Shinuyama – the ants go marching two by two…

[Trumanator]

Well, #1 your expansion parties were pretty overkill considering normal indy settings, you should aim for 15 provs by late winter year 1. Also, you don't need that many mages searching in one group, since it gave you a lot of overlap. Take a sorceror with a 2 in all his paths + an N2+ mage and search with them. switch to remote searching after you have some gem income.

[Stavis_L]

So, after reading this guide, I'm all gung-ho to try out some hordes of nasty screaming little goblins.

BUT...all the bakemono on Shinuyama's recruitment roster are size 2?? Also, Edi's database backs me up, as does lch's wiki:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Bakemono_Warrior

Am I crazy here?

Not that the tactics won't necessarily be valid, but some of the math in the preceding examples will be off.

[Frozen Lama]

Umm it must be a cbm change then. here's a screenshot of a bakemono guy. cbm 1.6 used.

edit: unless the file won't upload

but he is size 1 for me. try with cbm

[Baalz]

Ah, I didn't realize that was a CBM change. That would obviously change things quite a bit.

[Graeme Dice]

One thing to note is that this leaves your bakemono sorcerors quite vulnerable to "Attack large monsters" by any cavalry or fliers that might in your opponents' army.

[Sombre]

More importantly, to missile weapons.

Same problem MA Atlantis has in spades. Their combat caster can be targeted by enemy missile troops with ease.

[DragonRider]

I hope it's not considered inappropriate to bump old-ish discussions on this forum, but I've been experimenting a bit with Shinuyama pretender designs and expansion strategies and I found this discussion interesting. It never occurred to me to focus on anything but Dai Bakemono for the front line, and the logic behind using Bakemono Warriors seemed sound, so I tried expanding with them instead of the Dais for a bit. It didn't seem to be working too well, so I did some semi-formal tests to see if I could figure out which unit works better.

I made a bunch of copies of a specific save file and decided to try two different expansion routes with different combinations of units. These are the routes:

Route 1
Round 1: 14 Militia, 5 Light Infantry, 11 Archers, 3 Commanders
Round 2: 13 Militia, 16 Light Infantry, 4 Archers, 3 Commanders
Round 3: 39 Bear Tribe Warriors
Round 4: 42 Barbarians
Round 5: 25 Militia, 7 Heavy Infantry, 4 Archers
Round 6: 28 Barbarians
(Nobody survives past 6)

Route 2
Round 1: 15 Milita, 11 Light Infantry, 5 Archers
Round 2: 15 Militia, 3 Heavy Infantry, 4 Archers
Round 3: 20 Militia, 6 Heavy Infantry, 8 Archers
Round 4: 9 Light Infantry, 6 Heavy Infantry, 3 Crossbowmen
Round 5: 19 Militia, 7 Heavy Infantry, 4 Archers
Round 6: 9 Knights, 19 Militia, 3 Archers
Round 7: 17 Wolf Tribe Warriors, 14 Wolf Tribe Archers
Round 8: 8 Militia, 11 Heavy Infantry, 7 Archers
(This route loops around and I run out of provinces here.)

Route 1 is fairly tough, with 40 tribesman and 40 barbarians back-to-back, and Route 2 is very tame apart from a few Knights near the end.

First, I compared 200 resource armies: 40 Bakemono Warriors vs. 8 Dai Bakemono (I chose 200 here because that's the most Bakemono Warriors you can lead with 40 leadership). For simplicity, I'm not using any archers of either type. Tactics were generally a big blob in front on hold-and-attack, but for the Bakemono Warrior battles against archers, I would set the main group back a bit and put two in front to hopefully misdirect the missiles. The Dai Bakemono have enough defense that I just let them eat it; sending one guy up to get surrounded is more likely to result in a casualty than a stray arrow.

40 Bakemono Warriors:
R1-1: Victory, 5 casualties (35W remain)
R1-2: Victory, 7 casualties (28W)
R1-3: Defeat, 4 survivors rout.

R2-1: Victory, 6 cas (34W)
R2-2: Victory, 2 cas (32W)
R2-3: Defeat, 8 survivors

8 Dai Bakemono
R1-1: Victory, no casualties
R1-2: Victory, no casualties
R1-3: Defeat, no survivors

R2-1: Victory, 2 cas (6 Dai remain)
R2-2: Victory, 1 cas (5 Dai)
R2-3: Defeat, no survivors.

Not very conclusive. Both armies run out of steam at the same point on both routes, and neither have enough success to be considered a good investment. Let's try doubling the resource allotment: 80 Bakemono Warriors vs. 16 Dai Bakemono. Note that the Bakemono Warriors start out at a huge disadvantage here: you need 80 leadership to use them all, which means either recruiting a national commander or using two indie commanders. The Dai Bakemono group doesn't need to worry about this, so the Bakemono Warriors need to seriously outperform them to come out on top here. Not to mention the fact that the warriors cost 50% more gold per resource.

80 Bakemono Warriors
R1-1: Victory, 10 cas (70)
R1-2: Victory, 7 cas (63)
R1-3: Victory, 13 cas (49)
R1-4: Victory, 21 cas (28)
R1-5: Victory, 8 cas (20)
R1-6: Defeat, no survivors.

R2-1: Victory, 9 cas (71)
R2-2: Victory, 5 cas (66)
R2-3: Victory, 7 cas (59)
R2-4: Victory, 8 cas (51)
R2-5: Victory, 6 cas, (45)
R2-6: Victory, 13 cas (32)
R2-7: Victory, 7 cas (25)
R2-8: Victory, 8 cas (16 final survivors)

16 Dai Bakemono
R1-1: Victory, no cas
R1-2: Victory, no cas
R1-3: Victory, 2 cas (14)
R1-4: Victory, 5 cas (9)
R1-5: Victory, 1 cas (8)
R1-6: ?????, no survivors (Odd case here...the Dai Bakemono rout and all die, but the Shuten-doji leading them runs up, slaps one barbarian, and the barbarians rout, leaving me in control of the province. I'd count it as a narrow defeat, though.)

R2-1: Victory, 1 cas (15)
R2-2: Victory, 1 cas (14)
R2-3: Victory, no cas (14)
R2-4: Victory, no cas (14)
R2-5: Victory, no cas (14)
R2-6: Victory, 1 cas (13)
R2-7: Victory, no cas (13)
R2-8: Victory, no cas (13 final survivors)

Both gain the same number of provinces in the same amount of time, but the Dai Bakemono suffer casualties at a slower rate in Route 1 and have a much better survival ratio in Route 2. So they cost less, suffer less casualties to attrition, and are much easier to lead. A clear win for the Dai Bakemono.

But let's not write off the Bakemono Warriors right away. What if we mixed both types together, putting some Dai Bakemono up front to absorb arrows and the initial strike with their high protection and then let the Bakemono Warriors swarm around them from behind, defending their flanks and adding more overall firepower? I took the resource allotment down to 300 and tried a few different ratios, with 1/3, 2/3, and 100% resources spent on Dai Bakemono and the rest on Bakemono Warriors.

4 Dai Bakemono, 40 Bakemono Warriors (this is actually dumb, because it's 44 leadership, but whatever)
R1-1: Victory, 1Wcas (4/39)
R1-2: Victory, 1Wcas, 2Dcas (2/38)
R1-3: Victory, 9Wcas, 1Dcas (1/29)
R1-4: Defeat, no survivors

R2-1: Vitory, 1Wcas (4/39)
R2-2: Victory, 2Wcas (4/37)
R2-3: Victory, 3Wcas (4/34)
R2-4: Victory, 5Wcas, 1Dcas (3/29)
R2-5: Victory, 7Wcas, 1Dcas (2/22)
R2-6: Defeat, 7W survive rout

8 Dai Bakemono, 20 Bakemono Warriors
R1: Victory, no cas
R2: Victory, 4Wcas, 1Dcas (7/16)
R3: Victory, 5Wcas, 1Dcas, 3Wflee (6/8) (I'd have lost all my warriors here, but the battle ended before the rest could rout)
R4: Defeat, no survivors

R1A: Victory, 1Wcas, 1Dcas (7/19)
R2A: Victory, 1Wcas (7/18)
R3A: Victory, 2Wcas (7/16)
R4A: Victory, 1Wcas (7/15)
R5A: Victory, 5Wcas (7/10)
R6A: Victory, 5Wcas (7/5)
R7A: Victory, 1Wcas, 1Dcas (6/4)
R8A: Defeat, 2D survive rout

12 Dai Bakemono
R1-1: Victory, no cas
R1-2: Victory, 1 cas (11)
R1-3: Victory, 3 cas (8)
R1-4: Defeat, no survivors

R2-1: Victory, no cas
R2-2: Victory, no cas
R2-3: Victory, no cas
R2-4: Victory, no cas
R2-5: Victory, no cas
R2-6: Victory, 3 cas (9)
R2-7: Victory, 2 cas (7)
R2-8: Victory, 2 cas (5 final survivors)

It's not quite as clear-cut as I would like (the 42 barbarian bottleneck on Route 1 kills everybody), but the general trend seems to be that the more of your resources you spend on Dai Bakemono, the better you do. My tentative conclusion at this stage is that Bakemono Warriors are not an efficient use of gold or resources during the expansion phase, except maybe to fill out the recruit queue when there's less than 25 resources left.

This doesn't necessarily apply to the units' relative worth in a large-scale battle against another player, with archers and magical support and what have you. The Bakemono Warriors might do better there. But they might also do worse, since they may have AoE magic or early routing to worry about. I can't say just based on the data I have. But it seems to be Dai Bakemono or bust as far as early expanding is concerned.

[Baalz]

Nice analysis, and certainly more rigorous than what I did. I was thinking about why my conclusion differed from yours, and I think it's a factor that I didn't think to mention in the original guide - bakemono warriors are going to benefit disproportionally from more advanced deployment tactics. A blob set to hold and attack (with the benefit of an archer screen) is probably how most people would do this, but this is considerably suboptimal for bakemono warriors (well, any swarm troops) in situations where they are fighting lowish protection, human hitpoint troops (most of your test cases). Look at it this way - in a theoretically perfect deployment round one of melee would be each of your guys attacking somebody. That perfect case is never going to be achievable, but the closer you can get to it is a fairly good yardstick for how effective your deployment is. For example, if 80 bakemono warriors were able to each attack 40 barbarians on turn one, there probably wouldn't be any survivors to even rout, giving you a casualty free victory. In the same perfect situation Dai Bakemono are going to have to take a couple rounds of pummeling from the barbarians.

The most obvious factor is who attacks first? Holding and attacking in a blob from mid field seems to generally result in bakemono warriors defending first round of melee. Another factor is what percentage of your troops are on the front line? The percentage is much higher for Dai Bakemono vs bakemono warriors in a blob situation meaning the offense of the warriors is hampered. The warriors are going to perform much better if you can get a bit of flanking going on. How I generally deploy the bakemono warriors for indie expansion is (depending on what I'm attacking of course): split them up into two groups on each side of the battlefield set to hold and attack with a single guy forward of them set to guard commander (preferably a shielded indie troop). What will generally happen is a sandwiching as the indie forces chase the bait into the vice and disintegrate.

I found the warriors to be pretty brutal expansion units, though you're almost certainly right that Dai Bakemono are better blunt instruments and more user friendly.

[DragonRider]

I'll admit that I'm not very good at predicting troop movement to get the first attack. Under normal conditions, I do split up large blobs into multiple smaller squads to improve surface area, but I didn't do it this time because Bakemono Warriors have morale 9 and that means they rout like it's their job. The fewer of them you have in a squad, the more likely they are to do it, and having half of your army pack up and leave in the middle of a fight is a good way to put an end to your expansion plans. This is a problem I frequently had in my informal tests. I'd have a bunch of Dai Bakemono and 15-20 Bakemono Warriors behind them to cover their flanks or fill cracks in their formation, then three of the warriors would die, the rest would flip out and run away, and then the Dai Bakemono also panic and rout and then I would be screwed. Since routing is a very random thing I tried to minimize the odds of that happening for a more controlled environment, but maybe I'll try a few more runs with divided squads and see what happens. (Although this brings up another problem: like an idiot I created the map without max gold and production multipliers, so I had to wait a lot of turns to get enough gold and resources to set up all my armies, so my dominion is all over the place. That means I'm always fighting with 10 morale, instead of sometimes having to deal with 9 or even 8 like in a real game.)

One other potential wrinkle is that I only did endurance tests based on the path of least resistance. It may be that 80 Bakemono Warriors do better than 16 Dai Bakemono when their only job is to mass up and hit those individual provinces with 25 Cataphracts or whatever and attrition is less of a problem. That's another thing I should probably look at.