Japanese Sohei Hammer- Created by CookieCrisp13- TAD Patch 1.01

Japanese Onin Sohei Hammer

Welcome back to the newest installment of strategy, a little something I have been testing out in both team games and 1v1s. It is the Sohei allies Rush. Lets have a look:
Deck:
[JPEG, (152.00 KB)]


11 Sohei Allies
A simple pikemen card it seems, for 500 gold. Too costly? Maybe. If used in the correct way, this card can absolutely shock your opponent. The stats:

ypNatSohei
Hitpoints: 140
Siege: 38
Attack: 13 (3.5 vs cav, 2.5 vs coyotes)
LOS: 12
Armor: 20% hand resist
Speed: 5
Cost from native: F-55, W-40 (45 gold from card)

These guys have some pretty nice siege. Lets compare that with a samurai:

ypKensei
Hitpoints: 230
Siege: 67
Attack: 25 (1.7 vs cav, 1.5 vs coyotes)
LOS: 16
Armor: 30% hand resist
Speed: 5
Cost: F–100 G-100

Those Sohei are 1/4th the cost of samurai, the Jap’s powerhouse sieger and fighter. Also they train pretty fast (or will with the next part)
The Consulate

This building here gives you several options all to great effect. I’m not too sure on the levels at which they are attainable.

Spain (lvl 40)- Spain is one of my favorite, one of my first choices early game. Why?

a slight xp trickle (.8 sec)

Merchant marine, which decreases the shipment time in half for all shipments (-50%)
Ports (lvl 0)- the bonus is a reduction in non-coin building costs (wood and food). This can lead to a faster age up at 640 food as well as a reduction in shrine cost to 108 wood.

Besterios are decent xbows for japs

Fishing boats for a better economy are always welcome
Isolation (lvl 0)- one to be reckoned with. Adds 10% attack (in all ways including siege) to your land units. A GREAT passive bonus indeed

Batch training in tens is great

a military rickshaw grants a stable or rax in need
Dutch (lvl 20)- a great economic faction, as the coin bonus is appreciated. Probably an afterthought after a failed or pushed back rush.

Bank is a great eco bonus

Church helps with LOS, Mercantalism, and unit train times

excellent military unit (6 stadhouders) even though you already have good musks >
and there we have it, the consulate options for the Japanese!

One other item that is used here is the card Onin war, which increases the siege of all your units by a whopping 33%! Think of it as ransack for the Japanese.


okay… that was enough pre rambling, lets get on to the strategy:

Discovery Age

Keep all vills on crates until fully gathered all wood and food. Build a shrine and after that set one villager onto building a consulate.

Set explorers to gather every food, gold, wood, and xp treasure you can (I mean all the small ones, and medium ones). Emphasize wood if you don’t have enough for a consulate, after that look for gold and food.

send your first card, being Good Faith Agreements.


Your age up should be with the Shrine, and set around six villagers on it. Age with around ten villagers or less.
Why? Because the shrine will help your crap economy recover from the fast age up, as well as provide 20 population slots for military. The 200 export is also one of the main reasons for this wonder.


while aging gather 500 gold and just enough food (if you can) to keep up constant villager production.

be sure to ally with spain, and set the consulate to a hotkey which is easily accessible.
Colonial Age

AS SOON AS YOU AGE UP select your hotkey and click the Merchant Marine (looks like the bottom of a ship going through water) upgrade. DO NOT SEND THE SOHEI YET! Wait until the upgrade is done, or it will have no effect on the shipment!


once you finish collecting gold, set half of your villagers on wood and half on food. You’re looking to get a barracks out and on the field.

Your first shipment in colonial should be 11 Sohei


With your next shipment, (should be soon, build some shrines or vills to get xp for it) ship Onin War



Send your Sohei in to your enemy’s TC to start sieging. Ally with isolation to allow your 10% additional siege take effect. Once onin war is in, your Sohei should have 50 siege!. Be carefull of minutemen- if you see them fall back and amass some yumi or ashigaru to compliment your army.

If you are rushing a native who has no minutemen or just hasn’t called any out, be sure to micro your Sohei. When the town center fires at an unharmed Sohei, select it and put it in cover mode, which will make it last an additional two shots. Continue to do this until the tc is torn down.

Next shipment should be economy, like four villagers

That’s all I have for now, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me add a couple notes of my findings:

-This works best on maps that give you a bit of extra crates (obviously) such as deccan. The treasures there are great also.
- Ill have some recs up as soon as I can, been busy lately
-This has also worked for me and my buddy in a sling type fashion, to moderate success
-If used properly, you can take down the tc under six minutes

well, thanks for reading, now go take down some tcs, Yoi!

Card order:
Good Faith Agreements
11 Sohei
Onin war

wao this strategy makes japan quick brutal rush country in specific maps.
i tried it out and it definitely works! nice strategy!!!

btw i found some better method in addition to yours.
get daimyo card in second age and 5 ashigarus, yumis, and 3 samurais make this method better in some points.

instead of the shipment which make sohei's siege, u can get daimyo shipment at the third choice. daimyo can boost sohei as 46 siege attack. but the point here is daimyo siege is 44. and hitpoint is 650 in the second age, and he can be the place to receive new shipments. and u choose one of yumi, ashi, or samurais along with enemy's defence. esp samurai can be the alternative to sohei if enemy could kill ur sohei before u cut down the town center.

as long as u break enemy's town center, there is no hope for ur opponent... so aggresive and nice tactics!!! awesome.
i hope my points also work.

oh and u dun really have to build barrack in that sense coz daimyo can train INSIDE of the enemy town; so maybe u can build some yumis.

Sorry, but getting Yumis this early would be no real advantage. They shouldnt have military by the time youve got 11 Sohei in their town, just use the Sohei to raze any barracks building sites and youll be fine. Let them build a stable by all means

Get the diamyo only after youve destroyed a fair few houses and prevented him from getting barracks, whilst having 11-22 Shoei and 5-10 Ashigarus. Then you can just spam Shinobi/ Yamabushi and pwn him.

~Admin~Kestrel~ wrote:Sorry, but getting Yumis this early would be no real advantage. They shouldnt have military by the time youve got 11 Sohei in their town, just use the Sohei to raze any barracks building sites and youll be fine. Let them build a stable by all means

Get the diamyo only after youve destroyed a fair few houses and prevented him from getting barracks, whilst having 11-22 Shoei and 5-10 Ashigarus. Then you can just spam Shinobi/ Yamabushi and pwn him.

Yes, that is true what you said. but here, what i meant was that some able player can protect his TC well by their irregulars and those instant army. usually, even making a sohei cover mode, they can finish them up b4 we break enemy TC coz if they are fast enough to age up then they can get army shipment too. sometimes china or spain bring monks and dogs... in such situation, although I do not wanna rush against china and spanish by this method, i prefer to send daimyo so that he can be a good block against them and get free shipments. the main tactic here should be to break enemy TC then gg usually. so to let sohei alive is the most important factor. thats why i said yumi or whatever suitable shipment soldiers to counter enemy small troops.

btw, i tried another method... bring all villagers together to TC. this is "japanese kamikaze" method. villagers can be a good meatfield against those instant soldiers as u know the negative bonus of instant army from TC. meanwhile u can save ur soheis and beat down enemy TC. once u break TC, bring villagers back and let soheis to kill enemy villagers. i think this ur brilliant tactic let only japan to rush with villagers lolz.

anyways, thanks for the tactic of you. this makes enemy's face so pale lol

No prob. Although the Soheis alone cant break a good players TC, you'll definitely have the economic advantage whilst you continue destroying his houses. Then it just comes naturally.

~Admin~Kestrel~ wrote:No prob. Although the Soheis alone cant break a good players TC, you'll definitely have the economic advantage whilst you continue destroying his houses. Then it just comes naturally.

taunt21 lol. definitely. sohei rush rocks. btw, adding to the things i stated the last reply, i also bring my irregulars by letting my villagers gather 80 more golds while soheis are coming. bring them are pretty effective coz they can hopefully take down some units against soheis or be good meatfields too. if enemy TC try to hit my irregulars, its nice that my soheis survive longer.

and, i know it is off-topic here, but i recently have problems against good aztec 2R player... my method is usually win on both eco and original strong military strength of japan so age up to the third age is necessary coz i can get 4flaming arrows or 14 villagers immediately once after i build that japanese castle wonder. either way, if enemy let me do that, it means i win coz i can make constant ashis and get free flaming arrows and so on... but u know, in the second age, 20 macehualitins (dunno the right spell) and 5 coyotes at 6: something just make me stuck inside of TC. and some more soldiers of the opponent just come to take down my TC... maybe the spanish consulate plus torii gate might be the solution coz i can get a free rax plus just needa build stable. and get free military shipments quicker. but so far, the guy who i played own me. i feel so trouble on aztec now. do you have any ideas how to counter and let japan to boom better than aztec (at least, when i had team play against him, i used british but his eco was almost as same as mine even though i usually have the best eco on team play = aztec is actually good for eco...)?

if you think this is not suitable comment, plz delete it. but plz gimme an email or make some new thred for countering aztec. i needa help.

thanks

Solution: Dont play Japanese against Aztecs. You will get owned, regardless of what you do. Japs have a fairly slow start compared to other civs, whilst an Aztec Fast Rush will easily have 19 maces by the time you get your 11 Sohei. Then they can just ship Pumas and Coyotes and kill you quickly.