Let s hope these ships float Online Battle 153

Hey what's up guys this is Oakley and this is going to be a first actually. My attempt to play Shogun 2 Total War as a naval battle. Definitely very beautiful settings, very different settings than we're used to. And you're going to be seeing my deployment here coming forward. The enemy forces, let's go over this real quickly. My opponent went for all Heavy Bune, so there's going to be 5 of those plus the Admiral's Heavy Bune over here. The Japanese ships are super interesting, now I don't know too much about the historical accuracy of these ships, but I do know that the Japanese style of fighting on the sea was supposed to be almost like the Roman take at it during the Peutic Wars, which was hey let's make this into a type of a land battle. So huge platforms to move troops like this. I don't know if they were as large as this or as vertical as this, but definitely these are ships built for the shallow waters. Definitely not fit to go out to sea, I mean you can see the center of gravity is going to be above the water level. This is almost looking inherently unstable, that's the engineering in me just looking at these designs. But anyways, let's go ahead and look at what I'm deploying. So my enemy is moving forward with these Heavy Bunes, I decide to split up my forces. I have 2 of these Bow Kobyas who are going to be pushing around these little islands. And I'm pushing forward with one Matchlock Kobaya, and he's just there to do some initial shots against my opponent. Start picking off against the Bowmen, and I'm just trying to bait my opponent, slowly draw him in and do some preliminary damage. What I'm going to be doing over here is pushing on the flank with my Sengoku Bune. Now I perhaps don't have the best of builds, but I'm just going to see what I can get done. So preliminary flanking, teasing forces in the front, and then back here I have a Cannon Bune. Sitting back here, if you guys don't know these are pretty cool, they have relatively small cannons, but they're pretty good, they can take a lot of fire because they have all the protection in the world, but you just don't want them to get into grappling range with the opponent. So I was sitting him out here, hoping he would start to get some volleys on my opponents, it looks like he's out of range however, so that's fine, I'm just going to be doing delaying tactics and pulling in my Admiral's Heavy Bune here. And already my opponent is going to start actually getting the best of me with my little Bow Ships here. We're already starting to catch fire, my enemy force's Heavy Bune's actually have a pretty heavy contingent of Archers, you can see there's 40 Archers on his ship, whereas I only have these guys can just outgun me, and I don't even want to get close to range with those guys because they'll start tearing me apart, so I'm quickly going to pop Rapid Abilities to start rowing out, and I was hoping to just start picking apart some of his men, you can see me here chipping away at these forces, but it's going to be a long, drawn out fight to take apart this guy, you can see some parts of the ship actually falling to pieces, but he just has so many of these vessels. When I was doing this I was like, oh ----, how am I going to get through this, this seems pretty cost effective, so I'm trying to pick apart, delay his approach, I'm hoping that my Cannon Bune is going to start getting some shots off, my Matchlock here is getting some pretty nice shots off, not taking any damage itself, so I am hoping to wind, draw this out into a longer battle, I'm just trying to exhaust my foe. I really like the details of these naval battles, integrating the land into them, these little docks, I was hoping that would be something that they would implement in Rome 2 Total War and Attila Total War for the naval battles, they never really got to that, it is a little bit more fantastical, in the sense that this just looks so crazy, but Shogun 2, this is where Shogun 2 really shone, was with these customized battle maps, really meant to improve the gameplay. But here I am pushing forward, there is a fire mechanic, your ships can catch fire, so here I am going to try and draw out, and I was trying to enable fire mode myself, trying to catch my opponent on fire, if at all possible, but really not making too much progress. Here again you can see some shots of mine, match that up with the Matchlock Ashigaro fire from my bow ship, and we are chipping away at his guys, but look at how many dudes they have up here, and they can just keep my men at bay, and slowly press forward against my guys, so slowly but surely he is going to be forcing me back, my advanced force here is going to pull out with all haste, I am trying to move into position to try and get some flanking shots with my Cannon Bune, now that I see he has been exposed on the flank, and here we go, I am going to position myself, and actually go inside the ship to try and get some shots of them firing, so here we go, some nice side shots into this ship, didn't seem to do any damage to the units on them, so I am hoping to do more damage to the hull, not quite sure, I haven't played too many battles at sea, so I am not quite sure how the mechanics work, I figured a Cannon Bune shooting at these wooden ships should plug holes into them pretty significantly, however my advanced Vanguard force, two of them are on fire, they are not doing too well, so it is going to be kind of up to my Cannon ship and my Sengoku Bune here to guard him, to do something, so we are going to be lining it up, and now it looks like I have drawn the enemy's attention, they are going to get some flaming shots against me, but look at the heavy defenses on this ship here, going to prevent too much damage to the crew on the inside, but still this vessel can catch fire, I do have my Admiral ship coming here, just to try and rescue my guys, and I figured he was getting very very close to my units, so I was going to send in my Sengoku Bune, try and get some shots off against his dudes, but the Sengoku Bune actually has a much more exposed deck than the other heavy Bune that you can see in front of you, so probably not the best engagement, a lot of my ships actually are not fit to handle an attack against his heavy ships, who all they have to do is get close to me and allow their bowmen at these higher positions to just rain down on me, so probably not the best unit composition on my part, but I was hoping to just get some nice shots against his guys with the Cannon, again some shots registering over there, I am just trying to do delaying tactics, however I have paid for it by losing three of my melee infantry here, and one of my bowmen, and over here he is returning fire against three of my guys, I did lose one ship, meanwhile I have done almost no damage to his forces there, so he's slowly moving forward, chipping out my guys, taking out more and more of my men, meanwhile I'm waiting for my Sengoku Bune, sorry my Cannon Bune, to land some shots that will hopefully sink his vessels, we're gonna do an about face here, and that definitely hits him, I mean you can see that got the enemy force right there, especially his Admiral ship, I was hoping to take that out, but again you can see it did no damage, so I'm not quite sure where that register is, I mean I think these green bars here show the health of the different sides of the ship, I was hoping to do more damage with my Cannon Bune, so that's why I'm doing this staggered slow defense, but you can see in the process I've lost one ship already, this guy in the front definitely gonna be taking some pretty massive fire, and there you can see it's starting to register, but man this takes a lot of volleys to start taking those guys out, and these are some actually really cool ships, once they get up close they'll start to do grapple, they'll send out some like grappling hooks, tie up your men and just rope your ship in, so yeah I definitely have to keep my distance from these dudes, heavily armored Samurai, and I did hear at one point, I think it was on Reddit, so I'm not quite sure of the accuracy of it, but there was an article or some post that claimed that there was this huge battle in Japan between Samurai forces at sea, and so many of these Samurai forces ended up dying that you can see these guys with their armor, that their historic, like their nice painted face mask actually sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and apparently the article claimed that there were so many of those face masks on the bottom of the ocean, that crabs that had inhabited the area, that typically evolved to camouflage themselves with the ocean, actually started to develop camouflage that was more familiar to Samurai masks, now I don't know if that was just either a lie, or if it was just a coincidence that perhaps some of the crab masks that they developed kind of looked like a Samurai mask, or if it would just look like a rock that somehow looked like a Samurai mask, but anyways I thought that was just an interesting bit of article, I can't remember where I got it from, I'm afraid it was verified, but just a little tidbit of information I wanted to share with you, I am starting to pick apart some of his units, my Sengoku Bune seems to be quicker than his Heavy Bune, so I can distract those guys, and the name of the game here is just Distraction Distraction Distraction, and trying to focus fire on his guys, so he is very slow moving, gives me the advantage here, and it looks like we're actually going to start having the first of his ships to start to waver, I was hoping that would be to my advantage, my Admiral here is going to post up, get some nice volleys against, let's get a nice shot here, nice volleys against the enemy force, so two of my ships here, my Matchlock is going to the right to shoot that guy up, Bow is focusing fire, so I'm hoping to break his guys, and it looks like he's routing, so I've broken the first, but take a look at this, there are so many more, we got five more of these guys, my Admiral did pop one of his abilities to Warcry this guy, so that broke one of them, and I'm going to be lining up some more Cannon Bune to try and line up on this Heavy Bune, and take them out slowly piecemeal, take the opportunity that this guy is routing to just ship away at more of his men, meanwhile on the right, I haven't taken that many losses, I am starting to be on fire, but it says I'm winning, so I'm going to pull out of that engagement, and just try and line up some nice shots over here, and man, take a look at all the arrows, my ship keeps turning, but yeah, you can see right there, all the arrows stuck into the side of my ship, and let's see, I haven't, yeah, I've lost one man in that engagement, so that's pretty good for me, things are getting a little bit hairy in this position as he starts to get up close to me, I think he may start to throw his Grappling Hooks, I'm not sure, I'll have to keep an eye on that, but yeah, my Admiral is not in the best of positions, he does have Supporting Fire, and there goes the Grapple, so he's going to be hooked onto the deck, meanwhile on the back, the enemy forces are forcing me away, so my Admiral has been caught in a bad position, now what I was hoping to do was, you know, allow, sort of allow him to grapple with me, fix him in position, and then get all sorts of shots, and you can see my Cannon Boonay right there, going to be lining up to get some devastating shots against him, so I was hoping before he could grapple with me, I'd be able to do enough damage to sink it, and then pull out in a retreat, but these guys are creeping closer and closer, especially against my Admiral, that is not good, holy ----, my guy just took an arrow straight to the neck, and at least those Bowmen are going to be targeting the wrong guys, so I'm going to be getting all the easy shots I can, oh, but here comes some more of those Grappling Hooks, and there you go, looks like we're going to be coming in for a close combat, and these are basically the same types of ships here, so there you go, my General has been engaged, I'm going to be trying to get all my guys on this side to try and break the ship as soon as possible, it looks like I'm not quite winning that fight, but hopefully with the Supporting Fire, I should be able to break that, but my enemy pops War Cry, all these Bowmen here in Supporting Fire are going to be shooting across the bow of our forces here, these enemy Samurai jumping across, cutting my guys apart, so I was actually surprised to start to see my General lose so much, and he has already surrendered, so I was like oh ----, this is not good, I was trying to get my Matchlock out of position, and meanwhile my Cannon Bune is still having a hard time firing, perhaps not the best of choices, I may have gone better with the Matchlock ship here, more of my guys actually dying, I probably should have actually invested more in these Attack Bunes, those seem just super strong and powerful, so again, this was sort of my first time playing this online, I figured you know, Kiting would be effective, because those guys are so slow, but they could just close the distance, and I didn't have enough killing power I think to really make an impact, so here is me trying to pull out of this position, my Cannon Bune is in desperate straits, you can see I popped Rally with my Admiral before he lost, and I'm going to try and rapid row to get out of here, but not before they start grappling me, and I am starting to get some more volleys against my opponent, but still, I was just super disappointed with how little damage I was doing, these guys, I've gotten multiple volleys against them, and they're still full health somehow, so yeah, you guys will have to advise me in the comments below, I mean look, I got full volleys against that guy, and barely the health is dropping, so you guys, yeah, definitely please advise me in the comments section below, how I could do better in these battles, is Kiting just not a possibility, or do I need multiple Cannon Bunes, I'm not quite sure what the strategy here, I mean I was using Bow ships as support to try and set my enemy on fire, that wasn't working, so yeah, actually this will be interesting, I'd love to see how these guys actually board the ships, alright, to be expected, I mean they just clip right on through, so yeah, they're going to board my vessel, we'll see a little, oh my god, we'll get a little bit of this nice close quarter combat, we're getting, we're privy to some awesome, actually, engagements on board this ship, so I'm not sure if that's my guys, kicking ass, or my opponents, but I'm definitely liking what I'm seeing here, man, this is bloody as hell, jeez, look at how many guys are dying aboard this ship, what am I at, yeah, the enemy force has so much, and there's going to be another unit coming up here, ready to board, so there you go, I've lost a ship over there, it's going to be going down, I lost my Admiral, and I lost my Cannon Bune, all that's left is going to be one of my Bow ships, and my Sengoku Bune, this guy, I'm not quite sure how he's supposed to be used, he has an open deck, that means he's not very good, I think he's supposed to be a fast ship, meant to pick off units like my own here, but against these heavily armed Attack Bunes, man, I'm not quite sure how you take those guys out, they have so many Bowmen, that even if you try and overload them with these quick, cheap Bow ships, they'll just actually out shoot you, so it's definitely a problem, at this point I was like, alright, I kind of concede defeat, so I turned about, and I decided to engage with my opponent, just to get a couple more of these nice engagements going on here, I think these are super fun to watch, cool animations also with the Grappling Hooks, this guy is a total beast, reeling in an entire enemy vessel, all by himself, roping that in, roping in the victory, and man, what an archer's paradise this platform is, here we go, we're going to get to see the next couple Grappling Hooks, that is such a cool mechanic, here we go, let's watch this from our perspective, just boarders throwing themselves over the hill, over the top, that looks super goofy, that's so funny, oh my god, this is so goofy guys, I actually didn't notice this in the battle, what this looked like, if you're not understanding, oh, what the hell, they're climbing back up, cool, but I think what we're supposed to get out of this is that my ship has been completely destroyed, and then the enemy is already reboarding to go to the top, so I hope you guys enjoyed that little bit of a failure on my part, my first foray into these online naval battles, definitely not the best, what I may try and do is either learn from what you suggest below, or what we might do is just progress on to Fall of the Samurai, which I know has some much better naval combat, very cool modern stuff with torpedo vessels, they have, not modern modern, but for this era, modern gunships with turrets, they have iron tides and all that stuff, so yeah, definitely hope you guys enjoyed this, freshen it up, and yeah, let me know what you'd like to see more of in the future, and always, give me suggestions on how I can improve, let's end the battle, and maybe we can look at some of the stats, I don't think we're going to be seeing anything significant here, I don't think it shows you the kills, it might just tell me how many ships I sunk, but man, I think I only caused one to rout, so these stats will most likely be very very abysmal, so yeah, we took the same number of ships, enemy killing more than me, so you got the most kills, yeah my matchlock actually getting improved, so maybe that's the way to go, you have a bunch of these matchlock ships, cannon and boune not doing that much, the HP damage just really didn't show for itself, and I guess, I mean, spam the heavy boune and there you go, so that's my take of it, hope you guys enjoyed, and I will see you in the next one, peace out.