Armour or Melee Attack?

[TheChefOfChaos]

I made this discussion out of curiosity really. Which one do you Shogun 2 players prefer to up?

I myself prefer the flat increase to Armour rather than Melee Attack because that stat grows when they get experience.

What are your guys opinions?

[easytarget]

I usually go armor because mid to late campaign I like to start recruiting nag sam which I then put on the front line and watch them laugh off literally everything that comes at them whether melee or arrows.

[LSD]

I pretty much always go +armour, but in all honesty, +attack is the better option. Armour's benefits diminish the higher you go. Above 9 is almost worthless, and on Very Hard/Legendary, even 9 armour is utterly meaningless (nagi sam get shredded by a volley of arrows just as easily as ashigaru).

Attack determines how quickly a unit will dispatch another. The sooner you kill them, the sooner they'll rout/the less men there'll be to fight you.
Armour has a negligible effect in melee, and a similarly unremarkable effect in ranged combat.

[easytarget]

I should add I don't play this game (or for that matter any game) to min-max stuff, I play them to enjoy them.

Your goals may vary and therefore your strategy and tactics on how to play adjusted accordingly.

[Eat3n]

Depends on the clan and play style i guess. I've done both armor and attack before. If you want both i think you can build the black smith like the first level and you get boosts to both attack and defense, after that you have to pick either or. So if you wanted both you could leave it at the lowest level. Again, i THINK...haven't played for a while so it's not fresh in my mind.

[BastardSword]

I don't think it really matters as long as you have one or the other maxed out. If you have high attack, then you'll kill off the enemy faster than they can kill you. If you have high armor, you'll last longer than them in battle and they'll die faster than you. I've tried maxing out either and haven't really seen a difference, but there is definitely a noticeable difference in survivability compared to units that have no blacksmith upgrade.

I think factors like a General's rank, command level and unit morale are more important in terms of preventing routing on my side and causing routing on the AI side.

[Ashina]

Attack upgrades for defending castles.
The wall will protect your units from missiles and then the can destroy the enemy who reached the top of their climb.

[Aaron]

If your confused, just go with +4 attack from weapon smith and +2 armor from armory.

Weapons make your men kill faster in melee which is almost universally useful. In general, you need a long term plan to see the full benefiet of high armor.

The long ansewer is that attack is great early on (makes ashi way better) armor is an investment for units that already have high attack bonuses from techs, leadership gen and faction bonuses. Armor scales great with morale and melee defense, as it acts like a saving throw in melee, charges and against missile fire.

[Ashina]

Originally posted by Aaron:

If your confused, just go with +4 attack from weapon smith and +2 armor from armory.

Weapons make your men kill faster in melee which is almost universally useful. In general, you need a long term plan to see the full benefiet of high armor.

The long ansewer is that attack is great early on (makes ashi way better) armor is an investment for units that already have high attack bonuses from techs, leadership gen and faction bonuses. Armor scales great with morale and melee defense, as it acts like a saving throw in melee, charges and against missile fire.

Unit like Yari Samurai benefit greatly from attack upgrades.
Yari Samurai are the cheapest and the most tankiest unit in melee, but really lacks the attack power to win the battle.

A Yari Samurai with +5 attack will have 11 attack and 8 defense, katana samurai have 12 attack and 4 defense just for a comparison.

Attack upgrades also makes some unit become a copy of other unit, for example the Bow Samurai with attack upgrade and experience bonus would have the same stats as katana samurai.

[Ashina]

One tactic that I used as the date is the Date Infantry 3 line Rush.
Ashigaru in the first line, followed by nodachi and finally yari samurai, all with +5 attack upgrade.
Ashigaru will take the brunt of the missile but they don't charge at the enemy they will stop and switch with the nodachi which will banzai the enemy, yari samurai will support the nodachi samurai and the ashigaru will standby as flankers or flank defender.

[=CAW=aldarions-lament]

I go armour if my army is ashigaru based (even though yari wall with weapons is a meatgrinder)
If samurai based i go attack.

[Tocki]

Melee attack > armour no doubt.

I think in melee combat its like: 1 melee is worth 2 armour.

[Björn]

depends.

with the online general always attack. Far greater benefit.

in campaign i usually go attack too. But with Ikko Ikki i went armour since i only use ashigaru with them. Same for Oda, also armour because 80% is ashigaru...

[hastatus]

In my Date playthrough I am going for all armour upgrades. I am not disappointed I must say.

There are times where I wish my Yari cav had the armour upgrade. because AI spams ashigaru archers and they can lay waste to your unarmored units. Ikko Ikki have ronin bowmen which are deadly against any armored untis. I am not a fan of naginata samurai tho.

I must say it works well on bow cav because I can skirmish enemy archers with less casualties at max range, whereas you miss the accuracy theyre is a tech that buffs it and also they gain exp so quick it doesn't really matter. You might be lucky to get the commanding general a retinue which buffs accuracy for further 5 or 10 points, if you're lucky.

I had my bow cav take out generals with armor upgrades but I''ve yet to go full melee.

[easytarget]

My full armored nag sam laugh in your general direction.

[hastatus]

Lol they are so clumsy and derpy