/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Hakurei Shrine
Mikos are the basic troop line, and they can be upgraded into either archers or melee infantry. The melee infantry forces are all equipped with polearms and throwing weapons. They're fragile, but they perform well in open-field battles, and the highest tier ones often use very good blunt weapons. The archers are arguably the best in the game, at least if you're looking purely at their archery skill: they're fragile and they suck at melee combat, but they will annihilate enemies at range.

The elite troop line consists of very strong and very expensive cavalry. They have two upgrade paths, but they're almost identical. Both of them carry lances, heavy weapons, and throwing weapons.

The Hakurei Shrine is a very large and strong faction. However, they share a border with practically everyone, and they tend to get worn down by constant wars on multiple fronts. Reimu herself is arguably the most dangerous lord in the game: her honor guard is composed of nigh-unstoppable killing machines, she fields a large army, and her personal combat power is very high.

SDM
The SDM has a very diverse basic troop line. Their war-meidos can be upgraded into heavy infantry wielding two-handed weapons, heavy infantry using sword-and-board, crossbowmen, spear-chuckers, or mounted archers. The shields used by SDM troops are absurdly overpowered, so any troops with them are pretty much impervious to ranged weapons. The two heavy infantry options are both pretty devastating, and the spear-chuckers tend to perform really well in sieges. The only real weakness of the SDM troop line is that it can take an awful long time to fully upgrade them.

The SDM's elite troop consists of a fairly standard knight unit.

Remilia and Flandre both field ridiculously strong knight units, and Remilia in particular is arguably the strongest lord in the game in terms of personal combat ability. These super-powered knights are included in one of the SDM's patrol squads, so watch out for that. They will mop the floor with most other elite units, and will inflict heavy casualties even on most late-game armies.

The SDM's territories are very tightly clustered, giving them a huge logistical advantage. They also have a lot of strong lords and very good troops of nearly every type, which pretty easily makes them the strongest faction in the game overall. SDM favoritism bugs me, so I make sure to always smash them.

The Underworld
The Underworld's basic troops are oni. They can be upgraded into heavy infantry, crossbowmen, or cavalry. The heavy infantry are extremely tough, and carry either axes and shields or two-handed weapons that can crush through blocks like tetsubo. Some of them also carry throwing axes, and they have enough skill and power-throw to inflict serious damage with them. They perform extremely well in sieges.

The crossbowmen carry siege crossbows, so they have long range and hit hard, but suffer from a very long reload time. They are also a whole lot tougher in melee than most ranged units, which makes them very hard to deal with when assaulting Underworld castles: when cornered, they will pull out tetsubo and smash your face in with one hit if you aren't careful. The cavalry carry lances and tetsubo.

The Underworld's elite troop line starts off as weak mounted skirmishers, which can then be upgraded into kasha or hell ravens. Kasha are extremely capable mounted skirmishers, which are also skilled and hardy enough to perform well in melee combat. They're incredibly versatile troops that can perform well in nearly any role. Hell ravens are lancers that also carry guns and swords: their guns have a really long reload time, but they will probably kill anything they hit. Typically, the hell ravens will fire off one volley and then charge into melee. Hell ravens usually perform better overall in open-field battles, whereas kasha are better at sieges. Note that it's sometimes worthwhile to have Kasha dismount during a field battle if you just want to station them on top of a hill and use them as archers.

Tsuchigumo can also be recruited from the dark blowhole. These troops have incredibly fast and maneuvarable "mounts," and are equipped with rapid-firing "guns" and tetsubo. They don't have especially high stats considering their cost, but their equipment is extremely good, and they can perform well in multiple roles. Since they can only be recruited from one location, it's hard to get very many of them.

Though otherwise an extremely powerful faction, the Underworld has a serious logistics problem. The real power of the Underworld is way down in the depths, far away from everything. As such, they have trouble gathering their forces to lay siege to their enemies or defending their territories near the surface, and they usually lose a lot of ground to the SDM.