Shogun 2 Noob-ceptions: Yari Samurai are Useless 

Oda Long Yari are samurai in disguise, turns out.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I'm mopping up the last few provinces in my first play through, I literally havent recruited anything but basic Yari and Bow Ashigaru. I think Ill need to crank the difficulty up from hard.

@@Moredakkamus regendary

Shogun 2 is a perfectly balanced game with no exploits.

Whilst long yaris and gunners are good, its fun to have stronger single fighting units and because you have a lot of money to wastr

That is so true. Yari Samurai flank the cav units from 5 feet away is so fun in Hattori.

Yeah AI Bows get very noticeable buffs to accuracy and reload, making it harder to take advantage of Yari Wall.

Agressive is warrior monks/nuns, katana cav (as flanking infantry when dismounted) and yari cav. Though I always played Christian for the ships and eventually everyone fights you anyway.

Bow samurai doom stacks are so dangerous against light armor units, in Legendary you need armor buff for your infantry or powerful charge cavalry to deal with. And yeah, Naginata Samurai + Bow heavy units are a very deadly combo.

"This guy did not play Oda"

@@Klongu_Da_Bongu but the oda get the long ashigaru, pretty much doubles the stats and gives em a longer weapon. What they don't tell you is you can put long ashigaru in spear wall, and then place a regular asigaru inside the spear line, and the tips will still be well out past the regulars. Double ashigaru wall is goated. Defending a siege with 3 long ashigarus and 3 regulars, and 3 bow sam Yes u can easily defeat a 2k plus doom stack, ai anyways.

I was an oda enjoyer from my first game up to the last tho, there is something about massive numbers of common people beating up their superiors through team work and discipline that appeals to me more than the whole doomstack fantasy most people have

​@@bernard3303Me too but i didn't knew the Oda was a powerful clan, it was with them that i won for the first time, a campaign in the game, my first campaign though, was with the Chosokabe, i was a kid so i fucked up, but it was fun too.

Shimazu left side of the map close to lot of ports why not

I play shimazu often only because I could convert to Christianity for them sweet sweet cannons while not having to deal with too many neighbors and also for the heavy gunners

Can't relate. Date and the No-Dachi big sword boys were my starting campaign. I took up Shimazu next though.

I need to test how much bonus armour is needed. It maybe that plus 2 armour is just enough. So you can go for encampment > armourer get +2 armour and then go for weaponsmith +4 melee and you get best of both worlds. +6 melee often not necessary, +5 armour I am not so sure. :) On the other hand , your units becoming veterans and your General traits and skills also give bonus melee but nothing gives bonus armour. So many options :D

Also Yari Ashigaru can be recruited from any castle while Yari Samurai need a Yari dojo

You know, that's the thing that i always thought was weird... why would the Yari Samurai NOT have Spear Wall? Maybe have them use the same spears as Yari Ashigaru and make it longer for someone to acquire them as well?

@@blue_ocean7774 because that would make Yari Ashigaru quite obsolete, contrary to what most people think I believe Yari Samurai are perfectly fine as they are, a specialist spear unit that can operate independently of your main force, whereas Ashigaru will rout in such scenarios without experience.

@@blue_ocean7774 Their role is completely different than that of the Yari Ashigaru. I use tham as cavalry I don't have to babysit all the time. Or if you have a couple of them as your first battle line you can make them rush the enemy archers, followed by a ine of yari wall advancing slowly.

Yari samurai are one of the most versatile units in the game together with naginata samurai, they make ideal reserve troops near your flanks to fill in the gaps, counter enemy cavalry flanking, to flank on their own etc... and as others mentioned, you can send them out without worrying about them at all. they can kill cavalry very easily, even if they are fighting on 3 sides they can hold out respectably and if there is a bad infantry fight they can simply run away

spear wall + rapid advance = ??? that would be insane lol

What is; spear square

Man I wish Naginata had that run ability. :D I think in Fots every "Samurai" unit gets Banzai which is superior version of running ability as it also gives bonus charge damage. :D

Honestly yari samurai are a way better jack of all trades than naginata samurai in pvp imo. Once yari samurai are upgraded (even just by 2 chevrons) their melee attack can go from 8 > 12, they have (I think) a defence stat of 11, plus they have a way bigger anti cav bonus than naginata and are tankier than ashigaru. So they can be a decent unit to hold the line or great anti cav unit or even flanking infantry because of that rapid advance ability. In pvp I'm much more cautious with my cavalry against yari samurai than naginata samurai.

Well PvP is totally different than the campaign because you are playing against another person who can actually think and innovative and also your stats are the same. Playing the campaign is about making up for the stats disadvantage at high difficulty and exploiting the stupid ai.

Those battles are always the most satisfying

I was running the Jaki unit mod and there is Yari Mob which is "worse" than the Yari Ashigaru. It shreds katana samurai in defensive siege

How do you even do that

Proof of this is how early Shogun 2 MP meta was nothing but Naginata Samurai spam, meanwhile today decent and high-level players will almost never recruit them. They are the game's noob trap, a form of training wheels; if you're playing on Legendary or in competitive MP specialist units > versatile. At the same time Yari Samurai are brought to the field as much as Ashigaru, sometimes more so. The same thing happens with No-dachi vs Katana interestingly: the better you get at the game, the more No-dachi's pull away from Katana's.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Thing is MP the odds are pretty even. Same stats. No suicidal unit tendencies or atleast its even. And you got humans controlling the units without using scripts preferably. However if youd really gave the Battle AI a proper ruleset and options to choose fed it moves like a chess computer, the CPU can simultanesouly chose a strategy, several tactics, and maneuver and micro all units at the same time. For a human player the more specialised a unit the more micro intensive and and prone to failure it is if you even blink for a second and need to switch attention considering how fast paced the fights are in Shogun 2. So its higher risk potentially higher reward. But you pay risk first before you can reap the reward. So why gamble if you can minimise risks?

They're beasts in Fall of the Samurai, best melee infantry unit.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 But the problem in FOTS is that there is no point in getting katana samurai. Radious fixes this a bit by giving all traditional units either banzai or rapid advance.

@@Klongu_Da_Bongu Laughs in Shogitai. Clearly unarmoured Katana fanatics beat everything. Afaik I know there is a fanatic unit like that can even shoot rifles first then Banzai Charge. When armour means nothing because of gunpowder, having no armour at all makes absolute sense. :D

As an addendum to this: I just tested 9 XP Naginata Samurai vs 9 XP Yari Ashigaru in Yari Wall. The Naginata Samurai still won, but it was by a tiny margin. Actually the magin is so tiny that it seems that they have the same killing potential (meaning on a unit level, this also means that those Naginata Samurai entities have higher killing potential since they are fewer), but the higher morale of the Naginata Samurai made the Yari Ashigaru break first. With a 0 XP set-up, the Naginata Samurai has about 15 more men than the Yari Ashigaru when the Yari Ashigaru break. This shows the disproportional effect of upgrades on low-stat units.

Intresting story i was once playing against an ai which bought yari ashigaru, they put it in yari wall on a hill and I sent two katan samurai to kill it thinking it would be an easy fight only to have both units mauled badly and I had to send some calvary to reinforce that flank.

Yari Ashigaru is the best melee infantry in the sense that it gives the best performance for its price, but no it doesn’t make it invulnerable to things like Katana Samurai and Naginata Samurai even though some people seem to think it does. Generally though, at least on higher difficulties, you can get multiple Yari Ashigaru for the same price as one Naginata/Katana samurai which makes them a better choice. Later on though it’s worth replacing them.

@@TriAzF At a certain point money becomes fairly bottlenecked as long as your campaign is not a disaster, and then it is usually better to get samurai in my opinion. Also, I like to play with the extra challenge of having as few casualties as possible, and samurai units usually take way fewer.

@@Osvath97 Yeah I agree later on they’re worth replacing since the main advantage of the Yari Ashigaru, their low cost, becomes less helpful since you get enough money to afford samurai.

Yari Samurai are actually more useful the higher up you go. The morale advantage over Ashigaru is huge for fighting multiple high quality cavalry and hunting down the General with just one unit.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 really? what about the upkeep costs or are those neglibile with trade

@@gabrielnguyen5580 I only recruit 1 or 2 max in a stack.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 ah so just enough to cover flanks and stuff then

@@gabrielnguyen5580 yup, Yari Ashigaru are still the main line

I try to have 1 in all of my armies, especially in the late game they are extremely potent at striking at high ranking enemy generals during siege defenses.

mods should not be accounted for when discussing balance, mods are literally cheating.

I've read a theory that they are in fact supposed to have access to Spear Square; the only unit to gain access to it is Yari Hero and they are gotten after researching the formation. If so then it's very clear that the developers may have intended for the unit to perform a certain role, whereas in the actual released game their use case morphed into something else entirely. It's an interesting example of how, so long as the fundamental base mechanics of the game are solid (morale, flanking, elevation) then even bugged or "bad" units can find their own niche.

Yari Samurai are the only unit you start out with that has good morale, and that is a huge advantage in the early turns which is also the most crucial phase of any campaign. Most factions need to wait 5-6 turns to even get Katana Samurai, or a few turns to get Light Cavalry; later on in the campaign they retain a specialist role of general-hunting, which they are more cost-effective at than cavalry, since you need 2-3 cavalry units to efficiently dispose of a general in a timely manner, while Yari Ashigaru are unreliable in this role due to morale, and Naginata Samurai are too slow to perform this as well as Yari Samurai.

Yeah cavalry become much slower when they lose stamina so it's not a good idea to use them as a bait; and they're more expensive as well.

Try naginata samurai against anyone fielding matchlocks (basically everyone in multiplayer) Naginata samurai have been one of the worst units in MP for years Yari Samurai are faster and better anti cavalry to cover flanks

​@@dishonorable_daimyo1498oh yeah, 100%. Fiund out after consecutively losing my first 10 online matches. But I still keep a couple of Naginatas around for Anti Infantry role but now as reserves. That one match made me have a soft spot for Naginata units. Plus they help my defensive playstyle as calavry almost always gets behind my lines in Shogun.

​@@dishonorable_daimyo1498naginata samurai in single player are top tier line holder units. In mp they are garbage and irelevant.

i don't know, cavalry are smaller and they won't last nearly as long, and there's the strong chance your horses will be scattered leaving you at a disadvantage for the rest of the battle. It may be better to force the enemy off the hill at that point.

They are still valuable for taking out enemy cavalry. If I'm in a fort defense and I need a single spear unit to get the enemy general, samurai are a much better option, yari ashigaru will be routed before they can do anything meaningful just by virtue of being outnumbered.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 that's a good point, the beastly yari ashigaru usually route before they can kill the general. I usually just take out the general with my archers rather than a yari sam

They serve different roles, if they had yari wall it would be the ashigaru unit that would become obsolete which would damage the already low unit variety with two redundant units that do the same thing, not to mention it is ahistorical. With yari samurai as they are they fill a fun specialized niche that no other unit really fills, my only gripe with them is that they don't have yari square like the game implies they should have after unlocking the tech for it, which feels like an oversight.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 there is better late game anti-cav unit then yari samurai, its called Long yari ashigaru (Oda only unit) and any other naginata armed unit (or bulletpruf samurai if you are Date).

@@madkoala2130 naginata samurai are way too slow to do general hunting or kiting, and warrior monks should generally be fighting infantry; yari samurai are the specialist strike force infantry, fighting off multiple cavalry units without needing micro and going for the general. They're very good during siege defenses as a cavalry bait; place one yari samurai outside and watch the enemy pile its cavalry onto it. An Ashigaru unit will likely rout if they don't have experience or morale buffs.

Yari samurai are still way more durable than cavalry units, they still work great for defeating multiple cavalry units in a cost effective manner. Your own cavalry are much better suited to hunting down infantry

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Yari samurai also can't hunt cav, they can only react to attacking cav. With light/ yari cav you can go around the flank and attack from the back into the bow line and generals. If you'd pull of that maneuver with yari samurai the battle will be as good as over before they arrive.

I suspect they remove that skill for them in the last minute, because you can clearly see a t3 tech for yari that only 1 unit can use that skill (yari hero). T3 tech for give one single unit an ability that has no use to the hero units? Yeah. Somethings off

Wouldn't No Dachi / Shogitai be better suited in that role with Banzai?

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 awesome name first off And yes bonzai is good for morale but the key to my specific rush is the speed. My yari samurais are fast af upgraded with second wind on not tired they are Almost as fast as horses I swear. You hit second wind as they take the first volley by the time they go to fire again you'll have made contact. Stopping the shooting. And then with your katanas right behind you switch agg, and make your yari samurais continue through to the next line as well if you have too. I can't speak for plains. But my veteren yari sam's can take 3 volleys of serious gun units like a marine. They get shredded but do the job. I got a few decisive dubs as full kosumoto no firearms against guns and I only lost half of each yari sam unit 2 or 3

my point is the comparison to Yari Ashigaru often misses the point entirely when people suggest Samurai should have spear wall or spear square they are a specialist unit who will excel in specific scenarios and there is nothing wrong with that

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I still disagree because, in the end, the scenarios are so specific that it isn't worth it and other units can perform in the same situation and still be more flexible, so there are always better alternatives. Maybe they shouldn't have spear wall or spear square, but as they are they are never worth the trade-off with any other unit that could be in their place. I have never seen a battle where having a few fast infantry units or some spear units that could operate without support for a little while (and it is only a little while, as any unit left completely alone will be ganged up and destroyed) was essential. When a specialist unit is so specialist its use is that restricted it ends up being better to go for more general multi-purpose ones.

I regularly have siege defenses where i realize i would get so much mileage out of 1 yari samurai They are the best unit for taking out cavalry and generals because cavalry vs cavalry is always a messy fight. I would rather use my cavalry for anti infantry which is what they excel at Yari samurai are more than capable of being a decivise unit

Yari Samurai don't need to be micro-managed as much and I would rather use them to hunt enemy cavalry instead of my own fragile Yari Cavalry, who are better off hitting infantry already pinned down by your men.

Yari Samurai are excellent units for on your flanks as they are fast enough to shore up gaps and form a defense defend against cavalry, and they can flank enemy ashigaru lines without having to fear cavalry support. Naginata Samurai are not only worse against cavalry in a fight, but they are also far too slow to fill the roles that Yari Samurai fill; Naginata samurai are in the sad position of excelling at nothing on the battlefield; they are fine in campaign as a late-game alternative to Yari Ashigaru but in pvp they are generally a waste of money; their statline is that of a "versatie" unit but their slow movement speed makes them somewhat unsuited even in the generalist role; Yari Samurai are better generalist infantry as their speed makes them better suited to shoring up holes in your defense and exploiting them in the enemy; and while they don't beat yari ashigaru in yari wall from the front; they still crush them in any other scenario. Not to say Naginata samurai don't have their uses; but they cannot hope to match Yari Samurai for their versatility in roles, anti-cavalry performance or flanking prowess.

@@captainnyet9855 Well I haven't unlocked either of the two in multiplayer so I can't say anything there. But in the campaign they really don't seem necessary given that the I.A. will glady charge your yariwall with their cav or engage their katana cav with your yari cav.

cavalry vs cavalry should be avoided wherever possible because cavalry are most effective at targeting infantry they are just too expensive to use in an anti cavalry role, yari samurai are capable of tanking hits unlike cavalry

sounds like a very expensive and not cost efficient stack. I rarely have more than 2-3 Samurai units in an army, the rest are light cavalry and Ashigaru.

​​@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 usually in TW I prefer quality over cost-effectiveness. Stacks have much less casualties. And Exp gains faster with less, but more powerful units. If there is an Ashigaru Spear Wall, covered by 3 Katana, it sounds, like your Katana covers your Spear Wall from flanks. It's like playing Greek Culture factions in Rome and Rome II, when Cav and Swordsmen are covering the flanks of a phalanx. It's a great tactic. But I prefer a Roman-like style, when Swordsmen are covered against Cav by a few Spearmen, as a specialist anti-cav unit.

@@petrovepryk3786 its just very inefficient, though, Katana are a heavy hitter unit that are ideal for breaking flanks and causing chain routs, you very quickly have diminishing returns the more you add to an army.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I just don't wanna lose to a 10 Katana AI stack anymore. When I have 6-7 Katana + 3 Yari Samurai Stack I just can manage my army just like I did in Rome and Rome II, while playing the Rome faction. The only exception is that my infantry can't throw Pilums. And I can take cities with ease. Ashigaru aren't that great in places where they can't throw a Yari Wall. While storming the city against the Garrison Katana Samurai, for example.

Yeah, I think Yari Samurai would be used more if the AI weren't stupid enough to charge headfirst into yari walls and micromanaged better.

different unit with a different role

I modded them to have Yari Wall and guess what; I almost never use it because Yari Sams are generally wasted when kept in an immobile state. Yari Samurai are good because of their mobility and strength vs cavalry; they can flank uncontested by any other unit type or quickly fill gaps in your defense but if you put them in Yari Wall they tend to just become less cost effective Yari Ashigaru.

You'd have to make a lot of changes to the building system, because a good Yari Samurai will make the spear line of buildings the go-to line in any campaign.

I look at vanilla only through the pvp lense to be frank, campaign just doesn't feel challenging after all these years

Thing is in MP Yari Samurai are actually more relevant than in campaign, their morale really comes in handy as Yari Ashigaru can get overwhelmed by flanking and rear charges, whereas Yari Samurai can sort of be left to do their thing and are a great cavalry deterrent on the flanks, in addition to supporting your own cavalry in a cavalry-vs-cavalry fight.

maybe if you had enough units concentrating at the same point it would cause a breakthrough in the line; after your center is broken other units will suffer morale penalties for being flanked resulting in a chain rout. Yari wall is great but they need to be properly guarded

Yes they are

That upkeep cost is brutal, if they had a lower upkeep like 100 theyd have a line filling roll.

Not even close. Naginata Samurai have the worst mobility in game right next to Bulletproofs, and they have lower charge and bonus vs cavalry. Compared to Yari Samurai they are objectively worse in that role. They're also terrible at tanking arrows because fire arrows have an armor-piercing effect. Watch a Bow Ashigaru take out 20 or more of your precious Naginata with one of those volleys. The AI regularly recruits 6-7 Bow Samurai per stack, and their targeting script prioritizes Samurai units, so one unit of Naginata can be taking 3 or more fire arrow volleys at once. Bows and Yari Ashigaru are the only units that should ever be used as arrow-fodder. It's a mediocre unit that defensively is outclassed by Yari Ashigaru, who have less armor but unlike Naginata they are indeed disposable. The "versatility" of Naginata Samurai is merely a crutch for newer players who don't want to micromanage the more specialist unit types. Everyone brings a unit of Yari Samurai or 2 in multiplayer; almost no one who is actually competitive will be bringing Naginata Samurai, and for good reason.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 No way. You don't use naginata for tanking, you ise them to eliminate enemy cavalry on the flanks and sometimes to kill bow units. Their armor helps a lot when flanking and approaching enemy archers. And they have better attacking stats than yari samurai.

@@order_truth_involvement6135 Their attack stats are still garbage for their price. Yari Samurai are the best unit for guarding flanks vs cavalry, there is no debate to be had there. And again, mobility. Naginata Samurai have such terrible mobility they take an extra volley or 2, leaving them with barely any more men than a Yari Samurai by the time they close. You don't bring Naginata's to deal with archers. You use cavalry, or Fire Rockets, or your own Bows to do that, and when available trees provide very good cover for all infantry.

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 you're right, I do use cav more for that. But I think Naginata are not as bad as you think.

Its the opposite. Yari samurai thanks to their morale can be "left at it" when fighting cavalry Isolated yari ashigaru are liable to routing And if Yari Samurai are in a bad spot they can escape unscathed using rapid advance

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I think I meant that with my comment

I would say the opposite... Yari Ashigaru need more micormanaging if you want them to be effective due to weak morale and Yari wall positioning Yari Samurai needs less micro. Even when escaping using Rapid Advance, is still much easier to manage than Repositiniong your Yari wall with Ashigaru

if you watched the video you would know that I am debunking this very claim... lmao guess you couldn't spare the 3 minutes to watch