Artillery/gunpowder and archers in this game
It might be a dumb idea to rant about such an old game, but I wanted to share some thoughts since this game still has a community.
So, I'm a huge medieval 2 fan and recently thought about trying a newer total war title. And what better than shogun 2. It seems most people agree it's one of the best in the series, and it's also similar to medieval in its setting/time period. I'm also interested in Japanese history, so it was a good pick.
Anyway, I really liked this game in many ways and I have hundreds of hours in it. I particularly like the campaign map, the province specialties etc., it's very well designed and submersive. The units look great, battles are fun most of the time.
Like many other players, my first clan was the Chosokabe, so naturally archer spam. Then I tried Shimazu and Hojo and tried to roleplay by building armies focusing on each clan's bonuses.
And here comes my frustration. The balancing between gunpowder/artillery units and archers in this game is completely atrocious, which I came to realise during my second and third campaign. I'll make bullet points of every frustration I've had so far:
1. Matchlock units completely melt when faced with archers. Matchlocks are kind of good if the enemy has no archers (or focuses them elsewhere), as they deal a lot of damage and have an impact on morale. However, even matchlock samurai will melt when faced with a few bow ashigaru. The increased range/fire rate of the bows, combined with the ridiculous AI boosts on archers, makes the matchup very unfavorable. Also, since bow ashigaru have no armor, matchlocks don't really excel against them. So, a cheap unit that can be recruited from turn 1 destroys units that require very much investment (100s of turns to master gunpowder mastery).
This bothers me a lot because historically matchlocks are supposed to be a game-changer... As the Shimazu, you're supposed to have an advantage from early nanban trade. And yet, you're just better off ignoring the nanban and using bow ashigaru (if you want ranged units).
To add insult to injury, in bridge battles gun units don't have enough range to shoot the archers on the other shore, but the archers certainly can reach them and shred them to death.
2. Bows are absolutely insanely overpowered in offensive sieges. A bunch of daikyu samurai can destroy a whole stack of samurai armies without a single casualty (literally). I've even taken Kyoto with less than a hundred casualties vs the huge Ashikaga samurai stack.
This is a very weird balance choice, considering that bows shouldn't be effective at all at such a weird angle (in medieval 2, bows are useless vs a city). Yet, they are basically a nuclear weapon here. Heaven and Earth also multiplies their ammo by 1.5, making this all the more insane. So, not only do bow ashigaru destroy matchlock units on the field, they are also infinitely better than them when assaulting walls, since matchlocks basically can't do anything in that scenario. Remind me why I should research gunpowder again? Or build a nanban port? That's right, I shouldn't.
3. Siege units are atrociously bad to the point that it's not even funny. Yes, everybody knows that mangonels are the worst unit in this game. Yet, I thought they might have some use when besieging. Absolutely not! Even when recruited with +20 accuracy (plus Hojo variant), they miss way too much and hardly do anything, even in sieges. They might occasionaly destroy a wall, while wasting a lot of ammo, but compare that to daikyus who can easily destroy any unit without even bothering with the wall and still have a ton of ammo left.
I believe there is literally no scenario where siege units are even as good as a vanilla bow ashigaru. The only thing they have going for them is morale damage, but guess what! Morale does nothing when besieging, since the defenders never rout while in the innermost castle level. So, here you go: bow ashigaru >>> siege units.
Fire rockets and hand mortars are the only kind of decent siege units. But even those excel in the field (because of morale damage), not at sieges. I'm not even joking, a vanilla bow ashigaru (with heaven and earth) is better in a siege assault than upgraded hojo fire rockets (go logic!).
Oh, and even in the field, a bunch of bow ashigaru can straight up destroy any of the units mentioned above. A mangonel will literally miss all the way until the bow ashigaru get near it and destroy it. Fire rockets will get wiped out in just a few bow volleys, due to their small numbers.
Let's not even mention the bomb throwers... Description says they can destroy walls. Meanwhile, a generic melee unit can set fire on a gate much easier and the bomb throwers get shredded by arrows before they can even reach the walls.
This, combined with my previous point, also means that the Chosokabe are much, much better than the Hojo at sieges, even though this is supposed to be the Hojo specialty.
4. Not a siege unit, but similarly the shimazu heavy gunners' "selling point" is supposed to be they can damage walls. Guess what! That doesn't matter (except maybe for destroying some tower). Because they will melt under arrow fire long before they can shoot at the wall that the archers are behind. (They are good on the field though, if they are not pitched against the mighty bowman)
So there you have it, that's my rant. It's the thing that bothers me the most in this game. Gunpowder is supposed to be a gamechanger for Japan, yet here you have a bunch of gunpowder units crying while getting shredded to death by arrows. Historically, is there even an example of gunmen getting destroyed by bows? Even if there is, it shouldn't happen like this, with arrows shot blindly over a castle wall at insane range, or with bows in the field shredding gunmen before they can even get in range. Or, with artillery missing so much that the enemy just walks up to them and destroys them with 0 casualties...
Not to mention the revolutionized siege warfare! Bring 0 artillery and a ton of archers, and win with 0 casualties (makes sense).
TLDR version:
1. When besieging:
Daikyu samurai >>> Bow samurai > Bow ashigaru >>>>>>> Mortars/Mangonels/Rockets/Cannons > Literally garbage >>>> Matchlocks > Bomb throwers
2. When besieged:
Matchlocks are "good", yet bows still outrange them and could shred them to death before they do anything. The only reason the matchlocks do anything is because the ai does not focus its arrows on them.
3. In the field:
Matchlocks and artillery are decent for morale damage, however they all melt against a bunch of bow bois. So they only really excel if bow bois are few or are occupied with something else.
4. In bridge battles:
Bows >>>>> Matchlocks
5. Investment required:
-None for bow ashigaru/samurai, the bare minimum for daikyus (heaven and earth is the best military art even without them). Bow monks require more investment but even that is nothing compared to gunpowder.
-Gunpowder mastery required for most gunpowder units. This means 100s of turns into the campaign and probably having to focus on conquering provinces that boost research. Not to mention missing out on arts that are much better, such as chonindo, tax reform, sumo tournament, calligraphy... Or, christianity which is supposed to be high risk high reward, yet the reward still is getting shredded by bow bois. Imported matchlocks also take a lot of time to recruit (you'd normally think they'd be worth it, lmao).
Disclaimer 1: I still love this game and will probably play it more. It's just that this stuff really bothers me and kills some of my enjoyment, so I wanted to share it. It's a shame because it seems this atrocious balancing is unintentional; the descriptions of the units pretty much are correct, it's just that they don't perform as advertised. It's funny how the game introduces gunpowder as something powerful and scary, yet it's a complete joke.
Disclaimer 2: This post is solely about single player. Bows are worse in multiplayer because the enemy is not a sitting duck and matchlocks are actually decent (you also don't need 100 turns of gunpowder mastery to use them in a custom battle).
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