Japanese Invasion of America (1860-1863) Allies & Shogunate: United States of America🇺🇲 United Kingdom🇬🇧 France🇨🇵 Tokugawa Shogunate🇯🇵 Satsuma🇯🇵 Saga🇯🇵 Jozai🇯🇵 Tosa🇯🇵 Sendai🇯🇵 Enemies: Confederate States of America🇺🇲
Prediction 1. Yari Ashigaru 2. Yari Ashigaru 3. Yari Ashigaru 4. Yari Ashigaru 5. Yari Ashigaru 6. Yari Ashigaru 7. Yari Samurai Didn't expect that one coming?
Top 6 Yari Ashigaru units 1. Oda Long Yari Ashigaru 2. Oda Yari Ashigaru 3. Hattori Yari Ashigaru 4. Ikko Ikki Yari Ashigaru 5. Date Yari Ashigaru 6. Yari Ashigaru
Hand Mortars have to be at the bottom and the fire rockets are most likely at the top. When Shogun 2 came out, fire rockets would decimate cav but were average against infantry. I think they got buffed to be more effective against infantry and buildings.
Something I wanna point out that I've discovered when playing avatar conquest is that Hand mortars are surprisingly strong at taking out units in forests. Because of the arc the bombs don't get caught on trees unlike fire rockets. This is a very niche use but something to keep in mind anyways.
Mangonels were once useful, though still not great. CA decided to totally gut them because they were problematic in avatar multiplayer mode. Took their accuracy from 55 to 20 since they were becoming the primary the staple of camping builds. Before the nerf, in the avatar mode you could get cheap accuracy upgrades and improved inspire (leadership gen) to make them devastating weapons. Now, you're lucky if you hit anything by the time your enemy reaches you. You might get some kills if your enemy is forced to wait for you to expend all your ammo, like they are in sieges. My biggest gripe with this nerf is it broke mangonels in SP since the opportunity costs of fielding or upgrading them is so much higher. In SP you have to deal with upkeep. You have limited building space. Securing upgrades takes a lot of time. You can't change out units on the fly before battle like you can in multiplayer, ect. It's a lot of extra trouble to carry around and use these very situational weapons. Mangonels should have got the naginata monk treatment. Different variants for different modes, so their stats can be balanced according to what mode they're being used in. The nerf that made mangonels a niche weapon for sieges in avatar mode pretty much destroyed their viability everywhere else. They are the garbage of garbage now. A thorn in your side to use or keep around. ATM it's painful to watch a unit with a premium price literally get 0 kills firing in multiple open field battles in a row, sometimes even destroying my own troops in the process. I would have put them lower than canons or mortars because at least you can consistently get a few kills while mangonels will sometimes get no kills at all or worse, kill and route some of your own men.
I have a mod that greatly up the ammo of mangonel to 30. Inaccurate?, Kind of. But with a few teams ,raining bombs on a castle is too damn pleasing to pass on. I kept a full stack to siege kyoto, leveled half of the castle and garrisons without a single loss on my side before the assault, just beautiful. The mod also up the stat on melee so it can be pushed to shove sometimes.
After using hand mortarts extensivly in mods, I realised that they are actually much better support units than fire bomb throwers due to their high trajectory, you won't actually be worrying about hitting your own units since they are much accurate and you can always fire at enemy units that are not at the front. But their high trajectory also means low accuracy against moving targets, so its better to be used in defensive situation, especially in sieges, bridge battle or when shields are deployable.
Maybe do top naval units please? I always just make only medium ships coz they are not that much expensive than the arrow ones and are better in more ways.
bow koyaba have the advantage of fire arrows. 2 bow koyaba teaming up with a medium bune can have the potential to defeat 3 medium bune. Have a koyaba to bait the enemy ships and draw them to the medium bune. The enemy ships then would concerate fire on the medium bune. Whilst enemy ships are distracted have the bow koyaba concrate their fire on a single enemy ship with fire arrows. With a little bit of luck you will set the enemy ship on fire.
Fire rockets are great. But the European cannons are technically better. 1: they have double the range. 2: they will destroy castle walls and wreck the unit on them. 3: they actually are quite accurate. Cannons, like fire rockets, demolish cavalry.
1: they don’t need to move 2: your point being...? 3: why would you ever need to put the crew in melee? If your cannon crews find themselves in combat, then you need to learn how to defend your artillery.
@@nathanapplegate5374 1. Oh look! You just destroyed the wall! Now your cannon is literally useless, as it cant move to hit more targets, and is to inaccurate to hit the rest of the walls! 2. For every 1 cannon volley, the fire rockets will be able to fire at least twice, have a larger unit size and therefor have more rockets, and are also much more accurate, doing much more damage. 3. Again, they cant move. If the enemy suddenly routes part of your frontline, or you need to move your line for any reason at all, your cannons can't get out and will be fucked by the enemy. Unlike *all but 3 of the units in the game* cannons have no purpose outside of a job other units do better, completely rely on support for any killing power, and have no way to adapt to anything happening on the battlefield.
@ MrSmartDonkeyLP Question about Kisho Ninja; Are they better upgraded to maximize their melee attack, for their accuracy, or something else? You apparently had entire armies of them, but which upgrade made the most difference?
@@MrSmartDonkeyLP Melee attack it is then! I'm planning on doing a multiplayer game with a fairly new(ish) to the series friend on Very Hard difficulty with him as Otomo and me as Christian Hojo, we've already beaten the game together once. Was planning on adding some Kishiro Ninja since I'm intending to focus on 'siege' units anyway and Kishiro Ninja / Firebomb Throwers are two of my favourite units, call me crazy. Thanks for the reply man.
I wish that you would go more into attacking and defensive sieges with the top CG unit video that you just made here. You're showcasing them more on like a three on three or one on one battle with melee and it's rushing in a straight line... Not very many actual sieges
I'd arue that for the Otomo in particular, the Mangonels and Cannons should be swapped over in the order of best units. They're already Christian and are likely to get a Nanban Quarter anyway, so getting the cannons is easy. Also, maybe it's just my strategy, but I find the forcing the enemy to come to you to be extremely useful, if not OP.
Fair call, although to be fair there's quite a few examples of the clan being played having a massive effect on what units are good and bad in comparison to each other. For example, without a mod to fix it anybody with a special Kisho Ninja might as well not bother lol
Mangonel are really useful in siege you are just using them wrong, they are really good at knocking down walls, buildings and if you spam them in province with the accuracy bonus they are pretty good at pummelling high up castles that shit cannons cannot get to, as most of the time you fight in hilly hell holes were stuff just do not have the range to reach so Mangonel are useful and act like mortars. I really wish they did added mortar cannons to the game as Japan historically did have them as they imported and even made a lot of Chinese style cannons which had a piss load even breech loaded cannons some of the first of its kind in fact.
Top 10 worst units: Fire Rockets are inaccurate and don’t do much damage. Me watching the clip played of them obliterating the unit they shot at: Ok if you say so.
I find out that if you have Shogun 2 and fall of the Samurai installed, you can actually play factions from each perspective game against eachother, in custom battles (not in Navy though), so what would be your best Shogun 2 faction against a fast-firing modern rifle army ?
I'll never run out of Shogun 2. I already did a bunch of Let's Plays on the older version of DEI too, and I definitely wouldn't ever do any Top X's or Overviews on a mod of a game I don't like that much. If anything I would switch over to 3K if I end up enjoy it as much as I hope I will, but either way, as I said, I have infinite more things to do on Shogun 2.
Thankyou, so is this cannons yes you can unlock cannons ? I've only just got into the game after playing the s##t out of napoleon and thrones of Britannia cheers
Siege units and you didn't consider their usefulness in a siege? I mean i know that you don't play siege battles, but considering thats where they are intended to be good that would be a more fair comparison. I find it quite fun to play the siege battles so i tend to do it, and if the cannons for example destroy defences while archers stand there they kill a lot and you do rack up a lot of kills with them, even if that doesn't really make them good it would have been much more interesting to compare theses units in the intended scenarios. I mean for mortars it literally states on the page you show "good for shooting over walls because arc" and cannons say "good against buildings". Make a top 7 siege in sieges video i guess
Just because I didn’t mention or show something doesn’t mean I didn’t consider it. I just don’t think those things make them any more valuable. Archers and Fire Rockets are still better at murdering the enemy in sieges.
@@MrSmartDonkeyLP Yeah ok fair enough. Don't know if i am representative but i think it would atleast have been cool to hear that, for example if they aren't really good against buildings as it is stated or if destroying buildings (which siege) doesn't actually matter much etc. Or to see how the ninja-units/bomb throwing units do in offensive sieges compared (i have never used them there) to the more traditional siege units and if that alters the score.
OMFG fire bomb throwers are SO GARBAGE!!! Following this video, I'm doing the siege only challenge on legendary with hojo. It's 1946 summer, and I have 9 provinces. But this unit is so SHIT! Even in a defensive siege, a volley of fire bomb kills less than 5 yari sam. The only way to win is to run around the map with general until time runs out. But then the siege just ends and all the yari sam survives. Gotta upgrade castle ASAP, and maybe get monestary for warrior monk garrison, also with bribe.
Well, for once I think you're putting too much emphasis on recruitment requirements for the bottom half of the list. European Cannons should easily beat out fire projecting mangonels due to the horrific accuracy of the later. A powder maker isn't a big advantage over a nanban trade quarter and Christian clans (aka Otomo) don't really have to wait that long to recruit them. Unlike FPM the cannons are actually good at their intended role (destroying buildings) and in niche situations can be used to snipe generals and heroes, mostly the former, though it's not easy to position correctly for that feat. Hojo hand mortars get a little too much hate on this list. Yes it's utterly stupid to require an armoury to produce them and they are easily the worst unique unit in the game, but at least they actually serve a role in game unlike FPM and EC. Realistically speaking the later have no real purpose, fire arrows (or rockets) are far better against towers and gates can be burnt down, rockets are far better at general sniping (even if they probably rout the general rather than kill him, but they don't require the perfect lineup to accomplish it like EC). HHM serve a support role in the army, a pair can cause significant disruption to enemy lines at long range and apply a hefty morale penalty. Unlike the fixed weapons they can actually hit targets fairly reliably (esp when clustered), and unlike firebomb throwers they have the range to be useful in offensive siege or field battles. In campaign the Hojo will have access to crafts at Echizen and Hitachi, the later being so far behind front lines in midgame that Hojo can afford to convert it into a specialist recruitment territory for HHM if they really want to play with them.
if the Japanese navy just fielded these on their ships rather than dinky muskets, maybe, just maybe, they woulda had a chance against Korean ships lol except maybe those turtle ships...
You set the firebomb throwers incorrectly behind your yari wall. There is an area directly in front of the firebomb throwers where they can't throw. If you put your yari wall inside of that area, friendly fire casualties drop to almost nothing. Meanwhile, the enemy infantry that hasn't reached your yari wall yet gets blown to bits.
If the hand mortars actually did damage they would be amazing. They hit so many units and knock back most of the unit. I feel like a mod (or even better a patch) could make them viable.
@@jpetras16 dude listen to wat donkey said: NO OFFENSIVE SIEGES! Shogun 2 isn't the best for siege battles due to the amount of decently OP units. Fire Rockets and Ninjas are the best from the siege tier due to their uses outside of the castle
@@Darqshadow Instead of listening to him like a drone, maybe you should start thinking for yourself. I often do offensive sieges during my campaigns. I always have 1-2 specialized siege armies that include fire rockets, mangonels, bow warrior monks or european cannons. These armies are meant to SUPPORT my main offensive forces ( my main armies never use siege units ). Thanks to that overwhelming firepower I can end most sieges with little to no casulties in one turn without having to spend half of my physical life trying to starve out my enemy like a fool. Sure, it costs a lot but if I can afford it then why not?
Pfft I rush the walls and destroy the towers easily. One or two fire rockets in my army that's it you can destroy the enemy I any siege battle. If you want better offensive sieges then play fall of samurai there's still the same concept of arty and siege units supporting the main srmy
The most common battles in a campaign are field battles. So while they are siege units, they’re still mostly used on the field. Either, the gameplay is just that, the important thing is what I’m talking about, the footage is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen.
He's not wrong. Most battles are field battles than siege. Plus the fact have of the siege units aren't good. Only the fire rockets due to being able to destroy cavalry and towers and maybe even the gates. But however they still lack in most of the other ways. Only fall of the samurai has better siege units
I think Hojo Hand Mortars could have the advantage during siege battles because of projectile path compared to archers. Especially if it is a big castle. They won't hit walls + have greater range as well as mobility. That said you really would need to developed some serious tricks and tactics for them to be staple in your armies. Also I wonder if penalty for shooting at targets inside forests apply to them. And even with that they are still a novelty... When you were showcasing yari+fire bomb throwers combination you deployed them too far away to utilize properly. Fire bomb throwers have minimal range so if whole yari wall is inside their first range - friendly fire won't happen most of the time. This way they can keep firing away which... doesn't kill many. Until you realize that your yari ashigaru scored 300-400 kills by the end of battle. Those bombs help by obstructing enemy formations (forget about yari wall if they can throw into it) which helps your own yari wall. That said - they are a nightmare to micromanage in greater numbers (6+). Also on topic of Kisho - I still think you overevalute bombs. During Stealth units campaign you kept throwing them at charging enemies way to long and bombs lose efficiency the longer you throw them in such situation. Because once you break incoming units cohesion more bombs are aimed at the samed lone soldiers. On the other hand you have 22 Charge (on top of 15 Melee Defence) which you often lose because you keep throwing. Ideally you would throw blinding grenades - single salve of regular nades and then charge (on stealth) into debuffed and thrown down enemies (negating their number advantage) But to do this having lvled up kisho for that extra reload. And that's why I like Ninja Fortress for that +Exp bonuses (5 lvl translate into +10 Aim/Reload on top of all melee defence/attack bonuses and reducing Fatigue by 1) Generally siege units were nerfed into oblivion thanks to multiplayer. Both Cannons and mangonels had severe accuracy nerf to stop general sniping tactic and now it happens that the second can't reliably destroy walls or most of the time even hit them. Which was imo uneccesary cause they can't be moved once deployed... Adding insult to injury was FOTS update which changed mechanic regarding applying morale penalty for shooting from behind your own units. Make sense for gun units most of the time but not much for bomb throwing units. And it results in your own units routing much quicker than enemy. I won't even mention cannon ships which after nerf are no longer capable of sinking enemy vessels through their guns cause they keep hitting the same spots and after a while the cannonballs just pass through damaged ships leaving player unable to sink them. Good job!
Gonna say. If you skip the sieges in the campaign, are ya really playing the game? Sieges in Total War are some of the most fun parts of it. Heroic last stands, grizzly close quarters fighting because the pesky defenders managed to avoid your artillery bombardment long enough... Just fantastic. And that's why I love the cannons, fire rockets and magonels.
Just to clarify, you do NOT need to convert to be Christian already in order to build the Nanban Trade Port, but in order to get its final upgrade the Nanban Quarter, you have to convert first. However, I think you can circumvent this by conquering a province that already has one (easiest way to do that is to wait a few years before attacking Kyushu, at which point the port in Bungo will 9 times out of 10 be fully upgraded as it starts with the NTP at the very beginning of the campaign and spreads Christianity to its neighbors). However if you want to stay Buddhist AND keep the port it’ll take a lot of work to secure Bungo and its neighboring provinces long term
This video seems a bitflawed: these are siege units yet you're testing them in open battles. I would imagine the high ark of fire of the mangonals and hand mortars would make them potentially very effective when attacking a castle. Plus European cannons can blow walls, gatehouses and towers into bits.
I’ll copy my reply to a previous comment. The most common battles in a campaign are field battles. So while they are siege units, they’re still mostly used on the field. Either, the gameplay is just that, the important thing is what I’m talking about, the footage is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen.
Mangonels have poor acurracy, damage, and are fixed in place so in some cases they can't even reach their targets during sieges (easily their biggest flaw), while there are better and cheaper options to deal with towers and gates (and walls if you really want to). Mortars have accuracy, arc, and mobility making them a bit more useful but have the worst damage of any siege weapon, though they still have value in disrupting formations for archers planted in walls and infantry waiting to fend off Invaders at the top
With the ark of fire, hand mortars can hit units on large fortresses that fire rockets can't. But it's not like they'll do a huge amount of damage There are advantages to fighting siege battles. Matchlocks can have multiple rows firing into the walls, destroying walls, taking advantage of the ai
I love the European Cannons And not that hard to get For example, play shimazu. Take control of the right border. There is Nanmban trade port. Convert to christianity. Build only European Cannons ??? See the enemy flee in terror of EUROPEANS Edit: Yes DEUS VULT!
The thing is that european cannons are lethal to cavalry compared to mangonels since they shoot in a straight line. I personally use them to snipe generals in field battles or soften enemy cav so that my cav will have the edge.
Mangonels works as defending garrison just like cannons. Failing to capture a castle on an assault has no reprecaution thus repeatedly assaulting a castle just to shred their garrison down for auto resolve is a sound if not effective strategy. European canons comes with the best naval ships hinting away how siege units are supposed to be moved logistically and imo how it's best to move all non cav units in the world map which is by sea! Maybe I played to much expanded Japan mods because I did see mangonels in action despite being late game. I guess only naginata is left.
Sounds like Hanzo's shadow is probably the only hero unit that is actually practical in real in game situations as the most devastating ambush unit in the game: with stealth and fire bombs, they have a real chance of consistently unleash a volley of bombs at the thickest of enemy formation and do a surprise amount of damage and stagger the enemy for the proceeding charge, and with their hero stats, once they get into the thick, they are gonna held very long and take out a lot of enemy in melee and buy enough time for your main force to exploit the situation and reinforce them. I am attempted to reinstall Shogun 2 with a new campaign just to try them out.
Other hero units are definitely viable. To my knowledge all hero units defeat their standard counterparts in a 1 v 1...aside from maybe the tanegashima due to the armor-ignoring effect of bullets.
I remember when I had a squad of Fire Rocket soldiers bombard a defending Ona Bushi during a siege. Those women eventually routed, but only one of them made it out of the castle alive, only to be speared by a Yari Ashigaru! Good times!
All siege units benefit tremendously if you recruit them with all accuracy increasing buildings present. For fire rockets it can easily double their accuracy.
I put ninja in front of my line infantry and after the enemy getting pelted by Arrows and fire rockets I have them throw bombs and then retreat them behind my lines and then use them to kill them from behind
Now, knowing your aversion to the fire projecting mangonels and the european cannons due to, well, everything, I presume they will share the last place. The Kisho ninja will probably rank over Hanzo's shadows, although at these low numbers, the hero unit might actually win out. The Kisho ninja will definitely rank over the firebomb throwers due to their actual combat stats. Fire rockets might rank high as well due to their explodiness of doom, but I have no clue where to place the hand mortars. So, based on these presumptions, here is the list I'm expecting: 7:Fire projecting Mangonels/ European Cannons 6:just some flavour text to demonstrate how bad the last place actually is 5:Firebomb Throwers 4:Fire Rockets 3:Hanzo's Shadows 2:Kisho Ninja ?:Hand Mortars
After having watched the video I'm quite happy with my list. I placed Fire Rockets under Kisho Ninja for their survivability in melee, where a unit of Ninja will hold out for a while after having weakened the enemy with bombs. But seeing the Rockets wipe a unit out in seconds, I would've placed them higher as well. Now, regarding the Hand Mortars, I've never seen them being used, so I wasn't quite sure where to place them. Can we expect a Hand Mortar only challenge anytime soon? :D
I wont deny that the canons and mangonels are bad. But they're nothing more amazing than that 1/1000 chance where you fire a volley into the enemy and here those amazing words "there general has fallen."
How powerful are the fire rockets? Well, my straggler army who have 20 men fire rocket and 15 men samurai fought against 2 fully manned takeda cavalry squads. I won, with some friendly fire of course. Its amazing to see the cavalry, menace of medieval battlefield got thrown off their horses by some rockety bois. After their general took a rocket to the face they flee lol..
I love your videos but have to disagree with you on not being a siege attacker. It is way too easy to beat the AI in sieges especially with bow warrior monks. Simply pick off the enemy from a far then move in. If they have most their bows on one side just keep half your army on that side and move your other half while should be bows around to pick off the enemy. I have had countless siege battles as the attacker with no losses or only a few.
I use a mod that gives the cannons HE projectiles, now they are not as bad anymore, 6 units triplestacked are quite useful. What you forgot to mention was that you can triple or with careful placement even quadruple stack cannons, that way you can make your formation more condensed. The fire mongonels can be double stacked thus making it a bit better. I even recruited them in a fun doomstack with 14 of them, 5 Yari with increased armor and the general. It was a hell lot of fun and WW1 artillery barrage for the enemy.
For my first playthrough of the single player campaign, I brought two mangonels to my first assault on Kyoto. I was quite disappointed that between the two of them, they were only able to fully destroy ONE tower.
