Encampment armory or melee bonus?

[Lord Solar Bear]

Hey guys, to start this off I am by no means a noob at this game. I'm currently working on an Uesugi win on hard, and I've beaten hard on several different clans at this point. I understand that missile units aren't really that effective in this game, but after looking through a few different forms it seems that a lot of players seem to love the naginata unit for it's higher melee defense and armor.
My question is it's obvious you want encampments in your recruitment regions, but is it better to have +4 attack +2 armor or just +6 attack like I always do?
I would like to note that I don't think it's logistically possible to have one recruitment area for just katana (+6) and one for naginata/other units (+4/+2) because by the time you have a second armory region you've pretty much won. I also understand that +4/+2 would be better when you're playing the Uesugi because it gives your warrior monks samurai level armor.
Also, while I have your attention, do you think naginata samurai are a worthy replacement to katana samurai, or are they only for increasing the melee capabilities of your walls of yari units? Look forward to hearing from you guys!
Bear

[Moridin]

Personally having only just worked out what encampments do (were not on oringal shogun) I tend to go for the +2 armor.

[Lord Solar Bear]

Yeah, I've been playing with it today and it's killer. 11 armor naginatas take almost no casualties. They've easily become my favorite unit now.

[Moridin]

I like Naginata simply cause its close to the Silence Glaive weapon from one of my fave anime. to be honest most of my army tends to be Yari ashigaru and bow ashigaru. even then the +2 armor bonus is very useful. I've not managed to win a campain yet, because I keep forgetting to get a navy....well there was that MP campain as the Mori.

[Iceira]

no doubt about that attack is always best, but this game is always throw us into defense mode and the realm divine issue force you to go armor way so you can hold the front line with better defense unit , and that why many do armor...imo

[House of Rahl]

ok first off im going to give u a hyperlink to reference for some of the numbers im about the throw at you.

http://www.totalwars.ru/encyclopedia/how_to_play/031_enc_manual_army_experience.html

at rank 9 (max rank) units gain +7 melee attack, +7 melee defense, +18 reload skill, +6 morale, +18 accuracy, -3 to fatigue

thats 7 melee attack now i normally only look at rank 6-8 because of the loss of some exp after each battle to replenishment. so from here forward ill be using the numbers for rank 6 and NOT rank 9. rank 6 for future notice is +5 melee attack and defense.

generals get an infantry leader skill that gives them the ability to “stand and fight” (best ability EVER). at rank 3 the ability gives all infantry +3 melee attack that is within their stack (no range requirement). activating stand and fight adds another 2 melee attack (stand and fight has a range roughly 2-2.5x the range of rally) i think it was. so thats +5 from the general alone and thats not including those retainers u get.

so far nothing i have described adds armor. but just using a rank 4 general with stand and fight with a rank 6 melee unit u get +10 melee attack and +5 melee defense. thats enough to take a yari ashigaru unit up against a samurai unit and win in a fair fight (but who fights fair anyways). while that substantially increases the combat effectiveness of your melee troops against other melee forces the only stat your really need to worry about to fight off archers is armor. you have to survive long enough to get into melee and once you do you win. in theory +5 armor could be the best combo since it has the potential to turn any unit into an unstoppable siege god. imagine those naginata with 14 armor, now stack about 10 or so of them up with all these rank and general buffs and they have about 16 melee attack or so (18 if they had stand and fight). they will laugh off arrow fire and kill even katana sam in a fair fight because their melee defense will be quite a bit higher even if there melee attack isnt noticeably higher (both stats are VERY important in melee combat).

i personally use +4 melee attack and +2 armor for all my melee troops because while +5 armor is DEFINITELY better vs archers, armor serves a much more limited roll in melee. it helps blunt the initial charge of an enemy unit into you, so it helps a bit vs those no-dachi and cav units but in prolonged melee its not a god send unless its cloudy with a high probability of arrow rain. the +4 attack isnt going to be all THAT substantial since your naginata already at rank 6 have roughly 18 melee attack as it is (this includes all the above buffs). so giving them another +4 gets them to 22. ok at this point your 11 armor 22 attack naginata samurai wil not only laugh off most arrows, they will also crush any unit that isnt a hero in seconds, even hero units cant stand up to those numbers. with those stats you can at most add another +2 melee attack by getting them to rank 9 but honestly you wont notice a huge difference between 22 attack and 24. 40 men with an attack of maybe 25-30 (that’s a vanilla hero with NO boost) wont last long against a unit of 160 with 22 attack. Even a buffed up hero unit that would have around 40 attack isn’t going to be able to in my opinion effectively utilize those massive numbers with only 40 people vs a unit 4x their size (though I have been recently considering fielding a hero unit or two for the abilities). its worth noting naginata isnt a high melee attack units but all the bonuses in this game help will melee attack not armor, and there are more bonuses for melee attack then melee defense. i highly recommend the use of units that have the highest stats that ARE NOT given boost, ie armor, and charge. then add the boost and end up with the strongest all round unit. then go laugh as your units can easily take down 2:1 and even 3:1 odds and still scythe through the enemy.

Bellow ill list the bonuses im going to calculate and then list the stats of vanilla and “buffed” katana and naginata samurai since you specifically mentioned that comparison. The 2nd listing will be the buffed version.
General infantry leader, general stand and fight, master weapon smith, encampment armory, rank 9 unit
(16 melee attack, 9 melee defense, 2 armor, 6 morale)

Katana: 12 matk, 4 mdef, 15 charge, 5 armor, 10 morale, 0 cav bonus
Naginata: 8 matk, 6 def, 12 charge, 9 armor, 10 morale, 15 cav bonus
Katana: 28 matk, 13 mdef, 15 charge, 7 armor, 16 morale, 0 cav bonus
Naginata: 24 matk, 15 mdef, 15 charge, 11 armor, 16 moral, 15 cav bonus

I know this post was FAAAAAAAR too long but I really kinda went into every possible bonus I could think to add to best help you choose your units. My fav are naginata sam for the above written bonuses. Frankly though any unit even ashigaru units with all those bonuses stacked would be enough to use in w/e army you want. I also didn’t write out rank 9 gives -3 fatigue because it’s the same for both units and redundant. Best of luck.

PS: just realized i didnt add in any of the mastery of arts bonuses (bushido arts). not going to, but feel free to tag those on there too if you like in your own number crunching. on a final note if you use date like myself, ALL units get +4 charge so you can add that to the above total bonuses.

[Lord Solar Bear]

I'm starting to love naginatas as a replacement for my center samurai strategy. I only place yari samurai on my army's flanks, and I fill the middle of my formation right behind my archers with naginata. Yari samurai flank and protect my own cavalry/no-dachi from enemy cavalry charges, naginata hold the line, katana fill the gaps in the center of my formation.
Also, I freaking love Stand and Fight. It's even better than you say because it extends the moral bonus of fighting near a general, AND it gives your archers faster reload. It's the best perk imo.

[House of Rahl]

yeah stand and fight increase melee attack, moral, and reload skill. i think it also increase melee defense but someone else will have to verify that or just verify that my head is becoming addled. i delete all my save games when i start a new campaign and my most recent campaign is on turn 22, so no stand and fight for me. i figured the moral would be redundant to list and so would reload skill for the example i gave.

anyways im glad you found it useful. personally i normally run 2 units as my flankers for me its always either 2 katana cav, 2 no-dachi, or 2 matchlock sam. only the matchlock do i actually provide additional units to for protection when their making their way to the rear to flank. i give them each 2 yari sam to defend them against unwanted cav charges or enemy blocks. so thats 2 yari and 1 matchlock per side.

my 4th stack and fav stack dont even use designated flanking units. i use 4 naginata sam, 4 date bulletproof sam, 4 bow monks, 6 warrior monks, and a fire rocket. the naginata make up the front line and take the charges/arrows with their massive armor. the warrior monks make up the 2nd line and fill in any gaps left by the naginata, this also lets them spread out very well along the enemy front so when they all hit war cry the entire enemy line gets a taste of it. the 3rd and final line is my bow monks and bulletproof sam. the bows obviously just lay down the rain, but the bulletproof have that running ability standard to yari sam. they are also the strongest of the units a date clan can field and you can only have 4 total. so they cover the rear. if for ANY reason the center line gets a hole they can easily plug it and i still have 3 others to cover my archers and general in the rear. a general in stand and fight cannot defend himself from a cav charge. good way to lose your general in a hurry. same with bow monks those guys have no armor at all so they are majorly vulnerable to cav charges. also if the line is too busy hold straight on i can send one bulletproof to either side to act as the flankers if the massive killing potential of the warrior monks and nodachi are not enough to panic and route the enemy. very few armies can stand up to their entire line getting hit by war cry as it not only lowers their moral it also makes them die alot faster which in of it self leads to more moral penalties. heck even their movement speed gets a penalty so they cant even flee when they break so its almost guaranteed that they will shatter. if u use that stack though dont get caught around cities. warrior monks have terrible armor even with +2. inside the walls youll get rained on, outside the walls climbing youll get rained on it will be a bad day. this is an open field army. but use them with ur warfare commissioner and you can use that war cry a bit along with the whistling arrows to cause a massive moral hit to the enemy. the negative melee attack also makes the enemy lose alot of effectiveness while on your own units (because your going to be shooting over your own line) youll also lose some melee attack but to a naginata sam or monk unit with 20+ melee attack losing a few points isnt going to matter much to them, its like 1/10th or less of their attack, but to the enemy the loss will not be so insubstantial.

[Lord Solar Bear]

I like pairing powerful special abilities with the warfare comm. That's a good idea that I haven't used yet.
Also, S&F is only melee attack but it doesn't matter it's still insanely good. My absolutely favorite thing is getting the spear infantry melee defense retainer and having the master yari dojo. Makes me so happy.