I suck at FOTS...

**gumption** · June 21, 2012, 01:59 PM

...so much so that is how I've re-named myself.

I'm good at Shogun 2 vanilla, winning around 2/3 battles. But FOTS? Man, I suck. Thing is - I don't know where I'm going wrong.

I usually bring 2 units if I can of marine unit. 4 upgrades in reload and accuracy and one in increased range. 4 maybe 5 units of black bear infantry, 4 upgrades in reload and accuracy. 4 units of yari ki decently vetted and perhaps a couple of spear troops and maybe a shogitai.

Well I think it's an ok army, but whenever I click attacks with my marine units they just walk into enemy fire. If I leave them with fire at will they don't shoot. My yari ki, even when it's better in stats than my opponent's yari ki AND gets the charge off - rout off the field and die first. It is baffling to me. Line of sight is good, use of general for morale is good. I will do a couple of recordings and post them for people to see, but I just thought some of you could give tips, or try and troubleshoot my army or my gameplay?

Any thoughts?

**Gen. Sherman** · June 21, 2012, 02:28 PM

In my experience I have found just don't click directly on a gun unit to fire upon, they do that slow march to death like you mentioned. I don't know why that happens, I think it's because the unit advances to a point where every guy in the unit has LOS on what you targeted. That's just a guess, but don't click fire is my advice. As for them not firing with fire at will on... that's a common bug that you have to be prepared for. Just turn fire at will on and off until they start shooting.

If ever your guys just start shuffling about when they should be shooting, just manually reposition them and that should solve that problem.

I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with your army selection, actually that seems to be the default army choice of many. Perhaps that's why it's difficult to win though since your using a combination that is so widely used with tactics that are well devolped by your opponents. FotS definitely has the potential for "outside the box" armys to be deadly. Just keep planning and trying new things.

**assistec24** · June 21, 2012, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Gen. Sherman

In my experience I have found just don't click directly on a gun unit to fire upon, they do that slow march to death like you mentioned. I don't know why that happens, I think it's because the unit advances to a point where every guy in the unit has LOS on what you targeted. That's just a guess, but don't click fire is my advice. As for them not firing with fire at will on... that's a common bug that you have to be prepared for. Just turn fire at will on and off until they start shooting.

If ever your guys just start shuffling about when they should be shooting, just manually reposition them and that should solve that problem.

I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with your army selection, actually that seems to be the default army choice of many. Perhaps that's why it's difficult to win though since your using a combination that is so widely used with tactics that are well devolped by your opponents. FotS definitely has the potential for "outside the box" armys to be deadly. Just keep planning and trying new things.

Agree 100 % with this; Good write Gen. Sherman

**assistec24** · June 21, 2012, 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by gumption

...so much so that is how I've re-named myself.

I'm good at Shogun 2 vanilla, winning around 2/3 battles. But FOTS? Man, I suck. Thing is - I don't know where I'm going wrong.

I usually bring 2 units if I can of marine unit. 4 upgrades in reload and accuracy and one in increased range. 4 maybe 5 units of black bear infantry, 4 upgrades in reload and accuracy. 4 units of yari ki decently vetted and perhaps a couple of spear troops and maybe a shogitai.

Well I think it's an ok army, but whenever I click attacks with my marine units they just walk into enemy fire. If I leave them with fire at will they don't shoot. My yari ki, even when it's better in stats than my opponent's yari ki AND gets the charge off - rout off the field and die first. It is baffling to me. Line of sight is good, use of general for morale is good. I will do a couple of recordings and post them for people to see, but I just thought some of you could give tips, or try and troubleshoot my army or my gameplay?

Any thoughts?

Hi,
I check some videos on the link u post - but i see no firearm units !
So, I will suppose u forgot to post-it ?
Anyway, u must remember a principle here: a stationary unit will open fire first in a advanced walking unit; thats mind, a walking unit need some extra sec. to arrange in-line, and the stationary unit are already prepared;
So, let the enemy to come to u, or if u must take a position, deploy your unit a bit away of the fire range of the enemy unit. Remember this.
Second, if u are a melee general, take only 4-5 cheap firearm units (black turtoise, with bear, etc) and invest more in cav and good melee inf.;
Remember a gun general will boost reload and accuracy on his firearm units, something what can make the difference vs a melee general;
Alos, when u upgrade your yati ki, put a point also on melee defence;

**Thorien Kell** · June 21, 2012, 03:21 PM

I'm also old S2 player with somewhat similar problems : ) But I'm getting better rapidly. First week or two of MM are worse. So many ways you can loose, and even noob has the chance of taking you out. You had to be game expert in S2 to counter my army build but not here. That's basically a good thing but still... ; ) Your army is OK, you don't need so much upgrades on line inf units btw - vanilla do just fine. BB or WB are both good. Marines lvl 5 is only line unit you need upgraded btw. Later you can decide weather to take or not lvl 9 range 150 BB. Only other line I consider in taking are Vermilions. Good shooters, good morale, boost morale. Worth it. Especially to send detached with one bear unit together to the other side of battlefield for example.

LOS is a bit*ch in FotS - small bump can get in a way of your unit. Watch where you position your units. Take camera way down and check terrain. Plan in advance. Letting enemy come to you is always a good idea, if you can afford it. Yari KI's - put upgrades only on attack, morale and then attack again. I have 2 units like that (for now) and 2 units with attack and morale, no clan attack. I combine 1 strong and one weaker, I always pull out weaker unit to attack from flank /back. I use one pair on either side and one in middle /behind general and include them left or right where necessary. Always take dojos if possible. Never let archery dojo without fight.

**coreBOSS** · June 21, 2012, 03:31 PM

Hey guys I feel you on this. It just takes time. Call me slow but I didn't have a good understanding of the game until over a hundred matches.

I had plenty of conversations with my friends about FOTS being terrible because this or that. Ultimately I just was riding my tricycle up a small mountain. Once I got up there I realized the game isn't to blame, I was. I have watched your videos Gumption (I think this is you) and I am confident you will get there. Just endure.

As a quick aside, I have used the army you are currently using many many times to great success so it's probably just you needing more game time.

Any time you wanna play just message me. I'm always up for helping someone!

Steam: h7boss <---not claiming to be all that good, just has an understanding of the game.

**zaript** · June 22, 2012, 01:46 AM

From what Gumption wrote, he puts too much funds into quality. When you are just starting to understand the game, you can`t use your units for their maximum potential, because you just don`t know how to yet, so getting quality units actually plays against you.

Fots differs from vanilla - there more possibilityes to win without directly confronting your enemys units. In my opinion in fots manuvering and positioning more important than in Shogun 2. And you should aaccount for that too.

Gumption, I would suggest you to start with something like this: 1 marines + 1 vermillion(for additional morale aura) + viriety of vanilla bears, dragons and tourtles. Make sure you have at least 7-8 line units and keep cheapest ones on the front. This will give you more flanking abilityes and more statistic to look at - what unit and why did the best, and what unit was just wasting the funds.

The secont thing I suggest is to put your time into watching replays. Review your losses and watch replays from tournaments like Gerudo Flashes or CW Grand Prix. In this case seeing is so much better than reading

I would specifically recommend fist game of CW Grand Prix finals. MypZuk vs Killerfisch on Rice fields. Thats a perfect showcase of expencive line usage. I reviewed this finals on my youtube channel, but I belive you should watch replays first so you can compare you view with others.

Or you can look at the games of Sherl from the same tournament - he uses a lot of cheap line units and his buil and playstyle are really hard to deal with.

**gumption** · June 22, 2012, 12:22 PM

Hey, guys. Thanks very much for the feedback, it's helped a lot. No more clicking attack orders for me!

I've played a couple of battles since and I still suck, but think I'm improving with these tips. I will be posting these up tomorrow on this thread if you're curious on how not to play fots.

@ Gen. Sherman - I like you're thinking, and yip I'm going to change up my army selection. I'm actually pretty excited about bows. They have 150 range and do decent damage as well as being cheap. I'll try them out anyway.

@ assistec24 - Haven't posted vids on link yet, will post here though so you guys can have a laugh. I will bear in mind being careful with stationary units. Change my thinking to suit that will be tricky though.

@ Thorien Kell - I haven't paid much attention to those units that boost morale. That should help a lot. Glad I'm not the only one having had issues with fots though.

@ h7Boss - Thanks for the encouragement, next time I'm off work I might just hit up your steam name if you're available.

@ zaript - I'm beginning to agree with that. I do tend to take too much quality when I should be trying to strike a balance. Guess I'm used to overwhelming my opponents with awesome troops in vanilla shogun... But yeah, I've definitely seen the advantage of balancing good to average to poor units in this game. Thanks!

So yeah, I plan on posting a vid or two tomorrow. One in particular was some really bad action on my part, but I think I see where I went wrong. Any and all opinions on it are welcome.

**Thorien Kell** · June 22, 2012, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by gumption

Hey, guys. Thanks very much for the feedback, it's helped a lot. No more clicking attack orders for me!

Don't just give up on them entirely yet ; )

**gumption** · June 23, 2012, 08:28 AM

Ok, so, I was going to put in an addition to the following vid saying why I thought I failed, but in the end I thought it best to not taint it:

Here is another game I played straight after. Feel free to skip places as it's a fairly long game, but I think the army I chose was pretty solid:
(I should mention that I've trimmed the 6 seconds before the vid starts...)

So yeah any opinions are welcome!

**Thorien Kell** · June 23, 2012, 08:49 AM

Use morale 8 linies /bears and up.
Don't use double lines unless vs strong melee.
Don't position your units to move to his firing range, stop just little bit further. Engage on need, better yet to wait.
Use less melee expect on certain maps.
Use one unit of marines minimum.
Use 5 good line inf. minimum.
Spread your linies fully wide.
Don't just move blindly ahead, think of terrain and dojos.

**gumption** · June 23, 2012, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Thorien Kell

Use morale 8 linies /bears and up.
Don't use double lines unless vs strong melee.
Don't position your units to move to his firing range, stop just little bit further. Engage on need, better yet to wait.
Use less melee expect on certain maps.
Use one unit of marines minimum.
Use 5 good line inf. minimum.
Spread your linies fully wide.
Don't just move blindly ahead, think of terrain and dojos.

Thanks for this, I will try to tattoo them on my eyelids. What about the melee though? I've seen a number of people bring melee rush and those troops do well in the engagement?

**VersionLangley** · June 24, 2012, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by gumption

Thanks for this, I will try to tattoo them on my eyelids. What about the melee though? I've seen a number of people bring melee rush and those troops do well in the engagement?

That's the thing m8, it depend so much on map that i don't think any army built thumb rule is good. 8 morale line is good but I wouldn't underestimate any low tier line like black tortoise and wouldn't rely too much on Vermi bird nor few of the upper tier one. Recommend you against vermi bird in fact if you going into a gun to gun fight

So best thing to say perhaps would be to remember all the maps, and continue playing casually until you familiar with everything, that is not having a lost gets to you. Try not to scrutinize too much with replays and Youtube as it won't get you far IMO. They're only there for entertainment.

Perhaps join a clan? Now the the global lobby chat is removed, you can play more quality matches with your clanmate. There're many good ronin players, but it much harder to find if you play MM all the time.

**zaript** · June 23, 2012, 09:22 AM

Well, from my perspective, tactically first game was lost by poor micro around 1:50. You attacked marines from the front, and while you did that, your camera was way back and you were managing your cav. So I would say you misjudged distance to your enemy, and fight started when you weren`t prepared to control it.

Plan wise you obviously did a mistake by clustering your forces. Since he doesn`t have a lot of melee, the are no reason to keep your melee with the line, put them on the flanks. Personally I would be spreading my forces from the very beginning with composition like yours. You have stronger cav, so you are not afraid of his charge, so spread all you want, take map control, and when he tries to hit you in the middle - retreat, if he chase you, his flank would become vulnerable for your melee strike.
This is actually hard to explain using words - there too many possibilities, but you should not fight strongest part of your enemy army when he wants it. He had line advantage, so starting line fight is what he wanted, and you gave that to him. Instead you should keep you distance or/and use terrain, and seek for opportunity to charge cav and shogitai at the same time, and after that you bring line in. Creating opportunity for such a charge and performing it with a good timing isn`t an easy task. It is almost like dancing on the field

Over all - right now I belive you need sharper micro if you want to attack. To have sharper micro you need to make decisions faster, and for that you need more experience, and not live record, I guess

Or choose more defensive play style for now.
And I hope my words didn`t sound harsh, it is hard to analyze mistakes and be perfectly polite at the same time.

**gumption** · June 23, 2012, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by zaript

Well, from my perspective, tactically first game was lost by poor micro around 1:50. You attacked marines from the front, and while you did that, your camera was way back and you were managing your cav. So I would say you misjudged distance to your enemy, and fight started when you weren`t prepared to control it.

Agreed, I really misjudged the distance. Didn't realise how quickly he was advancing.

Plan wise you obviously did a mistake by clustering your forces. Since he doesn`t have a lot of melee, the are no reason to keep your melee with the line, put them on the flanks. Personally I would be spreading my forces from the very beginning with composition like yours. You have stronger cav, so you are not afraid of his charge, so spread all you want, take map control, and when he tries to hit you in the middle - retreat, if he chase you, his flank would become vulnerable for your melee strike.

That is excellent advise, thank you. I will keep that in mind and move to dominate the map more.

This is actually hard to explain using words - there too many possibilities, but you should not fight strongest part of your enemy army when he wants it. He had line advantage, so starting line fight is what he wanted, and you gave that to him. Instead you should keep you distance or/and use terrain, and seek for opportunity to charge cav and shogitai at the same time, and after that you bring line in. Creating opportunity for such a charge and performing it with a good timing isn`t an easy task. It is almost like dancing on the field

I like that. Makes me want to play more.

Over all - right now I belive you need sharper micro if you want to attack. To have sharper micro you need to make decisions faster, and for that you need more experience, and not live record, I guess

Or choose more defensive play style for now.
And I hope my words didn`t sound harsh, it is hard to analyze mistakes and be perfectly polite at the same time.

And therein lies the problem I think. I don't know enough about the game to make split-second decisions. In vanilla decisions are easy for me, here I don't really know that much. Your words aren't harsh, I take all criticism seriously. Especially when I ask for it. Thanks again.

**zaript** · June 23, 2012, 02:16 PM

And therein lies the problem I think. I don't know enough about the game to make split-second decisions. In vanilla decisions are easy for me, here I don't really know that much. Your words aren't harsh, I take all criticism seriously. Especially when I ask for it. Thanks again.

I had the same trouble at the start. So what I did is - I restricted myself with a theme for a couple of games, like "use this two shogitai effectively", "don`t waste cav and catch his cav", "make him attack my lane, instead of attaking", "munuvre in such a way, his marines never shoot", "hide surprize in the forest if he forgot informer", etc. One main idea each game, until I could perform each at least somewhat satisfiable, and then they somehow started to fit together.
And I learned a lot from youtube

**Sepelio** · June 23, 2012, 10:16 PM

I didn't read the thread but I like speaking in red text.

If you suck at FOTS, you need to use more guns.

I hope this post has been productive towards your continued shooting folk right in the ear. Also you should attack instead of camping on a hill (this is an assumption).

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

**coreBOSS** · June 24, 2012, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by Sepelio

I didn't read the thread but I like speaking in red text.

If you suck at FOTS, you need to use more guns.

I hope this post has been productive towards your continued shooting folk right in the ear. Also you should attack instead of camping on a hill (this is an assumption).

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

Bro just lol. This is the laziest reply I've read in a long time and it caught me so off guard that I laugh/coughed and my wife asked me "what's wrong?"...u should win an award.

Sincerely thanks for the laugh man.