Reasons why Katana Ashigaru banned in Single player.

[Teutonic Ritterin]

one of the reason is in the Cousins if Ashigaru,the Yari Ashigaru,Everyone just never use Yari Samurai because of their cost,and yari ashigaru just so much better in term of cost,and upkeep.
you might think that Yari Drill yard will be useless,but some Experience player still build that building,not for Naginata/Yari Samurai,but for Yari Cavalry,one of the most favorite Cavalry units.

just think if there's Katana Ashigaru,Katana Samurai will be a little useless,because of their upkeep,cost,and high level castles can produce Rank 3 or 4 Ashigaru,and if everyone uses Katana Ashigaru,noone will ever build Sword Schools.
if you build Swordschool only to get Katana Cavalry,you will be dissapointed,since they're slower,has normal stamina,and they're specialized in fighting foot troops,which will mostly be Yari/Spears.

one of the prime example is the only clan who can recruit Katana Ashigaru,the Ikko Ikki,do you ever seen anyone uses Katana Ronin as Ikko Ikki?,well some,but it's very rare,since Ikko Ikki Katana Ashigaru can fight Other Ashigaru easilly,and beat Samurai Either by Numbers,or on their own,while keeping some money in your pocket since they're ashigarus.

this might be off topic,but some Ikko Ikki Katana Ashigaru men looks like samurai,you might gonna say that they stole other samurai armor,but if you look closely,most of them is using Light Cavalry Helmet,so it could be that Katana Ashigaru was a newly made up samurai who was formerly an Ashigaru,but was rejected as a light foot samurai,and come to the Ikko Ikki cause for a better job.

[Brave and Fearless Sir Shiba]

to be honest i rarely used katana ashigaru when i was ikko ikki due to A being near worse or as bad as Yari Ashigaru. they make good for castle garrison due to like what 50 koku upkeep compared to yari ashis idk 70? upkeep so theres that but as a mainstay with yari ashi no. you could try and do a custom battle with Ikko katana ashi vs a yari ashi then a normal Katana samurai.

and ronin are abit more expensive than a normal samurai if not the same but slightly lower quality compared to a normal one.

and as for the off topic part they look like normal ashigaru- a few of the monk stuff to me. and theyre peasents theyre not samurai in any sense since samurai were more or less the upper class in japan at that time. and the katana's were used as symbols of status. where as ikko ikki were trying to break that system so they armed everyone with whatever but had better warrior monks than the rest.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Kitsue:

to be honest i rarely used katana ashigaru when i was ikko ikki due to A being near worse or as bad as Yari Ashigaru. they make good for castle garrison due to like what 50 koku upkeep compared to yari ashis idk 70? upkeep so theres that but as a mainstay with yari ashi no. you could try and do a custom battle with Ikko katana ashi vs a yari ashi then a normal Katana samurai.

and ronin are abit more expensive than a normal samurai if not the same but slightly lower quality compared to a normal one.

and as for the off topic part they look like normal ashigaru- a few of the monk stuff to me. and theyre peasents theyre not samurai in any sense since samurai were more or less the upper class in japan at that time. and the katana's were used as symbols of status. where as ikko ikki were trying to break that system so they armed everyone with whatever but had better warrior monks than the rest.

Ronin are actually higher combat quality than regular samurai: they have better melee and defence skills. Their armor can be lower level and their numbers are smaller, for higher upkeep. But a 0 xp katana ronin will beat a 0 xp katana samurai in a straight match up.

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As regards the off topic info, for anyone interested:

Historically, not everyone who was samurai was upper class. The samurai from noble lineages usually considered that they were the "true samurai," but the reality was far from this conceit that they held.

If you want to get really technical, anyone held as a retainer for any service, like the daimyo's chief groom or a lord's scribe, was samurai, since a samurai was simply one who was "in service" to a lord.

But that aside, if you're just talking about those whose service was primarily in combat ("bushi"), any soldier who was retained by a daimyo or other lesser lord, and given either land or stipend, was samurai. Many samurai actually had very modest means, like just enough to feed themselves and their family comfortably, and of course to keep themselves fitted out with the necessary equipment for war.

There were many actors, artists, craftsmen, money lenders and merchants that were much more wealthy than most samurai. Socially, all samurai were held as inferior to the Kyoto nobility.

There were also samurai who held no land or stipend from a lord, but were small, independent land holders. These were called "ji-samurai," sometimes written "jizamurai." They were 'samurai of the soil,' because they were not full time soldiers. They spent most of their time farming and tending to their own land, and usually lived at about subsistence level.

Many of them had actually been peasant farmers, or were the descendants of peasant farmers, who had been more industrious than other peasants and had come to have savings and surpluses, then used these to purchase more land and own it outright, rather than be held as serfs to a lord or temple. They had in some cases "bought out their contracts" from a lord, or the local lord had been driven away or killed by an ikki. Jizamurai often came to be responsible for, or have influence over, other farmers, and this could make them more land rich and influential, but they tended to sit at about the same level economically as the other surrounding farmers. They were similar to the yeomen of medieval Europe: small level freeholders.

Some jizamurai answered to a local magnate, a daimyo, or a temple in a mutually binding relationship; but others were completely independent, and many were part of a local ikki.

The "Ikki" were all over Japan at this period, and they were not all religious, or part of the Ikko movement. Ikki were simply groups of people with common interests, bound to each other by some form of contract, or pact. Usually, the binding interest was mutual self defense.

Ikki formed mainly to protest taxes and predatory money lending or banking practices. Peasants and local samurai would organize at a village or town level and gather weapons, then march through the streets to give weight to their grievances. Sometimes they'd break into a money lender's shop and burn the debt records, or make off with the money.

Ikki also protested against local lords, or government officials like shugo, that were being oppressive. The most common grievances were that taxes were too high, or that land that could be farmed or logged by peasants was instead being held by shugo for "the realm," but in reality for the benefit of nobles in Kyoto or the shugo himself.

Temples also formed ikki when they felt that their ancestral rights, like unrestricted (toll free) access through a mountain road or tax exemption, were being violated. The temples not only had the local peasants and samurai to draw from, but people who lived and worked in the temple and on temple lands. These were usually vagrants, unemployed townspeople, or peasants who had lost their land, and had to go to the temple for help, basically becoming the temple's tenant farmers and laborers in exchange for food and shelter.

What the game calls Ikko Ikki is more accurately the "Kaga Ikki," since they're based in Kaga and Echizen. The Ikko movement had followers and ikki in various areas, one of the strongest being around Osaka. The Ikko Ikki weren't just in Kaga like in the game.

Ikki formed in these ways all over the country. The Ikko Ikki were just one strain of ikki. The ikki in Iga province also became prominent and abolished Kyoto and daimyo government, establishing self rule in Iga. The Owari Ikki was also very strong, though they didn't really achieve autonomy.

Historically, the Kaga Ikki became the most famous because they ended up controlling an entire province for the longest time (anywhere from about 45 to 130 years, depending on what start and end dates you use), and defeated numerous attempts by outside daimyo to reestablish ridership.

They started protesting against the local government in the early 1400's, and eventually drove out the shugo, the daimyo, and all other government officials. They setup in its place a mutual defense system organized at the village level, going in tiers up to five regional groupings. Villages had self rule and decisions were made by local councils of influential village headmen, monks and samurai. The defense groups elected officers, and these in turn elected superiors, up to an overall commander who took command when all 4-5 regions had to form an army to defend the province.

Kaga became known as the "Kingdom of Peasants," and the "Province with no Rulers" because there was no daimyo or shugo, and no taxes collected from them.

The Ikko strain of Buddhism became tied to this ikki through various twists and turns, and eventually the head abbot of Ikko came to exercise de facto control over them.

The armies of Kaga and Ikko Ikki had many samurai in their ranks. Not all samurai supported the status quo. Jizamurai in particular were prone to support self rule and the abolishment of daimyo or imperial rule. There were also samurai who were sympathetic to the Kaga movement, or to Ikko, and came to support their armies when they were being invaded or threatened.

The proportion of samurai to peasants in an Ikko army wouldn't have been any different than a typical daimyo's army, in most cases.

Warrior monks were definitely a part of Ikko Ikki armies too, but the game is oversimplifying it. Historically, most all "warrior monks" were simply the temples' tenant laborers and farmers, or samurai who vowed to fight for a temple, not monks. Actual, true warrior monks were a very small part of the Ikko forces.

The game actually gets it right in how the Ikko Ikki units are portrayed. The men have a mixture of cheap and expensive armor, representing the different backgrounds and means of the fighters. Imo, all of the in game units would be more realistic if shown similarly. Irl, a group of "yari samurai" would not all be equipped the same: some would have the best, most modern armor harness, and others would have much simpler and cheaper armor.

Similar thing for weapons: not all katana were of the same quality. There were tons of cheaper swords made, especially during the Sengoku. Purchasing a blade was relatively easy, even for well off peasants. And of course, there was always swords to collect from the field at the end of a battle.

Swords were side arms at this period. The most well made swords were expensive, but cheap swords were more affordable than a naginata or yari from a sought after or renowned smith.

The country wide rules and controls for who could and could not own and wear swords came later. In the Sengoku, merchants, famers and other could and did own weapons.

[Teutonic Ritterin]

Wow,that was amazing,where do you find this info,if I may ask.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Were ji-samura considered nobles like their regular bretheren? I mean they were probeby not wealthy due to thier circumstansas, but what about social standing? Just as in the middle ages, an earl who had little to his name other than his weapons, finecloths a castle and a few acres of land with no serfs to work them (so, pretty much almost as poor as a peasant, and maybe even more poor than some peasants who worked fertile land) was still an earl.

[Halogen]

Originally posted by Sylveon:

Katana Ashigaru banned in single player

Wtf does that even mean?

[Zombie Lenin]

Peasants didn't get to use swords in that period I think, an old version of gun control :)

Only Ikko-Ikki as the revolutionaries have ashigaru with loan(ed)swords, which as mentioned are very effective. Especially considering you start with a forge and can rush +5 armor (send 1 trade ship to secure the iron node northeast) to vomit out melee terminators that cost less then 50/round.
It's balanced by the fact that their 'unique' yari and bow ashigaru are utter garbage, and you need to rely on ronin or monks for spears and ranged. Basically the reverse of other factions.

[Teutonic Ritterin]

Originally posted by Zombie Lenin:

Peasants didn't get to use swords in that period I think, an old version of gun control :)

Only Ikko-Ikki as the revolutionaries have ashigaru with loan(ed)swords, which as mentioned are very effective. Especially considering you start with a forge and can rush +5 armor (send 1 trade ship to secure the iron node northeast) to vomit out melee terminators that cost less then 50/round.
It's balanced by the fact that their 'unique' yari and bow ashigaru are utter garbage, and you need to rely on ronin or monks for spears and ranged. Basically the reverse of other factions.

their yari ronin only need 100 upkeep,instead of 150 upkeep like their counterpart Yari Samurai,and their brothers Bow Ronin and Bow Samurai cost 150 Upkeep.
This maybe makeup for their lack of Naginata Samurai.

[GhostyGG]

Originally posted by Kitsue:

to be honest i rarely used katana ashigaru when i was ikko ikki due to A being near worse or as bad as Yari Ashigaru. they make good for castle garrison due to like what 50 koku upkeep compared to yari ashis idk 70? upkeep so theres that but as a mainstay with yari ashi no. you could try and do a custom battle with Ikko katana ashi vs a yari ashi then a normal Katana samurai.

and ronin are abit more expensive than a normal samurai if not the same but slightly lower quality compared to a normal one.

and as for the off topic part they look like normal ashigaru- a few of the monk stuff to me. and theyre peasents theyre not samurai in any sense since samurai were more or less the upper class in japan at that time. and the katana's were used as symbols of status. where as ikko ikki were trying to break that system so they armed everyone with whatever but had better warrior monks than the rest.

Lol, everyone who's played this game long enough knows that vanilla Yari Ashigaru are the most overpowered units in the game. Then with the Oda, long yari ashigaru can even take down heroes with spear wall. Gold attack Yari are probably one of the toughest units in the game. Bow ashigaru actually being close to second, because of their numbers and experience can make Ashigaru formidable units. Another reason why Ashigaru is so powerful is their abilities, it's amplified by their number, spear wall and fire arrows allow the spear and bow to do so much damage that it doesn't even matter if they're samurai or not.

Ronin are better than Samurai in almost every way except they don't have the numbers. You get so little bow ronin that they're actually super bad during skirmishes, but that's supposed to be offset by the Ashigaru numbers.

That's why I have a mod that gives samurai some abilities like spear wall. I know there's a claim that samurai didn't use formations, but I find that ridiculous. Formations were important during this age, and they had many types of formations designed for defense and offense. It's silly to think samurai armed with spears wouldn't get in a spear wall to fend off attackers.

[Teutonic Ritterin]

That's why I have a mod that gives samurai some abilities like spear wall. I know there's a claim that samurai didn't use formations, but I find that ridiculous. Formations were important during this age, and they had many types of formations designed for defense and offense. It's silly to think samurai armed with spears wouldn't get in a spear wall to fend off attackers. [/quote]

Um,not to break your hope on Yari Samurai,but even with Yari Wall,they're still bad,just because the Size of their spear,which is the shortest.
Yari Ashigaru was better not only because of their Spear wall,but their Spear is longer,and a man from 3rd/4th rank in the Spearwall can still attack.
for the beast the Long Yari Ashigaru those Long Yari,just think if you're a Katana Samurai,and trying to charge head on into them,you might get past some spears,but in Shogun 2,all rank will put down their spear,so you will still be killed,even if you passed the first spear line.

[GhostyGG]

Originally posted by Sylveon:

Um,not to break your hope on Yari Samurai,but even with Yari Wall,they're still bad,just because the Size of their spear,which is the shortest.
Yari Ashigaru was better not only because of their Spear wall,but their Spear is longer,and a man from 3rd/4th rank in the Spearwall can still attack.
for the beast the Long Yari Ashigaru those Long Yari,just think if you're a Katana Samurai,and trying to charge head on into them,you might get past some spears,but in Shogun 2,all rank will put down their spear,so you will still be killed,even if you passed the first spear line.

I don't use yari samurai. lol

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Zombie Lenin:

Peasants didn't get to use swords in that period I think, an old version of gun control :)

Only Ikko-Ikki as the revolutionaries have ashigaru with loan(ed)swords, which as mentioned are very effective. Especially considering you start with a forge and can rush +5 armor (send 1 trade ship to secure the iron node northeast) to vomit out melee terminators that cost less then 50/round.
It's balanced by the fact that their 'unique' yari and bow ashigaru are utter garbage, and you need to rely on ronin or monks for spears and ranged. Basically the reverse of other factions.

No, the 'proclamation on changing status' didn't happen till Hideyoshi achieved hegemony, and it wasn't fully enforced across the country till Ieyasu had consolidated power, around 1604.

Prior to that, even peasants had weapons. Buying or trading for cheap weapons was relatively common in the Sengoku.

The use of weapons, and the formation of various ikki groups and uprisings, was also widespread. The Japanese referred to this period, even in its own epoch, as "Gekokujo Jidai," which doesn't translate over directly to English, but has the meaning of "the age when the lower overthrow their superiors."

It could also be translated as, "when the low (born) throw off the high (born)."

Many Sengoku daimyo got their start as small time leaders of ikki, who killed or drove out the Kyoto appointed shugo and jito, the government officials who were supposed to administer provinces.

Oda Nobunaga's dad had been a rebellious samurai, as had Saito Dosan and Uesugi Kenshin's granddad. Clans like Asai and Mogami owed their existence to Gekokujo. The 'western Mogami', on the inland sea, were actually three clans of pirates, formed by three brothers, who became daimyo.

The man often regarded as the very first Sengoku daimyo, Ise Shinkuro, embodied Gekokujo and fought and plotted his way to becoming a powerful warlord in the Kanto region, where he established one of the most successful Sengoku clans: the Hojo.

This was a time of very fluid class mobility. It wasn't the locked-in, pseudo caste system that existed during the Edo period. And the cult of the Japanese sword didn't really develop till Edo either.

Prior to then, the sword was seen as a tool.

It was like a pistol nowadays: sure, a renowned leader might be presented with a gilded and engraved pistol as a commemorative piece (like a retiring Marine receiving a collector's grade 1911); but that doesn't mean a thug in an alley can't have a .38 snubnose or a glock.

"Loan swords" were given out by daimyo or samurai leaders to arm their peasant levies, so they'd at least have a blade. They were "loaned" in the sense that the lord owned them and kept them in his home or fort's armory; the peasants who got them had to return them on demand or at the end of a campaign.

Once again, think of it like in a modern context, say African warlords. A warlord nowadays will try to have some type of mercenaries as his main troops, and/or "militia" with AK 47's or FAL's ("spears" or polearms). He will probably have other fighters though that are just driving his jeep, collecting food, carrying dispatches, driving trucks of supplies, etc. and many of these type of guys are just going to have a pistol and machete tucked in their belts.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Sylveon:

Wow,that was amazing,where do you find this info,if I may ask.

I'm glad you found it interesting.

The info comes from many different books and articles over the course of 15+ years, plus some Japanese Studies at university.

For books, I'd recommend to search for titles:

- The Samurai: an Illustrated History
- Japan: Its Land and People
- Japan: the Story of a Nation
- Buddhism and the Japanese Identity
- Ikko Ikki: War and Faith in Late Muromachi Japan
- Ikki: Social Conflict and Political Protest in Early Modern Japan
- Any of the classic Reichsauer, Craig et al histories of Japan for good overviews.
- The Japanese Sword (for collectors, but also has some great historical background)


Online, there are some great articles about military aspects of Japan at:

- DeReMilitari.org
- MyArmoury.com
- Sengoku Field Manual (should come right up on Google)

De Re Militari has peer reviewed and academic stuff, and My Armoury is more experimental, "living history" type of stuff, but still well researched.

Sengoku Field Manual is by an ex U.S. Army officer who is also a Japanese studies professor, specializing in Sengoku military matters. He has some thought provoking works about the Ikki forces, but he really likes to focus on Takeda Shingen :)

[Zombie Lenin]

That is very interesting, thank You :)

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Zombie Lenin:

That is very interesting, thank You :)

Sure thing.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by tiberiansun371alexw:

Were ji-samura considered nobles like their regular bretheren? I mean they were probeby not wealthy due to thier circumstansas, but what about social standing? Just as in the middle ages, an earl who had little to his name other than his weapons, finecloths a castle and a few acres of land with no serfs to work them (so, pretty much almost as poor as a peasant, and maybe even more poor than some peasants who worked fertile land) was still an earl.

That's a great question.

Most samurai were not part of the nobility. I think a good comparison would be "knights" and "men at arms" in the High Middle Age of Europe.

All knights were supposed to be able to serve as men at arms; but not all men at arms were knights.

Just because a man had warhorses, armor, weapons and maybe an attendant, allowing him to serve as a professional fighter, did not mean he was part of the gentry or lower nobility, and it was the same in Japan.

Jizamurai were basically men at arms. They were distinguished from lower class fighters partly because they had the means to equip themselves with proper armor and were mounted, although samurai usually dismounted to fight during the Sengoku. The other distinction from ashigaru were that they were land holders.

Sometimes jizamurai had a relationship with a lord, where they were obligated to serve under certain conditions, and other times they acted as freelancers, hiring out to lords on a campaign by campaign basis.

The difference between them and "regular samurai," like is typically pictured, is that jizamurai were not holding land in direct fief. Their land right was free hold: they often had daimyo and daimyo vassals who were over them, but they couldn't be stripped of their land legally just on a lord's say so. Peasants who had tenancy under a jizamurai might also be exempt from corvee or certain taxes that other surrounding peasants owed to a daimyo.

Different villages had varying rights too. Often the daimyo didn't just arbitrarily decree a tax, let alone try to collect it. Instead, the daimyo's officials had to negotiate with the headmen of villages, jizamurai, and ikki groups to decide how much a village or locality could provide, and how it was going to be paid.

Like in Europe of the same age, there was a concept that there was "no land without its lord", but the reality on the ground was complex. Even though a daimyo claimed dominion over a region, and on paper all the jizamurai there answered to his will, in reality a daimyo that just imposed taxes without regard to what the jizamurai and village associations felt was fair for them to pay, (whether in military service, corvee, rice, or money) was tempting fate.

An unpopular lord could easily find himself run out of the area or killed by the local jizamurai, who would lead peasants in an uprising. This happened to lords like Shiba and the old, senior branch of Oda. Daimyo sometimes had to deal with a vassal who had mismanaged his lands and sub vassals, and to appease the jizamurai, strip that vassal of his fief and authority, and sometimes one of the leading jizamurai would become recognized as the new lord of the area by the daimyo. That's essentially how the Nagao clan (who Kenshin was from) got started, for example.

The "noble samurai" were ones who could claim descent from noble families in Kyoto. The most prestigious were the samurai clans whose founding ancestor was a son of an emperor, like the Minamoto. If an emperor had more than one son, the younger sons (who wouldn't be able to assume the throne) were given court titles and stipends, but some of them were given new family names and served as bushi.

Descendents of royal blood samurai houses like Minamoto then in turn tried to get lands for their branch families. These collateral branches would usually take the name of where they were give responsibility, typically the name of a mansion owned by Kyoto nobility, but where the noble samurai was placed as a steward, so like "Shimazu manor" provided the name for the Shimazu clan, to give an example.

The thing is, all of the samurai, even the ones with royal or noble founding ancestors, were held as being social inferiors to the Kyoto nobility. There were certain court titles or government posts they were supposed to be barred from. The post of Shogun was only supposed to be held by someone with Minamoto blood.

The situation was also complicated by the fact that samurai clans were not based around blood per se, and definitely not on primogeniture. A man could be adopted into the clan as a son, and have the exact same social and legal rights and connections as if he had been naturally born. Nor did he need to be the first son, nor did he only have to trace lineage through the father's side of family.

So it was very different in this important aspect from the late Frankish, Norman, or Anglo-Saxon system, where blood was everything, and being a first born son trumped other considerations.

At the same time, it was similar to the jarl thing you mentioned because the imperial government officially endorsed a class hierarchy that they imported from China. Samurai were higher status than merchants, for example.

But out in the country, and as the central government grew weaker, these distinctions had less practical meaning. More than a few samurai warlords had actually built their power as merchants. One of the most famous examples is Kusunoki Masashige, who was a low class jizamurai that got rich as an emery powder trader, but later went on to be the champion of the "Imperialist" side in the first part of the Nanbochuko Wars. And that was in the very early 1300's.

By the Sengoku, there were many "self made men", and the social distinctions were not rigid. Mobility from one class to another was not uncommon. Most people's idea of samurai and Japanese culture comes from either the Edo period, or the "heroic period" around 800-1100, which itself was embellished by Edo historians.

The Kyoto nobles always tried to retain a very stringent class division, and there was enough power and social capital in the ancient traditions and distinctions that even a hegemon like Hideyoshi or Ieyasu had to jump through hoops, like having a nobleman adopt him as a son, or come up with geneologies that made his family have some far fetched, noble heritage.