Slitherine

I've fought a battle where the enemy was numerically superior but its troop quality was low and won 40%-0... the main confrontation instead was roughly equivalent in numbers and quality (9000 vs 8000) and it turned out to be the most entertaining and challenging battle since I own the game. No doubt the patch has addressed the inconsistencies of the AI which is now much more compact. The battle ended 62%-36% for me and I won but I BARELY won. Many times I said the % doesn't truly reflect the fact that up to the turning point it could end either way and this time more than ever.

In order to reach those numbers I've had to combine armies, which is what the enemy did too of course and that led me to BEG you to consider again the limitations imposed by the current recruitment system.

Since the idea is to have historical armies and since they are to be mustered with their basic units as mandatory, these basic units end up being the BULK of the host and we're talking of all samurai units.
The situation leads not only to having the photocopy of an army you already have... but since it's 2x, you do see a heavy unbalancement in the number of samurai units vs ashigaru units.

In other words, since we can't muster low-quality troops and use them to reinforce an existing army piecemeal (and that would work the ratio in favor of the ashigaru of course), the more the campaign goes on, the more you end up having bigger armies with twice the number of samurai and a very low number of low-quality troops.

Go figure IIRC the army starts basically with 6 units (5+Honjin). You can barely afford to buy ONE low quality unit (i.e. an ashigaru swordsmen unit).
At the beginning you have 5+Honjin+1 Ashigaru... and when you combine it you have 10+Honjin+2 ashigaru. If you combine another army you'll end up with 15+Honjin+3 ashigaru... and that depends, if you can afford it, you could even buy samurai units as extra instead of cheaper ashigaru (or sohei).
I know it's not a matter of numbers because the ashigaru units are bigger (more men) but there should be more ashigaru and less samurai units in my opinion. Don't forget we lose units to garrison the provinces we capture. Those units can't be replaced piecemeal: to reinforce the army you must AGAIN bring another army to combine it with.

The more the campaign goes ahead, the less likely it is for the side that is losing to be able to beat the more experienced and increasingly unbalanced enemy army (because its samurai swell in numbers every time you combine them).

There are many ways to address this problem but clearly the recruitment system we have now is not helping (though I must say I'm having a blast with the new AI).
Please do consider the weather effects suggestion in connection to this request: it would be unwise to create an unbalanced army in any case but with the weather this is twice as true.

Thanks for the comment. Point taken. Well that is indeed a consequence of the campaign system. As we try to maintain historical proportion for troops only when they are raised but the state after raising them all boils down to survivability (which are mostly elite units). That said, nothing is fully historical after the first turn due to player and AI actions. And the game is pretty much balanced as it is.

Well no, not really no.



Some games actually have a manpower pool (which SJ has in form of generalized manpower). In our case we could use a generalized pool IF the japanese society didn't have a rigid caste system.

In other words, the concept you can muster a ronin unit, for example, from a raw generalized manpower by "paying" the same number of men you would pay for a Hatamoto unit is too simplistic to work. The difference between 500 yari ashigaru and 500 ronin is not a simple question of equipment you can pay with your funds: the availability of ashigaru is great, the one of ronin is not (ronin do come with their OWN equipment being disenfranchised samurai warriors) so you can't simply say "this province has 500 manpower available and you can recruit ANY unit type within that manpower". The hatamoto for example is the personal bodyguard of ultrahigh rank samurai (up to the Daimyo)... you can afford to buy one but you should also check IF there's suitable men to form a Hatamoto unit with.

Paradox games employ the same generalized manpower system but they clearly have nothing to do with japanese medieval and premedieval age or caste systems: if you have 2.000.000 men you can form them into aviation, navy or army alike... naturally they have 3 major branches... we have 3 major branches (cav,inf, art/missile) but we also have social status (ronin/samurai, hatamoto, ashigaru/paesants, sohei)... that doesn't make the generalized manpower pool suitable.

Go figure, when you create an army you spawn a honjin and those 5 basic units, which are the elite but not the army bulk.
Bulks were historically composed in a different way according to the clan's historical traditions and combat style. It's something Creative Assembly tried to do (their usual sloppy way) when assigning less cost to mustering of ashigaru for the Oda or of archers for the Uesugi.

There are ways to keep things balanced and realistic at any army size in SJ.
One way is to assign progressively increasing costs for out-of-ratio units. The Oda would be at advantage with ashigaru units here whereas the Takeda would be in Cavalry units. That not only takes into account the historicity but also diversifies the army rosters adding more choices (and fun) to the player.

I think at present time there's no way to build the army bulk because your yearly revenue builds a new army whose cost is paid almost entirely by the basic units, leaving nothing for the rest (which is where you say the player would go wild and build ahistorical armies) so we're basically not one (inability to build the bulk) but 2 steps behind (inability to build the bulk+ inability to keep the ratio).

This design choice to not allow piecemeal building is the cause of the 2nd step and where the "progressively increasing cost for out-of-ratio units" should impact. I think I should be allowed to build a new army but also to reinforce an existing one with new units... and I think there are a huge number of options that once taken would greatly enhance the campaign side of SJ which is where the game can really grow in fans.

Besides... it's also an important link to future DLC expansions (there's a HUGE number of campaigns you've missed, without going back to Gempei, the rise of Harunobu after the defeat of Yoshimoto, the Kanakawajima series with Kenshin, the confrontation between Nobunaga and the Enriakuji (and another one with Motonari), the war between Takehisa and the Otomo in Kyushu... the campaign of Hideyoshi against Motochika... and I could carry on for weeks here).

Sidenote: I've switched back to Daimyo level and won my first battle vs Takeda in fortified position.

The AI sent 2 teppo units AHEAD of its fortified defense line and I picked them off very easily, this is something it often does in this patch but it shouldn't do it when they are fortified.

What I did notice is that the second line of Takeda did not stop me from flanking their fortified first line (so the AI was basically idle until I had one of their wings completely flanked. Some of the AI fortified position turned 180° to face my flankers that got behind them unchallenged).

The AI did not shoot my missile which pounded their entrenched units and correctly did not attack out of their entrenched position. What happened instead is that an entrenched unit actually pursued one of my front line that had been defeated at the fortifications (I attacked, the AI won and pursued my unit leaving the fortification)... and this happened twice with 2 different units.
Are you sure the fortified unit should follow the same rules of pursuit and not hold the position instead? Maybe the next AI patch should take care of preventing these flanking manouvers from happening AND make sure the fortified units do not pursue routed enemies out of their fortified position.

As I already mentioned (several times) before the patch, if the battle system does not take into account who is attacking a province and who is defending it, I could simply rout those 2 Teppo and then fall back waiting for time to expire... but the winner of a battle should be the side that defends the province at the expiration of time.

This is really the first time I see a game where neither side has to conquer anything and victory is given to the side that routs the most enemy units... there's really no true attacker-defender confrontation here, in fact, I was surprised to see I lost a battle at nightfall where I was defending and I was still standing... but lost and retreated because I had taken more losses.
That was a true shocker.

The AI did not shoot my missile which pounded their entrenched units and correctly did not attack out of their entrenched position. What happened instead is that an entrenched unit actually pursued one of my front line that had been defeated at the fortifications (I attacked, the AI won and pursued my unit leaving the fortification)... and this happened twice with 2 different units.
Are you sure the fortified unit should follow the same rules of pursuit and not hold the position instead? Maybe the next AI patch should take care of preventing these flanking manouvers from happening AND make sure the fortified units do not pursue routed enemies out of their fortified position.

There is a small chance of units defending field defences pursuing - they will never pursue mounted and have a 15% chance of pursuing non-light foot. So somewhat less than 1 time in 6.