Stainless Steel Samurai

Mathew952

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 13, 2009
Messages
12
Hello, fellow fanatics!

I was originally going to place this in bugs, but it isn't really a bug per se; has anyone else noticed that the Japanese UU, the Samurai, is seemingly incredibly overpowered? I expected it to mow down my longswords. Then I upgraded to Muskets. and they were mowed down. Then I upgraded to Riflemen, with a great general and a shock bonus for the terain they were attacking the samurai on, and even then, I lost nearly an entire unit to one heavily damaged (two guys left) samurai.

If anyone knows a good way to deal with these guys, let me know, or If I'm crazy and the samurai aren't all that powerful, let me know too.

Thanks!
 
Don't forget: The Samurai were probably also backed up with many/all of the Honor Policies.

Beat them down with catapults and trebuchets; then attack with mounted units that can retreat afterwards, then attack with melee units. Concentrate your attacks on one at a time until it is dead - because if you don't kill it, all that doubled xp will just make them stronger.

This applies to any and all Japanese troops - not just the Samurai - though they truly are ridiculous.
 
Medieval japan is just brutal. The samurai alone are powerful but combined with Nobunaga's trait it's just gross.

I love it.

Easily in my top 3 favorite civs.

But on the point.. musketmen really aren't much of an upgrade over longswords. They're just cheaper hammer cost and don't require iron. And the riflemen part was you seeing Nobu's trait more than the samurai's power. The same would've happened had it been a warrior against your swordsman.
 
Never bring a knight to a gunfight.

...and by that I mean kill them with cannons. Find yourself some patches of rough terrain that'll slow your enemy's movements down to 1 and blow them to kingdom come. Bait them, the A.I. seems to favor offense, so kill most of it's army before you advance into their territory.
 
Trebuchets and knights kill them just fine.
Crossbowmen and longswordsmen kill them as well.

Just playing as greek vs. them and they are too easy to kill.
 
All good tips here. The "full strength when damaged" trait of Japan is quite tricky to handle, of course. Ranged damage is definitely key, and melee only when you have enough of an advantage to survive a full counter-attack. They do get bonuses on open ground, but I'm not sure if this extends to things like marshes. And of course, if you have any unique bonuses of your own, they could help too, such as forest advantages of mohawk warriors. I'd also consider mounted units over melee when going on the offensive against them, but range is definitely the best initial option.
 
Playing as Germany with no iron available, I found that using crossbowmen and utilizing rivers worked very well with picking Samurai off before they became too dangerous. Knights are less effective cost-wise, but do decent as well.

Having played a bit as Japan, I felt that once the Samurai got some decent promotions, they were absolutely dominating their era. Backup by some Trebs, they just plow through so much. Not quite overpowered though, since any 'fresh' samurai were really not able to steal the show like their promoted buddies.
 
Bait them, the A.I. seems to favor offense, so kill most of it's army before you advance into their territory.

Yeah, Nobunaga's AI is pretty aggressive. When his samurai started attacking me, I just ran my guys behind a citadel and a wall of cannons. BOOM. Problem solved :)

Better yet, Nobunaga doesn't know when to stop if all you do is take out his units. He'll keep throwing upwards of a dozen guys at you before pulling back, so if you just dig in your heels and decimate his army, he has very little left to defend his cities.
 
The samurai increase rate of generals and has 20% more for clear land combat. The AI wastes its GG in cities so they aren't much more tough to fight against.
 
Funny. In my current game on Immortal I'm mowing through the stupid AI with Knights vs Samurai/Musketmen/Crossbows. For me the trick is to have a GG support and focus on the units that are in the open, units on rough have to be flanked and killed in one turn.
 
Nobunaga is definitely one of the easier, if not the easiest, Leaders to win a Domination victory with. Last game I played I got about 5 Samurai and went to take out Cathrine. Because my strength is never reduced from damage, I was able to steamroll through units and cities pretty fast.

Then I got Rifling and the tech for Infantry (can't remember name), and just upgraded all 5 Samurai into 5 Infantry. Shortly before I was done with this, Rome declared war on me. He had probably 3-4 times the number of units I did, but I played defensive and managed to take them all out... mostly due to Bushido. Then I was able to just steamroll all his cities as well. Granted, this was on Prince difficulty.
 
Haven't you ever watched THE LAST SAMURAI? You have to pelt them with cannons and guns and things. Anything else you throw at them that gets in contact with them turns into ground beef.
 
Don't forget: The Samurai were probably also backed up with many/all of the Honor Policies.

Yup, that is the route I went when I played. My samurai were like tanks.... well the old Civ IV tanks.
 
It's not the Samurai but Japan's ability that makes them very hard to beat. Unless you wipe them out in one attempt, they're going to fight you with their full strength. What you need is cannons, or better yet, artillery, to destroy them without giving them a chance to fight back and use their UA.
 
or GDR's....

I haven't played Japan yet but I definitely will pick them for my next game. The unique ability is awesome, probably 2nd to Alexander's.
 
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