You hate skill trees just like I do? You just want to play a tactical game without taking to much into consideration what is the best point to place in each the skill tree? It's not like skill trees exist in real life.

If your answer is yes, then you have come to the right place. This guide will tell you the best multiplayer upgrades for general and veteran units so that you can be done with that part of the game and play the enjoyable part of the game without too much worry about whether you picked the best skill tree or your units are going to suffer because of it.

This guide will be a bit more than just what the title says, for I will also explain how the dedicated units work and what is the difference between units, I don't believe you need me to explain how a swordman or spearman works, and you can probably tell that Heavy cavalry is stronger but slower while light cavalry is weaker but faster, but who is better, Archers or Matchlocks? the answer of course it depends on what you're going to use them for, but mostly archers, as long as you're not in close range it's archers, but when you are in close range the Matchlocks deal huge amount of damage to morale, but the Archers outrange them so Archers shooting while Matchlocks being unable to shoot back will almost always be the case, except in the Fall of the Samurai DLC. This guide will explain how these more specialized units work and how they are generally used in battle, what are their strength and their weaknesses, offering you a better understaning of the game overall.

As you may have seen from the description, if we are to make a general rule: attack, defense, morale, range, ammo capacity and accuracy are good, while speed, charge and armor are bad. But if you want to get into more details as well as understand why this is the case, I invite you to read the rest of the guide.

Simple order: Max attack > Max defense > Max morale > Max armor

Max Level depending on Unit Tier:
- Cheap Units = Max Level 2 with 2 points on attack
- Medium Units = Max Level 4 with 2 points on attack and defense
- Elite Units = fully upgraded when reasonable.
Why? Because each level costs you 50 extra gold and you want to make the most of your units.

This is true for: swordsmen, spearmen, light cavalry and heavy cavalry.

Attack is the best. It makes your units break the enemy units better and faster, when you charge with the cavalry the extra attack is also added to the charge.

But if you invest in charge the opposite won't be true, you will have an initial bonus when you chage, but once the charge is done you're back to step 0. You are bettter off focusing attack as attack is added to chager and alos stays during locked combat, and in multiplayer none of the decent players are gonna let you break off and recharge again and again. Things like speed and charge sound nice but investing them into attack and defense is always better. I already explained why charge is inferior to attack.

As for speed, light cavalry is always going to be faster than heavy cavalry no matter how much speed you invest in it. So use light cavalry to chase down horse archers or better still just take them out with foot archers. No matter how much speed you invest in heavy cavalry, they will never be faster than light cavalry. They may become faster than other heavy cavalry, but not stronger. The extra speed you invest in a unit is that that big and will not make much of a difference, so invest those points in something more useful like attack, defense and morale.

Armor sounds more important than defense, but it really doesn't help much, it's worse than defense. It is painfully clear that a unit with marginally better defense but worse armor will beat the unit with better armor but marginally lower defense. If they have the same other stands and no help from other units or better maneuverability, in a 1vs1 fight, the unit with much better armour but marginally lower defence gets masacred every time. So, defense is better than armor.

Morale makes units harder to break and to run away from the battlefield, when they see that they are losing the battle morale starts to drop, when they are under fire from archers morale starts to drop, when they see that they are attacked from the flanks too or worse encryrcled, morale starts to drop even worse, when they see that there are fewer of them remained alive morale will drop, have your or their morale dropped down enough and they will start to run from the battlefield.

Morale is helped by the general who automatically encoruages the units that are around him, when defending in a siege units on the same level with the castle will never break morale and will fight to the last man, morale is restored by winning fights with other units and by the General's "Rally" ability. Every type of unit has a different amount of morale, peasant units are usually easier to break while elite units are harder to break, you can see their default morale in the units stats, maxium morale can be increased by upgrading the morale when a unit becomes veteran.

So the best skill tree upgrades to do, for all infantry and cavalry in the game, is to first max upgrade attack then max upgrade defense then max upgrade morale.

However, you may not always want to upgrade a unit to an astronomical level. As each veteran unit will cost 50 more gold with each upgrade, so you want to get the most out of each unit. Sometimes you can over upgrade units, avoid doing that.

For example: Katana Samurai costs 750. A veteran level 4 Katana Samurai costs 750 + 4x50 = 950. These 4 upgrades are attack and defense. If you go the whole way and boost morale and armor too, would that really make your 8x50 = 1150 gold Katana Samurai significantly better?

Expensive started units, the most expensive units of their category are worth being upgraded beyond that to their max potential, even if they cost like hell, they will be your best and elite units.

But it's not worth the same upgades for Katana Samurai, make them maximum level 4 or Yari Ashigaru who are cheap units when you have leftovers, make them maximum level 2 with 2 points on attack. You would be better off just starting with Spear Samurai in the first place than a highly upgraded Yari Ashigaru.

Add 2 attack points to the Yari Ashigaru veteran and be done with it, this will be enough to dominate the regular Yari Ashigaru without adding too much to cost.

So, for elite units: max them out. For middle ground units: make them 4 levels: invest in attack and defense. For cheap units make them 2 levels invest in attack.

Range is more difficult than infantry and cavalry. There are a lot of variations in available upgrades between them and it also depends what you want to use them for.

Archers used for Siege: Max Range > Max Ammo Capacity > Max Accuracy
Archers used for Morale Break: Max Reloading > Max Accuracy > Max Whistling Arrows
The archers used for morale break are less about killing and more about breaking morale.
Matchlocks: Max Reloading > Max Accuracy
Mounted Archers: Max Range > Max Accuracy > Max Defense
Mounted Matchlocks: Max Range > Max Speed > Max Defense or Max Accuracy

For ranged units, you can't always follow the order, it depends on intended use of unit, unlike swordsmen, spearmen, heavy cavalry and light cavalry that always follows melee path of max attack, max defense, max morale, max armor.

- In a siege battle, range and ammunition are the most important.
- In a field battle, morale in a field battle morale reductions to enemy are key.

So skills that can increase morale damage or increase accuracy to quickly destroy enemy morale are more effective. It's unlikely that an archer unit will get to use their ammo in a field battle after all. Field battle archers will be likely killed before they even use 50% of their arrows so other elements are more important.

This is why with Archers you will need to be more thoughtful. Think about what you intend to use it for and adjust accordingly.

When you are stuck behind fortifications, on either side, range becomes really important. If you can shoot them without return fire you're heading towards victory. So the best skill tree upgrades to do, for siege archers is to first max upgrade range then max upgrade ammunition then max upgrade accuracy.

While for field archers, reloading would allow you to send rapid volleys into the enemy and accuracy is going to boost the kill ratio. Reloading should be picked ahead of accuracy as it would keep a more sustained hail of arrows on the target which will apply more modifiers to the morale. The best skill tree upgrades for field archers are: max reloading then max accuracy then max whistling arrows for maximum morale damage.

While whistling arrows is an amazing choice for field archers, better than reloading and accuracy, those might not unlock until veterancy level 5 and are not always possible on all archers either, many units are unable to upgrade the same upgrades. The premise is still correct in this guide but the order might need tailoring for each archer unit due the differeing skill trees on some of them.

Do not waste points on defense, as when the archers are attacked they are attacked by other archers, and when they aren't attacked by other archers, they will likely lose regardless of how many points they have added in defense.

Matchlocks are the most effective as a wall of defense, but you have to keep the enemy archers out of range until their units get close to the wall. The fire of matchlock units breaks unit morale fast. Reloading is very important with Matchlocks as this takes considerable time and will break enemy units faster. After reloading, accuracy and sometimes range, but keep the units upgrades focused on what they are intended to do.

For example the Donderbuss Cavalry are Mounted Matchlocks units. They have one purpose, run close enough to shoot, shoot once then withdraw and reload, come back and shoot again, basically to harass the enemy units. Reload is slow, but you can take time by withdrawing.

So for Mounted Matchlocks things like Range, as they are very short range, would are nice. Because of their use for harassment, speed is important and some defense to reduce the number of casualties if they do get a couple stragglers caught by counter charge and in the end maybe some accuracy to make them even more devastating. You can choose between max defense or max accuracy for the 3rd option if you want to play more safe or more offensive with them.

Mounted Matchlocks are shock troops, although they will inflict casualties, it is the morale damage that is the greatest asset. They take so long to reload staying close while reloading is suicide, so they are a hit and run unit. Hit and run at opportune times to cause enemy units to break.

Mounted Archers on the other hand, don't have such a slow reload so this tactic of shoot, run, return is a waste of time for them, they also have lower damage than Mounted Matchlocks. Mounted Archers are going to kill more and at a longer range in a fight, they can be effective even against Riflemen from Fall of the Samurai DLC, so you will want for them increased range and accuracy to maximize their damage. The goal with the Mounted Archers is to force your opponent to react or be whittled down with arrows.

There is no best formula for the Mounted Archers or Mounted Matchlocks. Bonuses of range, ammo capacity and accuracy are usually great for them, but you need to tailor them to intended role. For example, with field battle Archers you're going to want Whistling Arrows first and ammo will be less important. For the Matchlocks, reload speed is important. For the Mounted Matchlocks, reload speed is not that important since waiting to reload without falling back is suicide.

In the Fall of the Samurai DLC the Riflemen are a lot better than Archers. But in the base game or Rise of the Samurai DLC Archers trump Matchlocks every time, whether it's foot or mounted archers vs matchlocks. The archers can simply outrange the matchlocks everytime.

Most people use either the Fire Rockets or the Hojo Hand Mortars. If you find yourself facing enemy Fire Rockets or Hojo Hand Mortars then spread out your troops, you are going to take casualties but spreading out and moving units to dodge fire will cut losses.

Fire Rockets and Hojo Hand Mortars: max ammo > max accuracy > max range or reload.

The best upgrade for Fire Rockets and Hojo Hand Mortar is definetly ammo, as they have very high damage when they hit the target but very limited ammo. If you can keep them alive long enough that extra ammo will pay off. After ammo max accuracy. Then prerhaps some reload or range but those are less important.

Due to their already big range, if you are facing them either in siege or field battle, it's unlikely that you will avoid damage, the best protection against this is spreading out your troops. You are going to take casualties but the rockets are woefully inaccurate, they are only doing so much damage as people tend to bunch army up.

The Fire Rockets and Hojo Hand Mortars are very expensive, so your army will be strong enough to take some of those casualties and still dominate. Close the distance once in range and quickly overwhelm the enemy if possible. If defending in a siege you need to just accept the situation and move troops out of the cover of the wall to mitigate the damage a little.

Ninjas on the other hand are not worth it, they are too expensive. They have interesting mechanics but you can buy 2 Sword Samurai at the cost of 1 Ninja.

The strength of the Ninjas is in the grenades they can throw, they are very disruptive to morale and can cause enemy units to panic and run, if you set them to walk and not run they are invisible to enemy units until they are really close, combine this with the standard cover bonus that a unit gets while in a forest and they make for perfect ambush units, just like ninjas are supposed to be. They also climb walls faster in siege battles. But they are too expensive to worth their gold.

Perhaps the most important skill tree of them all. 19 skill trees were made, 3 for the elves, 7 for the dwarves and 9 for men. But they were deceived, for another skill tree was made, one skill tree to rule them all, the skill tree of the General.

Whether you want to use veteran units or not is your choice, they can be uprageded but cost 50 more gold with each upgrade. But no matter what you do, you will have to use your General, so the General's skill tree is perhaps the most important and the most flexible.

There is no best formula for the General's skil tree, instead, there are many ways and styles to play the General, it was perhaps the most carefully checked for balance, I will list a few styles.

The 4 trees are:
- Leadership
- Bow Mastery
- Physical
- Melee Combat

The leadership, bow mastery and melee combat trees are all good, there are people playing multiplayer with all 3 trees. The physical tree is more like a side tree, it offers speed, fatigue ressistance and hitpoint bonus, they are only useful when you need them to unlock perks from the bow mastery or melee combat tree.

At low level battles, those are levels with low level generals and small size battles, the leadership tree is good, because your army is small and the General's "Rally" and "Inspire" bonuses can make the most of it. However, at medium level and medium size battles of 10.000 gold each, leadership is perhaps the best choice you can have, it becomes more effective than before as the armies are larger but the elite units are relatively few and there are many low morale units, making that extra morale buff a great asset. At high to max level and large battles the leadership tree becomes less good, since the armies are now huge making the bonuses of the General insignificant, and most of those units are elite units that already have high morale to begin with.

In team games leadership is even more powerful. Since the huge circle of stand and fight will include the armies of your allies as well. In 3vs3 games you will always want to have one leadership General with you.

So, leadership: small battles good, medium battles amazing, large battles not as powerful unless you play 2vs2 or 3vs3.

Bow Mastery is the opposite of leadership, the greater the level of the Generals and the larger the battles, the more useful Bow Mastery becomes. The arrow doesn't care how powerful a melee unit is, they hit an Ashigaru unit the same way they hit a Samurai unit. The difference is, the Bow Mastery General will deal a lot more cash damage to the enemy in larger battles since there are a lot more expensive units around.

However, in larger battles the risk that your General will be catched by a Light or Heavy Cavalry with many upgraded veterans and and beaten is a lot higher than in small or medium battles. A bow hero will get smashed in 3 volleys from the Bow Mastery General.

The Bow Mastery isn't simply a conversion of the General to an average mounted archery unit. It becomes the best mounted archery unit. The range is 200, the accuracy 95 and the reload skill is 80. You can get armor piercing and whistling. The range is the max for bow units, a bow hero is the only unit which can get to 200 as well.

Tip: In game you can check easy, if your enemy generals have a bow or not, just zoom into their generals, you will see their men having bows.

So, bow mastery: the larger the battle the more useful Bow Mastery becomes.

Melee Generals are a no brainer, you focus on as much damage and defense for your general as possible. Make your General as powerful and as resistant as possible. The last perks "No Penalty Against Spears" and "Increased Bodyguard Size" are simply amazingly powerful.

The big advance of Melee General is that with high defense and high armor, the General is a lot less fragile. He can take some shots and won't get killed easy from normal bow units or melee and cavalry units in general. But beware, that the enemy Bow Mastery General with armor pierce is dangerous. He can deal significant damage to the Melee General at range in a short time.

Melee are best at small and medium battles as they can beat almost any unit 1vs1, where as a leadership or Bow Mastery general will be afraid of sending their generals to the action as he can get killed easer, the melee general is a lot more resistant and powerful, but not invulnerable so be careful. But in larger battles, there tend to be elite units with veteran units that have better stats than the melee General and as such the melee General's stats are worth less.

So, melee: the smaller the battle the more useful Melee General becomes.

In short:
Small battles: Melee the best, leadership second, bow mastery last; but all 3 close.
Medium battles: Leadership the best, bow mastery second, melee last; but 2nd and 3rd close.
Large battles: Bow mastery the best, melee second, leadership last.
These are all on average, even from bow mastery to leadership in large battles, the difference isn't that big to make or break a battle just by itself.

It's far from realistic to assume that a bow mastery general will stump a leadership general in a large battle just because that player picked the leadership general.

Best upgrades for Veteran units:
All Infantry and Cavalry: attack > defense > morale > armor.
Siege Archers: range > ammo > accuracy.
Field Archers: reloading > accuracy > whistling arrows.
Matchlocks: reloading > accuracy.
Mounted Archers: range > accuracy > defense.
Mounted Matchlocks: range > speed > defense or accuracy.
Fire Rockets and Hojo Hand Mortars: ammo > accuracy > range or reload.

Max Level depending on Unit Tier:
- Cheap Units = Max Level 2 with 2 skill points used.
- Medium Units = Max Level 4 with 4 skill points used.
- Elite Units = fully upgraded when reasonable.
Each level costs you 50 extra gold and you want to make the most of your units.

General skill tree builds:
- Leadership build, best on medium battles.
- Melee build, best on small battles.
- Bow Mastery build, best on large battles.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helps you understand Total War: Shogun 2 better and play better online. Good luck!

Honor thy Group Chat: There are many multiplayer chat groups in Shogun 2, but none is like the Ashigaru S Chat. We are masters of the Ashigaru units, masters of peasantry, like the Oda clan, that's where the S comes from in the chat's name, it stands for skill, skill with the Ashigaru units. Next time you win an online battle, win it in the name of Ashigaru S Chat.

If you want to learn the true history of Sengoku Jidai, the campaign map from the base game, I recommend watching this Extra Credits series:

If you only want the short version, spoilers:The Oda clan made an alliance with the Tokugawa clan and together they conquered most of Japan. Oda Nobunaga was a great warrior and master tactician. He captured Kyoto and defeated many great clans, most notably the Takeda clan and Ashikaga shogunate. He also had a keen interest in western technology which began entering Japan with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1543. He clashed with Buddhist monasteries and warrior monks who possessed great political power.

Eventually Oda Nobunaga and his eldest son were forced to commit suicide in order to avoid capture by a traitor general named Mitsuhide in 1582. Another general of the former Oda clan leader called Hideyoshi killed that other general and took power. The leader of the Tokugawa clan called Tokugawa Ieyasu didn't like that Hideyoshi took the power and rose up against Hideyoshi in support of Oda Nobukatsu but the battle eventually reached a stalemate. Tokugawa Ieyasu then accepted Hideyoshi's new function as imperial regent and remained daimyo but was granted a few special privileges that would rise him above other daimyo. Hideyoshi completed Oda Nobunaga's war of unification shortly afterwards.

When Hideyoshi died in 1598 with a baby as a heir, Tokugawa did exactly what Hideyoshi did to the Oda clan and took the power that was supposed to go to his heir. The forces loyal to Hideyoshi led by clashed with the Tokugawa forces at Sekigahara in 1600, were defeated, and Tokugawa Ieyasu became the new ruler of all of Japan. He gave up his shogun title in 1605 to his son in order to avoid what happened with Oda Nobunaga and Hideyoshi before him. By the time he died in 1610, his son was already a well respected shogun for 5 years and there were no plots or attempts to take away his power.

Here are 5 Japanese clans that still exist today:

If you want to learn the history of various Sengoku Jidai characters:

Oda Nobunaga tribute, the song is Mi Nombre Será Leyenda by Tierra Santa:

"If you wish for peace, then prepare for war" - Oda Nobunaga

"Without destruction there is no creation, there is no change." - Oda Nobunaga

"The so-called intelligent people are all good at reverse thinking." - Oda Nobunaga

"Luck influences everything in life, but nothing beats setting goals and striving body and soul to achieve them." - Hideyoshi Toyotomi

"The final secret is that there is no secret. Devote yourself to your leader. Work hard. Be grateful. Act boldly. Some may deride such suggestions as commonplace, and they'd be right: They are common. But to see them successfully enacted in this world is rare indeed." - Hideyoshi Toyotomi

"Fight only after creating conditions for victory." - Hideyoshi Toyotomi

"Persuade yourself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair." - Tokugawa Ieyasu

"When ambitious desires arise in your heart, recall the days of extremity you have passed through. Forbearance is the root of all quietness and assurance forever." - Tokugawa Ieyasu

"There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience." - Tokugawa Ieyasu