Are Naginata Samurai good?

[Patrick Bateman]

Do you recommend getting them? I am not very good at playing battles and Naginata Samurais look very noob friendly.

[Telvido_cat]

They are the best all round spear unit imo but will lose to katana Sam and no dachi Sam in prolonged combat because of their low-ish melee attack. However, once vetted up with a few chevrons they become competent in the front line. They are tanks tho and with armour upgrades especially they can happily stand in arrow fire all day.

EDIT: they're low micro and noob friendly.

[Patrick Bateman]

Originally posted by Telvido_cat:

They are the best all round spear unit imo but will lose to katana Sam and no dachi Sam in prolonged combat because of their low-ish melee attack. However, once vetted up with a few chevrons they become competent in the front line. They are tanks tho and with armour upgrades especially they can happily stand in arrow fire all day.

EDIT: they're low micro and noob friendly.

I thought that No Dachi sucked when they fought for long. People say they are good for charges and nothing else.

[Telvido_cat]

Iirc ND > NS no problem.

Thing is in real battle with stray arrows units maybe getting cav charged etc NS hold up better.

[Sn3z]

I was recruiting these units with gold melee attack,(I captured a province with the weaponsmith and yari dojo) I can say I wasn't impressed, their melee defence it what holds them back, they probably scale very well but for intial impact they are bad investment, give my yari anyday with their ability. CA for some reason neglected the melee defense stat line as being able to be augmented with skills and buildings.

If you want to recruit these units from iron province with barracks that would be a much less expensive way of getting these out, I think the best option though there are other units to consider, since there's no encampment which increase melee defense grabbing the barracks would be best extra armor and melee attack is dubious, you could try to grab the rank researches aswell to kickstart them where it matters.

[markeason]

Telvido_Cat is right in his initial post.

Naginata Samurai require minimum input in a battle, and if that is what you struggle with, they are almost certainly perfect for you.

Fight your battles defensively, if possible, deploy on a hill side a good distance from the enemy. The AI likes to run about so, by the time they reach you, there uphill charge against your naginata line will have even katana samurai into fatigue and routing in short order, due to morale loss.

If you can get a downhill charge into the enemy with your naginatas that will help, but is certainly not necessary.

Archers behind your naginatas and a couple of cavalry to either take on enemy archers / generals, or flank / rear attack the enemy units engaged with your naginatas and you are good to go.

If you are taking the offensive in your battles, naginatas are probably not what you want.

By the way, I really suck at the battles and use auto-resolve at every opportunity. I know how to fight and win them, but my hand-eye co-ordination is nowhere near fast enough so I wind up continually pausing the game - which is no fun at all.

[Patrick Bateman]

Originally posted by markeason:

Telvido_Cat is right in his initial post.

Naginata Samurai require minimum input in a battle, and if that is what you struggle with, they are almost certainly perfect for you.

Fight your battles defensively, if possible, deploy on a hill side a good distance from the enemy. The AI likes to run about so, by the time they reach you, there uphill charge against your naginata line will have even katana samurai into fatigue and routing in short order, due to morale loss.

If you can get a downhill charge into the enemy with your naginatas that will help, but is certainly not necessary.

Archers behind your naginatas and a couple of cavalry to either take on enemy archers / generals, or flank / rear attack the enemy units engaged with your naginatas and you are good to go.

If you are taking the offensive in your battles, naginatas are probably not what you want.

By the way, I really suck at the battles and use auto-resolve at every opportunity. I know how to fight and win them, but my hand-eye co-ordination is nowhere near fast enough so I wind up continually pausing the game - which is no fun at all.

Yep I am terrible as well. I always pause the game or play in slow motion. I also like watching them fight up close so I am definitely not a good player. I just enjoy watching them fight without me doing much.

[bkkm12]

If you like to "auto-resolve" style, this unit is a must. Despite i don't know how it calculate, but the overall stats will be add up with the general. Naginata Samurai usually come in late game unless you put yari as "priority".

[markeason]

Originally posted by bkkm12:

If you like to "auto-resolve" style, this unit is a must. Despite i don't know how it calculate, but the overall stats will be add up with the general. Naginata Samurai usually come in late game unless you put yari as "priority".

My military is usually built around the clan's speciality unit (even the Mori where I went for naval dominance).

For my latest Tokugawa campaign this meant Kisho ninja, a nightmare to use to its strengths in any numbers (so I took a token one unit per army). The rest of the army was 5 katana samurai, 5 yar iashigaru, 3 bow samurai, 2 bow warrior monks, 1 naginata warrior monk and 2 yari cavalry + 1 general. A reasonable mix to handle any situation.

Three stacks going east, two stacks holding west of Kyoto until 6th stack completed.

My play-style is to isolate individual enemy stacks, by subterfuge, or ninja action, and auto-resolve 2:1 against them for minimal losses. In this way, I can easily take down 3-4 stacks in a turn, incurring losses that will replenish in a single turn.

I could use any old units for this purpose, but every now and then I am obliged to or, more occasionally, choose to manually fight a battle.

In this campaign, the Hojo decided to send a full stack 85% cavalry, 15% yari samurai to attack a single stack I had defending a river crossing - I could have retreated and waited the arrival of a second army but, I just couldn't resist.

I think I lost about 200 men, 30% of which were self-inflicted on a poor ashigaru unit by my Kisho ninja :(

Apart from running the units into position at the start of the battle, I did nothing (except grin) until the end.

[easytarget]

I recruit them regularly for my front line, put bow samuria behind them, then fall asleep.

[markeason]

Back on topic about naginata samurai, this video is a good one about using them . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xXOI0ICFKw

A couple of things to be aware of are that naginata samurai (and monks) seem to incur fatigue at a higher rate in melee than, for example, yari samurai. I've been testing it out today and confirmed this. I have yet to find the reason in the game files, but suspect that it is down to the unit class (Yari = infantry_spearman; Katana = infantry_sword; Naginata = infantry_Heavy). This may be the factor especially as naginata warrior monks, in spite of their paper thin armour, are also classed as infantry_heavy and suffer fatigue in melee at the same accelerated rate as the naginata samurai.

The point about which is, don't run your naginatas around before combat, it will incur fatigue which, coupled with fatigue from combat, makes them less resilient. Try to always walk the into position.

As for the post about recruiting from an iron mine province to save costs that's an idea I wouldn't entertain. A 30% discount on recruitment amounts to about 1.5 turns of upkeep cost that you will be paying every turn for the next 60 - 70 turns in a domination campaign and missing out every turn on the improved armour / melee / charge that recruiting from an appropriate province would give.

If using the naginatas as the main battle line in an essentially static mode, I would go for the armour upgrade if they are going to be tanking missile fire. Otherwise melee attack.

It may also pay to have a naginata warrior monk behind the samurai as its warcry after the melee has been running a while can help to break enemy units and it can double up by charging into the fray as an effective unit - but keep it back from enemy archer fire.

[easytarget]

And yes, I armor them up first where possible. Just like I recruit bow sam from locations that increase their accuracy.

[Red Spot]

Originally posted by easytarget:

And yes, I armor them up first where possible. Just like I recruit bow sam from locations that increase their accuracy.

And then you can generally even get away with auto-resolving a battle since your army is that gut.

[easytarget]

Yepper. And late campaign when winning has effectively turned into a foregone conclusion I do tend to auto to finish things out quickly.

[Red Spot]

Pretty much end-game strategy with some cav attached so you can control the 'cav-game' and route at will :)

[BastardSword]

They are ok and definitely pretty noob-friendly because they are immune to cavalry and have decent stats. However I find that they will rout more easily than other samurai units especially if you have a low-level general, probably because of their low attack stats. They kill the enemy more slowly than say katana samurai, and eventually this makes their morale drop. Katana samurai meanwhile are so good at killing the enemy that they will keep their morale high during an extended melee battle.

I used to rely solely on naginata samurai but I find that their morale issues can be annoying. But they are immune to cavalry (like other spear units) and will take very low damage from arrows especially if you give them extra armor. Even flaming arrows will only cause a few casualties to them. In the last year or so I have been relying much more on katana samurai, which are the best early game unit for siege defenses. Katanas can take some damage from an initial cavalry charge but they will actually kill off enemy cavalry if you put them into extended melee.

Recently I have been experimenting with using yari samurai more and actually I find that I prefer them to naginata samurai. They don't seem to have the same morale issues. Yari samurai are good for shutting down cavalry flank attacks, and then can charge into the enemy well when they are stuck on my yari ashigaru spear wall. Their rapid advance skill can get them into the fight quickly and lets them surround the enemy. I like using samurai as shock troops behind my yari ashigaru to finish off the battle, and yari samurai are good at this role.