Why the heck are samurai's so high resource?

[KissBlade]

I just don't see the justification. Without shields, they seem to die en masse to almost everything. Which is a problem when you can't even mass them. Sure they're incredibly gold efficient but I thought that gold = skill of a unit while resources = the type of armor. I also understand that shields would be very unthematic but for warriors that are supposed to be the epitome of Japanese swordsmanship, their stats are sure crummy. I'm not sure I can find any justification for NOT recruiting just pure samurai archers. Oh and the occasional ashigaru spam. Any other Jomon players running into this sort of problem?

[PvK]

I assume it is both the katanas and the armor.

I have done very well with samurai, though I tend not to use samurai archers with melee samurai, because then most of my samurai casualties end up being from friendly fire! Since samurai don't use shields, I make sure I have a missile screen of fodder in front of them, and don't shoot into my own forces (I use separate armies of samurai archers, kind of like how I never put arbalests or crossbows with my Ulmish infantry).

I think a good Production scale and fort construction is the way to go for a Jomonese samurai army.

PvK

[KissBlade]

PvK said:
I assume it is both the katanas and the armor.

I have done very well with samurai, though I tend not to use samurai archers with melee samurai, because then most of my samurai casualties end up being from friendly fire! Since samurai don't use shields, I make sure I have a missile screen of fodder in front of them, and don't shoot into my own forces (I use separate armies of samurai archers, kind of like how I never put arbalests or crossbows with my Ulmish infantry).

I think a good Production scale and fort construction is the way to go for a Jomonese samurai army.

PvK

Heh, that's actually what I do as well. Separation of powers if you will =). Still I can't help but feel ripped off everytime I produce them, not because of the gold but simply because my resources can be spent making samurai archers instead.

[PvK]

Well they are considerably better at heavy melee combat than the archers, especially the fancier versions. Since the resource cost is high I tend to get the better melee samurai rather than the cheapest ones. Also because my main reason for recruiting samurai in the first place is to get an elite melee force.

PvK