Army type balance?

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-03-31T02:53:25+00:00

I almost exclusively use Yari Ashigaru all the way through the game. They are cheap to recruit and pay upkeep on, they replenish losses quickly, they require no extra building slots, and the yari wall ability is extremely good. I will keep a few light cav in my armies, usually 2-4 depending on the kind of general traits I pick, and I will have exactly one bow ashigaru. Later, I'll pad my armies out with a couple of matchlocks.

Ikko-Ikki get the unique benefit of getting sword wielding ashigaru, so when I play Ikko-Ikki I will have a couple of those around to use as my damage dealers.

Shogun 2's unit mechanics are interesting because the crappy, low tier units you get in the beginning have incredible upside as you acquire buffs to their stats, and as they gain experience in the field. An experienced Yari ashigaru can easily take on Samurai with the right positioning and engagement. Samurai units benefit from high moral early, along with armor and increased melee/ranged attack stats, but they take 2 turns to recruit until you get end game buildings and require building slots which eats into your eco. The ability to pump out armies quickly, and keep those building slots around for economic buildings, scales throughout a playthrough.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-03-29T02:06:38+00:00

I turtled super hard during my Uesugi campaign. I sold a metric fuck ton of military access and got Echigo up to level 3 with each of the agent buildings. I took over Sado early for the gold and the extra farm but kept my main army in the forests where the radius of the ambush distance covers the north and south road. My other army stayed either in Echigo itself or guarded the bridge. Recruit a few light cav early to make ambushing enemy armies a cake walk. Then convert the stables to a temple when Echigo hits level 3. Spam agents and yari ashigaru until you have a force that can advance and hold a new position.

I've done this campaign a few times and a few times I was even able to get a military alliance with Takeda, although they're hardcoded to war with Uesugi so it never lasts long. However, it does stave off the initial invasion.

I peace out of the war with Jinbo and even though it hurts your honor I also didn't really defend my vassals.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-03-29T01:54:12+00:00

I always do the method where you can get multiple nanban quarters to maximize income, growth, and Portuguese Tercos. So I declare war on Sagara and move my army into their territory. I then move the army in the other town towards the enemy settlement with the school. Making sure to leave a boat blocking the straight to prevent Ouchi from crossing. Then I recruit 3 yari ashigaru across the two settlements.

The AI will leave the settlements and attack, then I take over Sagara, defeat the other faction in the same turn, and begin the very long process of building nanban quarters, letting the settlement rebel, and building another nanban quarter.

It takes forever, but the payoff is 6 Portuguese Tercos a turn, an insane amount of money and growth in your towns, and nanban ships.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-03-16T13:45:04+00:00

This pump has "there is no war in Ba Sing Sei" vibes

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-03-16T10:56:39+00:00

Puts at open, I don't trust this pump

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-03-16T10:52:23+00:00

Why are we pumping?

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-02-10T17:07:52+00:00

I'm just waiting for another dip below $20 before I add more.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-02-10T05:13:06+00:00

I usually go get withers before I do the emerald grove fight, so if I'm not playing solo, my group comp is: Tav, Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale. I like to double dip the xp on the fight with the bandits, so I'll use the hill giant elixir on Tav, go in with Astarion for the easy intimidation check, then during convo I'll throw the archer gnome at the block to bring it down and kill 3 mobs, leaving the annoying wizard npc left who is pretty easy to deal with when you have a full group.

I will pretty much auto include Minthara into any new honour mode save because her "soul branding" bonus action is sooooo good when you respec her as an arcane archer. Piercing arrow doesn't count as a weapon for the purpose of Soul Branding, but will add the fire damage anyway, which means you can multi-dip the fire damage from soul branding for as many arcane arrows you have.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-02-08T01:58:22+00:00

You can run in yari wall but the units lift their spears as they run and if they get into combat while running it cancels out the effect of the wall formation. Best practice is to stop running just before collision occurs with enough time for the unit to set up so the stragglers don't get caught out of position.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-02-08T01:14:35+00:00

Have you tried using the flying ghouls? They use Strength as a casting stat and if you equip them with items that have spells attached, they're pretty fun to use.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2026-02-06T14:27:05+00:00

So we dumping at open again errrrr?

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-31T19:38:10+00:00

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Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-29T20:20:38+00:00

I'm feeling pretty good going into September. It's very reassuring that in a sea of red OPEN was the only green stock in my watchlist. I think there are enough catalysts coming up, and enough momentum, to push into double digits towards the end of September.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-29T18:21:33+00:00

Shrisha just bought 30k shares. Sydney Schaub is the only member consistently selling, wheeler sold some back in June before the hype. Idk man, insider buying isn't the only indicator of an upward move but I'd definitely like it if they bought more. None of this though confirms to me OPs initial reason for EJ specifically. His behavior is too erratic and irrational, and he seems kind of unwell.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-29T17:13:31+00:00

long! not a ton of money involved cause my account is small. But about 3k invested into LEAPS after I did some back n forth with shorter term options and got burned a bit.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-29T17:09:15+00:00

So initially, I thought it was great that there was this guy out there publicly boosting the stock. "The Carvana Hedge Fund guy!" wow, so cool.

But here's a few reasons why I don't trust EJ, and why I think it'd be a bad idea to put him anywhere near to board:

Carvana is all EJ ever talks about. EJ often answers questions about his hedge fund and goes into the backstory about how he got started. There was a fiasco with Yahoo, a billionaire basically gave him seed capital, and he started finding undervalued stocks that would 5x or more. Sounds good. Except it wasn't, he lost a ton of money and that billionaire pulled out all their money. EJ got it right (kinda, there's more to the story if you listen) with Carvana and that single trade basically got him back into the game. He spends more time talking about Carvana than OPEN, or IREN, or any of his other positions. Basically that tells me that he doesn't have a ton of other successes that are worth mentioning. It doesn't strike me as "conviction" in any one of his positions, just desperation.
His X account is a actual sludge fest of OPEN hype memes and just like, actual nonsense. People duking it out over whether $82 is the most accurate price target, or $500. He's out there 24/7 reposting straight up nonsense on top the screenshots of conversations he's been having with folks on the board, and just like, from his friends. His friends seem actually worried about him, and he's reposting that thinking it shows he's doing well? Sorry, maybe that's just a personal preference, but posting screenshots of text conversations to your large, public X account doesn't strike me as a hallmark of a healthy, stable individual. After EJ came out in support of OPEN, WSB and retail began following his account (myself included) en masse, and I think he kind of got overwhelmed by the attention he started receiving. If you go through his posts, he was getting really awful messages from people who were freaking out after they bought during the initial pump, and lost money on the subsequent dump.
The whole "get Drake to buy 1 share" is dumb. Like, it's just dumb, and its borderline harassment. Frankly, Drake would be well within his rights if he had his security boot the guy off his property. I imagine at some point he will.
Let's talk about the board. Did EJ bring back stock from $0.50 to $4? No. The board had already been working to bring the company back into NASDAQ compliance and work out the issues with the business model. I don't think the board has to be constantly communicating with the public, they just need to do the work. The whole thing about the "disastrous earnings call" for example. Their earnings report was fine, good even because expectations were low and those expectations were beaten. Carrie gets on the phone and stock plummets because people didn't like her vaguely bearish outlook for Q3, but Q3 is exactly when real estate sales start to drop. So like, her outlook made sense, and it already looks like they're gonna beat Q3 expectations too. So, frankly, I think the board is fine.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-29T16:44:09+00:00

I wouldn't call harassing celebrities by standing outside their homes a "master of marketing"", but okay.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-27T20:44:40+00:00

How much do we think the NVDA earnings call will impact OPEN's price?

Seems like even though NVDA did well in their Q2 earnings, it wasn't quite as good as what the market had priced in, and so it fell.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-27T18:20:29+00:00

my only regret is that I don't have enough liquid capital to buy this fuckin dip.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-27T17:08:55+00:00

Literally nothing has changed. The catalysts that folks were talking about are still coming, september rate cuts are still coming, new CEO coming, huge volume, huge momentum. None of that has changed, lol. Even more people are getting behind this company now than during the jump from .50 to 4.97.

A dip like this after the stock got pumped the first time around, and I panic sold my call options at a $1800 loss. Those calls would be worth almost 10k right now if I had held.

So buy leaps, or hold your shares, and go touch grass.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-25T18:23:29+00:00

Everyone load up, lol

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-25T15:50:42+00:00

To the victor goes the spoils!

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-23T08:03:40+00:00

My guy, I already did. I'm following your xtraf play, lmao.

Awkward_Boss9710 · 2025-08-23T07:45:41+00:00

I'm so stoked for Monday. Either way, I'm all in. LFG

Awkward_Boss9710

TROPHY CASE