Guiding Jomon

[quantum_mechani]

JimMorrison said:


BUT, be that as it may, I agree that just making archers won't cut the mustard. While they are excellent missile troops, it still comes down to the fact that the strength of Jomon's conventional army is in their shock infantry.

Seems to me the flaw with this line of reasoning is that samurai archers are pretty near as good of shock infantry as your other troops, while providing the extremely key ranged support.

[JimMorrison]

Well, I would go so far as to call them "decent medium infantry", but not necessarily shock troops just because they have katana.

The Go-Hatamoto is one of the better recruitable human sized shock infantry available to anyone. The 16 prot is very respectable, and is 2 better than the archer. They get 2 more HP, 1 more str, 2 higher attack, and 1 higher defense. So with the No-Dashi they are hitting for 19, while the archer hits for 16 with the katana.

Granted, the beauty of the archers is that they are very decent infantry in their own right, I just don't see the melee shock value.

[dirtywick]

Shot in the dark here as I've never tried it: Casting Haste on your infantry and using the enemy as meat shields against their own archers?

You could have them hold and attack, fire two rounds of arrows as they get buffed/hasted, then move in for melee.

I don't know, be interesting to try.

[quantum_mechani]

JimMorrison said:
The 16 prot is very respectable, and is 2 better than the archer. They get 2 more HP, 1 more str, 2 higher attack, and 1 higher defense. So with the No-Dashi they are hitting for 19, while the archer hits for 16 with the katana.

I would argue 2 prot, 1 defense and a little more attack and damage barely offsets the map move 1, 2 higher gold and +1 enc, let alone the long bow.

[JimMorrison]

Well, 15 attack almost guarantees successful strikes. 19 damage essentially guarantees a 1 hit kill on lighter troops, and guarantees damage to heavily armored forces. 13 attack is still pretty good, but with 16 damage you will be far less efficient about making your kills. Plus the 2 prot jumps them from medium infantry, to heavy infantry, drastically reducing the effectiveness of the enemy, as well as the jump from 9 to 11 HP making them less likely to die. And a measly 1 encumbrance difference should not be a factor, because these guys kill other infantry so much more efficiently, they shorten battles when they get in close - as well as providing a very beefy line to screen your archers so that they can continue exercising those long bows.

Again, I think samurai archers are awesome, but I just can't agree that they are shock troops, and shock infantry is a very potent tool that many nations lack in their arsenal but that Jomon has in spades.

[quantum_mechani]

Well as far as being an archer supplement, being 1 mapmove kind of crimps that. And I just have a hard time imagining that +2 damage doing more to the enemy than a couple arrow volleys.

[JimMorrison]

They have 1 more str as well, so it's +3 damage, which pushes the math in favor of guaranteed kills on cheaper chaff, as well as much higher likelihood of being effective in melee against hard to damage foes.

[quantum_mechani]

Well, think we have covered all the points, I can see this is not something we are going to see eye to eye on.