Lords of the Rising Sun (Pre-NES)

Kraznaya said:

1560, eh? Expressing strong interest in Imagawa.

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Neverwonagame3 said:

Expressing interest in Mori, Imagawa, and Otomo. Yes the basis of this decision is koku- I'm starting to formulate a plan that's dependent on it.

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Army: This is your clan's current amount of companies. 1 company = 250 soldiers. 1 regular company is 500 koku to purchase, 250 koku to maintain. These regular companies represent your professional army of samurai and other warriors. Remember that armies in old Japan were not entirely comprised of samurai. Samurai were less than 10% of the entire population of Japan. They are rare and should be seen more as commanders or generals than normal soldiers. They are the most elite of the fighting elements.

The cheapest and least formidable army element is conscript companies. Conscripts are troops you can quickly call upon. They are often nothing more than farmers armed with spears or sharp edges and have no training. Without paying (though you should put some koku into whatever operation you are calling them out for), you can raise 1 company of conscripts for every 500 koku you have. Beware of calling forth conscripts and keeping them in the field for too long. If you do this, your people will become unhappy and you may lose prestige.

There are also ashigaru. Ashigaru are better than conscripts. They are actually trained foot soldiers, usually armed with spears, pikes, and bows. Ashigaru are the most common element in any army.

Cavalry are not armored, as they were in Europe. They are almost always light and they are good at initial charges, running after retreating troops, cutting down archers, and not much else. Horses in Japan during this time were costly to maintain, and thus there were rarely armies that had large units filled with cavalry. However, some clans had the benefit of being in areas rich with horse-breeding and used that to their advantage (such as the Takeda Clan). Mounted samurai do exist, though, which are quite formidable in any sense of the word. Clans with some horses will either use them to mount samurai, scout, or provide support in maneuvering. Oddly, another reason why the horse was impractical during battle was also because it was considered prestigious to collect the heads of prominent enemy combatants. Doing this from a horse was more difficult.

Archers are either elite archers, if specified, or ashigaru bowmen. All samurai are highly capable of using the yumi, or Japanese longbow, as well. Horse archers are still used, which can be mounted samurai or normal cavalry. Horse archers will soon be obsolete, though. The arquebus musket has been introduced to Japan at this time, but only a few clans have them. There are some areas actually producing the arquebus at this time, though many are directly imported from Europe. The use of this weapon is sure to grow during the course of this game.

Often armies of this time were composed of troops from several different families/minor clans loyal to the major ones. To not over-complicate matters, most of the time these troops are assumed to be yours now and always. However, if your clan has a faction specifically relating to the retainer clans of your clan, you should keep them appeased because they might technically be giving you a large amount of your forces.

You can see some equipment here: the Japanese spear, the Japanese pike, or the Japanese bow. Ashigaru are usually armed with one of these three, and samurai are capable of using one or all of these weapons in their specific associated elite marital art.

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