How to use Gun armies effectively

[Steward Denethor II]

Hi I consider myself reasonably good at Medieval 2, and Rome battles, (though I am better at the campaigns) but I am not that good at fighting battles in the newer games where nearly all units have guns (ETW, NTW, FoTS) Of course I can usually still beat the AI without much too much trouble, but if the odds are even or close to even in the enemies favor I still end up losing between a half and a third of my force. In fall of the Samurai its worse because guns fire faster and the game itself is fast and I have more trouble controlling my army.

Any tips? I'm pretty sure that its possible to get better results (though when every unit has guns I'm guessing that casualties will always be higher).

Edit: Sorry if this is in the wrong place

[SturmChurro]

I hardly ever lose any of my battles once I have a nicely sized modern army (Line infantry, cannons, etc.).

You wanna know how to get wins with a pure modern army?

Bring several units of cannons, and bring several units of Line infantry and the sort. You could bring some cavalry if you want so you can outflank the enemy or do some back charges while in melee, but I have played campaigns where I don't even use cavalry.

Really just set up your infantry in a big line across the map, then place your artillery behind them (maybe having 1 or 2 units of Spear levy or melee infantry to protect them and your line infantry). When the battle has started have your cannons fire and don't let up. By the way, I actually manually choose units for each of my cannons, so I can hit the larger units or more important targets. If you have naval strike even better! When it is ready just aim it slightly in front of the marching enemy.

Anyway, by the time the enemy actually gets to your lines they will have lost a huge part of their army, literally half of their army a lot of the time, if they still have cavalry after the artillery bombarding, watch your flanks! When your lines start to fire it will finish off the enemy, very quickly. The ai does not know how to properly maintain it's lines, it will be completely disorganized. Most of their units will break quite quick. The only thing that would really be keeping them in the battle longer would be a living general or melee units, but even so the enemy should rout very quick. Pretty simple and if you have elite infantry or have kneel fire researched...

[wealthmonger]

I need practice with using guns as well but here's the easy way if you want to skip the guns, but it's cheesy. Cannon battle group vetted by a foreign agent.

[CTD_or_Bust]

SturmChurro is absolutely right. From the get go, you want to try to hit a golden number of 4 arty units per army. You get that and you'll pretty much be unstoppable with proper positioning. You can go higher if you want if you're going to have a full 20 unit army. You can go even HIGHER if you're working with two armies and allow big battles.

Optimal army in my opinion-
1 General
4 light infantry
5 cannons (or late game, 3 cannons 2 gatling guns)
10 line infantry

[Steward Denethor II]

Thanks a lot guys. I cant try this right now but when I get the time I will try a custom battle using your described forces. And I will post my results.

[fishball]

my optimal army, 1 general, 6 bow ki, 6 yari ki, 1 kisho ninja, 6 yari kachi.

[Steward Denethor II]

my optimal army, 1 general, 6 bow ki, 6 yari ki, 1 kisho ninja, 6 yari kachi.

Yes, Traditional armies can be powerful but this thread is about using modern armies.

[fishball]

ok, then 1 general with 19 suzaku tai

[CTD_or_Bust]

If you do try it out and upload a video/replay I'd be glad to watch it and analyze your positioning. Half of the strategy in RTS games (Which the battle portion of TW games falls under) is positioning! Very important.

[DeMolay]

Hi I consider myself reasonably good at Medieval 2, and Rome battles, (though I am better at the campaigns) but I am not that good at fighting battles in the newer games where nearly all units have guns (ETW, NTW, FoTS) Of course I can usually still beat the AI without much too much trouble, but if the odds are even or close to even in the enemies favor I still end up losing between a half and a third of my force. In fall of the Samurai its worse because guns fire faster and the game itself is fast and I have more trouble controlling my army.

Any tips? I'm pretty sure that its possible to get better results (though when every unit has guns I'm guessing that casualties will always be higher).

Edit: Sorry if this is in the wrong place

What you need to do with a modern army is to encircle the enemy and get your line infantry units to get closer and closer (1 unit at a time ) to the enemy , to get the "ring" tighter and tighter around them , that is how you sustain the least casualties possible with a gun army in my opinion (aside from the trick of baiting the enemy units with sharpshooters or bowmen with 150 range )

Of course against a human , it will not work because most humans will also try to do exactly that ( as opposed to the AI ) , PvP tactics is quite a complex subject .

However against the AI , in any difficulty , if you have 1 general and only line inf (with say 4-5 vets , the frontline units ) , you can always win with few casualties against any type of AI army , by basically deploying every single unit as wide as possible in two lines , the first line will be the front line , and the second line will be the units that you will deploy on the flanks of the enemy during the course of the battle (you can keep 2-3 units behind your mainfrontline , in case it is penetrated , they can also work as reserve troops which can be useful

The usual tactic is to quickly position the second line units (always all line inf in guard mode so they always shoot no matter what ) one by one on the flanks in order to encircle , and always spare 2 units to try to place them on the rear of the AI army during the battle , it takes a lot of micro (you are basically micro-managing intensely during the entire battles , positioning units one by one , no time to watch and admire ) , then the goal is to get the "circle" ever closer to the enemy , as the closest you units are , the more casualties they will inflict and the quicker they will break enemy morale

You can use 3-4 cavalry units to make it much easier to dominate the flanks initially (or kill enemy gen or tie enemy cav ) and you can also use 2-3 spear levies to have some security on the flanks and escort your line units on their way to encirclement against enemy cav , but it's not necessary if your line units are veterans or have kneel fire for instance , AI cav units will usually be decimated by the sheer number of guns you deploy , and losing 1-2 line units to take out enemy cav or sword units is generally a good idea

I don't use canon much cause i think they somewhat rob the challenge and fun of the battle , since if you have more than 3 of them (or even 2 when they are vet ) , they really a make a difference agains the AI who doesn't know how to deploy its troops properly (using mass of tight formation which helps canons ) , for instance 4 armstrong guns well supported by a few elite units will make most battles a cakewalk , you don't even need to flank or use tactics at all in most cases , but if you play in very hard modes or legendary when the AI heavily outnumbers and outproduce you , it is always a good thing to use them to balance it

[oqvist]

Having artillery in ETW/NTW means you can always dictate how a fight will go. You can choose to turtle which is generally the easy way for big wins or you can flank and harrass the enemy while you can always escape and then also lure the AI to your cannons. The importance of getting a defensive battle seems even more important in Shogun 2 with the fast forward as default. Or I have slow reflexes but it´s so hard keep proper formations on the attack it just get total mayhem sooner rather then later. Hard to get the timing right.

Lame to hear that you can win with only cannons though. I surely never tested this in ETW/NTW but I helieve they would get overrun more often then not. 3-4 units is often more then enough. Maybe FOTS have fire by rank but otherwise I see really no drawback with as thin columns as possible. You have done something wrong if the enemy can melee you with any kind of force and it let you easer to surround the enemy by the flanks that don´t get engaged directly otherwise.

[DarthShizNit]

I love gun battles the most, because there is so much more strategy involved (at least to me). You have to take into account everything, the height of that hill, at what point on the hill can my units fire on them without getting hit, where to march a unit of katana's so that they can't be fired upon until they're on top of the enemy, getting that all important crossfire.

While the best gun battles I've ever had are still in Empire (Sweden vs Russia=EPIC), the battles in FotS take just as much skill and planning, especially considering that early game I still use a bit of melee units. Due to teh fast paced nature of the game I always take more casualties than I would in other gun games such as Empire, but I am still able to wipe the floor with most opponents (AI at least, PvP I'm about equal win/total defeat and death).

VS the AI, it's simple, extend your line as far as you can stretch a unit, this puts more guns up front able to shoot, I almost always have some archers to shoot over them just to add to the amount of firepower. Once you have cannons you can simply pulverise the enemy or force them to come to you, but before you get cannons the AI is pretty good at making you come to them, in which case just extend your line longer than theirs and advance, using cavalry and your extended flanks to eventually surround them, basically pulling a cannae with a crossfire that routs them quickly. Just make sure your positioning is top notch and you have a clear line of fire.

Once you get kneel fire tactic become pointless, as a mid level with kneel fire is just going to kill everything the Ai throws at you in a few volleys. Just bring along artillery to make them come to you and blast them away.


.....Or just spam Revolver cav and win everything.

[Steward Denethor II]

Ok did my test battle, and I won, but forgot to take screenshots. I had 2400 modern troops vs 4200 traditionalist units. The armstrong guns were devastating, even in the rain. The only problem was that sometimes when I tell my gun troops to attack, they ing move forwards and don't shoot. It is actually really annoying, any way to stop this bug?

Once again, thank you for your help. Lost about 700 guys, partially because of the bug.

[oqvist]

They move so all are in range. If you want to stay on the limit you just move them without targeting them. Often better to have them keep formation as well if you have several units.