My Daimyo Always Loses While Theirs Never Does!

[cgannon64]

Well my Daimyo is at the level where its 4.4.2. I decide at this point it has a significant advantage, so I sent it to the front lines. They attack with a Stone Thrower-thing and it LOSES. I'm mad, so I reload and say, "OK, I'll never put it near the front line again". But then, a few turns later, I see they only have one stone thrower near it. It has to win this, I think, so I let them attack. IT LOSES.

Meanwhile I throw 5 stone throwers at their Daimyo in their capital. Nothing. Next turn I attack with 4 swordsmen people. Nothing. I HATE YOU RNG!!!

Anyway, do you fight with your Daimyo or not?

EDIT: I originally planned to fight if it had an advantage, but not now. He's staying home.

 

[Hygro]

I tend to duel the other Daimyos once mine is powerful enough.

When you have stealth attack, atr, among other abilities, you can declare war on enemies lawfully, enter their territory, and kill their daimyo all in one turn.

I do a lot of fighting with my daimyo.

 

[cgannon64]

Do you lose?

BTW I'm considering attacking his Daimyo with mine, but that is very risky considering mine is Regular while his is now Veteran and fortified.

Maybe I'll just build up more swordsmen and attack him again. I can basically ignore the rest of his empire, after all...

 

[Hygro]

I tend to win--but I also don't attack Daimyo's from clans with tech parity--that's suicide. I use my main army to take down the bigger and badder clans while using my Daimyo against the clans that got left in the dust. I find Conquest win easier than Domination in this scenario.

 

[cgannon64]

So how do you take down the main clans? Just mass a bunch of soldies to take out their Daimyo?

 

[The Economist]

The Daimyo should only fight when its at full health, and try to get it up to veteran status from barbarians early on in the game.

But yeah, its risky attacking with your Daimyo, so you should do it only if you're willing to accept that if he falls, so does your entire empire.

Since I don't re-load when my Daimyo dies, I only attack with him when I feel that I can accept the risk involved. So far I've been pretty lucky, and my Daimyo has always retreated when it got down to 1hp.

I've noticed that the AI doesn't seem to upgrade their Daimyo at all, and if it does, it still never moves it from its capital. I guess that's just one more of the human's many advantages over the AI. I hope that the difficulty levels in Civ 4 change the AI's intelligence and strategy instead of just giving it a bunch of production advantages and whatnot.

 

[Hygro]

Originally posted by cgannon64
So how do you take down the main clans? Just mass a bunch of soldies to take out their Daimyo?

Yes indeedy

 

[Snetsinger]

i use my daimyo to explore early, pooping goody hust and taking out barbarian town things. i always try and stay out of wars early on. right now i'm on regent going for a domination victory(already won once diplomaticly and monarch i keep losing) but right now i have a 3 tech lead, on the ai and it's easy going when i'm at war since i have more advance units, so i use my daimyo to duel with others, giving the ai one last chance to possibly win, i've done this 3 times and haven't lost yet. and i don't plan on reloading if i do.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

I used the daimyo to scout out all the goody huts when I played this scenario, and fight barbarians. I almost lost him when attacking a barb camp.

 

[Lord Apolon]

Mori Motonari, king of kings, fights all his own battles.

Well... with Daimyo anyway.

(Arg, I forget the name of the island right south of Honshu... not the one to the southwest, but.... And my atlas isn't handy)

Anyway, the Mori warred there first and destroyed two weak clans, using primarily the two new technologies of Bushi and Stone Crossbow. In both cases, Mori Motonari, king of kings, engaged at the last his opponent in single combat. Due to his many years of training alone in the wilderness, he was able to best both. He then meditated for many weeks beneath a waterfall on his victories, and became enlightened, and even more powerful. At last he returned to Hiroshima.

Save for the wars on the southwesternmost island, Mori Motonari has fought every Daimyo opposed to him hand to hand in the end. The wars to the southwest he took no part in, for the main offensive was to the east.


As new secrets and wisdoms come into the minds of the Mori, their Daimyo meditates more, trains alone, and becomes more mighty.


(I've never had to reload in an attempt against a Daimyo, either, thanks to being usually 2-3 levels higher than theirs)

When your Shogun gains Assassination ability... if you can get to their capital, which is where their Daimyo ALWAYS is (I wish that could be changed...), you can directly attack their Daimyo and bypass all defenders.

I find they upgrade pretty regularly and are usually at their highest tech level.

I have only two more upgrades to look forward to.

Since the great war began, the push to unite Honshu, Mori Motonari has not returned home to Hiroshima once. The great war began as soon as the troops returned from the southern island, along with an empty army. On Honshu, this was filled with Bushi and the great war began.

5 clans remain: Date, Uesugi, Takeda, those whose capital is Fuji (I forget the name), and the Mori.

After taking the lands around Kyoto, the war strategy of the Mori changed. They needed no more land. Their mission now is subjugation: a direct attack on the enemy capital; no stops to take other cities. Why? Approaching the domination limit, heh.

Hardest battle so far? The siege of Nagoya. The first siege of Bushi and Samurai Archers failed, leading to the near death of both the Bushi army and Daimyo Mori. Not until the newly built hordes of samurai warriors and Mounted Samurai, both newly discovered, arrived did Nagoya begin to fail.

Easiest? Hojo. The mighty foes the Uesugi destroyed them. They are my greatest rivals; I have the War Council and it's a good thing, because I held a 'practice vote' when I first built it and lost.

 

[Smoked_Ham]

I explored with mine but as soon as I built other units I pulled him back to my capital. As soon as I got ninja I stole a lot of workers, and took out my three smaller neighbors and settled their land using my ninja to kill off unsuspecting foreign settlers and spearman.

I updated my Daimyo asap, while only two of the Daimyo's I killed where above the first level.

But they should start Vets, I mean they rose to be Clan Leader, they should be able to fight.

 

[Chauliodus]

(Arg, I forget the name of the island right south of Honshu... not the one to the southwest, but.... And my atlas isn't handy)

Shikoku

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Originally posted by Lord Apolon

Hardest battle so far? The siege of Nagoya.

That's because I live in Nagoya.

 

[Dragonlord]

The Daimyo is much too cool a unit not to use it! I've played on Emperor and Demi-God and used the Daimyo extensively, but always took care to have him at full health, only attack where he has a clear advantage and make certain he isn't vulnerable to counterattacks.
Even then, there's always a risk of losing everything to a single battle against a much weaker unit, the RNG being what it is
My point of view: Since the only 'safe' way here would be not to use this cool unit at all, I reload when I lose even after taking all precautions.

I'd love to see this scenario with Mass Regicide, then it wouldn't be such a crapshoot - of course, with the AI not using the Daimyo units (I've never seen one outside their capital), it would be somewhat unbalancing - probably have to play Deity or maybe even Sid to get a challenge.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

The Takeda and Uesugi clans were the toughest in real life. Oda, allied with Tokugawa, managed to beat them thanks to his muskets vs takeda mounted samurai plus the cold war between Takeda and Uesugi. Takeda and Uesugi's samurai armies sometimes formed up and faced each other without actually fighting - both fearing the other too much to make a move. Takeda himself, a kinduv freak with wild shaggy hair extending in all directions, was taken out by an Oda sentry with a lucky headshot using a musket while he was scoping out one of Oda's camps at nighttime. Kinduv a waste actually cause Takeda's mounted samurai were the most feared in all of Japan until being mowed down by Oda's musketmen lined up behind a fence during a charge. After Takeda's death, his successor, Katsuyori (I think I spelled that right), opened up another campaign against Oda resulting in another sad massacre of his fine mounted warriors and Katsuyori went down with them to be buried next to a river.

Mori Montonari was a pirate who ruled the seas in southern Japan. He never did fight against Oda cause by the time Oda conquered up to Mori's territory, Mori just threw in the towel and submitted to Oda. A sad waste considering Mori could've put up a good fight. It was only the small clans like Daimyo Asai Nagamasu who had no chance that really resisted to the end and left famous battlefield memories like Sekigahara. Oda pressed their young men into his army by pure force, dragging them from their homes, getting bigger and bigger and just continued on conquering all.

It wasn't til after all of Japan was conquered (reunited as officially described) that the Oda and Tokugawa clans divorced and had their own showdown, ending in a Tokugawa victory. Hence, the long and relatively peaceful Tokugawa Edo Jidai (era) began, lasting until the Meiji restoration which modernized Japan.

This is just what I've learned from reading samurai books in the university library during summer break.

 

[pjmcb]

I use my Daimyo from the start of the scenario all the way through until the end.

In fact, I would venture to say that a HUGE advantage that the human player enjoys over the AI in this scenario is that the AI does not effectively use the Daimyo unit, especially early in the scenario for exploration/goody hut grabbing/revenue generation (disbanding barbarian camps). I disban enough Barbarian huts with my Daimyo to help fund a higher research rate in the early game, and usually take out one or two other clans as well.

And if you're worried about using your Daimyo to attack, just use him to grab a worker or two from other clans. Nothing is more crippling to the AI in the early game than losing a worker. You'll end up with severly weakened neighbors which you can then easily take out later in the game...