Understanding Unit Upgrades in Shogun 2

[@leoghigu]

Hunting Lodge + Artisans (Fletchers) + Otomo Clan = OP matchlock units

[@kolpere1625]

dude just gotta do basically the contrary: full armored matchlocks. You can basically have portuguese tercios with 14 armor! di you know what does mean? forget about getting damaged by enemy fire anymore. And more in bushes.

[@kyokushinbaka6046]

While everything you say is true, seeing that golden katana icon with bronze charge on my yari cav is worth any investment.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I need a full stack of gold swords because of my OCD

[@Osvath97]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 No joke, I actually have real clinical OCD and this is an actual impulse I am (sometimes) trying to combat when playing Shogun 2. Though I love going around with a single army of AMAZING Samurai. I had one campaign with a Shimazu Katana Hero unit with close to 50 melee attack WITHOUT any battlefield buffs (with battlefield buffs it certainly went quite a bit higher than 50). Granted, I had to basically commit genocide on the Daimyo's family by forcing people to commit seppuku over and over again so my Daimyo could get that last brokenhearted trait so I could get that sweet sweet +2 melee attack.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

@@Osvath97 You could legit make a video series on stacking modifiers

[@Osvath97]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 I mean, there is no real secret sauce. The only thing I think I did different was making sure to sabotage enemy buildings which are about to give the Legendary Accomplishment bonus and to make sure the super rare stage 3 trait of brokenhearted. It is not like newer Total Wars where unit buffs are an insane rabbithole.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

@I_Commission_DSPriscilla_Art iirc a daimyo can get it it when a son dies

[@laughingstock723]

Finally someone who says something new instead of just the usual “recruiting bow monks with 100+ accuracy is the greatest thing ever!!!”.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Yeah, exactly. Good luck finding the funds to actually get that. I used to be an upgrade-snob myself until I realized how much I was restricting myself.

[@TheFlyingZulu]

I build typical armies, and I don't focus on the upgrades until I get closer to realm divide... I then build up armies with hyper specific upgrades. Max melee attack on all of my melee units, Max accuracy with bow warrior monks and then max charge bonus on my cavalry. I've completed the domination campaign on legendary with three clans so far. My favorite upgraded units to troll the AI with way in the late game are firerockets with max accuracy. lol.

[@Wasthere73]

@@TheFlyingZulu Fire rockets are OP. By far the strongest unit in game. I use 8 of them in my armies, and can basically kill 90% of their armies before they can do anything to me.

[@TheFlyingZulu]

@@Wasthere73 They indeed are they but take a lot of research to get.... The last two legendary campaigns I've won I only used mostly yari ashigaru with a couple of generals with maxed Stand and Fight... no expensive units required. Rush them all in and right before they make contact with the enemy I put them into yari wall.

[@Wasthere73]

@@TheFlyingZulu Did you know they can run while in Yari Wall? But anyways is fire rockets most efficient? No. Is it fun to watch the enemy army blown to smithereens? Yes.

[@firstnamelastname4249]

was playing the game few hours ago when I saw your first statement about the hunting lodge + Master bowmaker I was a little shocked at least that is not the case with the chokosabe. played a battle and had 3 units of chokosabe bow samurais who got charged by a yari cavs, the cav were routed before even making a contact seeing them falling like flies in the first volley or two was a beautiful sight to behold.

[@KyoushaPumpItUp]

Just like Agincourt

[@promnightdumpsterbaby9553]

Bow samari are rediculously cool. I'm playing a chosokabe campaign right now,and my core is always 8 bow samari in the center with 2 yaris on either flank. Stupidly effective. Armored bow samari are rediculously good.

[@RusskiBlusski]

Something else to note is that charge bonus has diminishing returns so once you hit ~40 charge bonus it's better to go for melee attack.

[@ryujin2135]

Master bow maker with an armourer is my personal ranged choice. It makes sure I win the skirmish with minimal losses. While I choose full armour on my melee recruiting area. Cavalry is the charge bonus all the way. It gives me a balanced late game army if I can get all of it. For most of the game it's normally just the armourer for my units. It's easy to get and I like saving my units.

[@PerennialSash]

Great discourse on the merits of upgrades and the importance of experienced units and expedient recruitment. Although, in my experience on campaign, I never really get a chance to build up armies of highly upgraded units and the only recruitment buildings the ai leave me with are yari drill yards and I can only justify having so many yari samurai in my army XD

[@Abdu_401]

Yea somtimes the stats fool us and make us invest so much time and money to gain a small amount of buff. But man that golden armor looks so shiny I can spend time and money just for that lol

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I want my Ashigaru to have spears with diamond tips on them

[@PerennialSash]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 yari ashigaru are already diamond hard when in spear wall!

[@hoddtoward5681]

here is my reasoning as to why the armourer and master armourer combination is that the date get bulletproof samurai, when you add 5 more armour to those things you will have a nearly invincible unit

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

16 times the strength!

[@danielharshman796]

gold armor naginata are so OP, those units can take whole archer volleys with zero casualties, I think guns/siege units are their only weakness. another interesting thing you can do with ikko ikki is combine holy sites with armory to make crazy tough and huge ashigaru.

[@datuputi777]

Armor affects charge defense by a large margin.

[@datmedic2857]

I will spend 50 turns creating a full naginata samurai with gold armor stack and no one will stop me!! Ps: great vid :D

[@carloreytansiongco8741]

Roleplayed a Hojo fortress lord and turned a chokepoint castle with a barracks into cost efficient meatgrinder.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

In my recent hojo campaign I nabbed 3 research buildings and rushed Epic Architecture, have a Citadel in central Japan with a Nanban Trade Port and the place is brimming with maybe 6 gun units.

[@jaywerner8415]

Grate summery of all the stat boosting buildings and and encampment upgrades. Moral and Armor are certainly the best GENERALIST upgrades. Given melee attack also goes up with XP, it just gives your troops that slight EDGE over un-upgraded troops or more experienced troops or superior troops depending on faction. Accuracy is useful id say even if it only goes up a LITTLE, just means you kill your enemy quicker (the difference between Ashigaru and Bow samurai is a testament to that, along with their reload skill), Charge bonus i suppose is good for those units that you dont leave in melee in the first place (nodachi, light cav, yari cav) just to apply that SHOCK value, also might be good on Yari Samurai given their ability gives them plus 2 charge and movement speed.

[@GWB184]

I always go for armour especially with Ikko Ikki, once you have marathon and naginata cav monks it's game over for the ai

[@bluenova123]

In my opinion it really depends on which clan you are and your strategy as to what you should take. In my opinion the Chosokabe should take armor all the way for naginata samurai after maxing out their range units accuracy as their the melee troops are just there to hold the enemy in place as they shoot them. That said morale with +2 armor for Chosokabe yari ashigaru is a great cost effective option to hold the line while your archers get the work done. Takeda is all about maxing charge for cav first and then max melee attack for infantry to do massive damage through a hammer and anvil. For Date I like the +2 armor and +4 melee for the No-Dachi as doubling their armor seems to greatly reduce losses before the melee, and having more units in melee means doing even more damage. Furthermore +2 melee attack is gained easily with ranks, so it is not as valuable in my opinion as doubling the armor stat. Oda, just do what you really want and blitz the map with overpowered ashigaru units; if I recall someone literally beat the short campaign as them in less than 15 minutes. Though for them I probably would say +5 charge with +3 armor to make the long yari more well rounded.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

most of these upgrades are academic, the only truly decisive one is morale buffs from temple specialty and those are very easy to build if you start near one. The first thing Mori needs to do is spend money getting that upgrade. With the first Bushido art that gives you 8-9 morale on fresh Ashigaru, almost as good as Samurai. Armor as a concept is fighting an uphill battle in this game, if you are fighting a battle of attrition where you have units continually under strain then you messed up somewhere, you should be managing your armies on the campaign map to avoid these scenarios. Failing that, it's much better to use cheaper units like Ashigaru disposably and replace them than it is to pour all the time and resources (and you need a specific province) into fielding upgraded naginata, who are also harder to replace. Using units to their strengths in conjunction with good terrain and positioning is what wins battles; upgrades play a negligible role in comparison.

[@musAKulture]

yes everything you say is true but i like that golden blade by my naginata samurai

[@XiangYu94]

I asked an AI to give me guidance on shogun 2 and it led me to this video lol

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

idk how to feel about that

[@kapkapi]

I always put a hunting lodge in Buzen and a foot archery dojo plus a powder maker to have some of the best matchlocks

[@theredbar-cross8515]

Charge bonus increases don't do anything. The reality is that the charge stats for everything other than Katana Cavalry are already so high that they guarantee a kill on the charge. This isn't like Warhammer where units have HP. Shogun II units either survive or die, 1 or 0. So the high charge will be wasted. And since the bonus dissipates super fast after contact, it won't matter if the number starts a little higher. The better upgrade for cavalry is always armor. All cavalry suffer badly from survivability issues. So armor is a must.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Charge bonus stacks onto melee attack which does increase the likelihood of a hit landing. So it very much does make a difference, technically.

[@theredbar-cross8515]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 Yes, that's my point. Since entities only have one HP, a hit is always a kill. The vanilla charge bonuses are already so high that they are guaranteed to kill the first target they hit. So adding more numbers to 100% makes no practical difference.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

No dachi Samurai are principally a Katana Samurai that trades melee defense and armor for much higher charge, whereas Katana will get 30 kills on a charge a No dachi can be seen getting over 50 The differences do very much matter. Charge bonus might be the one stat that matters most in this game (it only gets eclipsed by the fact that Yari Wall will be the key to success which does not make use of charge bonus).

[@datuputi777]

Accuracy is useful for siege engines mangonels and rockets to be prescise I always garrison two mangos with gold rank accuracy and a few ranks they can depending on castle type kill 1000 each

[@pancytryna9378]

You should basically never use the mangonels

[@datuputi777]

@@pancytryna9378 The noobs know nothing

[@krios0086]

naginata warrior monks with full armor upgrades any day

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Kinda crap, Shogun 2 is balanced in favor of attack and charge.

[@janbazuine6636]

​@@dishonorable_daimyo1498naginata monks already beat every non hero unit in melee, so they dont need attack buffs. They do however get shredded by bows, which gold armour makes them almost invulnerable to

[@antiverschwurbelteaktion]

"It doesnt matter" to make it short :D thanks for your advice ;)

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Yup, a small bonus won't cover up bad gameplay.

[@FreedomFighterEx]

It is amusing to go for full armour upgrade for range unit because they gain MA, MD, and Acc as they rank up and this let you go full Bow Ash/Sam. Master Armourer only need Iron resource so the only tech you need is Earth and Heaven to build Encampment.

[@smity497]

I honestly like going for heavily armoured yari and long yari as the Oda. It makes the frontline a bit sturdier, especially to missile fire, and slows my expansion a bit after having secured the blacksmith and goldmine in Hojo lands. That way I don't overextend and can focus on my economy for a bit, preparing for a second big push. Due to my clan preference I do tend to steer clear of using samurai and monk units though, with the exception of a couple yari cav.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I used to do this but the more I learn the more I understand the game is balanced to reward melee attack and charge bonus.

[@smity497]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 a fair point. When I grow better at the game I'll likely add some more cavalry, using yari wall as the anvil to beat my enemy against. Once I've mastered that I'll move on to more aggressive playstyles. I'm a more defensive natured guy by nature. Make the enemy smash themselves to pieces before mopping them up. It works well for now at normal difficulty.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

@@smity497 yeah once you crank the difficulty up the AI will just sit back and shower you with arrows. Heavy cavalry are way too expensive to field in large numbers, light cavalry are enough in most scenarios.

[@smity497]

@@dishonorable_daimyo1498 probably yeah. I just need them primarily for general sniping and the morale shock against infantry. The only thing they'd be worse at would be anti-cav (compared to yari cav).... I'd have to experiment with that I guess. Maybe try a Takeda campaign next... or maybe a Date campaign to learn using charge bonus and aggression. Oh well gotta make it to (and through) realm divide first lol

[@shingeovanny508]

For a Naginata Samurai, what upgrade is better: armour or melee attack ?????

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

I would rather not even bring Naginata Samurai, indecisive unit that struggles to even beat Yari Ashigaru in a straight fight. A base-level Katana Samurai is better than a Naginata Samurai with upgraded attack, and armor really doesn't have that much of an effect on combat. Melee attack and charge bonus win battles.

[@TempestInMe]

AI watch this content no more parrot guns with gold charge pls XD

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Tbf tho each man in the unit would probably kill 5 of yours if they did actually charge lol

[@barker505]

I've been recruiting my archers in blacksmith provinces- I find that the +5 armour you can get from the armourer and encampment building combined make them extremely tankyz especially given the AIs archery cheats. Has anyone else tried this and how do you find thr results of this compared to the accuracy buff?

[@rollandchapin5308]

Thanks. I value your content. For me I usually go Armor. But it is nice to be reassured I was on the right track. And confirm the poor choices. Good luck , best wishes. oohh by the way. I have many thousands of hours with Shogun 2, watched a lot of content creatures. I consider you one of the best, if not the very best.

[@dishonorable_daimyo1498]

Thank you my dude