Easy->Normal: What happened to archers?

[HawlEffect]

Hi, I just started playing TWS2 a couple weekends ago, and...this post may seem incongruous to those who play on Legendary, but I've found that "Easy" seems "Normal" and "Normal" seems "Hard." (I cannot fathom how anyone could play on Legendary.)

I became shogun using Chosokabe on Easy, and now going back to play the same campaign on Normal, but I'm finding a huge jump in difficulty, largely because my archers perform worse (rather than better) than enemy archers, even if I use flaming arrows.

On Easy, I could besiege a castle with the following steps:
1. Show up with lots of archers, and some melee units
2. Kill his archers with my archers, using flaming arrows when available
3. Keep using my archers to soften up melee troops inside the castle
4. Send in my melee troops and take the castle.

Now, on Normal, step #2 is no longer working. I can have 7 units of archers vs. his 3 units of archers, and mine will expend almost all their ammo just defeating his archers, with very little ammo left for the troops inside. In some cases, my archers even be "losing decisively" vs. his, despite outnumbering his more than 2 to 1, *and* possessing flaming arrows.

I haven't even managed to capture the first castle/province yet, without my archers running out of ammo and my other units routing.

*Furthermore, if I Auto-Resolve instead of play through, then I actually win! Clearly the computer attributes more skill to me than I possess.

Can anyone offer advice/insight on this?

Thanks. Loving the game, just not getting it...

[Skycrawler501]

I have never actually played an easy campaign. When I first started playing, I tossed myself into a normal Shimazu/Date campaign 2-4 times before I finally got the hang of what needed to be done.

The description provided of the missile troops not being able to kill troops upon the ramparts is standard for any SP campaign difficulty (except easy). So for many players it is standard. Now think about this as an actual battle, with yourself upon the ramparts. The seiging archers must kill you by correctly arcing their arrows through this wooden slot that allows you to shoot back them.

Then comes the question of whether or not you have you were concentrating fire of all of the bow units upon the defending archers.

After that you have to take into account of multiple other statistics:

accuracy = how many arrows have the chance to hit the target
reload = how fast the notching/releasing animation occurs
armor = how much HP a unit has. More armor = more HP the arrows have to chew through before getting a kill.
flame arrows = increasing the missile damage of the unit / causing a slight morale penalty.

Finally, whether or not your attacking archers' were in tight / loose formation. Loose = taking less loses, but tight = a more concentrated volley of arrows.



In actual battle, the general stars don't really do anything (except for ambush, I found that the higher the stars in ambush = more likely to not be seen upon the campaign map), but for auto resolving, it means everything.

Auto Resolving comes down to 3 factors:

1. General stars
2. Type of Troops (more so, or more obviously in, FotS than for Sengoku Jaidi)
3. Number of troops

+Each action has a certain amount of general stars, depending on where you place your ability points in the general's tree. The more stars you have = the easier the battle during an auto-resolve will be. Think of the stars like the stars you obtain for an Agent. Each time an Agent gains more stars into an ability, they are able to have a higher chance of success for that action. It is the same for Generals.

+A samurai (kachi) will have a better auto resolve than that of an ashigaru (levy). Though in FotS, all traditional units are heavily nerfed. Example:

I sieged a lvl 2 castle with:

1 lvl 4 modern general
2 yari ki
2 katana kachi
2 yari kachi
7 line infantry
6 tosa riflemen

All had varying of experience, no additional upgrades, general with a few points spread out in attack/defence.

vs

1 lvl 1 traditional general
1 yari ki
2 spear levy
1 katana kachi
15 yari kachi

A few experiences, most had armor upgrades.

I was given a 99:1 auto resolve (AR) resolution. I didn't even have any ships nearby for bombardments (even though AR never calculates bombardments in). So if I actually played this battle, I would take massive losses b/c the AI never places its melee units upon the walls = my guns cannot shoot them unless they come outside or I get my gun troops inside. And yet beyond all of this, I get a 99:1 AR solution? Man, traditional units get pounded upon so much in vanilla FotS.

And the funny thing is is that the next turn I attack another army with this very same composition. A few levy infantry = massive boost in the AI's AR ratio.

+The amount of troops for AR is very obvious: more = better.

Auto Resolve is a funny thing. Many times the castle/siege part isn't even calculated.

[ACJCLIGHTNING]

the post above went off topic too talking about VR, Ill just repeat some of what he said. Most people don't use archers for assaulting castles. If you think logically about how castles were built in the old days, it was specifically to provide the largest advantage to the defending archers.

So basically play a less archer heavy build. More assaulting troops like katana's and even a bunch of levi's.

I find archers nearly useless when attacking. I actually found this to be one of the easiest total wars to date, even on highest difficulty. I guess I played to much Medival 2 back in the day.

[Skycrawler501]

Shrugs, sorry if I got off topic. I usually don't do well when I don't have specifics to play with. Most siege battles I either auto resolve or I wait out the enemy to come out of their castle. But if you do assult, you usually want to bring 2x that of the defending force or samurai. Morale is key since the defenders will 99% of the time fight to the death if within the keep.

[HawlEffect]

Wow, thanks for the detailed responses and advice! It had never occurred to me that the number of stars on the general was so important. Or that archers would become 'worthless'! Too bad, I love my archers. :'(

I've started auto-resolving most battles -- ironic, since originally it was the battle mode that most attracted me to the game -- and now doing much better. Thanks.

[Serge Lang]

This is what I do when enemy archers take up the walls. Put my archers on an angle where they can shoot enemy archers without attacking the wall. Preferably direct shots, if possible. Which is sometimes hard due to the enemy being on a hill.

Then send in a sacrificial unit for enemy archers to shoot at, meanwhile my archers pwn them from the flank. Sometimes it is unnecessary to sacrifice a unit, so it is a case by case issue.

Repeat for all enemies manning walls, if necessary. Sometimes it is better to just shoot the dudes not manning the walls. Try to keep your archers using direct shots, though. The arched shots are far less effective. Which is the opposite of real life, but what can you do?

Archer heavy builds are ideal for taking a castle on any difficulty. You can very easily take entire castles while sustaining only very minimal casualties. You can also defeat armies much larger than yours with archers. You're using the right idea, you're just not doing it right. Learn the subtle tricks and you'll be fine.

[cookies?]

Legendary isn't that hard once you know how to abuse the AI. Never fight a segie unless you outclass thier archer or greatly outnumber them( I only fight a segie when I have bow monks with 175 range) . Just segie the castle until the force inside come out to meet you on the batlefeild or autoreslove it if you outnumber them.

Military access can be sold for gold to clans that are next to you for 1000-2000 kuko per 10 turn. They also can be sold to get allaince,trade right, break allaince, join war, etc.

once you gereneral reach level 4 you pretty much can turn any fight with stand and fight ability.

Always reseach chi side of the tech tree first.

Try to get all the trade nodes since they give you a gamebreaking amounts of gold.