Army Selections and their Uses.

[^Glyndwr^]

As suggested, a topic for the discussion of army selections and their uses.

(i.e. What units, deployment, attack and defence.)
(i.e. 3v3..one player take all missile, one..all inf, one..all cav)

[barocca]

when people are going to work as a co-op i feel they still need some autonomy,

if you take the 3 player team concept of missile/inf/cav i believe the missile player should take 12 missile and 4 covers (spear inf/cav) so they can react to a local threat.
the inf player should also have a couple of cav for that purpose, even HA's will do.
the cav player, however, would perhaps be hindered by having foot under his control ?

Personally i prefer to "top heavy" an army by type when co-op(ing), than to "exclusive" an army



ONE thing I do miss, in Shogun you could play 1k armies by trading honour for cash,
had many an interesting "0" honour game where your army would be half a dozen units only

[^HUN^]

That's precisely what me and Marcus were discussing. Three players can operate as one whole but would be more vulnerable if their unit choices were exclusive. Missiles need cover and cannot rely entirely on an ally reacting to a threat, likewise the infantry player would benefit from a unit of cav. The cav player would be somewhat hampered by having some inf to control, but this is a necessity because he will not be able to afford 16 units of cav. OK, with cav you could probably get by with less units but I still go along with 16 units and all koku used. The infantry units could always be deployed with the main force and kept in reserve.
We both agreed that the best combination would be a standard army, an inf heavy and a cav heavy.

[^Marcus Cornelius^]

Yep Hun and Barocca. That is the idea.

Looking at a standard MP Battle I see 3 fondamental phases:
- Skirmish
- Cav melee on a flank
- infantry final melee.
For skirmish: as in a in a standard battle every player must have the possibility to skirmish indipendetly from his mates.
For Cav melee on flank: better coordination and less lack in communication if all heavy melee cav is in 1 hand.
For infantry melee: better and quicker concentration iif all heavy are in 1 hand. Surely is less possible that someone arrives too much later...

Thinking of a 3 player team:
1st Flank (where woods or hills): standard army.
Center: infantry army -> 5 (foot) missile + 1 anti cav-cav + 3 spears to defend missiles + 7 heavy infantry
2nd flank (where flat terrain): cav Army - 6/7 missiles + 4 spears + 5/6 anti/heavy/light cav cav.

[^Tomisama^]

I could probably write a small book on all the whys and wherefores, but am just going to cut right to the chase and just introduce you to, The Dragon!

The Dragon is an ordered concept of teamwork that divides up responsibilities and coordinates activities of the component members of the team. This is accomplished by players fulfilling specific roles with preplanned choreographed reactions to enemy incursions.

One might consider The Dragon to be the martial art of Total War games. My personal best score ever of 1678 enemy taken in a single battle (10k game), happened when working The Dragon with my Ronin Warlord clan mates.

In its four person format, each player assumes a part of TD’s body. And each part has corresponding attributes that define that players responsibility to the whole.

Let’s start with the head, which is the center player, and which has the eyes and teeth of the beast. Next there are the two flank players, fulfilling their parts as wings with claws. Finally there is the reserve player, who assumes the role of TD’s powerful deadly tail.

Now this all may be a little “out there” for any direct purpose right now. But I did want to at least get the base concept in front of you, as we are talking about co-op organization, and this is the best I have ever seen

Edit: I lied, personal best 1671 not 1678. But this was not the result of supper prowness on my part, this was teamwork at it's best!

[^Tomisama^]

Dragons Ways
I always think of four player teams as being like dragons, with heads with teeth (center), wings with claws (right flank and advanced left), and a powerful tail in reserve (left flank).

They start facing each other diagonally across the terrain, then bend a twist to find their ways to attack. They wrestle here and there for advantage, waiting for the others weakness to immerge. Then swift to bite, to rend and tear, to smash and scatter their enemy’s parts across the field.

A little poetic thought I wrote a long time ago that later encouraged a tactical philosophy. The basis of this philosophy is the same as my understanding of any martial art, that is to use your enemies own strength against them.

Because the description of the interaction of the allied team and their reaction to the allied enemy are difficult, animated graphics have to be employed to do a proper job. For whatever purpose that might be advanced, I am currently attempting to create a Power Point presentation (have never done it this way before) to bring The Dance of The Dragon to life.

Admin edit: Corrected phpBB tags

[^Glyndwr^]

^Kazemoto^...
Your 'black font' is very difficult for me to read. Is this the colour you intended it to be?

^Glyndwr^

[^Tomisama^]

Dragons Ways

I always think of four player teams as being like dragons, with heads with teeth (center), wings with claws (right flank and advanced left), and a powerful tail in reserve (left flank).

They start facing each other diagonally across the terrain, then bend a twist to find their ways to attack. They wrestle here and there for advantage, waiting for the others weakness to immerge. Then swift to bite, to rend and tear, to smash and scatter their enemy’s parts across the field.

A little poetic thought I wrote a long time ago that later encouraged a tactical philosophy. The basis of this philosophy is the same as my understanding of any martial art, that is to use your enemies own strength against them.

Because the description of the interaction of the allied team and their reaction to the allied enemy are difficult, animated graphics have to be employed to do a proper job. For whatever purpose that might be advanced, I am currently attempting to create a Power Point presentation (have never done it this way before) to bring The Dance of The Dragon to life.

[barocca]

i would like to ask people to also think about smaller games, wehre there are only 1 or 2 player per team

in the original shogun i often used "detachments" of 3 units, usually being a yarisam, a yari cav and an archer, usually cav archers.

this would be a flanking detachment, and one would often find me with one such on each flank.

i would use them as scout groups, especially in pea soup fog, with the yari cav probing and the yari sams shielding the cav archers

why cav archers? - THREAT, or rather percieved threat, as these would often all be valour zero's
having 2 cav units and a sam unit on your flank is going to make you think carefully about what to do,
are they HIGH valour and should you try to chase them off?, are they just bluffing???

more than once the other player realised they were a bluff and sent a unit or two to chase them away, i would feign a retreat and draw the chasers away from the main body, then turn on them with the yarisams and hit both flanks with the cav. - instant rout.
It was not unusual for me to be doing this on both flanks at the same time,
it was also not unusual for these weak detachments to take out far more than their fair share of enemy troops.



IN fog, once the enemy were found, I would often use send a pair of muskets to such a detachment, and keep hovering with the scouts (move in and out of fog - run the cav to a different spot and then move back into view),
the musket would be at extreme range firing volleys, doing a little damage and taking the enemy attention away from his BACK - which is where the rest of my army would be marching to!!!

Yamshiro, with the high ground in the right rear, with the long approach slope and the forest at the back was a favourite camping ground for some, and a favoured hunting ground for me.

there was a hill parrallel to the approach slope, behind which my men would march, unseen. to the back fo the map, skirt along the back of the map, (with a qucik dash across the steep gulley) and then filter through the trees to attack the camper from behind...

i can recall some very famour players that made the mistake of camping the corner on Yamashiro...

you may remember one VERY famous player who would camp the big hills right in the middle of Yamashiro, keeping his entire body clustered together and making you come to him - i made him very scared of corners in the early days... i also unnerved him with foggy weather, camping those biggies made it VERY hard to sneak your army past him, he could see to the edge of the map in any but the thickest pea souper...

[barocca]

Tajima - best suited 1v1 (2v2 will be cluttered)

the last of my friday evening battles saw me trying to assault Tajima hill from the get go,
it's a tiiiiiiny map - I thought it would be a race to the top - i was wrong, the map is sooo tiny one of you is going to be on top of the hill and one at the base, so my setup was all screwy,

but in truth the outcome would have been the same,
marching up a hill in the face of guns, arrows and crossbows is going to be a hard ask,

I took 1xMHC, 1xMHA, 1xSTC, 2xYGP, 3xKGP, 1xSxbow, 2xKCA, 1xYIA, 1xSspear, 2xKCspear
not knowing the map i tried to balance out the army and give myself some good foot (hence 5 guards), some good anti-inf cav, and enough spears to defend my missiles,

had i know what the map was going to be before the battle i would have kept pretty much the same, as i dont think it is possible to predict who will get the hill (??)


i sent a couple of spears around the west and my cav around the east,
the west flanking assault worked,
the east failed... (and my gen got captured)

the best thing to do if you are the player at the bottom is setup close and march right up that hill, let your missile troops fire at will until hand to hand and then charge your missiles up as close support plugging/supporting as inf where needed.

for infantry you want as good as you can get, Naginata, Korean Guards, Yuan Guards,
for missile troops - this going to be close fought, for the japanese try to dispense with ashi archers,
BUT they will still do if you want the extra couple hundred for that extra infantry.
mongols can get away with korean archers, but naturally mongol archers are better

as the mongol assaulting keep a cav or two in reserve to deal with monks, and a spear or two to keep the cav off your archers,
as japanese assaulting keep a unit of cav and a spear in reserve to deal with almost anything (naginata cav is good all purpose - a yari cav if your opponent is a cav lovin' mongol).

as either assaulting try to screen your heavy infantry from missile fire as much as possible during the climb.

as either type when defending STAND FIRM, try not to pursue too far, keep your army together and make them come up that hill.

As Marcus will tell you, even with me assaulting from a poor setup it was still a very close call, the Mongols almost took that hill.
Naginata infantry on defence proved exceptional quality and more than a match for song spears...which was, oddly enough, the last unit to rout... I let my heavy infantry get cut to pieces by missile fire and Marcus managed to one-two them quite neatly.

lots of fun and a great game.

[Sponsored content]