Best faction if you don't want to use gunpowder units in FOTS

[Swamidude]

Well title kind of says it, just bought Shogun II Gold Edition and am planning to play with a friend Wednesday that has bought the same gold edition. I'm an experienced total war player and usually play on Legendary, Rome II AI isn't a problem for me on legendary, but my friend had a hard time on easy.

He's pretty good at Empire though (just line up your canons and line infantry and you're ready to go practically, everybody is good at Empire battles in my opinion ) and we wanted to play the fall of the Samurai campaign against eachother. He likes gunpowder units more and I don't hate them, but I like the more differce tactics that come with the older warfare.

The deal is that I won't use any gunpowder units, so basically they are useless to my roster, so what faction has the best non-gunpowder units and the best roster if you don't count those units in? Also what's the best gunpowder faction, because that's the faction my friend is going to take and what tactics do you recommend. Are ambushes as easy as in Rome II or is hiding your units harder in Shogun II?

I allready said that it wouldn't be hard winning from him if he loses as Rome from the Etruscans in Rome II on easy, so I really hope gunpowder units aren't way overpowered in this game and I'll lose with my big mouth He does pown with Scytia, but that's with 5 or 6 ballista's and only armoured horse archers and seems to be the best faction to have Empire like battles ^^ Haven't really played the game yet except for 6 turns in the original game, so I would like to play arround a little bit tomorrow with the faction I'm going to take, so that I don't do anything stupid right away. I do have experience with med II, empire, napoleon and rome II, which things are different in Shogun II and should have my attention?


Edit: We both have the European gold pack, so all dlc's included except blood and gore. Maybe it makes a difference, I don't know :p

[Soggie]

I recently bought FOTS when it went on sale. I can't say I am an expert at the game. However, I don't think a no gunpowder army can beat a gunpowder army. A couple of cannons will lay waste to your army whether you are attacking or defending. Even without cannons, bows don't do enough damage or demoralize as much as guns.

The best case scenario is if you are defending in the field while your opponent doesn't have artillery. I think you will still lose. Your opponent will walk his riflemen up and take a few casualties and then proceed to demolish your army. You can't really charge him because he'll just stop his army and start shooting. There is a good chance your troops will break before they finish charging.

[Swamidude]

That's why I'm asking if ambushing is possible like in Rome II? Can you keep units out of sight of the other player long enough to really suprise someone or is that impossible? Anyway if I'm gonna try it, which faction would be the best to do it with?

[weirdoascensor]

That's why I'm asking if ambushing is possible like in Rome II? Can you keep units out of sight of the other player long enough to really suprise someone or is that impossible? Anyway if I'm gonna try it, which faction would be the best to do it with?

LoS system is only introduced in Rome II...However, you can always hide in forests or use Ninja; and Remember - Guns shoot straight. If there are some little pile of dirt obstructing a Rifleman's line of fire, they will not shoot; They also avoid Friendly Fire if there is a friendly troop between them and their target. So study the lay of the land and the contours - even a little bump in the ground can save your units from being shot. Use Reverse Slope tactic.

This is not the case with Cannons mind you...They can use plunging fire and Shrapnel Shot...You'll need press yourselves to a Large Hill or Ridge.

By the way...If you do not use Gunpowder Units at all, that's mean you're missing a lot of range units - Yumi Kachi is pretty high on the building tree. Even the basic ranged unit is using Cheap Muskets, no Yumi Ashigaru here...Also, Traditional Japanese Matchlocks and grenades uses Gunpowder too...Not to mention all FoTS Ships are Steam-Powered Cannon-Armed ships...

Basically, you need to elaborate more on your self-imposed rules to your friend.

...but my friend had a hard time on easy.

He's pretty good at Empire though (just line up your canons and line infantry and you're ready to go practically, everybody is good at Empire battles in my opinion ) and we wanted to play the fall of the Samurai campaign against eachother. He likes gunpowder units more...
...Also what's the best gunpowder faction, because that's the faction my friend is going to take and what tactics do you recommend. Are ambushes as easy as in Rome II or is hiding your units harder in Shogun II?

What kind of difficulty is he having? Is his problem the Campaign or Battle? If its Campaign, just use Satsuma, Tosa or Saga - All of them are in the fringes of the map, and Saga starts with a Parrott Gun. In Battle, there is no great differences between the clan, but Choshu's Kiheitai are good - They are Elite Infantry that can be recruited from Lv.2 Barracks, very early on. Ironically, Aizu whose Clan Bonuses are about Traditional Units actually have Gun Units as their Unique Factional Units.

[Swamidude]

LoS system is only introduced in Rome II...However, you can always hide in forests or use Ninja; and Remember - Guns shoot straight. If there are some little pile of dirt obstructing a Rifleman's line of fire, they will not shoot; They also avoid Friendly Fire if there is a friendly troop between them and their target. So study the lay of the land and the contours - even a little bump in the ground can save your units from being shot. Use Reverse Slope tactic.

This is not the case with Cannons mind you...They can use plunging fire and Shrapnel Shot...You'll need press yourselves to a Large Hill or Ridge.

By the way...If you do not use Gunpowder Units at all, that's mean you're missing a lot of range units - Yumi Kachi is pretty high on the building tree. Even the basic ranged unit is using Cheap Muskets, no Yumi Ashigaru here...Also, Traditional Japanese Matchlocks and grenades uses Gunpowder too...Not to mention all FoTS Ships are Steam-Powered Cannon-Armed ships...

Basically, you need to elaborate more on your self-imposed rules to your friend.



What kind of difficulty is he having? Is his problem the Campaign or Battle? If its Campaign, just use Satsuma, Tosa or Saga - All of them are in the fringes of the map, and Saga starts with a Parrott Gun. In Battle, there is no great differences between the clan, but Choshu's Kiheitai are good - They are Elite Infantry that can be recruited from Lv.2 Barracks, very early on. Ironically, Aizu whose Clan Bonuses are about Traditional Units actually have Gun Units as their Unique Factional Units.

We have played 'together' Empire and Rome II, with switching turns and playing battle on turns, so he knows my tactics and I know his, which is an advantage for me I think. Very simply put he doesn't micromanage very well I think and that isn't that much of a problem with Empire. There I use the same tactic which basically is, line up you cannons, line infantry on both sides, switch to canister shot when the enemy is close enough and let your line fire, If you do square formation on the two units on each flank you're basically save if you have enough fire power. I expect him to rely heavily on canons which can be a problem as I read

Perhaps I should say that we both have to play on legendary, which would be a huge handicap for him I think, at least at the start of the game my experience might help me expand faster then him, I will need a better economy to support more armies, because my losses will be much greater. I think he's just going to build armies and military buildings from the start, where I'm more concentraded on building up my economy in the early game. Because paying upkeep for large armies is pretty useless in the beginning as far as I know total war AI it should be possible to take out full stacks with half stacks in the beginning.. Allthough with no gun powder units that might be more difficult..

Thanks for the help, one more question, would the orginal Shogun II campaign be better to have a no gun powder vs. gun powder campaign? We thought that in that campaign gun powder was underpowered and it wouldn't really be challenging


edit: I also don't expect any cavalry expect the general, so I might have the advantage there, but I don't know for sure, based on his Empire armies he wouldn't. Perhaps it would be fair to say he can't build any traditional forces, because if he adds in melee troops I'm lost xD

[Steward Denethor II]

I have had success doing this but I didn't reach the endgame because I lost the save. Whats most important is that you are a Shogunate Clan, as you will get Elite Traditional troops not available to the Imperial Clans or a Republic. The Aizu have the best bonuses for your plan, however they apparently have a harder starting position. I was Jozai, I did use Parrot guns, and was only on H/H but I didn't find it particularly hard. On the higher settings though, you might.

Also you cannot build a traditional navy. The navy you do build, beware, will be brutally smashed so you must steal high level ports and/or lose the war on the waves. Casualties will be high but I think you can do it, though I would try to steal some of those fancy Armstrong or Parrot guns, if you decide to not build cannons.

[vuldric]

I took down a legendary campaign with the aizu without advancing past level 2 tech (no mods). My main army was a traditional unit only however i did have secondary army with parrot cannons.
weirdoascensor

makes valid tactical points on how to avoid losses by getting close to the enemy.
You should always be the one on attack or ambush to have the advantage with traditional units.

Also well experienced and good melee units will easily break enemy rifle units. If you dont count in cannon fire the rifle armies will only have to for two volleys max before your melee foot units can engage them.
One if your using yari kachi with charge ability or of coarse cavalry.
Lastly Comp vs human the traditional army win is easy. However if your playing against a human modern army that brings in a lot of variables.

[General Maximus]

I am a 'traditionalist' in terms of unit weapons and I too prefer to have a good ol' melee fight with more tactics, than a mass firefight that lasts until one of the arranged line starts to lose men with big guns blasting away around each other.

For a gameplay with minimal or complete lack of gunpowder use, I would recommend Takeda. Somewhat hard faction, and they sometimes struggle to get access to port and hold them long enough to attract Portuguese. By the time they get to learn to use gunpowder by researching that art and building enough arsenals, they are already dominant and don't need it.

But the problem with Takeda is that their tactics (unless you choose to ignore the starting conditions and make a radical U-turn and restrain) are based around cavalry. By mid-game, their armies have good infantry, but the whole early game is fuelled by their warhorses from Kai. Unless you steamroll, which also requires some horses.

Oda would be good if you want an infantry-based game. But then, Oda are notorious for their mass use of gunners in history, and they get cheap Ashigaru (and hence, cheap Ashigaru gunners) which may sometimes convince the players. Hojo are not far away, because they get cannons. Shimazu and Otomo are out of question, and Mori have a good tendency to get gunners because of their location and influence of Christianity. Tokugawa are entirely on player's choice, but I think they do get gunners.

The good ones for 'traditional' warfare would be Uesugi or Hattori, and to some extent, Date. I wouldn't recommend Ikko-Ikki, because their troops in general are somewhat poorer and cannot handle late-game armies properly (at least in my experience) unless you recruit heaps of units. I have played with them only 2-3 times and my experience with them is limited, but once I encountered a late-game army with two matchlock units, I was unable to fight them without getting a good deal of casualties.

The main thing is to restrain. I once won a Shimazu campaign halfway without ever using guns or turning to Christianity, but it was hard and I lost many battles which I could've won if I had gunners. I conquered whole Japan as Tokugawa without using one bit of gunpowder.

As for the ambushes, I find Shogun II ambushes more enjoyable. The line-of-sight thing in Rome II is nice, but it is one of the very few things good in that game. I had fun until I realised that you have to spam rolling fireballs to lay a proper ambush, and those fireballs were vastly overpowered. Here, you have the classical style ambush - an army marches in the center and the ambushers charge from the sides and shock them and hack them down before they get a chance to assemble. But here, the problem is distance. The deploying area for ambushers is way too far away, and after starting by the time they reach the enemy he would've already assembled and turn ambushes somewhat useless. But as far as I know, mods fixed that.