build a full stack w/ upgraded armoursmith, like 30 turns + lol.

Correct, but that army will be able to destroy anything you meet. I normally use that non-range heavy infantry army setup on VH/ legendary and I have yet to meet an AI army that could match me in the open field.

I totally agree with all the comments in this forum re: overpowered archers. This ain't middle earth and they ain't elves lol

- archers are good, but if you are facing or you yourself have access to max upgraded armour units archers become more or less useless. The exception is the gunpower units.

You can beat a range army without an armour upgraded army but 2-3 of your best units will be shot to pieces.

[SupAll]

I tend to leave Chosokabe last and focus on preventing them from attacking the mainland by destroying their naval invasion fleets. In order to beat Chosokabe's large bow samurai stacks you will need either Cavalry or Heavy infantry stacks. The faster you can close in on the archers, the better. Just be prepared to lose a unit or two in the closing distance, so make sure you have some units ahead of the main force to act as fodder while the rest of your army remains unscathed. And don't forget, LOOSE FORMATION.

[Floy]

@Konfuzfanten: Archers are the best counters possible to melee with low armor (Especially monks and no-dachi, but also yari ashigaru). So in effect, you are sending your units against their direct counter.

Vs Chokusabe, you need to adapt, and instead make units that counter them. Any melee unit with 9+ armor should do. Low armor samurai are particularly bad, especially no-dachi and warrior monks. Leave these on the mainland when facing chokusabe.

Also, terrain is important. Archers are nearly useless in forests. In order to force battle in forest, either let them attack you, or bring a couple of mangonels, and use these to force the enemy to attack you. On the attack you should also try to get as bad weather as possible, to reduce archer efficiency.

Using a combination of the above should make fighting archer heavy stacks no trouble at all.

[Konfuzfanten]

@Konfuzfanten: Archers are the best counters possible to melee with low armor (Especially monks and no-dachi, but also yari ashigaru). So in effect, you are sending your units against their direct counter.

In theory, yes, but with the armour upgrades you will only take moderate casualties and your 9 units of cheap expendable yari ashigaru will take most of the casualties.

Since the AI have a tendency to mass spam archers (+8 units pr stack) you might lose some men but your ashigaru will get to the enemy line and begin to tie down the enemy archers and melee units, leaving your katana cavlery and No-Dachi to roam free and destroy any free archers units.

Again its all about using the massive melee superiority, even if you lose 3 units(no armour) getting to the line you will still have melee superiority since the AI has so many archers. With a general with stand and fight a yari ashigaru unit can take on and kill a samurai bow/yari unit. Ofc you do need a general with +4 stars for this tactic to work.

I havnt lost a battle with this tactic, even against heavy samurai range armies. I might lose 40% of the ashigaru but the AI has a causality rate 90%+.

[Bow-wow-wow]

I bet that if you got a bunch of light cavalry, they could get into melee before the archers could do too much damage to them. Alternatively gunpowder would also probably kill them.

[Konfuzfanten]

I bet that if you got a bunch of light cavalry, they could get into melee before the archers could do too much damage to them. Alternatively gunpowder would also probably kill them.

The main problem with light cav is the amount of yari units the AI fields. In most cases the AI will field an army of 40-60% range and 40-50% yari. You want your units to tie down the AIs units not get destroyed by rushing a spearwall with cavalry.

There are a few threads about "useless" cavalry because of yari ashigaru.

[johannlo]

does this mean I need to dismantle my master weaponsmith and go for armour instead? as I only have one blacksmithing province.....

[DeMolay]

I think the winning formula against "archers" armies is always the same in the TW serie :

- Use a lot of cavalry (yes i know , it requires micro managing , but one must do it ) , like 4 units at least in a typical stack of 20 units

- Ambush whenever you can ( to attack them from multiple directions )

- only attack when it rains , and defend with your troops in forest like said Floy , as trees protect your troops from arrows

- Against an archers biased army , always make sure you have clearly more cavalry than him , so you can spare some cavalry units to fight his archers during the battle , and so that he cannot use his cavalry against yours in order to prevent you to cripple his archers

In M2TW , another trick was to always use serpentine cannon or culverine or even trebuchets for wiping out the longbowmen behind stakes (usually camping on a hill ) , in Shogun 2 it doesn't work as well , but you can still use Mangonel to annoy those camping archers

[johannlo]

The issue is in Med2 archers weren't overpowered.
Crossbows were a worry but you draw out the first volley then CHARGE
and of course you had heavy cav.

In shogun 2, cav is nerfed, and arrows overpowered, thats the main issue I have. And in Med2 I never faced AI stacks with full veteran status + clan bonus on their archers lol (until the mongols, but we all remember that horrible experience lol).
As for forests, I know thats good advice, but sometimes thats not an option esp if you choose to attack (to get the rain) you might not get fav topology.

I guess I'm still getting used to the Shogun 2 flavour, I really really miss cavalry lol

guess I got a lot of building up before I try attacking them. Its pretty lame that a typical balanced early-mid game shimazu army (turn 30 or so) has no chance - 40% ashi spears, 40% ashi bows, 20% katana samurai. Even by mid game where I can up the samurai ratio to 50% and drop in one or two units of cav its still suicidal.

Anyhow will try fresh take on the problem, I've had to roll back to turn 25 anyway because I had no idea about realm divide lol.
I think the biggest gripe I have in general is that unless you go about the 'right' way to do things you have no chance, and on your first run, you have no idea what the 'right' way is e.g. how the heck do you know you have to prepare for realm divide, etc.

[bobtheubilder]

I don't see it as a big issue. All-archer armies are tricky, and cause lots of losses at the beginning of the battle while you're powerless, but it's by no means an impossible stack to beat. You can use lots of cavalry from the flanks and rear once your main army engages, you can use units with good armor, you can attack in rain/fog, you can defend and pick good terrain. Or you can just hole up in a castle and weather it out.

If you've got a poorly equipped army, or if you're attacking in broad daylight on crap terrain, you're just asking to lose. It's not a fault of the game that there are unwinnable scenarios you can get yourself into.

[johannlo]

OK fair enough, just finding it difficult to build up these uber stacks AND arrange a naval invasion so early in the game. Guess that means its out of the question so naval blockade it is.

Never had issues taking apart archer armies in M2TW with a comparable balanced stack, I guess you're right in that the stacks are imbalanced as ---- (they would be having like 50% more points lol)

[Konfuzfanten]

First a disclaimer: my advice is for legendary/VH without using pause in a campaign mode against AI armies.

- Use a lot of cavalry (yes i know , it requires micro managing , but one must do it ) , like 4 units at least in a typical stack of 20 units

- From personal experience this is not a dependable strategy, way to often the AI will hold enough yari units in reserve to take on any Cav unit 1vs1 that tries to flank it. Only exception is if you can get all your cav in a forest and wait for the AI to engage your army. The only problem with this strategy against chosokabe is that they will not engage in melee but shoot you to pieces.

Ofc trying to micro managing 4-6 units of cavalry against heavy range fire and yari counter units without pause is a very tall order.

You cant count on ambush, rain, massive forest battlefield to win, you need to build your army so it can handle the initial arrow onslaught.

does this mean I need to dismantle my master weaponsmith and go for armour instead? as I only have one blacksmithing province.....

- sadly yes.

There are 2 other army setups that I find problematic but will work as shimazu:
1) out shot him: get Buzen (the province with a fletcher) and max out accuracy, build 10 samurai archers. Combine your maxed out accuracy samurai archers with 9 yari units and a general with stand and fight. You might need to a good amount of micro managing.
2) As shimazu you should have A LOT of money so build 1-2 armies of 1 general, 4 katana cavalry and 15 nagata. It’s a pretty expensive army but as shimazu you should be able to support it. You don’t need any upgrades and this army will eat any army that isn’t a pure katana army. There will be next to no micro managing other then loose vs close formation.

But you don’t need an elite army to beat the chosokabe. I have beaten a chosokabe samurai archer army with an army with no upgrades consisting of 50% yari ashigaru 50% katana samurai on a open field and in sunshine. As I have said before as long as you have a high level general with stand and fight your zero upgraded yari ashigaru can take on and hold the chosokabe archers so your cavlery / melee samurai units can get around the flank and roll up the flank. You will lose a LOT of yari ashigaru but as long as your general is in stand and fight behind the yari ashigaru line they will fight to the death more or less.

I think the biggest gripe I have in general is that unless you go about the 'right' way to do things you have no chance, and on your first run, you have no idea what the 'right' way is e.g. how the heck do you know you have to prepare for realm divide, etc.

Agreed, but as you play through multiple campaigns you will begin to see that you can win with any army type you just need to build that army in a specific province and always have an eye for the greater strategy plan of not tricking the realm divide.
I lost my first 3 campaign, before I gave up and restart on normal.

[fingon]

Use katana samurais with a few no-dachi and 3-4 katana cavalry on the flanks. Run to the enemy as fast as you can and once they hit their lane, these archers have no chance. A propos, this tactaics with loose formation is a good idea. Don´t try to compete with them with another archer army or naginata "spearmen", because they are pretty weak in close infantry combat.

[SupAll]

Use katana samurais with a few no-dachi and 3-4 katana cavalry on the flanks. Run to the enemy as fast as you can and once they hit their lane, these archers have no chance. A propos, this tactaics with loose formation is a good idea. Don´t try to compete with them with another archer army or naginata "spearmen", because they are pretty weak in close infantry combat.

Don't use katana or no-dachi to close in. Naginatas have better armor and even Yari samurai would be a better choice due to their charge ability to close in faster. They're also better prepared to deal with cavalry shall the AI have them. If you can close in fast enough and distract the archers long enough, you'll be able to flank with Katana cavalry. Just make sure your general stays out of harm's way...

[Konfuzfanten]

I would pick katana over yari samurai, because:
1) Katana and yari has the same armour.
2) Yari samurai will lose against an yari ashigaru in a spearwall, whereas katana will break the yari ashigaru. Katana can and will beat any unit on 1vs1. They might take a lot of casulities but in a prolong fight they will win.
3) Katana are overall better fighters, you might lose more on the way to the fight but they will make up for those casualties when they reach the enemy line.

Fully armour upgraded no-dachi will take some casualties but with banzai they eat archers and yari ashigaru.

But DONT use no-dachi if they are "unarmoured" because they will take horrendous casualties from range fire, just like monks.