I like to fool around in the custom battles and see what happens when X goes against Y, tweaking things around and seeing which variables have which effect. If the ashigaru manage to completely surround the entire katana unit, then it’s possible to go either way, but if it’s just front and flanks, the katanas win - and win big if they get Inspire. At just 2:1 it’s not even close. In a larger scale where it’s difficult to fully surround, those odds are nearly hopeless for ashigaru. It’s not really that katanas are “anti-spear” either. They simply have higher stats in every category, so much higher that they’re just as effective against cavalry as yari ashigaru, despite the huge spear bonus against horses.
Experience retention depends entirely on kill rate vs loss rate. For ashigaru it’ll rarely be in their favor, but quality or sheltered troops routinely gain half to a full rank per battle. Cavalry in particular tend to gain ranks very fast thanks to the huge amount of kills they get running down routing units.
Yep, there’s 4 pre-reqs, except for the cavalry dojo which is 2. It takes something like 20-35 turns, depending on tech rate bonuses/events, to get one. That’s not that far in. The 1 turn recruitment time just grants them the clear superiority - if you figure a samurai unit is worth two of ashigaru, then the standard times break even.
I can say, however, that this isn’t my experience. It’s trivially easy to actually defeat the AI, even Katana Samurai, with cheap Yari Ashigaru.
But you won’t keep them very long, and it’s a lot easier to replace dead Ashigaru than samurai, too. The fact that you can (with a huge investment) build them in one round is irrelevant. You can easily recruit Ashigaru on the fly. In my new game, I’m not going to build any samurai structures - should I feel the need for some we’ve got captured provinces.
It’s telling that even I can find a use for Bow Samurai only as disposable garrison troops.
Except that ignores the cost factor, too, and that you can only do that in the actual provinces you have those high-tech stuctures. Ashigaru are ultimately disposable.
I…I…don’t understand. Doesn’t everyone always roleplay when playing strategy games?
I’m actually not criticizing ( much ), because everyone enjoys different things in games. But I never have really understood the “such and such is too easy to exploit in the game” argument. Then don’t exploit it, sez I.
Ashigaru ( or any other unit ) overpowered? Then limit how many units you use ( unless you are the Oda, who have a legitimate RP reason to use them ).
Cheaper to dismiss and rebuild units? Make it a rule that units may only be merged and then only if they are below 25% of listed strength.
Some units are less useful than they were historically? Tough titty. Use them anyway and build only “balanced” armies ( a rule I adhered to rigidly playing the MTW’s or even the EU series - no killer “all cavalry” stacks for me ).
The thing is, is that all strategic AIs are flawed and have vulnerabilities. Some have more than others, it is true. But in the end they all can be manipulated. The answer to that is to handicap yourself and try not to manipulate them. I’ve never not roleplayed a strategy game. Which doesn’t mean I’m a purist, interested in only the most difficult settings. I’ll freely cheat to enhance my roleplaying pleasure or even use the easiest settings sometimes ( sometimes I just feel like winning, other times I couldn’t care less ).
Shitty unit AI in certain circumstances ( and I’m sure we can all think of instances of that ), the arguments about Japan’s geography making choke points particularly easy in both TW games, to some extent the lack of variety in units ( historically more accurate to be sure ) - those arguments do work better for me as negatives. But mechanical exploits that can easily be avoided by…avoiding them? Don’t entirely get it :).
And in this particular game they actually have another option (I agree with your views on all of this, btw Tamerlane…it’s pretty much exactly the way I play). They can always just do drop in PvP battles for any fight. I’ve found the player battles to be mixed, but the ‘AI’ (i.e. the self contained, protoplasm, Doritos eating computational source), while wildly varied, does some pretty unexpected things. And some of those folks out there are real sharks. I’ve had my ass handed to me several times when I thought I’d easily win.
I was curious last night, so I ran a few custom battles to test this when I got home. I chose clans that don’t get bonuses to swords or spears, and added 2 yari ashigaru to one and a katana samurai to the other. Then I removed the generals and had the two sides fight each other. I used one unit of yaris to accept the katana’s charge in spearwall formation, and the other to flank them.
With all units having no experience, the katana samurai won after losing about 1/3 of the unit. I then ran the same battle several more times, giving the yaris and the katana samurai 2, 4, 6 and max experience. The yaris won each handily. They also took fewer casualties in the later battles where each unit had more experience.
It’s pretty much the set of results I expected, and would seem to support that the idea that veterancy, upgrades, and the fact that you can manuever with 2 large units instead of one medium-sized one result in ashigaru punching way above their weight.
That’s 20-35 at the expense of beelining that tech right? So no farm upgrades, no monk/metsuke/ninja buildings, and you’ve gotten recruitment time on ONE samurai type down to one turn. But recruiting that samurai still costs more than twice what 2 ashigaru cost. I just dont see how it’s worth it.
And I honestly wish it werent the case. In Medieval, I used to really enjoy upgrading my armies from militia to professional soldiers to elite soldiers, so I hope some changes get patched in.
Tamerlane - I know people play like you do, it’s just not somethign I can do. For me, a lot of the fun of the game is allocating my resources in the most effective way that I can. If I have to make up rules to force myself to recruit units I see no purpose for, that part of the game is lost.
Honestly, I’m not trying to tell anyone how they should play or insult you if you recruit samurai, or anything like that. I recognize that there are different strategies and that people enjoy different things about games. I’m just saying that, especially for a starter unit, ashigaru are far too cost effective and far too versatile. That isn’t a flaw in strategic AI, it’s a flaw in game design.
I wish it werent the case, because I loved upgrading from militia to professional soldiers to elite troops in the Medievals. I just can’t do it in Shogun because I cant think of a situation where I’d rather have one samurai than two ashigaru.
Exactly. I don’t mind experimenting, but the AI is fighting to the death against you. And their hardly incompetent. Anyway, I don’t feel all that comfy with the idea of throwing myself to the dogs in order to use substandard units. After all, I’m roleplaying as a great, wise warlord.
Sake dens are open at the start of the game, markets are on the very first Chi tech, temples just aren’t all that useful, and farm upgrades require a substantial number of provinces held before they become cost-effective in a reasonable time frame. Especially if your focus is on the early game, starting off in Bushido is clearly the way to go, as most of the Chi techs don’t become strong until middle to late game, and even then, few come close to having the impact that Heaven & Earth does.
How are temples not useful? They produce monks, which can reduce discontent in provinces, buff an entire army, demoralize enemy armies, or incite rebellions. In fact, most of the time, you can use a small team of monks to utterly destroy even the most powerful of clans by inciting rebellions over the course of a few turns. They are the most powerful agent in the game.
Cost effectiveness isnt an issue with farm upgrades. Farm upgrades are for gaining extra food so that you can upgrade castles without causing rebellions. yes, there is some nice stuff in the bushido tree, but nothing really necessary below the 1st spear tech.
Well put, the campaign Ai can be challenging at times. Especially on higher difficulty levels - it can be very hard to produce at the same level as the AI. When I play on very hard or legendary, in the early game the AI will often produce as many samurai units as I do ashigaru. This is, of course, not ideal, but were I producing samurai units myself, I’d be outnumbered 2:1 at the start of a war, and because of difficulty level bonuses it would get worse as time went on.
I’d toss my vote for ninja, thanks to their much greater versatility. Sabotaging armies alone can alter the course of wars, and that’s just a small part of what they can do. Anyway, I consider temples not very useful because they just don’t contribute much. They provide only happiness and a tiny research boost, and the monks largely only affect morale and happiness. Happiness can be produced just as well by metsuke, who also dramatically increase tax income and protect against ninja at the same time, while markets are, of course, clearly worthwhile just on their own benefits.
Sure, rebellion and conversion are very strong effects, especially with how they let you gobble up territories without making any overtly hostile actions to a clan, but they require a different enemy religion and/or a 4-star monk to even remotely become cost or time efficient. Neither scenario is likely in the early game, so temples are a clear choice to delay until they can bring a benefit. Early religious investment only pays off if you’re converting to Christianity, because churches and missionaries are significantly stronger than their Shinto counterparts.
Also, farm upgrades to build castle upgrades? Whatever are you building castle upgrades for, if you’re ignoring dojo? The only building that pays off its investment in less than an immense time span is the market, and once you have more than a handful of provinces, sake dens don’t pay themselves off ever, because the food lost to the castle to hold them in addition to the market would’ve fueled realm-wide growth instead. It’s the same trap the rice exchanges and merchant guilds run into: they’re great when used to maximize a province increased by metsuke oversight or with high tax rates, but as your territory grows, they easily wind up costing you more than they provide, without even factoring in their initial cost.
I’m glad I’m not the only one noticing the lack of units compared to Empire or Medieval 2… I can see why they’ve done it and it’s not a huge issue, but it does mean the armies don’t have the variety they did in earlier games. I rather liked using East India Company Sepoys to wrest control of the New World from Spain, after all.
Having completely researched the Gunpowder arts tree, being able to recruit Matchlock Ashigaru at any stronghold has made defending captured towns extremely easy… I’ve found that three units of Matchlock Ashigaru, a Bow unit, and a melee unit (when combined with the Retainer units) can defeat armies three times their size with (comparatively) minimal casualties.
I am finding the Agent units to actually be useful, though- even Agents recruited late the in the game still seem to be quite effective, unlike previous games where the objects of your machinations were always too levelled up to be susceptible to anything.
Well, castle upgrades also provide research bonuses and increased recruitment slots and garrison. Having more temples and sake dens increase the number of agents you can recruit. I usually convert to Christianity at the first opportunity for the extra research bonus from churches (and completely overpowered Nanban ships) and they add up.
Not true, because it’s an investment in a lot of ways. You build farms for money, then upgrade castles to build markets, sake dens, and churches. That snowballs into some huge bonuses and massive income.
To put another way: you invest in farms for the income. You’ll wind up with a god bit of extra food, so you may as well build up your castles to take advantage of it. You get better defense, free units in sieges, and the ability to pop in more tasty money buildings. I agree that you won’t want to go too far, but having fifty ninja isn’t a bad angle.
That’s the point though, that’s not “extra” food, that food is income too. Any food left after consumption goes directly into growth per turn in every province you own. If you have 10 provinces with 1 food surplus, in only 5 turns, that food has given you 150 total wealth. It adds up very fast. Because of this, expanding castles is not investment, it’s a resource sink. It’s often a worthwhile resource sink, especially given the huge defensive difference between a fort and a fortress, but it takes very specific circumstances for a castle to ever pay off the cost of upgrading it.
Plus, at least in my experience, you NEED that extra food when you start seriously going after enemy territory (unless you are going to make them all vassals). In the early games I didn’t bother so much with upgrading farms or researching upgrades to farms, and I’d have to halt my offensives because I ran out of food. The computer seems to build really big castles (which require food) and buildings that require food…and then have the lowest level farms available, so each territory I would capture would be like a food sink.
FWIW, old *STW *grognards did bitch and moan at *MTW *1&2 for having entirely too many units (and agents), which in their opinion merely confused and muddled the game without improving the gameplay.
Can’t say I really blame them - what do the eleventy million flavours of Turkic horse archers bring to the table, when you get right down to it ? Personally, I always relied on a handful of old reliables anyway. The dearth of unit flavour in STW 1/2 doesn’t bother me in the least - each of them has a defined purpose, and all of them combined cover pretty much all battlefield purposes I can think of.
Cosmetic differences would have been nice in and of themselves, but not if developping them means skimping on other aspects of the game. Leave the aesthetic and flavour stuff to modders I say, and concentrate on the AI and engine crunching gears.
Yeah, one of my issues with MTW 2 is the damn agents. To me, they are a total pain in the ass and detract from the game. I do like the fact that each faction gets different units, though…but in general I end up going with only a few units from any given faction to make up the backbone of my army.
I’ll have to check, but I believe the food-based growth tops out somewhere. I tend to focus heavily on food, though. In any cse, I’m only talking about building up castles twice. I’d never go higher, and I’ll even wreck up enemy structures to open slots.
Full DX11 implementation with AA support, MSAA, Enchanced Depth of Field, Tesselation support and advanced shadows.
4 brand new maps for the multiplayer component.
Significant bug-fixes too numerous to list. (No, really. There’s about 3 pages of them.)
It’s downloading for me as we speak and I’ll have a round with it after I get home from work, but it’s been out for some days now - anyone have anything to report?
The depth of field is sweet, the tessellation and texture effects on the terrain are awesome. More subtle, but equally cool are the soft shadows. And the big boy, AA finally being supported turns the game from a jaggy mess to a clean, really amazing looking game.
Best of all it runs really well. Even if you have a low end DX 11 card, it makes sense to turn on Shader 5, just maybe not enable all the features in order to enjoy a boost in performance or AA, or both.
Just started playing a new campaign, so no comments ont he bug fixes/balancing done yet.
