rots: foot samurai

[Civilopedian]

am i the only one wondering what can possibly stand up to spamming foot samurai?

i am seriously thinking of just having entire stacks of these plus a general and two or three spear units to defend against cav.

my thinking is, if you just make a small wall of spears to hold up cavalry, foot samurai will rain down hell upon everything in range. and in melee, except cav, other units have no chance.

amirite?

[crzyrndm]

am i the only one wondering what can possibly stand up to spamming foot samurai?

i am seriously thinking of just having entire stacks of these plus a general and two or three spear units to defend against cav.

my thinking is, if you just make a small wall of spears to hold up cavalry, foot samurai will rain down hell upon everything in range. and in melee, except cav, other units have no chance.

amirite?

Two problems.

A) No spearwalls in RotS. Your cheap spear units will no longer hold up everyone for a long time.
B) They cost a hell of a lot, so by the time you can use large numbers of them the short campaign will be finished.

Warrior monks will easily beat FS because of their much larger size and similar stats

[MJWilliams]

Yup, Naginata Warrior Monks are the way to go, as always. They will tear FS apart in melee and can cause the good old chain rout with some neatly timed Warcries. Despite the title of the DLC I favour warrior monks over samurai any day.

[Civilopedian]

10 FS + maybe 4 spears and 6 cav crush anything though?

engage monks with FS and charge into the back

[Charsi]

I previously played Minamoto and found a stack of Foot Samurai to be fairly incredible but if you did run into a counter, they went down hard due to their small numbers. I got into a pitched battle with a bunch of levee backed by four generals. The levee weren't the problem.. the Generals were! Their range and accuracy curbstomped my units and when they charged into melee, even backed by Naginata levy, I just couldn't hold the line. I would fight them over and over (quicksave ftw) and rout the levy, only to see my Foot Samurai drop like someone shooting a bedsheet with buckshot.

Basically FS are great if you can leverage FS's strengths: to pepper the enemy from range, reduce their number, and win every ranged battle. Your FS weakness is mobility and numbers; they lose to accurate enemy ranged (which levy aren't) and to cavalry, particularly cavalry charges if you don't focus fire. Generals are like the worst of the two: accurate range and mobility. It's funny cause in Vanilla, I would laugh at an army with 3-4 Generals in it, cause you know they're just going to charge onto your Yari and commit suicide. In RotS they are kind of scary, they hang back and are bloody lethal.

I'm trying a Fujiwara clan now (the one that replaces Mogami) and their strength is clearly Monks. I'm going serious for monks, building up Uzen province and will see just how those Monks do up against Foot Samurai. The range increase on the Bow Monks looks very, very interesting for some first strike effects. I really want to see how monks stack up against the Foot Samurai of doom i'm sure are soon to arrive from the south. I deliberately picked this clan (and went up to Hard difficulty) to see if I could stand against AI stacks of Foot Samurai.

Mounted Samurai do a number on Foot Samurai, but you can't build an army of purely mounted guys. They have a big friendly fire problem.

As noted above, the complete lack of any tight formation or yari wall make it difficult to "defend" your archery line and noticably increase the potency of cavalry charges. In Vanilla, again, i'd just hide my guys behind a couple of spearwalls. Castle defense is a cinch even when they scale, because you just pull back behind spearwalls around the Tenshu. That just doesn't happen in RotS.

[Carthago]

I don't think they're too good, If you want to defeat enemy Foot Samurai Armys you should let Naginata or Sword Attendants attack the Samurai directly while some Cav units and your own Samurais are attacking them from the flanks. Or you let some Bow attendants fire at the samurai, and then they'll lose so many men that your normal Naginata or Sword Attendants won't have any problems.

[Charsi]

I haven't really tried Bow Attendants yet. Hmm. They do take longer to rout than Levy.

[Civilopedian]

how come nag beat samurai? i thought sword > spear?

[crzyrndm]

how come nag beat samurai? i thought sword > spear?

You mean the nagi monks beating the foot samurai? It's because the samurai unit is only 60% of the size of the monks, and monk units have good stats anyway.

I haven't really tried Bow Attendants yet. Hmm. They do take longer to rout than Levy.

I found that attendants were the way to go for the majority of armies. They have the attacking/staying power that levy lack, but still retain the numbers to go toe to toe with samurai.

[Charsi]

I found that attendants were the way to go for the majority of armies. They have the attacking/staying power that levy lack, but still retain the numbers to go toe to toe with samurai.

Not sure I agree at least as far as Naginata Attendants. I had 3 nag attendants and 2 bow monks up against an approx 10 stack of levy (including spawned garrison) in a siege assault; my attendants would break and flee if I lured 2 or 3 of the nag levy into an engagement.

I ended up winning by whittling them down with bows, pulling back when they charged until all but one levy turned back, then rushing that levee with all 3 nag attendants simultaneously. It's the only way they wouldn't simply rout. To my eye, Naginata Attendants can be out-zerged by Levy.

With the low morale of both Attendants and Levy, a second unit attacking from the rear or side is devastating.

What I haven't tried is Warrior Monks backed by Bow Attendants. That might work better. Warrior Monks are quite the investment though (town needs Buddhist Temple + Koryu Dojo) but would be fairly hilarious with a fully upped armorsmith and encampment. It actually makes me think I should restart my campaign, cause I played as the green guys starting with a shrine, i'd rather play the green guys that start with a blacksmith.

[valky]

What I haven't tried is Warrior Monks backed by Bow Attendants. That might work better. Warrior Monks are quite the investment though (town needs Buddhist Temple + Koryu Dojo) but would be fairly hilarious with a fully upped armorsmith and encampment. It actually makes me think I should restart my campaign, cause I played as the green guys starting with a shrine, i'd rather play the green guys that start with a blacksmith.

Same problem as well I tried to focus on monks too but it's really an unit when you dominate the map and have a steady income. While it wasn't necessary the upkeep, I had some serious trouble to beat the amassed levy troops at the beginning as I was outnumbered 3:1 (counting the men not units) just like you as well.

Guess the major problem was the amount of time I had to spend in upgrading that town.
It's way easier to upgrade a sword or naginata school so the recruitment time is 1 than to spend ages on upgrading 2 buildings just to get warrior monks; not counting the money... Another problem is the long travel time to get to the front.
That's one big advantage that favors the blue/red factions.

Will restart as well, but I guess I'll focus only to get the better koryo school, so I have monk archers (which really do fine) and naginata attendants in 1 turn. That's sounds like a reasonable force at the beginning. And the faster building time might give me the advantage I need.
(played on VH ^^ maybe that's another reason though...)

[it took then 6 seasons just to build 6 monks... definitely a no-go at the campaigns' beginning]

[Robin de Bodemloze]

how come nag beat samurai? i thought sword > spear?

Don't think TW is as strict with the RPS mechanism any more. In any case warrior monks have very strong stats in melee attack/defence and morale, and like crzymdm said, their unit size is much bigger.

[IGdood]

how come nag beat samurai? i thought sword > spear?

Sword > YARI > SWORD Cavalry > Sword

Naginata has no place in the rock paper scissors. It's Sword + Yari.

[Charsi]

I just took a look at a vid on youtube and saw that the green guys with the shrine that I picked also take a bureaucratic hit (+20% increased upkeep on levy and attendants)... which explains why my finances sucked SO much. I declared war on whatever faction owns Fukushima on turn 1, by the way. Managed to take it with my starting levy army (Hard difficulty) though it was one hell of a fight. I then built up the town defenses (Stronghold + Barracks) and hunkered down because I got swarmed on all sides: from Echigo, Hitachi and finally the Minamoto declared on me. I've defended against 5 full stacks in as many turns. My general is top ranked and the levy I have in the town are all very highly ranked. It's getting pretty absurd. Fukushima is another Helm's Deep, the gateway to the north.

I figure if i'm going to go heavy Monks it might be best just to start as Minamoto anyway and build up the capital huge, with focus on a weaponsmith. Use it to pump out ridiculously high attack Mounted Samurai and Naginata Monks.. but that would require what, 4 buildings in the town? A Buddhist Temple, a Koryu Dojo, a Bushi Dojo and an Encampment. Not to mention a serious investment in Chi arts. On second thoughts, Fukuhara Taira seems the better clan to go heavy Monks. They start with Koryu already and have an upkeep discount. If you can just push your way to Echizen and Kaga... hmm.. they also own Kyoto already and have that +20% arts school pre-built.. and are close to trade nodes... maybe i'll give Taira another go.

This is turning into a strategy thread, heh. Well I guess we're in the strategy forum...

By the way in my last Minamoto game I went Armorsmith instead of Weaponsmith, and I was NOT impressed at all. The armor simply didn't seem to make my troops any better at not dying to arrows. I'd rather they kill faster.

[valky]

Fukuhara Taira has nearly any good advantage one can have: (played on hard and is really fun!)
- tiny armor boost - nice to have
- cheap Naginata (monks) - uhm, I consider it the best melee unit
- early access to Monomi! - still the best Agent in RotS
- 20% research boost to everything! (Kyoto)
- fast access to trade-nodes
- fairly easy access to smithing AND craftwork
- has amazing chokepoints to the east, where you HAVE to attack the castle and can't just pass (south shinano, Kaga and Mikawa or Totomi; but it leaves you a bit vulnerable to an invasion force but your income is at this point sky-high, so severals fleets doesn't matter

That alone outweighs both green factions, specially the shrine-one. Cause as soon as I advanced, nearly everything declared war on me. Though in my 1st try I did something 'very' stupid - as mentioned went deep into Naginata Monks + bow and wanted to stick with both provinces and go for the Shimazu area (having DMS installed..so double ship-movement still another 5-6 turns to go for)
It went well so far, as no one (even on VH) declared war on me, but it took way to long anyway. The bow monks were finished, but another 6 season for only 6 melee units was too long. So while I encountered only levy + some attendant troops on the Shimazu-island (full stack of course), the sheer masses of troops were giving me a very hard time. (and 2 bow-hammering generals are not remotely funny!)
With just 4 Nagi monks more, the battles might have been easier, cause I couldn't break their morale fast enough as they outnumbered me - always ^^

In my 2nd try I went with my agent straight to Echigo - fastest campaign on VH ever

Guess, Fukushima 'Helms Deep' is the way to go, as it's a nice strategic point for further advance. If only your ally wouldn't be _that_ stupid! He captured Fukushima twice, but sent his force back to his city so it was instant re-captured. The 2nd time, the enemy army WAS RIGHT besides him..but he went straight for Shimotsuke or Hitachi. Seriously...WTF!

[honestly, the difference from hard to very hard is tremendous. Feels a bit like my other legendary campaign and that's why I always forget to save...darn!]

edit: Oooh, the topic..hmm I guess I'll give the monk archer a try this time, even if they are a bit weaker and don't have any melee capabilities like the FS. But the slightly bigger force should compensate the higher accuracy of the FS. But in the 'old' campaign no archer had any melee at all and wasn't needed. The biggest problem and threat are cavalry forces, where it doesn't matter if a samurai or monk getting just pwned ^^

[valky]

By the way in my last Minamoto game I went Armorsmith instead of Weaponsmith, and I was NOT impressed at all. The armor simply didn't seem to make my troops any better at not dying to arrows. I'd rather they kill faster.

Thought about it quite a bit too, but now I encounter decent foot samurai armies and I guess I'll stick with the armor, the +2 melee difference shouldn't be that noticeable, but the +2 armor are (maybe even the +1 from the camp). They really do nasty damage and what good is melee if no one is left to do some damage...
But on hard I'd take melee - afair, I didn't really encounter foot samurai-only-armies; seems to be completely different on vh o_O. Finally another reason to field at least 4 (well-armored) Naginata cavalry as well to rip them to shreds.

Got a decent start now with the shrine-(maiden)-faction. Let my ally take over Fukushima - I can 'convince' him later anyway, to give it to me . It really reduces the aggressiveness of several factions and nobody cared about me *cheer*. Even if I idled around for like 4 years - using the 1230-mod too cause 25 years is way too short - I can now advance pretty quick with my monk-only armies.

ack, on a sidenote, I barely remember the 'massive' arrow damage from vanilla, that was one of the main reason to switch over to DMS, so the armorsmith is really noticable but not in vanilla. Had Naginata Samurai in my very first campaign peppered with even more armor, though it didn't really matter even against Ashigaru...and Samurai archer/monks were just a really bad joke.

edit: interesting, not intended but I switched back to the 'foot samurai' topic ^^ And I'm impressed about monk archers as well, they do really good.

edit2: while posting a comment on your other great posting ^^ I realized, I should use my 'freaking own' described tactic and just annihilate my sister clan early on and let whoever wants it Fukushima alone. You really have nearly everything on one spot and usually no one cares about you, as long as you don't advance, cause Fukushima is a nasty AI-trigger. Would build the archer in the shrine area anyway and later replace them with those evil +20 things, as they can easily reach 5/6 (!) ranks after a few buildings only. Time to restart and give it a try - better to save first too

[Charsi]

As Taira, you can choke at Kaga (northeast) and Owari/Mikawa (southeast). The castle at Mino is close enough that if anyone comes wandering in from South Shinano, you can move a huge army stack from Owari to Mino in a single turn. Significantly, in RotS, the horses in Mikawa on Vanilla have been replaced with an Iron mine, making Mikawa a rather important grab, as well as a chokepoint. If you really want to be mean, never upgrade the road in Mino, just to stall a possible path of advance, and have a Monomi scouting up the road (or in the town of Mino itself). An invasion can also be stalled by a Shirabyoshi.

I just went up from Normal to Hard. I dont think I want to go any higher just yet.

As for Monks, well, funny story.. I mentioned the Monks+Attendants vs Levy above. The Attendants would rout pretty quick. But the Monks would actually stick it out hand to hand, and due to morale, not break for quite some time. After a few battles I got curious and looked at the Bow Monk melee stats - they're nearly as good as Naginata Attendants.

In my Fujiwhatever campaign I took Fukushima when his army left to invade some other province (I was hiding in the mountain pass to the northeast of town). Unfortunately his army hadn't crossed the border when I took the town, so I had to endure the next 10-20 turns the army wandering back and forth between lumbermill, farm and military port, pillaging each in turn, while successive stacks attacked from nearby provinces, preventing me from leaving the town to deal with him. Finally he threw himself against the walls as well, and died. I hate rebels.

Edit: I started a new Taira campaign, immediately merged my army and beelined Echizen, with a new monomi and junsatsushi in tow. A quick battle later and I was the proud owner of artisans. Moving into Kaga, I had to wound their Daiymo in order to put him out of action so I could bribe the army, which dragged me into a larger war with their ally, the neighbouring province to the north (its a Hatakeyama province in vanilla), but with the bribed forces and the battered survivors of my Echizen victory, I took Kaga. Now its time to turtle and backfill. I have ships at 2 trade nodes and am rocking 3k+ koku per turn. Monks are on the way. Foot Samurai? What's that? :-P

[Charsi]

I recieved a dilemma regarding a temple and whether I should request aid or simply raid the thing for 2000 koku. Befuddled, I selected "request aid".

Two turns later a Naginata Warrior Monk shows up outside my capital, which for various reasons at the time was Kyoto (I was getting my ass handed to me). With no clear plan, I put him in Kyoto, which at least had walls around it. The next turn, the enemy siege assaults me with damn near full stack, about 6 nag levy and ten bow levy.

A 4 bow levy + 2 naginata levy attack from one direction, and 6 nag levy + 2 bow levy attack from the other. I put all my bow (which wasnt many) on the wall facing the 6 nag levy, look at my monk and say "stuff it" and send the monk out alone against the 4 bow levy side.

I mostly expected the monks to die and inflict losses. To my surprise, they didn't die... they routed the levy. I got really lucky because 3 of the bow levy clustered around my monks, causing them to flash "wavering: flanks exposed". Then War Cry came off cooldown. Boom. The naginata levy arrived late and got routed. In the end about 15 monks beat a retreat back behind my walls, and I blunted one entire vector of attack. They were broken, so they soon recovered their moral and resumed their advance but by that time i'd dealt with the other wall and was able to pull a bow levy over and basically plink away at them until they shattered and routed for good.

The monks survived the battle and are now quietly replenishing.

Conclusion: Monks are @%$@#$ awesome. Can't wait to use more. I can build Tetsubo Warrior Monk Heroes in Kaga soon, with fully upgraded weaponsmith, should be awesome...

[valky]

You didn't have bought by any chance the Ikko-Ikko DLC package? It includes:
- a nasty melee monk (same like Uesugi)
- a machine-gunning archer monk (Uesugi stats too)
- a crazy Teppo monk - too bad he is missing fire by rank, and you need to put the unit in a straight line
- evil-insane naginata monk cavalry of doom :>

Afaik, there are some unit-mods too, which uses similiar stats and stuff, but the DLC was 120% worth every single [EURO-]cent. It's really a different play-style, as you can't rely on armor-heavy troops, but they do kill..and they do kill _fast_ ^^ My 2nd General in my campaign got the nasty 15% bonus to any archer, let me calculate, uhm yes ~110+ something accuracy....and even with DMS, which reduces the lethality of arrows, they are just freaking insane.

Anyway, restarted the campaign as mentioned (4th time...) and took over my sister clan. Despite the -50 dishounorable thingie it went well so far... Yet my 2nd ally forced me to start war against minamoto and this clan and this clan..and even this clan...just training my 2 Shirabyoshi as my province ares completely defenseless *whistle*. As long as he is holding Fukushima I guess nothing can go wrong, even if it cost me a -load (yeah I know..wub-smilie you don't like that word) of money to stall the armies, it's cheaper than to raise a half-hearted force. (need only another 3-4 turns ^^)

[agents do freaking rock the planet in the DLC! and monks are insane..I know :Þ]

[Charsi]

I did. Love Ikko. Their style of play (spreading Ikko influence, etc) is why I like RotS so much. It's like Ikko writ large.