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Besides, the only reliable protection against bullets is the "bulletproof" flag.
As Destin Faroda said, it does definitely have an effect on missiles and defense. He is an actual modder, so it's not conjecture.
I'd just add that matchlocks basically ignore armor value and the "shield" value of units. That's why even naginata samurai get slaughtered by arquebuse fire.
So don't worry: it's supposed to be that way. It's one of the perks of getting matchlock troops.
Afaik, the only vanilla unit that can stand up to bullets somewhat effectively is "Date Bulletproof Samurai," which is basically yari samurai with a new skin, full mempo face guards and such. They are a dlc unit.
For example, matchlock arquebuses have a damage value of 2 and 0 spread which means instant death and good accuracy. No wonder armour is close to useless in vanilla Shogun II.
There was also the part of me not really noticing a difference in my general's combat powers in melee or getting shot after giving him the legendary armour retainer, giving him around 17 armour from memory.
Just felt like the armour values changed very little in melee or ranged battles, might try using it some more.
They have a hit rate of around 70% from what I've seen; irl when you do the math from documented battle accounts the hit rate was less than 1%. It was generally understood back then that it took about a man's weight in bullets to kill him.
That's why I don't worry so much about how slow vanilla rank fire can be, because two volleys in vanilla are doing the damage of like 30 good volleys historically, which when you combine with the faster pace of the game, makes more sense than it otherwise would.
If you figure a 40 min. battle timer corresponds to 16 hours of an entire day of engagement irl, then the higher vanilla kill rate over a minute or two (with less volleys) balances out better than it first appears. But it's still extremely efficient, if you're a stickler for historical realism.
Not necessarily. It depended on factors like armor type, what area of the armor was hit, range, what type of arquebuse had fired the ball, the angle the ball struck the armor at, quality of powder (more or less efficient burning and thus higher or lower velocity), etc.
Even if the armor couldn't outright stop the ball, given range and these other factors, it might slow it down enough to where it didn't seriously wound, or even wound at all.
There is a famous anecdote recorded about Tokugawa Ieyasu, where, after a battle with the Owari Ikki (who were becoming infamous at the time for their use of large amounts of guns), he removed his armor at the end of the day and three arquebuse balls fell out of his under clothes.
The balls had all penetrated the breastplate, but the plate and the under clothes had slowed the bullet enough that they did not wound him. The shots were probably fired at relatively long range too.
The chronicle records that 'lord Ieyasu was unharmed,' but he probably had some prety serious welts or bruising.
But anyway, the idea is, just because you got shot back then didn't equal instant, lethal wound like in the game. Matchlocks in the game are basically 100% lethal at all ranges, angles and against all armors.
Irl, the later "tub shaped" cuirass popular with most samurai who could afford them was much better at stopping balls than something like the "tatami" armor ashigaru were issued, because of its heavier gauge, its shaping, and the fact that it was a single piece, not small plates or hanging lames.
By Fall of the Samurai armor is truly close to useless and the only clan that has any incentive to even get armored troops is Aizu, who will still want to ditch them about 20 turns in when the AI starts using better troops with modern rifles. The main advantage Matchlock Kachi have over the better armed less armored gun users is that they can usually survive being flanked by poorly armored cavaly troops.
Yeah, that's the other thing CA did with matchlocks: they seriously decreased their range. It was already less than historical range when the game came out, but they nerfed it even more with patching.
Irl matchlocks' effective range was basically identical to the yumi. Bows had longer range if all you were concerned with was placing a shot accurately on target; but at the same distance that an arrow would just bounce off even leather armor, an arquebuse round could still seriously maim.
So yeah, it's the armor nullification that is CA's perk for matchlocks, instead of making them a replacement for bows like irl.
If a unit had 5 armour and 5 melee defence, would that give him 10 melee defence against units that don't have armour piercing attacks, and 5 melee defence against those that do?
In practice, they lose to archers due to reduced range, reload time and flexibility. They get exactly one shot off on charging cavalry and even then only if they are already in formation. They get 1-2 shots off vs charging infantry and then get annihilated. They absolutely need to expose themselves in order to fight due to causing friendly fire, and even if you sneak them behind an enemy engaged with your troops, enough of your matchlocks will miss and hit your guys that you might actually increase your losses. Even if you use them vs high armor troops like you are supposed to, you can run into a lot of situations where they aren't even remotely close to being the most practical way of dealing with them due to their low range and flexibility.
Even as Otomo I recruit archers instead of matchlocks until I can get Tercios. Oddly a clan like Shimazu who converts to Christianity actually pays less per imported matchlock than Otomo does, making them perhaps cost effective enough for general use.
This isn't a case of armor being useless, it is a case of trying to use it against THE one hard counter to it in history (something even Western plate armor proved ultimately unequal to, and that stuff was far stronger to what the Japanese had). There's a reason the Japanese have a near-mythical fascination with guns (take a look at...oh.. half the scenes Kurosawa made), because on the traditional Japanese feudal battlefield they were all but UNSTOPPABLE if they hit. You didn't have things like you saw in the West, where on occasion armored knights could *POSSIBLY* tank a shot or two and still roll over a hostile formation.
Instead, look over at how the armor wielders preform against arrows and particularly in melee. They are notably more durable than their unarmored compatriots. Not as much as-say- top tier armor in Rome 1 or Medieval II, but notably so.