I tried it, and it's really good. And now that it's summer, Ihave plenty of time to play. Now the question is if I want to.

Anyone had a chance to try out the new patch yet?

Well new patch guys. I'll have to wait and see what it does for us.

Do you mean in a siege or on the open field? In a siege make you sure you have at least two bow units, they can both be ashigaru or one can be a better unit. Have them man the walls to keep the steady steam of fire going. Matchlock are very effective at scaring the enemy as well. From there you just have to manage with lower cost units like throwing away yari ashigaru to block a charge of 4 or 5 units. Still go for quality, but only have 2 veterans as opposed to all veterans.

How are you guys dealing with these ridiculous 5k battles against lower ranked players? What kind of army set ups are you going for? As of now my general costs 1350, and he doesn't hold his worth in coin when it comes to the battlefield.

Yea thats what I've been trying to do. The trouble is I've got a little sick of 1v1s so (for now), so I've been tring to play some 2v2s with my cousin (I'll be recruiting him if hes any good), but that gives us 2x the chance of hitting bugs so we haven't been able to play many games.

Troops, for now thinks are looking too buggy to have a consistent battle approach. It would still be helpful to the war effort for you all to get out there, capture some dojos on your peronal maps, and get some good practice in. We will be making a seriosu effort at this, we just need the bugs to be fixed first.

Hey fudge, my apologies my comptuer was being strange :I I underestimated the roll over, i thought it would be later today. Oops!

I'm glad to be rid of Samourai. We can't take them on now. I'll be posting a bulleting shortly, and Fudge - thanks for your efforts

Well I didn't make it, I fought 5 battles for the Sea of Hyuga, I won 2, which would have been enough but they haven't counted. I then started encountering cannon and siege tower bunes, which I was unable to counter.

Just an announcement deadline seems to be 1pm bst (british summer time)
which I think is 5am pst, I think.

I dont know what TheDougem thinks, as hes unresponsive - afk or In a battle right now I'd Assume, however if we want a chance at promotion we need to move in the next 3-4 hours.

Im reluctant to post targets as these private steam groups are not secure, if you are on and want targets, contact me in group chat.

Altough I have to say, we dont want to end up on the same map as them, a little searching for their steam page revealed this event:

OPERATION SAVAGE THUNDER

Today @ 07:00pm <-This is BST by the way so its after the new map.

7SAMURAI are unleashed on a new map on Monday with Operation Savage Thunder. This daylong offensive will be of such violent intensity and savage, awful beauty that other clans may simply quit or at least be reduced to a catatonic state. Their members staring off into space confused and traumatized like Mr. Miyagi after a long night of drinking.

lol im ranked in the top 2000 in the world

I agree Fudge. Try to identify other weakspots, I'll make a quiet announcement via private channels as to a target.

A possibility that we may still gain promotion (if we decided we want to, there are definate advantages of remaining in this bracket, but someone big might move up from below, or we might move up into a differnent group so it bears thinking about):

On our clan map nothing has changed in a few days, but the SAMOURAI points haven't changed much either. The Naval Provence, Sea of Hyuga, has 300 7SAMOURAI Points, That is only 40 more than us at 260.

That means in 3 (recorded) wins we could be back in control of a provence (or 2 if using the clan retainer) , which would put is in 2nd place. With just over a day remaining on the season, if we endevored to do it at such a time that SAMOURAI wouldn't be able to auganise a responce, then we might be in with a chance.

Ferret - I'll check with him, or try to at least. I don't maintain any kind of contact with PoM, so I'd have to do a lot of digging to find the best way to reach him.

Just a thought doubt he would do it, But have you thought about asking PoM once he gets the game to join the clan, Even if he dosn't it would still be a way to show support for one of the bigger TW names out there. The only reason I think there is even a chance that it may work is that the multiplayer format is so diffrent from the older ones so he may feel more inclined to join a group

we need more mes to win this thing

Fudge: I'm not surprised. In the next few days, I'll do a more formal video about the clan, and I'll make us a facebook page. We need to spread word, and I need to start doing replay video commentaries like I said I would! Remember, members - we need ya'all to spread the word, and continue to personally excell in your efforts. Let's try to have staying power.

wow, Reading around the offical forums it sounds like we have been lucky. There are talks of 200-1000 member clans.

For folks having trouble with a borked link: Remove the space in 'annou ncement'. Says pretty much what we know, but it seems some things have been bumped up from the former ETA of a month. Goody Gumdrops!

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/11884-Multiplayer-announcement

Steam broke the link :(

Also http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/11884-Multiplayer-announcement <-- :)

Well, Im not the most sucsessful land battler, so I wont comment on that, but with naval battles, I find A solid core of small bow ships seem to carry a lot of weight, as they cause a lot of damage for their price (unfortuanatly the limits on fleet size only make this viable on medium and small) and as an added bonus can set things on fire. I then take between 1-3 medium bunes, and these press in first as a sort of tank/damage dealer, as they have a respectable range damage as well as a resonable morale and hull strength. Then the bow ships press in behind, or flank the enemy and set larger ships on fire, or just break their morale. I also use my small ships in groups of 2-3 to hunt their bow ships. Finaly I take an extra large ship on medium, These also tank, and Board ships that get too close or have weakened morale.

Oh dear. I think its all battles on the capital now, We appear to be cleared off the map.

any big tips for battles

Ferret: Yes. Goo: We have to press on regardless, we don't have much other choice. Too: YES Everyone: I may call for a focus exclusively on the capital if things get bad enough. Stay tuned.

should we use group chat

damn, this game really doesn't function properly. Can't find a match and our capital is once again taken.

Is any one else having problems getting the clan page in game to come up, When ever I click on it or even the clan map territory thing it says the clan server is down or somthing along those lines.

Areus: it's not known. What mucks up the process is the fact that multiplayer is fundamentally broken, and all we can do is keep pressing on and hope we don't get over penalized for it.

so does anyone know the update rate for the clan wins, i won roughly and hour ago in a sea held by 7 samourai and earned more than enough influence to take from them for us.

Hey, they took our capital! We need to take it back, and defend our teriorory. I'm going to try to retalitate and take there capital andoceans too.

Allan - details will be posted later, but for now we are doing things on the fly. Check this page every day for announcements and orders. Long run - we'll be doing internal tournaments and organized teams based on personal specalties. For now - our goal is to get 2nd place in our current bracket.

The disk sitll gets on to steam. I got a disk, I always do.

I gotta remember to get the game cause for total war games i always get a disk xD

so how does this clan thing work?

Hey, try not to forget to go to the clan chatroom when you're on. I often being alone in there.

Also note: Our spear specialisation takes the form of a retainer, this retianer also gives us 5 extra influence per battle for the clan, which in the current situation could be vital. I've played all too many battles where the only retainer my enemy brings to the field is the -1 morale for ashigari units

I'm just going to make my sugestions from my experience so far. Several times i've faced an enemy who's unit concintration and formation could have beteen me, but when we engage, his formation get's shot to hell. I'll end up with a ball of the enemy troops, leaving his flanks, archers, and everything open. Also, always try to keep at least one reserve troop, preferably yari. The are extreamly usefull when the enemy trys to take out your archers or soldiers from behind with calvary. They can also inflict that last necicary charge on a ball of soldiers flank. I.E. Avoid ameba formation.

My thoughts: Morale is key in these battles. I'm finding that a near exclusively leadership focused general is a terror when combined with the more elite units. I have found that Naginata combined with traits that bolster morale and combat effectiveness do -extremely- well in sieges, both on attack and defense. I would encourage everybody to take a little time to conquer the landa on their peronsal battle maps that allow them to exploit their preferred style of combat. Just remember - we are spear focused, take advantage of this where it will help you.

...Continued from above. Cavery seem to be fairly difficult to counter, with Yari units having to react to them, rather than the other way around. I think I might have to make a landgrab for some yari cav to cover this weakness. My final observation is it seems no matter what type of units you're using. Ashigari or Samuri Morale is a problem (especialy with most enemies seeming to exclusively run the - morale retinue) The general is vital to keeping a force in position, and I've noticed that the force that loses its general seems to be the force that loses, dispite how the battle seemed to be going before hand, so using him agressively seems to be out of the question, next level Im going to pick up bow for him so he can contribute while staying safe. What are your thoughts.

Ok, I seem to be excelling at naval battles at the minute, but the majority of my land battles have ended in really close defeats.

Observations so far. Small ships seem to be the way to go on navel battles.
Im running a small fleet of the flagship, and medium and 3 smalls, and I win nearly every naval battle I play. I even took down a medium fleet with a Flagship, 1 Heavy, 3 Mediums and 5 Smalls. Which is 2000 under budget.

Land battles seem to mirror this arrangement, with the more numorus Ashigari units being the way to go over the more elite troops. I've been working a few samuri units into my force and the enemy really seems to outnumber me (there are talks of an explot on the forums that lets you exceed the army sizes, but I attempt to give my opponetnts the beniefit of th doubt. Continued below...