In my first FOTS run, I was defending in a siege and I had a wooden cannon. I haven't realized the cannon was there... And it killed the enemy general at the beggining of the battle when I wasn't looking. What a legend.
yep there is also one secound redeming on the wooden cannons it fire like a mortal (almost straight up). meaning terrain will not matter for them like it does for regular artilery. oh your hiding behind a building that blocks armstrong shots say hello to my wooden cannon that arrives in a straight down angle. I wish there was a uppdated version of it that could move, had more ammo, acuracy and explosive shots.
I think the job of the Samurai Heroes is actually to be bad while not being bad. Just not useful and economical. It cool that they are in the game because it shows that the time of these elite Samurai heroes is over in favor of cheaper Lineinfantry. Just imagine the tragic of this Samurai hero who trained Years to truly master his art only to be shot by some Levys strait out of basic training. That's some last Samurai drama.
The Samurai Hero just sucks, and there's no reason for that unit to be as bad as it was. The same thing goes for the RotS samurai units. And those are the Samurai Hero, Mounted Samurai, and Foot Samurai units. They were supposed to be bow and sword units, being good at both, but they ended up just being a rather mediocre archer unit, with less guys per unit.
I actually think Samurai Heroes aren't that bad...in a modern army. They have better range and are on horseback so they can easily just form up behind your line infantry providing inspiration and an extra dose of arrows before the guns let loose. And of course when the enemy retreats, they can do a decent job of destroying entire regiments using their bows to save time.
I found levy infantry to be excellent garrison troops. Put them on the walls and watch them bring the pain. Sure, line infantry is better at it, but the levies hold their own quite well.
You just proved my point though, just because they're okay at doing something doesn't make them a good unit. Literally every other line infantry unit in the game is better than them at defending a settlement. You could say they're cheaper, but the difference in FotS between upkeep on units is minuscule and barely worth mentioning.
MrSmartDonkeyLP For my playthroughs it has been an issue. I like to garrison all of my towns with some units in case of a landing overseas. (I can't control the waters for shit.) Using SIR infantry for garrison duties quickly dries up my cash fountain, so I prefer to use levy infantry since they fight well enough and allow my Mon to keep streaming steadily. I'm probably not as good as you, but I need my levies.
Yeah, I don’t generally use small garissons, never really understood that tactic, just keep a designated army around for dealing with naval invasions. Either way, point still stands, I didn’t say anything about SIR infantry, even just line infantry would be much better choices. Either way, does your reason make them good enough to take them off this list?
MrSmartDonkeyLP Take em off of the list? Hold on, they're bad units alright, I'm not questioning that. I just told you where I found them to be useful. Not saying they're good units, but in my campaign experience they were handy to have.
That's also my point, levies can be pretty useful in defensive sieges, the fact that sometimes you don't have a near army neither a building available to build line infantry make them pretty worth in these cases. They still suck when it comes to general combat thought
You forgot one thing about wooden cannons. You don't even have to recruit them since with little skill you will be capturing loads of them during the campaign.
MrSmartDonkeyLP I still think it was worth of mentioning this. I mean if you are that much desperate or stupid to have a need for them, you might as well capture them and avoid spending money on them. At least then they can used to control public order in provinces for couple turns until it calms down. After that, sayonara.
Robert Mihai Wooden cannons are so bad that even if the enemy keep their units frozen on the battlefield, the wooden cannons won't have enough munition to wipe them out
I never used the wooden cannons since I didn't even bother to look at them because of the cooler sounding cannons but I've had games with mangonels where they didn't even hit an unit before running out of ammo.
Donkey, Levy Infantry actually useful in the campaign you know: AI prefer to recruit them over Spear Levy, and due to AI prefer climbing when you're not manning gunmen on the wall, it'll turn any siege defense you fought into Heroic Victory and Daimyo Honor printing machine because the game stack Gun infantry strength rating heavily against non-gun units, thus the strength rating always inflated in AI's Levy Infantry horde's favor when you have only Spear Levy or other traditional units. That's why siege defense will be the printing machine for your Daimyo Honor and Heroic Victory; Levy Infantry (in AI army) allow you to beat the crap out of them as they climbed up to meet your Spear Levy's pointy sticks one by one. Just make sure you don't press that "Auto Resolve" button, or you die, period.
See, I think you make the best point of all people so far. A lot of people are saying Levy Infantry are good garisson units, I think Spear Levy are far better at it because they already beat Levy Infantry in melee easily, let alone if that unit has to climb a wall first and doesn’t get to use its guns.
Anyway, I noticed you're a little upset over no unique units in Saga Clan overview, so I suggest you should do Aizu next, this one roster filled to the brim with unique units, but it's a given, because that Clan has historical basis about this.
I personally like Matchlock Kachi and use them quite a lot. I found one particular place where they shine with their mixed melee/range capabilities - defending fortification. But instead of placing them on walls I station them UNDER 2nd floor walls. This way they still can shoot whoever climbs up (even with their shorter range), and are sturdy enough in melee to hold quite a long time for units on walls above to inflict as much pain as possible (additionally Kachi have a little higher morale which helps them stay in fights longer). That said it isn't as they are complete trash in melee. Thing is - I like units that are bad (because of challenge on how to adopt your tactics to make the most of them).
Sieges are their saving grace if you can't get a katana sam instead. The fact that you can get the tradition xp for Matchlock can make them better than levy infantry in "some instances, but what makes levi infantry better is 1. They stand closer together when in a line, meaning more of them will be shooting (Not a problem while guarding a wall ). 2. There are more of them, and as a big part of their usefulness is soaking up enemy fire while better units do the job of killing... .. .. . But yeah, in castles matchlock are ok. Field they are... generally lacklustre. I wouldn't call them the worst unit though :P
@@MarchalisVan In the field, if you put them on the flanks with a spear levy nearby, they are good magnets for enemy cavalry. Unlike levy and line infantry, they can handle the melee long enough for the spears to show up. This can be a cheap way of keeping your useful rifles firing when facing a cav heavy enemy.
They're a special traditional unit so you have to go through the high tier stuff for traditionalist lords to find them. Someone made a point that they're mostly there for flavor as a point that nobody would choose them over cheap guns which is depressing for them
I have personally found that the AI LOVES to use Wooden cannons, and especially loves to stick them in forts, where, because of their range and firing arc, they somehow do better. They aren't the end of the world, but they can make what should be a simple, by the book siege turn into a slight headache. They are the same way when you are the defender, because again, AI seems to think wooden cannons are the damn technological marvel In late game, I have found that having battery towers wipe them out right away can be helpful.
I remember the first time trying to get the Samurai Hero in my campaign, being so eager to get some single OP unit, just for the fun, even though rationally I could see from the stats and general knowledge of combat that they wouldn't work. It still felt disappointing when in the end I finally got it and saw that they were almost useless.
I'm still afraid of wooden cannons especially when they're placed inside a castle during siege. I had to restart my siege attacks because my Armstrong guns get wiped out by them. If I had naval support I'd make them fire on the wooden cannons first.
Ian Cabugsa And what if the siege battle is beyond naval bombardment range, say that you're fighting inland castles between Kai as far as Hida, and the Aizu castle in Fukushima, w/c is far from the Pacific coastline?
You shouldn't offensive siege in FoTS anyway. Because shooters in Fall of Samurais are mostly direct-fire units, forcing you to climb the wall or bomb the hell out of enemy castle no matter what, which always result in hefty castle repair cost, or several turns of replacing lost units in your stacks, or both. The best approach is to wait them to sally out and smack them on the field. No need to worry about artillery, as AI will walk to you regardless, and if you rout their army, the wooden cannons will run anyway so no need to care about them. Only time you'll offensive siege in FoTS is when the strength rating is heavily stacked in your favor, but then you press auto resolve, because it'll result in next to no death on your side and minimal castle repair cost, thus you only have to pay a small fee and 1 turn of stationing there waiting for castle to be repaired before moving on, more economical than slugfest that'll ensue if you tried manual battle.
That is the noob way of doing things. Everyone knows you have to bombard the settlement with your navy and then bum rush your army to the top layer of the castle while destroying every wall, capturing every arrow tower and torching every gate. ;)
@@TheWoollyFrogHell yeah, because that’s actually fun, gotta say, it sounds pretty boring to siege and auto resolve every battle, seems like at that point you’re just playing a shitty version of civ.
Wooden cannons are okay for fort defence since their high fire arc means they can actually hit attacking units, unlike later cannons that never get line of sight. AI units tend to bunch up in for attacks and in larger battles my wooden cannons got 150+ kills, and breaking up infantry formations also made their attack less coordinated.
The combination of levy infantry and levy spear makes great quick draft army to defend a surprise attack. Let the levy infantry shoot them and then when enemy climbed up the wall, levy spear would engage. Perfect eh?
I like Levy Infantry as the cannon-fodder that can fire bullets xD In the beginning of the campaign it is funny to struggle with Levy Infantry and sometimes in early sieges they can save your ass. XD
I actually find levy infantry do a decent job at keeping line infantry at bay. I've successfully used them to extend my line against a superior force and pin down the attacking line infantry until they were under 50 units before my levies fled. The important thing is that levy infantry has to engage other gun infantry and they need to get the first shot off.
After browsing through the comments for a bit I feel like this needs to be said : These units might be the worst, but that doesn't mean they're useless.
I think everyone is coming out to defend our Levy Infantry bravely defending their homes. Super cheap garrison to suppress unrest and will hold the wall of a fort against attackers pretty well. Yes they are inferior in every way to other line infantry but they are cheapest, require no military tech building and are quite strong defending a castle wall. I think a good choice in campaign to defend unrest or as part of an economical garrison in a border fortress.
JJ McD it is complete and utter garbage and it's laughable. Don't bother. Buying wraith of Sparta at full price gives you more than rise of the samurai
Have you ever considered making units related guides for all of those tricky units that new people do not know how to use or how to integrate in their army ? Or even just for normal ones to give out some suggestions to those who might have missed something about them ?
Wooden cannons really do suck, they are like European cannons but worst. At least European cannons are more accurate and since they move in a linear path they can hit quite a few units which can be deadly against calvary.
Matchlock-Samurai Are absolutly great for flanking.... they line up fast with their far lesser unit count, shoot 2 times and charge.... their Moral is good enough to do so. Their cost is totally okay for what they deliver.
The one thing I will give Levy Infantry is their ability to function as dependable garrison troops. When standing at walls, and when deployed cleverly, they will destroy most small to medium invasion forces. Which, uh, kind of is their only saving grace.
bow ki is a little limited but I find it a good skirmish unit. They can hide behind a hill and rain down on gun units. put them to the side and protect with yari ki. rain down and you can wipe out a unit or before they even get to your main line.
I find Levy infantry to be very usefull when you have recently captured a settlement and it doesn't have a cadet school, it provides a cheap but effective garrison and a way to keep happiness high until you build the proper building.
I checked steam stats the other day and there was close to 4000 people playing shogun 2 which amazed me. I started playing shogun 2 again thanks to your videos and I'm happy to see someone still uploading quality content all these years since release. Here's to one of the best total war games!
Donkey ,forgive me for another post, but I believe that another factor that made some people argue about Levy Infantry usefulness is that you're being vague about Levy Infantry vs Line Infantry. You should give them stats comparisons like you did during Clans overviews, that should shut up a lot of people. Why is that? Because Line Infantry has 3 times accuracy, 6 times reload skills of Levy, which mean, theoretically, they killed 3 times more per volley and put out volley 6 times faster than Levy. Then you compare their cost/upkeep of 770/100 against Levy's 500/80 and you found that for 54%/25% increase, they have at least triple the effectiveness Levy. Now why are we still using Levy Infantry again? Edit: and if they argue about Cadet school, surprise, Clan that starts out as playable Clan's enemies are almost always build Cadet school, some Imperial Clans also start out with it, so argument of "not have enough money to build Cadet school" also somewhat moot, at least, on higher difficulties.
Again, why should we use Levy when Line Infantry are infinitely better *in term of getting the most bang out of your limited budget early game* ? As I stated in the original comment; Line Infantry are, at minimum, three time better than Levy Infantry while only cost 50% more upfront and 25% more upkeep, *which mean that for the cost of recruiting 3 Levy Infantry, you can get 2 Line Infantry whose combined strength equal to 6 Levy Infantry. And for the cost of upkeep 5 Levy Infantry (400 per turn), you can support 4 Line Infantry that'll be as effective as 12 Levies (!!!) put together* . That's only calculating their accuracy aka. killing power, because Line Infantry also reload 6 times faster than Levy Infantry as well! Thus the actual effectiveness is even more skewed in Line Infantry favor despite the small cost increase! And as I already stated, on higher difficulties, the AI that player start at war with will almost always build Cadet School or their city already starts with a Cadet School (the starter enemies of Satsuma and Saga has Cadet school pre-built in their cities), so there's zero investment on your part on that building too. But the free levy infantry in your forts are useful though, if only because you don't pay a single $ for them.
machaiping Because the difference in upkeep matters when leaving behind troops to garrison castles. Unless, of course, you are rolling in cash and can afford to keep front line units as reserves or you prefer land-swapping with the AI.
If upkeep and garrison is of the concern, why not go with Spear levy instead? Early game, the only time when you're starved for cash, also the time where Spear levy is a lot cheaper than Infantry as well. And Spear levy can defend castle better than levy infantry too.
But levy infantry can rout low tier enemy units (which the ai always goes for) before they reach the walls or during their climb. I guess it's also more immersive since both sides in the civil war were trying to modernise to some extent. Choosing peasant conscripts with cheap flintlock muskets instead of pointy sticks achieves that.
Levy infantry used to be decent in original vanilla FotS in that they could rout spear levy and in huge number provided a half decent garrison. But after patches and DLCs it's hardly worth recruiting even for keeping peace in province. And Bo kii are good for Hunting routing cavalry or even infantry before you get revolver cavalry. Both units are placeholders until you get better units, basically
I've found only one use of the wooden cannon, and that is it has a much higher firing arc than other artillery, acting like mortars without killing power, only useful in attacking archer towers
Rise of the Samurai was a really cool idea but I never explored the game enough to have fun with it cuz I got put off by the units like always being in loose formation. I would love to see a video highlighting some of the fun units in that campaign!
Rise sucks, use as small an army as you can get away with and have all of the metsuke go around as a group and convert everything, buy your enemies off and use agents to sabotage entertain them. Other than that foot samurai kill everything. Just put some thing in front of them so they get more shots off before they have to go melee. Warrior monk infantry is the only thing they have a even match up with and that because of war cry.
Worst? Naginata levy. Those bastards are only a little bit handy in the early game, but afterwards they're utter trash. Best? Foot samurai. By far the most destructive unit in RotS.
I'm not saying it's a good strategy, but I have totally won the game by dedicating all my buildings and technology into finance and just donked battles with hordes of Levy infantry. Who needs Kneel fire when you can just terrace 7 different levy's on a hill? It's totally not a grotesque waste of manpower just barely being papered over with unholy sums of gold.
Not going to lie, I've tried all sorts of strategys in Total War, but "Make fat stacks to pay pesant deathstacks" is the most reliable. Especially in Shogun 2 where you can have leaderless stacks of units washing over the land.
Levee infantry are the great example of "quantity has a quality all it own". They're no good in any pitched battle, but as a rear firing line or as a siege wall defender they're as good as needed. I used a 'pike and shot' set of tactics with levee infantry and spear infantry in front of them in the early game and found it perfectly effective (so long as you have cavalry to defend them both).
I like Bow Ki and use them all the time, their range is nice but unlike guns their arrows arc through the air allowing them to shoot over the heads of other troops. I use them to back up my main infantry line and to pursue afterwards in addition to normal mounted skirmishing duties.
I never realized exactly how bad Levy Infantry were until I had a stack of Levy infantry and spearmen to use as cannon fodder that were attacked by a mere three Shogunate Infantry units... I lost like three spear levy and two levy infantry... That was/is my first campaign. I was (and am) doing well, but I have less than a year, like 16 of 26 provinces, one of two required provinces, and Nagasko and Obama were putting up a tooth-and-nail fight for everything. They kept attacking my trade routes ;-;
the purpose of the bow hero, as most hero units in S2 is to replenish fatigue (if you have the mod installed that fixes CAs programming error so that the debuff table for fatigue is correctly linked with infantry units, then units loose up to 50% melee stats, speed, -8 moral and 15% accuracy, especially in FoTS this allows your units to regain half their stats which for a tradionalist army is a huge buff)
there is one other use I've found for wooden cannons. its incredibly niche and tricky to pull off, but if you put one or two wooden cannon units in a defensive siege, and manually control them, you can use its high arcing trajectory and the fact that you can engage outside a cannon's range when controlling it manually to snipe the enemy general.
Dude, levy infantry is awesome. It's all about placement. Spread them out, make kill boxes, etc. Given a small tactical advantage, they can outshoot line infantry and you don't need a building to recruit them, which means that all of your buildings can be economic.
I use Levy infantry as a Garrison force. I think I'm doing something wrong since I destroyed a full stack of Modern army with Levy Infantry, and Spear Levy. Well all of them has +4 Attack XD.
1. You're not spreading out your line enough for your levy infantry to be useful. Bigger line = more shots = more dead spear levy 2. Mounted bow units only have two uses. The first is to set up behind your gunmen (firing arc allows this) to add some more oomf to their volleys, and the second is for flanking fire and darting out quick.
Doesn’t matter how long you spread their line, they’re still horrible compared to line infantry which can be acquired easily. If you want an archer behind your line than just get Bow Kachi, they’re miles better. If you want a flanking cavalry get carbine cav or even revolver cav.
I won a long legendary campaign with only levee and wooden canons(little personnal challenge). They can do the job but you need to be tricky! But that's true, they don't worth the kihetai infantry and amstrong canons... Kachi gunmen are good as garrison, because they can have time to slaughter they enemies one by one while they climb the walls.
I agree with the list. however for the levy infantry its pretty useful to have them in siege defense, in that case if you use spear instead you are missing opportunity to take out enemy units who are climbing and approaching walls, half or a third of them would die if you defend with levy instead. so have levy garrison and have spear for offensive.
Franz-Maximilian Von Nova My guess is FOTS 1.Gunboat 2. Wooden Corvette (weakest class)3.Wooden Corvette (the better class) 4.Amoured Corvette ( weakest class ) 5 Kaiten Maru (Wooden Corvette )
Very good observations. I myself found that the only positive about the levy infantry regiments is their application in defense of forts. Although they do not have the same firepower rate as line infantry or elite units, the levies can, if stretched into single file lines along fort walls, can provide an effective amount of firepower against attacking enemies. This means that even elite units can be broken in an assault, as they might clamber up the walls instead of being able to provide suppressing fire. Furthermore, the unit's skirmish ability allows you the option to have them fall back, giving your regular rifle units a chance to apply concerted volleys upon the enemy which can break their charge.
I had some success with Bow ki in traditionnal campain challenges by recruiting them in provinces that give charge bonus, and using them to soften up units with their range and then charging to break them. Micro-intensive, but very deadly.
i did once a satsuma match and at one point i got this castle attacked with only levy infantry to defend it. it was the only lost match which i was able to almost completely turn in my favor (the enemy lost almost all his devisions and suprisingly no levy escaped (they fought until the last man even if i had no general). i understand and agreed that they have very bad stats but that battle made them a place in my hearth XD
I did managed to find a mod that made all Infantry unit kneel fire and I'm actually quite surprised that both Levy and Matchlock Kachi is actually kind of decent - then again with mod that made Unit gain x2 the stats leveling up and mod that buff Matchlock I actually do enjoy those mod since Matchlock Kachi at 3 experience actually stand up to and be a bit better than Line Inf making it kinda worth to stay traditional if wanted but then again no Kneel fire sucks
Based on the context of video I am assuming you are discussing about the campaign. I must say there are few points to disagree. Levy infantry I don't think is a terrible unit. It is not supposed to be a combat unit but a garrison one. For garrison purpose it generally performs better than spear levy due to having range and enemy unit requiring to be in generally worse situation (Either come to the levy for melee or shoot at them). Also, later on with higher modernization, levy infantry is slightly cheaper than spear levy. Spear levy is better at say attacking or field battle to guard against potential cav or just as a fodder (in low modernization it will enjoy little bit higher morale) For Wooden Cannon, again this is not a strong unit but is the earliest artillery you can get and can bring some favourable point. For one AI in field battle will likely take the initiative of attacking you allowing you to form line of fire in advance. Also, eventhough it's direct damage potential is terrible, focusing on shooting enemy at the gate and corner of the wall for destruction can net out some sizable casualty of garrison units. Player will discard wooden cannon as their army start to have parrot gun but in the mean time 1 wooden cannon is a nice addition to the army. I rather put units like ninja and Gatling guns as worst unit due to their high teching cost and inefficiency. Ninja has small unit size and is slower than cavalry and the stealth alone is not enough to warrant its survival. It will get gunned down by range unit and will not have much favourable engagement against dedicated melee units either. Gatling gun requires set up and its DPS although impressive is not enough to justify its cost. Also, it consumes ammunition pretty fast. Lastly, it is quite inflexible requiring setup and does not have a long range like artillery so the positioning become more critical. Lastly, developing province to produce Gatling gun takes lot of time (construction & researching) and would take a lot of time to move these kind of unit into the front. Player will be better off using more accessible shogunate/imperial infantry with kneel fire.
Unpopular opinion but wooden canons can actually be really useful in some situation. I found them to be dead accurate arty killers, especially when you have more than one. They're also quite good against walls and towers which redeems them a bit as well. I was shocked to see my armstrong guns go in a matter of seconds by a volley of frickin wooden cannons!
I have another singular use for the wooden cannon. Fortress defence, due to it's morter-esque arching range it allows you to fire without fear of damaging your own walls (coming from someone who played TWN as original total war game , I haven't spent time to see if your troops physically cannot fire at your walls due to programing.) However since they do cost a fair bit of money and take frikin forever to reach the front. That has to be one hell of a happinin fort for it to be worth your time and resources.
The wooden cannons have another thing going for them. For some of the fort designs, artillery can be very hard to manage. They have to be oriented in the right way just to hit anything and not be obstructed by buildings, and when parrot guns/Armstrong guns can finally hit something, it's easy for the enemy to move in such a way that you have to reorientate your artillery. The wooden cannons are, on the other hand, like mortars, so they don't face the same issues. Of course, one shouldn't use artillery units as a garrison in the first place, but sometimes that situation is unavoidable. Think of capturing a settlement with an army that has artillery, only to be attacked the next turn.
Bow Ki feels sluggish and pretty bad in field battles. However, they truly shine in Castle assaults, especially with some ammo and accuracy buffs. Being able to outrange rifle units and fire in an arc allows them to kill a lot of units that would be troublesome for most other units. Moreover, the high mobility makes it easy to move around the castle for the best positions/angles. Having just 3-4 Bow Ki has allowed me to clear the way for my Inf to safely scale the walls - or even cleared the castle for defenders. Basically, Bow Ki is a very niche unit - yet the niche where they shine is the situation where most other units struggle.
Call me insane but I always favor Levy Infantry, Matchlock Kachi and the Wooden Cannons in the game. The reason why is because these units were my inspiration for my war fiction stories. If I could get the game in my hands, I'll recruit as many of these as I can while playing as the Aizu faction. Since using these units would result to defeat, I could wish for some costly victories against the enemies.
Honestly, I love using levy infantry albeit ob not for defending castles. Same range as any other rifle unit but lower reload and accuracy and lower costs and maintenance costs. I’ve gotten heroic defenses with purely only levy infantry when facing nearly 2-1 odds against superior units (without artillery)
You did miss one other advantage that wooden canons. That there arcing fire allows them to fire over castle walls unlike all the other arty allowing them to actually be useful in a defense siege if only to take out enemy arty
Matchlock kachi are actually quite good during defensive sieges. Their low range is negated by the enemies aggressive approach to your walls and by the fact that their melee stats are good enough to cut up a lot of line infantry as they climb your walls. They're not worth taking once you can afford better units but they have a place in your early game garrisons
Levy infantry are great for spreading your force projection out, and to serve as garrisons in the event of naval invasions you didn't catch. The good thing about them is how cheap they are, but can still shoot, and maintain the same damage potential even at half strength. This makes them excellent artillery bait and archery and sharpshooter sponges. spear levy aren't as good, because they have to close to deal any damage so they can't be used offensively, and they suffer a much higher degree of damage loss when damaged; a levy infantry at 50% casualties will still fire the same number of shots as if they were at 100, but spear levy will fight pretty trash at 50% casualties.
Wooden cannons can obliterate enemy infantry in offensive sieges when the enemy is holding the walls. (considering the fact that when the wall a unit is holding it is destroyed, it sends the men in the unit flying into the air basically annihilating at least half of it) Although the unit is far outclassed by other artillery, its cheapness is what makes it situationally effective.
I don't quite agree with the Levy Infantry... Early game it's good when combined with Spear Levies while you make the necessary upgrades... And most importantly they pull their weight in defending sieges, which is frankly what I think is their main purpose. Leave 2 to maintain order in captured towns to maintain order, and if the enemy attacks they can bloody them enough so you can retake your lost towns without that much difficulty
Well Levy Infantry is acceptable when you put them on the walls as a makeshift defense, they can put up a fight with Line Infantry below (until they have Kneel Fire) and they're cheaper, and they're cheaper, so you can put them in garrison.
Or you could use Spear Levy for that who don’t have to expose themselves to enemy gunfire and will then easily beat the already wounded from climbing line infantry in melee.
I feel like levy infantry at least have some form of use when defending walls, instead of only having spear levy, they're a decent garrison unit, better than matchlock kachi, still, and personally put them above bow kachi. But yes, Fall of The Samurai has some definite units lagging miles behind all others. It's rare, but on a list of what is good or no in one of if not my outright favorite game, once again, I find it hard to disagree on a lot of your arguments in your top 5 lists
Nah, clearly you're wrong because you don't use enough mangonels. But, I wouldn't entirely say that's it. You helped me see the value in cavalry more, and I still say fire pot throwers have their place, just that you make sensible arguments
One thing I'd add to the wooden cannons: their fire arcs, and therefore can pass over castle walls and other obstacles that would hinder parrot/armstrong guns. Doesn't really redeem them, given their other glaring deficiencies, but it does give them some niche utility compared to the other artillery.
I’d watch my Obama series, I recently fought a siege where my 4 armstrong guns cleared an entire full stack inside a town bar 200 men remaining or so. And even if Wooden Cannons have a better fire arc, they only have a few ammo, and if they hit they do barely any damage, so what’s the point?
I really liked Wooden cannon in certain situations such as siege tho. but I mainly play skirmish sieges tho. Normally on a siege map, I will bring one or two units of them just to smash out some walls and archery towers whilst not wasting precious Armstrong gun ammo or lives of soldiers that can actually shoot, and that is not to mention those forty men can also drop engine and be used as meatshields/ single-use recons after their ammo is depleted. you don't need to upgrade them either since archery towers and walls are targets really hard to miss even for rookie wooden cannons.
I like levy infantry, I find that they tank damage for your traditional army kinda the same way spear levies will protect your line infantry in a modern army. Just get 3 or 4, make a line, watch the AI open fire on your line, send your melee units on both flanks
I've been using kachi gunners in my last Campaign and imo they are good for early game. When you are on tier one of modernisation they are cheaper than levy, have 2nd lvl exp on start and have better stats, also if you want to use them in land battle then you can spread them out to Lower their losses. Combine it with Hidding em in the Edge of the forest and you will win gun fight. In the vid they lost to levi Spear because they were defending. But they have much Higher melee attack, so when enemy attacks you you have to counter charge to win. So in conclusion I think they are good early game unit even on field. I am not talking about defensive sieges bcs PPL talked about em. Their high melee attack stat makes em good in offensive sieges too.
Hmm, now here's a thought... winning the campaign on Legendary using only Levi Infantry... Can such a thing be done? Would MrSmartDonkeyLP attempt such a thing for all our viewing pleasure? (assuming he hasn't done so already.)
Levy infantry tend to be quite strong as long as the enemy does not have any artillery My reasoning is that when you have 10 Levy infantry and the enemies approaches you, you are quite unstoppable yourself even if the enemy has cavalry: Place them in 2 lines and they would bring the pain against units, bring 3 divisions and you have them fighting all Levy infantry guns and the enemy would die in no time I managed to win a 2000 experienced yari-kachi and line soldiers along with an artillery(but I naval bombarded that) with my weak levies of 800s by merely backing away and letting the other division shoot them while the other melees I'd say levies are still worse at reloading but together spread apart they are strong
Wooden cannons are actually very effective at destroying walls, which will send units flying and kill 30 at a time. As far as I know they have no other use
Maybe this was just me? But I found that the wooden cannons were most destructive against cavalry units. This was probably due to the small size of cavalry units. However, I just remember playing games where I wiped the opposing army’s general or left it barely useable with a few volleys even with the piss poor accuracy. Even in vanilla shogun in the online multiplayer with European cannons it was the same thing, target the generals and the bouncing cannon ball wrecks.
In a battle when I was playing FotS as the Satsuma, I was attacking Goto and the enemy had wooden cannons. I thought, 'Pah! Fools!' So I defeated them in battle, and I chased down the routing enemies with my general, but somehow, their wooden cannons hadn't routed, thus, they kept firing. And guess what? They directly hit my general, and killed him! God, why do you torture me....
I love those crappy units. I'm doing a run as Obama (basically a pay to win faction) and I only recruit matchlock sam, spear levy and wooden cannons. The cannons actually provide a big morale penalty when they hit near an enemy unit, and with gun sam and flank attacks let's just say siege defenses are even easier. Pizzafoogle, is that a Michael Rosen reference?
@@danilshcherbakov2126 We sit out to eat, and the potatoes a bit hot. So I only put a little bit on my fork and I blow, **blow, blow**, till its cool, just cool, then into the mouth, Hwop, **click** Noice.
The only reason I use woodern cannons is just for seiges because they tear archer towers to shreds but at the same time you could bring a cannon but also some of the maps you can‘t get a good angle to hit the towers with cannons
SAmurai Hero would be good if they could almost always guarantee that you can take out any unit with them. Essentially use them as a cancel unit where you can remove the most dangerous unit from the battlefield. Altough even this is more of a multiplayer consideration.
So, basically, never get Levy Infantry or Wooden Cannons, just wait a bit and get Line Infantry and Parrott Guns for the early to mid-game. And never bring a bow and a horse to a gunfight.
I was arguing with some dude on Reddit a few weeks ago who was saying that bow ki were essentially god-tier units and completely outclasses gun units, and he was claiming he played on legendary and trying to use that to say he was right
i did a traditional units only cam-pain so the matchlock kaichi were essential meat shields for enemy bullets (arent they the same as matchlock samurai from the base game though) edit and wooden cannons were all i could bring artillery wise
I was surprised by how bad the Shinsengumi Police Force were. A shogitai unit with modern rifles sounds like a match made in heaven, but their ranged stats are extremely mediocre and worst of all they have no kneel fire, greatly reducing their effectiveness. The fact they have the most strict recruitment requirements doesn't help either, as you need to make a Shinsengumi Headquarter, which you can only build one of and is stupidly expensive at that too. Their only saving grace is their excellent melee stats, making them probably one of the best siege defenders in the game. However I did expect more from a hard to get allegiance exclusive unit.
Sabre Cav are alright actually as there are generally far fewer spear units in FotS. I realize there’s gun units but you can avoid those with cavalry and when you get them into melee they’ll shred.
i personally like to have some matchlock kachi´s from early to midgame if i play as aizu. after some level they do a decent job in firing 1-2 volleys and charging than the enemy line from the flanks. its like they are a hybrid between the stats of the levys. But at the end.. a modern army should anyways consist of regular line infantry.
You know levy infantry are slightly more useful with darthmod because then they get access to supression fire and kneel fire but anyway when you get line infantry you also automatically get kneel fire so your argument makes sense
In my first FOTS run, I was defending in a siege and I had a wooden cannon. I haven't realized the cannon was there... And it killed the enemy general at the beggining of the battle when I wasn't looking. What a legend.
yep there is also one secound redeming on the wooden cannons it fire like a mortal (almost straight up).
meaning terrain will not matter for them like it does for regular artilery.
oh your hiding behind a building that blocks armstrong shots say hello to my wooden cannon that arrives in a straight down angle.
I wish there was a uppdated version of it that could move, had more ammo, acuracy and explosive shots.
Yeah wooden cannon is a beast on defense.
It's also good at targeting artillery.
@tommyortiz6623 is wooden cannon actually good (on defense) if you max out its accuracy?
@@EvilMonkey403decent in offensive sieges as well, sinse they can knockout towers and walls making enemies fly
I think the job of the Samurai Heroes is actually to be bad while not being bad. Just not useful and economical. It cool that they are in the game because it shows that the time of these elite Samurai heroes is over in favor of cheaper Lineinfantry.
Just imagine the tragic of this Samurai hero who trained Years to truly master his art only to be shot by some Levys strait out of basic training. That's some last Samurai drama.
The Samurai Hero just sucks, and there's no reason for that unit to be as bad as it was.
The same thing goes for the RotS samurai units. And those are the Samurai Hero, Mounted Samurai, and Foot Samurai units.
They were supposed to be bow and sword units, being good at both, but they ended up just being a rather mediocre archer unit, with less guys per unit.
Swords didn't stand against guns but the great thing is samurai want to kill the enemy with their skill
I actually think Samurai Heroes aren't that bad...in a modern army. They have better range and are on horseback so they can easily just form up behind your line infantry providing inspiration and an extra dose of arrows before the guns let loose. And of course when the enemy retreats, they can do a decent job of destroying entire regiments using their bows to save time.
Tbh I really like the bow guys coz range and rate can out range most inf
“Years of academy training wasted!”
I always love when you win a battle and end up capturing wooden cannons. What a "prize"
Definitely not worth the upkeep
Only to disband them as soon as you capture them for the worthless kind of unit they are.
@@Barbarian1244 Me too, i always disband them whenever i captured some from the enemy.
Worse, you do it in the AI's turn, now you have to pay upkeep.
Better to have wooden cannons than no cannons at all (unless you can find something better).
I found levy infantry to be excellent garrison troops. Put them on the walls and watch them bring the pain. Sure, line infantry is better at it, but the levies hold their own quite well.
You just proved my point though, just because they're okay at doing something doesn't make them a good unit. Literally every other line infantry unit in the game is better than them at defending a settlement. You could say they're cheaper, but the difference in FotS between upkeep on units is minuscule and barely worth mentioning.
MrSmartDonkeyLP For my playthroughs it has been an issue. I like to garrison all of my towns with some units in case of a landing overseas. (I can't control the waters for shit.) Using SIR infantry for garrison duties quickly dries up my cash fountain, so I prefer to use levy infantry since they fight well enough and allow my Mon to keep streaming steadily.
I'm probably not as good as you, but I need my levies.
Yeah, I don’t generally use small garissons, never really understood that tactic, just keep a designated army around for dealing with naval invasions. Either way, point still stands, I didn’t say anything about SIR infantry, even just line infantry would be much better choices.
Either way, does your reason make them good enough to take them off this list?
MrSmartDonkeyLP Take em off of the list? Hold on, they're bad units alright, I'm not questioning that. I just told you where I found them to be useful.
Not saying they're good units, but in my campaign experience they were handy to have.
That's also my point, levies can be pretty useful in defensive sieges, the fact that sometimes you don't have a near army neither a building available to build line infantry make them pretty worth in these cases.
They still suck when it comes to general combat thought
You forgot one thing about wooden cannons. You don't even have to recruit them since with little skill you will be capturing loads of them during the campaign.
Indeed, and when I do the first thing I do is disband them because they’re to shit to bother keeping.
MrSmartDonkeyLP I still think it was worth of mentioning this. I mean if you are that much desperate or stupid to have a need for them, you might as well capture them and avoid spending money on them. At least then they can used to control public order in provinces for couple turns until it calms down. After that, sayonara.
Wooden cannons seem even worse than the mangonels since their shots don't even explode.
Robert Mihai Wooden cannons are so bad that even if the enemy keep their units frozen on the battlefield, the wooden cannons won't have enough munition to wipe them out
Haha they're literally just European cannons tipped up and given more range... Oh, and not even metal!
I never used the wooden cannons since I didn't even bother to look at them because of the cooler sounding cannons but I've had games with mangonels where they didn't even hit an unit before running out of ammo.
I find them very useful for garrison and gaining some repression points, since they are quite cheap and low upkeep :v
Wooden cannon: Hey I hit a guy directly! We finally got a... oh shit he's getting back up.
Your analysis of the samurai hero brings this quote to mind: "God made all men but Sam Colt made them equal"
Donkey, Levy Infantry actually useful in the campaign you know: AI prefer to recruit them over Spear Levy, and due to AI prefer climbing when you're not manning gunmen on the wall, it'll turn any siege defense you fought into Heroic Victory and Daimyo Honor printing machine because the game stack Gun infantry strength rating heavily against non-gun units, thus the strength rating always inflated in AI's Levy Infantry horde's favor when you have only Spear Levy or other traditional units.
That's why siege defense will be the printing machine for your Daimyo Honor and Heroic Victory; Levy Infantry (in AI army) allow you to beat the crap out of them as they climbed up to meet your Spear Levy's pointy sticks one by one.
Just make sure you don't press that "Auto Resolve" button, or you die, period.
See, I think you make the best point of all people so far. A lot of people are saying Levy Infantry are good garisson units, I think Spear Levy are far better at it because they already beat Levy Infantry in melee easily, let alone if that unit has to climb a wall first and doesn’t get to use its guns.
Anyway, I noticed you're a little upset over no unique units in Saga Clan overview, so I suggest you should do Aizu next, this one roster filled to the brim with unique units, but it's a given, because that Clan has historical basis about this.
Upset? Not really, just a Timmy Turner joke 😝
I always put one yari kachi as a garisson for this job at castles I knew were gonna be attacked. They are AMAZING at that
"The Future is Now Old Man" Top Tier List
0:47 "Stops them from being complete lemons"
I personally like Matchlock Kachi and use them quite a lot. I found one particular place where they shine with their mixed melee/range capabilities - defending fortification. But instead of placing them on walls I station them UNDER 2nd floor walls. This way they still can shoot whoever climbs up (even with their shorter range), and are sturdy enough in melee to hold quite a long time for units on walls above to inflict as much pain as possible (additionally Kachi have a little higher morale which helps them stay in fights longer). That said it isn't as they are complete trash in melee.
Thing is - I like units that are bad (because of challenge on how to adopt your tactics to make the most of them).
Sieges are their saving grace if you can't get a katana sam instead. The fact that you can get the tradition xp for Matchlock can make them better than levy infantry in "some instances, but what makes levi infantry better is 1. They stand closer together when in a line, meaning more of them will be shooting (Not a problem while guarding a wall ). 2. There are more of them, and as a big part of their usefulness is soaking up enemy fire while better units do the job of killing... .. .. . But yeah, in castles matchlock are ok. Field they are... generally lacklustre. I wouldn't call them the worst unit though :P
@@MarchalisVan In the field, if you put them on the flanks with a spear levy nearby, they are good magnets for enemy cavalry. Unlike levy and line infantry, they can handle the melee long enough for the spears to show up. This can be a cheap way of keeping your useful rifles firing when facing a cav heavy enemy.
4:00 I mean, it’s called “fall of the samurai” for a reason
Yari Kachi perform pretty good for a long time. The beat pretty much everything except elite infantry or line infantry that has a lot of buffs.
I didnt know samurai heroes existed until after this video
They're a special traditional unit so you have to go through the high tier stuff for traditionalist lords to find them. Someone made a point that they're mostly there for flavor as a point that nobody would choose them over cheap guns which is depressing for them
I have personally found that the AI LOVES to use Wooden cannons, and especially loves to stick them in forts, where, because of their range and firing arc, they somehow do better. They aren't the end of the world, but they can make what should be a simple, by the book siege turn into a slight headache. They are the same way when you are the defender, because again, AI seems to think wooden cannons are the damn technological marvel
In late game, I have found that having battery towers wipe them out right away can be helpful.
I remember the first time trying to get the Samurai Hero in my campaign, being so eager to get some single OP unit, just for the fun, even though rationally I could see from the stats and general knowledge of combat that they wouldn't work. It still felt disappointing when in the end I finally got it and saw that they were almost useless.
I'm still afraid of wooden cannons especially when they're placed inside a castle during siege. I had to restart my siege attacks because my Armstrong guns get wiped out by them. If I had naval support I'd make them fire on the wooden cannons first.
Ian Cabugsa And what if the siege battle is beyond naval bombardment range, say that you're fighting inland castles between Kai as far as Hida, and the Aizu castle in Fukushima, w/c is far from the Pacific coastline?
You shouldn't offensive siege in FoTS anyway. Because shooters in Fall of Samurais are mostly direct-fire units, forcing you to climb the wall or bomb the hell out of enemy castle no matter what, which always result in hefty castle repair cost, or several turns of replacing lost units in your stacks, or both.
The best approach is to wait them to sally out and smack them on the field. No need to worry about artillery, as AI will walk to you regardless, and if you rout their army, the wooden cannons will run anyway so no need to care about them.
Only time you'll offensive siege in FoTS is when the strength rating is heavily stacked in your favor, but then you press auto resolve, because it'll result in next to no death on your side and minimal castle repair cost, thus you only have to pay a small fee and 1 turn of stationing there waiting for castle to be repaired before moving on, more economical than slugfest that'll ensue if you tried manual battle.
That is the noob way of doing things. Everyone knows you have to bombard the settlement with your navy and then bum rush your army to the top layer of the castle while destroying every wall, capturing every arrow tower and torching every gate. ;)
@@TheWoollyFrogHell yeah, because that’s actually fun, gotta say, it sounds pretty boring to siege and auto resolve every battle, seems like at that point you’re just playing a shitty version of civ.
Wooden cannons are okay for fort defence since their high fire arc means they can actually hit attacking units, unlike later cannons that never get line of sight. AI units tend to bunch up in for attacks and in larger battles my wooden cannons got 150+ kills, and breaking up infantry formations also made their attack less coordinated.
The combination of levy infantry and levy spear makes great quick draft army to defend a surprise attack. Let the levy infantry shoot them and then when enemy climbed up the wall, levy spear would engage. Perfect eh?
Sure, doesn't mean the unit is actually good though.
I like Levy Infantry as the cannon-fodder that can fire bullets xD
In the beginning of the campaign it is funny to struggle with Levy Infantry and sometimes in early sieges they can save your ass. XD
I actually find levy infantry do a decent job at keeping line infantry at bay. I've successfully used them to extend my line against a superior force and pin down the attacking line infantry until they were under 50 units before my levies fled. The important thing is that levy infantry has to engage other gun infantry and they need to get the first shot off.
After browsing through the comments for a bit I feel like this needs to be said :
These units might be the worst, but that doesn't mean they're useless.
Even the wooden cannon
You will capture them, and then you can use them to help with public order (usually disbanding them afterwards)
Are you coming Patrick?
@@godfatherofbratfettjammi9833 Yes.
@@IDONTGETTHEPOINT Patrick its this way
@@godfatherofbratfettjammi9833 where?
"ARTILLERY! GET DOWN!"
Oh no wait, the cannonballs helped us get down. Now get up and move on.
I think everyone is coming out to defend our Levy Infantry bravely defending their homes. Super cheap garrison to suppress unrest and will hold the wall of a fort against attackers pretty well.
Yes they are inferior in every way to other line infantry but they are cheapest, require no military tech building and are quite strong defending a castle wall. I think a good choice in campaign to defend unrest or as part of an economical garrison in a border fortress.
more of these please! alongside more clan guides especially in Rise Of The Samurai!
I will likely never in any shape or form cover RotS again.
MrSmartDonkeyLP
Rots even hasn't enough units for one list
JJ McD try watching his campaign as the Kiso Minamoto in the playlists
JJ McD it is complete and utter garbage and it's laughable. Don't bother. Buying wraith of Sparta at full price gives you more than rise of the samurai
Have you ever considered making units related guides for all of those tricky units that new people do not know how to use or how to integrate in their army ? Or even just for normal ones to give out some suggestions to those who might have missed something about them ?
Wooden cannons really do suck, they are like European cannons but worst. At least European cannons are more accurate and since they move in a linear path they can hit quite a few units which can be deadly against calvary.
Matchlock-Samurai Are absolutly great for flanking.... they line up fast with their far lesser unit count, shoot 2 times and charge.... their Moral is good enough to do so. Their cost is totally okay for what they deliver.
The one thing I will give Levy Infantry is their ability to function as dependable garrison troops. When standing at walls, and when deployed cleverly, they will destroy most small to medium invasion forces.
Which, uh, kind of is their only saving grace.
bow ki is a little limited but I find it a good skirmish unit. They can hide behind a hill and rain down on gun units. put them to the side and protect with yari ki. rain down and you can wipe out a unit or before they even get to your main line.
I find Levy infantry to be very usefull when you have recently captured a settlement and it doesn't have a cadet school, it provides a cheap but effective garrison and a way to keep happiness high until you build the proper building.
Wooden cannons are really, really specific.
Like a solid shot howitzer.
Not worth it but at least they're there; and the ai likes to spam them.
I checked steam stats the other day and there was close to 4000 people playing shogun 2 which amazed me.
I started playing shogun 2 again thanks to your videos and I'm happy to see someone still uploading quality content all these years since release. Here's to one of the best total war games!
5:54 although I think the sole purpose of a wooden canon is for seige use such as battering a wall yk outstanding vid
Donkey ,forgive me for another post, but I believe that another factor that made some people argue about Levy Infantry usefulness is that you're being vague about Levy Infantry vs Line Infantry. You should give them stats comparisons like you did during Clans overviews, that should shut up a lot of people.
Why is that? Because Line Infantry has 3 times accuracy, 6 times reload skills of Levy, which mean, theoretically, they killed 3 times more per volley and put out volley 6 times faster than Levy. Then you compare their cost/upkeep of 770/100 against Levy's 500/80 and you found that for 54%/25% increase, they have at least triple the effectiveness Levy. Now why are we still using Levy Infantry again?
Edit: and if they argue about Cadet school, surprise, Clan that starts out as playable Clan's enemies are almost always build Cadet school, some Imperial Clans also start out with it, so argument of "not have enough money to build Cadet school" also somewhat moot, at least, on higher difficulties.
They're ok for one volley, but absolutely useless for anything else.
Again, why should we use Levy when Line Infantry are infinitely better *in term of getting the most bang out of your limited budget early game* ?
As I stated in the original comment; Line Infantry are, at minimum, three time better than Levy Infantry while only cost 50% more upfront and 25% more upkeep, *which mean that for the cost of recruiting 3 Levy Infantry, you can get 2 Line Infantry whose combined strength equal to 6 Levy Infantry. And for the cost of upkeep 5 Levy Infantry (400 per turn), you can support 4 Line Infantry that'll be as effective as 12 Levies (!!!) put together* .
That's only calculating their accuracy aka. killing power, because Line Infantry also reload 6 times faster than Levy Infantry as well! Thus the actual effectiveness is even more skewed in Line Infantry favor despite the small cost increase!
And as I already stated, on higher difficulties, the AI that player start at war with will almost always build Cadet School or their city already starts with a Cadet School (the starter enemies of Satsuma and Saga has Cadet school pre-built in their cities), so there's zero investment on your part on that building too.
But the free levy infantry in your forts are useful though, if only because you don't pay a single $ for them.
machaiping
Because the difference in upkeep matters when leaving behind troops to garrison castles. Unless, of course, you are rolling in cash and can afford to keep front line units as reserves or you prefer land-swapping with the AI.
If upkeep and garrison is of the concern, why not go with Spear levy instead? Early game, the only time when you're starved for cash, also the time where Spear levy is a lot cheaper than Infantry as well. And Spear levy can defend castle better than levy infantry too.
But levy infantry can rout low tier enemy units (which the ai always goes for) before they reach the walls or during their climb. I guess it's also more immersive since both sides in the civil war were trying to modernise to some extent. Choosing peasant conscripts with cheap flintlock muskets instead of pointy sticks achieves that.
Levy infantry used to be decent in original vanilla FotS in that they could rout spear levy and in huge number provided a half decent garrison. But after patches and DLCs it's hardly worth recruiting even for keeping peace in province. And Bo kii are good for Hunting routing cavalry or even infantry before you get revolver cavalry. Both units are placeholders until you get better units, basically
i take spear levy over levy infantry any day
Thank you.
I've found only one use of the wooden cannon, and that is it has a much higher firing arc than other artillery, acting like mortars without killing power, only useful in attacking archer towers
Top 5 best and worst units from Rise of the Samurai? It would seem interesting to me, I'm not sure about anyone reading this
Rise of the Samurai was a really cool idea but I never explored the game enough to have fun with it cuz I got put off by the units like always being in loose formation. I would love to see a video highlighting some of the fun units in that campaign!
Rise sucks, use as small an army as you can get away with and have all of the metsuke go around as a group and convert everything, buy your enemies off and use agents to sabotage entertain them. Other than that foot samurai kill everything. Just put some thing in front of them so they get more shots off before they have to go melee. Warrior monk infantry is the only thing they have a even match up with and that because of war cry.
Samurai_64 But this campaign has like 10 units total. There's not much to talk about.
Worst? Naginata levy. Those bastards are only a little bit handy in the early game, but afterwards they're utter trash.
Best? Foot samurai. By far the most destructive unit in RotS.
I'm not saying it's a good strategy, but I have totally won the game by dedicating all my buildings and technology into finance and just donked battles with hordes of Levy infantry. Who needs Kneel fire when you can just terrace 7 different levy's on a hill? It's totally not a grotesque waste of manpower just barely being papered over with unholy sums of gold.
But who needs finance when u can just sneak a single hoard past the enemy army and steal their fort like an underhanded lil shite?
Not going to lie, I've tried all sorts of strategys in Total War, but "Make fat stacks to pay pesant deathstacks" is the most reliable. Especially in Shogun 2 where you can have leaderless stacks of units washing over the land.
Levee infantry are the great example of "quantity has a quality all it own". They're no good in any pitched battle, but as a rear firing line or as a siege wall defender they're as good as needed. I used a 'pike and shot' set of tactics with levee infantry and spear infantry in front of them in the early game and found it perfectly effective (so long as you have cavalry to defend them both).
I like Bow Ki and use them all the time, their range is nice but unlike guns their arrows arc through the air allowing them to shoot over the heads of other troops. I use them to back up my main infantry line and to pursue afterwards in addition to normal mounted skirmishing duties.
I never realized exactly how bad Levy Infantry were until I had a stack of Levy infantry and spearmen to use as cannon fodder that were attacked by a mere three Shogunate Infantry units... I lost like three spear levy and two levy infantry... That was/is my first campaign. I was (and am) doing well, but I have less than a year, like 16 of 26 provinces, one of two required provinces, and Nagasko and Obama were putting up a tooth-and-nail fight for everything. They kept attacking my trade routes ;-;
the purpose of the bow hero, as most hero units in S2 is to replenish fatigue (if you have the mod installed that fixes CAs programming error so that the debuff table for fatigue is correctly linked with infantry units, then units loose up to 50% melee stats, speed, -8 moral and 15% accuracy, especially in FoTS this allows your units to regain half their stats which for a tradionalist army is a huge buff)
there is one other use I've found for wooden cannons. its incredibly niche and tricky to pull off, but if you put one or two wooden cannon units in a defensive siege, and manually control them, you can use its high arcing trajectory and the fact that you can engage outside a cannon's range when controlling it manually to snipe the enemy general.
I found this really helpful considering I'm considering making some TW Shogun content. Thanks!
I wish they had brought back bouncing cannon balls for wooden cannons. It would actually give you a reason to use them.
Wooden cannons are that unit you never recruit but never can get rid of because you capture an average of 12 of them a turn.
Dude, levy infantry is awesome. It's all about placement. Spread them out, make kill boxes, etc. Given a small tactical advantage, they can outshoot line infantry and you don't need a building to recruit them, which means that all of your buildings can be economic.
I use Levy infantry as a Garrison force.
I think I'm doing something wrong since I destroyed a full stack of Modern army with Levy Infantry, and Spear Levy.
Well all of them has +4 Attack XD.
1. You're not spreading out your line enough for your levy infantry to be useful. Bigger line = more shots = more dead spear levy
2. Mounted bow units only have two uses. The first is to set up behind your gunmen (firing arc allows this) to add some more oomf to their volleys, and the second is for flanking fire and darting out quick.
Doesn’t matter how long you spread their line, they’re still horrible compared to line infantry which can be acquired easily.
If you want an archer behind your line than just get Bow Kachi, they’re miles better. If you want a flanking cavalry get carbine cav or even revolver cav.
I won a long legendary campaign with only levee and wooden canons(little personnal challenge). They can do the job but you need to be tricky!
But that's true, they don't worth the kihetai infantry and amstrong canons...
Kachi gunmen are good as garrison, because they can have time to slaughter they enemies one by one while they climb the walls.
I agree with the list. however for the levy infantry its pretty useful to have them in siege defense, in that case if you use spear instead you are missing opportunity to take out enemy units who are climbing and approaching walls, half or a third of them would die if you defend with levy instead. so have levy garrison and have spear for offensive.
What about best ( that’s not Mori) and worst Naval Units in Shogun 2 Vanilla and FoTS?
Franz-Maximilian Von Nova My guess is FOTS 1.Gunboat 2. Wooden Corvette (weakest class)3.Wooden Corvette (the better class) 4.Amoured Corvette ( weakest class ) 5 Kaiten Maru (Wooden Corvette )
The worst one is Gunboats
For Shogun 2 Vanilla, my guess for the best will be Bow Kobaya, Nanban Trade Ship, Medium Bune, Sengoku Bune and Fire Bomb Kobaya.
hquwhjher where is the Black Ship
KasenGuy 12 Just change the Nanban Trade Ship with the Black Ship and you're good to go.
Very good observations. I myself found that the only positive about the levy infantry regiments is their application in defense of forts. Although they do not have the same firepower rate as line infantry or elite units, the levies can, if stretched into single file lines along fort walls, can provide an effective amount of firepower against attacking enemies. This means that even elite units can be broken in an assault, as they might clamber up the walls instead of being able to provide suppressing fire. Furthermore, the unit's skirmish ability allows you the option to have them fall back, giving your regular rifle units a chance to apply concerted volleys upon the enemy which can break their charge.
I had some success with Bow ki in traditionnal campain challenges by recruiting them in provinces that give charge bonus, and using them to soften up units with their range and then charging to break them. Micro-intensive, but very deadly.
i did once a satsuma match and at one point i got this castle attacked with only levy infantry to defend it. it was the only lost match which i was able to almost completely turn in my favor (the enemy lost almost all his devisions and suprisingly no levy escaped (they fought until the last man even if i had no general). i understand and agreed that they have very bad stats but that battle made them a place in my hearth XD
Even though matchlocks and levies are bad they are still good in supporting your stronger range units and assassinating enemy HATAMOTOS!
I did managed to find a mod that made all Infantry unit kneel fire and I'm actually quite surprised that both Levy and Matchlock Kachi is actually kind of decent - then again with mod that made Unit gain x2 the stats leveling up and mod that buff Matchlock
I actually do enjoy those mod since Matchlock Kachi at 3 experience actually stand up to and be a bit better than Line Inf making it kinda worth to stay traditional if wanted but then again no Kneel fire sucks
Based on the context of video I am assuming you are discussing about the campaign. I must say there are few points to disagree.
Levy infantry I don't think is a terrible unit. It is not supposed to be a combat unit but a garrison one. For garrison purpose it generally performs better than spear levy due to having range and enemy unit requiring to be in generally worse situation (Either come to the levy for melee or shoot at them). Also, later on with higher modernization, levy infantry is slightly cheaper than spear levy. Spear levy is better at say attacking or field battle to guard against potential cav or just as a fodder (in low modernization it will enjoy little bit higher morale)
For Wooden Cannon, again this is not a strong unit but is the earliest artillery you can get and can bring some favourable point. For one AI in field battle will likely take the initiative of attacking you allowing you to form line of fire in advance. Also, eventhough it's direct damage potential is terrible, focusing on shooting enemy at the gate and corner of the wall for destruction can net out some sizable casualty of garrison units. Player will discard wooden cannon as their army start to have parrot gun but in the mean time 1 wooden cannon is a nice addition to the army.
I rather put units like ninja and Gatling guns as worst unit due to their high teching cost and inefficiency. Ninja has small unit size and is slower than cavalry and the stealth alone is not enough to warrant its survival. It will get gunned down by range unit and will not have much favourable engagement against dedicated melee units either. Gatling gun requires set up and its DPS although impressive is not enough to justify its cost. Also, it consumes ammunition pretty fast. Lastly, it is quite inflexible requiring setup and does not have a long range like artillery so the positioning become more critical. Lastly, developing province to produce Gatling gun takes lot of time (construction & researching) and would take a lot of time to move these kind of unit into the front. Player will be better off using more accessible shogunate/imperial infantry with kneel fire.
Unpopular opinion but wooden canons can actually be really useful in some situation. I found them to be dead accurate arty killers, especially when you have more than one. They're also quite good against walls and towers which redeems them a bit as well. I was shocked to see my armstrong guns go in a matter of seconds by a volley of frickin wooden cannons!
I have another singular use for the wooden cannon. Fortress defence, due to it's morter-esque arching range it allows you to fire without fear of damaging your own walls (coming from someone who played TWN as original total war game , I haven't spent time to see if your troops physically cannot fire at your walls due to programing.) However since they do cost a fair bit of money and take frikin forever to reach the front. That has to be one hell of a happinin fort for it to be worth your time and resources.
The wooden cannons have another thing going for them. For some of the fort designs, artillery can be very hard to manage. They have to be oriented in the right way just to hit anything and not be obstructed by buildings, and when parrot guns/Armstrong guns can finally hit something, it's easy for the enemy to move in such a way that you have to reorientate your artillery.
The wooden cannons are, on the other hand, like mortars, so they don't face the same issues.
Of course, one shouldn't use artillery units as a garrison in the first place, but sometimes that situation is unavoidable. Think of capturing a settlement with an army that has artillery, only to be attacked the next turn.
Bow Ki feels sluggish and pretty bad in field battles. However, they truly shine in Castle assaults, especially with some ammo and accuracy buffs. Being able to outrange rifle units and fire in an arc allows them to kill a lot of units that would be troublesome for most other units. Moreover, the high mobility makes it easy to move around the castle for the best positions/angles. Having just 3-4 Bow Ki has allowed me to clear the way for my Inf to safely scale the walls - or even cleared the castle for defenders.
Basically, Bow Ki is a very niche unit - yet the niche where they shine is the situation where most other units struggle.
Bow Ki are absolutely devastating when the AI use them. They kill like 20 men in a single arrow volley.
Call me insane but I always favor Levy Infantry, Matchlock Kachi and the Wooden Cannons in the game. The reason why is because these units were my inspiration for my war fiction stories.
If I could get the game in my hands, I'll recruit as many of these as I can while playing as the Aizu faction. Since using these units would result to defeat, I could wish for some costly victories against the enemies.
Use them in custom battle, not in campaign
@@MrRazer94 Exactly
Honestly, I love using levy infantry albeit ob not for defending castles. Same range as any other rifle unit but lower reload and accuracy and lower costs and maintenance costs. I’ve gotten heroic defenses with purely only levy infantry when facing nearly 2-1 odds against superior units (without artillery)
You did miss one other advantage that wooden canons.
That there arcing fire allows them to fire over castle walls unlike all the other arty allowing them to actually be useful in a defense siege if only to take out enemy arty
Too niche to mention, is that a reason to take them off the list, or to use them in an army, I don’t think so.
Matchlock kachi are actually quite good during defensive sieges. Their low range is negated by the enemies aggressive approach to your walls and by the fact that their melee stats are good enough to cut up a lot of line infantry as they climb your walls. They're not worth taking once you can afford better units but they have a place in your early game garrisons
Levy infantry are great for spreading your force projection out, and to serve as garrisons in the event of naval invasions you didn't catch. The good thing about them is how cheap they are, but can still shoot, and maintain the same damage potential even at half strength. This makes them excellent artillery bait and archery and sharpshooter sponges. spear levy aren't as good, because they have to close to deal any damage so they can't be used offensively, and they suffer a much higher degree of damage loss when damaged; a levy infantry at 50% casualties will still fire the same number of shots as if they were at 100, but spear levy will fight pretty trash at 50% casualties.
Someone has to make the American, British and French factions playable, just like the Portuguese one in vanilla. That'd be so cool.
Wooden cannons can obliterate enemy infantry in offensive sieges when the enemy is holding the walls. (considering the fact that when the wall a unit is holding it is destroyed, it sends the men in the unit flying into the air basically annihilating at least half of it)
Although the unit is far outclassed by other artillery, its cheapness is what makes it situationally effective.
I don't quite agree with the Levy Infantry... Early game it's good when combined with Spear Levies while you make the necessary upgrades... And most importantly they pull their weight in defending sieges, which is frankly what I think is their main purpose. Leave 2 to maintain order in captured towns to maintain order, and if the enemy attacks they can bloody them enough so you can retake your lost towns without that much difficulty
Well Levy Infantry is acceptable when you put them on the walls as a makeshift defense, they can put up a fight with Line Infantry below (until they have Kneel Fire) and they're cheaper, and they're cheaper, so you can put them in garrison.
Or you could use Spear Levy for that who don’t have to expose themselves to enemy gunfire and will then easily beat the already wounded from climbing line infantry in melee.
I feel like levy infantry at least have some form of use when defending walls, instead of only having spear levy, they're a decent garrison unit, better than matchlock kachi, still, and personally put them above bow kachi. But yes, Fall of The Samurai has some definite units lagging miles behind all others.
It's rare, but on a list of what is good or no in one of if not my outright favorite game, once again, I find it hard to disagree on a lot of your arguments in your top 5 lists
Perhaps we use very similar tactics and thus you agree with me for the most part?
Nah, clearly you're wrong because you don't use enough mangonels.
But, I wouldn't entirely say that's it. You helped me see the value in cavalry more, and I still say fire pot throwers have their place, just that you make sensible arguments
One thing I'd add to the wooden cannons: their fire arcs, and therefore can pass over castle walls and other obstacles that would hinder parrot/armstrong guns. Doesn't really redeem them, given their other glaring deficiencies, but it does give them some niche utility compared to the other artillery.
I’d watch my Obama series, I recently fought a siege where my 4 armstrong guns cleared an entire full stack inside a town bar 200 men remaining or so. And even if Wooden Cannons have a better fire arc, they only have a few ammo, and if they hit they do barely any damage, so what’s the point?
SuperSmashyfication Nope , sadly motoars aren't in the base game
*mortors
I really liked Wooden cannon in certain situations such as siege tho. but I mainly play skirmish sieges tho.
Normally on a siege map, I will bring one or two units of them just to smash out some walls and archery towers whilst not wasting precious Armstrong gun ammo or lives of soldiers that can actually shoot, and that is not to mention those forty men can also drop engine and be used as meatshields/ single-use recons after their ammo is depleted. you don't need to upgrade them either since archery towers and walls are targets really hard to miss even for rookie wooden cannons.
I like levy infantry, I find that they tank damage for your traditional army kinda the same way spear levies will protect your line infantry in a modern army. Just get 3 or 4, make a line, watch the AI open fire on your line, send your melee units on both flanks
I've been using kachi gunners in my last Campaign and imo they are good for early game. When you are on tier one of modernisation they are cheaper than levy, have 2nd lvl exp on start and have better stats, also if you want to use them in land battle then you can spread them out to Lower their losses. Combine it with Hidding em in the Edge of the forest and you will win gun fight. In the vid they lost to levi Spear because they were defending. But they have much Higher melee attack, so when enemy attacks you you have to counter charge to win.
So in conclusion I think they are good early game unit even on field. I am not talking about defensive sieges bcs PPL talked about em. Their high melee attack stat makes em good in offensive sieges too.
I find that if I take a legendaary dojo from the AI, I'll build a sam hero before demolishing it. I like the idea of its special ability.
reminds me of the last samurai film where the levy infantry get mowed down by YARI KI!!!
Hmm, now here's a thought... winning the campaign on Legendary using only Levi Infantry... Can such a thing be done? Would MrSmartDonkeyLP attempt such a thing for all our viewing pleasure? (assuming he hasn't done so already.)
I think the Samurai hero is less of an traditional Skirmisher cavalry, more of a officer unit due to the amount of buffs it can give to units.
Levy infantry tend to be quite strong as long as the enemy does not have any artillery
My reasoning is that when you have 10 Levy infantry and the enemies approaches you, you are quite unstoppable yourself even if the enemy has cavalry:
Place them in 2 lines and they would bring the pain against units, bring 3 divisions and you have them fighting all Levy infantry guns and the enemy would die in no time
I managed to win a 2000 experienced yari-kachi and line soldiers along with an artillery(but I naval bombarded that) with my weak levies of 800s by merely backing away and letting the other division shoot them while the other melees
I'd say levies are still worse at reloading but together spread apart they are strong
"regurgitate my claim" lol
Wooden cannons are actually very effective at destroying walls, which will send units flying and kill 30 at a time. As far as I know they have no other use
Maybe this was just me? But I found that the wooden cannons were most destructive against cavalry units. This was probably due to the small size of cavalry units. However, I just remember playing games where I wiped the opposing army’s general or left it barely useable with a few volleys even with the piss poor accuracy. Even in vanilla shogun in the online multiplayer with European cannons it was the same thing, target the generals and the bouncing cannon ball wrecks.
In a battle when I was playing FotS as the Satsuma, I was attacking Goto and the enemy had wooden cannons. I thought, 'Pah! Fools!' So I defeated them in battle, and I chased down the routing enemies with my general, but somehow, their wooden cannons hadn't routed, thus, they kept firing. And guess what? They directly hit my general, and killed him! God, why do you torture me....
I love those crappy units. I'm doing a run as Obama (basically a pay to win faction) and I only recruit matchlock sam, spear levy and wooden cannons. The cannons actually provide a big morale penalty when they hit near an enemy unit, and with gun sam and flank attacks let's just say siege defenses are even easier.
Pizzafoogle, is that a Michael Rosen reference?
@@danilshcherbakov2126 As a matter of fact, yes.
@@thepizzafoogle5481 Nice
@@danilshcherbakov2126 We sit out to eat, and the potatoes a bit hot. So I only put a little bit on my fork and I blow, **blow, blow**, till its cool, just cool, then into the mouth, Hwop, **click** Noice.
The only reason I use woodern cannons is just for seiges because they tear archer towers to shreds but at the same time you could bring a cannon but also some of the maps you can‘t get a good angle to hit the towers with cannons
That’s why you can limber up the guns and move them.
Wooden cannons are better at siege defense thoughj as they "mortar" their shots over instead of firing straight which is blocked by the walls
Still only kill like 10 guys max with all their ammo...
SAmurai Hero would be good if they could almost always guarantee that you can take out any unit with them. Essentially use them as a cancel unit where you can remove the most dangerous unit from the battlefield. Altough even this is more of a multiplayer consideration.
So, basically, never get Levy Infantry or Wooden Cannons, just wait a bit and get Line Infantry and Parrott Guns for the early to mid-game. And never bring a bow and a horse to a gunfight.
I was arguing with some dude on Reddit a few weeks ago who was saying that bow ki were essentially god-tier units and completely outclasses gun units, and he was claiming he played on legendary and trying to use that to say he was right
i did a traditional units only cam-pain so the matchlock kaichi were essential meat shields for enemy bullets (arent they the same as matchlock samurai from the base game though) edit and wooden cannons were all i could bring artillery wise
I was surprised by how bad the Shinsengumi Police Force were. A shogitai unit with modern rifles sounds like a match made in heaven, but their ranged stats are extremely mediocre and worst of all they have no kneel fire, greatly reducing their effectiveness. The fact they have the most strict recruitment requirements doesn't help either, as you need to make a Shinsengumi Headquarter, which you can only build one of and is stupidly expensive at that too.
Their only saving grace is their excellent melee stats, making them probably one of the best siege defenders in the game. However I did expect more from a hard to get allegiance exclusive unit.
I usually just use levy infantry to keep local repression up, if I’m going on a big conquering spree.
I find bow ki to be useful for exploiting dumb AI on legendary campaigns. They can be a good lure for kiting a much larger enemy force.
You can put levy infantry into a good use, if you place spear infantry behind them. Like in the pike and shot era
I was expecting Sabre Cavalry on the list due to how similar they are to Katana Cavalry.
I like Sabre Cav to an extent, but I always go for Yari Ki, it is so good against infantry and other cav units
Sabre Cav are alright actually as there are generally far fewer spear units in FotS. I realize there’s gun units but you can avoid those with cavalry and when you get them into melee they’ll shred.
i personally like to have some matchlock kachi´s from early to midgame if i play as aizu.
after some level they do a decent job in firing 1-2 volleys and charging than the enemy line from the flanks.
its like they are a hybrid between the stats of the levys. But at the end.. a modern army should anyways consist of regular line infantry.
You know levy infantry are slightly more useful with darthmod because then they get access to supression fire and kneel fire but anyway when you get line infantry you also automatically get kneel fire so your argument makes sense
Unrelated to the video, what graphic mod are you using in FoTS?
Whatever mods I use are in the description of the video I use them in.
How about a ROTS all units ranked?