Shogun 2: Total War Heaven

I thought defending was obviously better.

My first siege was a mess. Climbing the tallest wall and... Sorry Ashigaru.

When I am Sieging:

I like to put 2 units on the other sides of the castle (each) and have a main force assault. The enemy has to keep some troops in the back or else I might use my back up forces. I normally use Samurai as I despise ashigaru to climb the walls and it normally works pretty well. I will normally just have one unit burn down the gate. The big factor is archers. If my opponent has none or few archers, I will bring mine up and bombard the enemy until his units are weak or I am out of ammunition. If the enemy has superior firepower, I have to rush as fast as I can.

When I am Defending:

I just use archers in the wall and bring them back before the enemy scales the wall. I use katana samurai as my main defense and keep a strong reserve.

I personally prefer attacking because it gives me the initiative and choice.

Lets put it this way-

I've had the game 2 weeks. i have won every defence battle except one.

On the other hand...

I have lost EVERY SINGLE assault i have tried.

Work in progress.

Some sound strategy in here.

I personally prefer attacking because it gives me the initiative and choice.

Interesting, I much prefer defending. Although I find defending the smaller castles/forts much more enjoyable than the large ones.

Whereas when I'm attacking the small ones tend to be more difficult to take whilst the larger ones are easier

That`s because if you are defending a bigger area you have to spread your troops more while if you were attacking, you can concentrate all your forces and find one weak point.

Defending smaller is easier because you can cover the whole area with a large defense and the attacker has no where else to attack.

I had the same answer as the above while I was reading your post. But most bigger castles have some walls short but others quite tall. Just defend the small walls and they will try to climb the big ones, then you leave the rest to gravity.

That`s because if you are defending a bigger area you have to spread your troops more while if you were attacking, you can concentrate all your forces and find one weak point.

Defending smaller is easier because you can cover the whole area with a large defense and the attacker has no where else to attack.

This is true, but it's not the way CA intended it to be. Something needs to be done to make larger fortresses more challenging.

They should actually have somethings like boiling oil or flaming logs like in Stronghold legends.

I ama really good defender i mean really really good whether it is a field battle or a castle siege (i am especially good defending castle) at least against ai. I have won battles 5 to 1 against me with only ashigaru...believe it or not when the enemy had only samurai full size armies and still i won. I really laughed like crazy that day.

It may sounds strange but i really hate loosing men in battle even if they are pixels i have great respect even for ashigaru. On a field attack the attacker can lose a lot of men when he is charging...and ...on a castle attack he has to be really smart or able to overun the enemy if he wants to win......so in conclusion i love defending

Just won my first siege battle, attacking tosa as Shimazu.

It may sounds strange but i really hate loosing men in battle even if they are pixels i have great respect even for ashigaru

I agree with this. in the previous total war games, i used to get my men slaughtered without a thought. in shogun 2, i care more about the men, CA seem to have made them a lot more human somehow.

That is almost the opposite to me. I used to try and keep kills to an absolute minimal, now I don't care how many men die, as long as they have enough left to survive and regenrate after the battle.

Hi megarian, Lost Knight. Welcome

I pull back units who're on the brink of being wiped out completely most of the time, unless their role is critical in holding the line.

I also try to keep almost-annihilated units alive, just so I don't have to recruit new ones. Only problem is that sometimes they will rout when they're already in safety and you can still lose them.

Defense for me. Archers are your best friend when they're under the rampart roofs.

[This message has been edited by Matador09 (edited 04-04-2011 @ 03:27 PM).]

Hi megarian, Lost Knight. Welcome

Backatcha - I've been coming to HG for 3 years

I have found i am better at attacking multi - level castles.
i've won 2 sieges since my last post.

I think he knows. He probably means welcome to Shogun 2 heaven

Defense for me. Archers are your best friend when they're under the rampart roofs.

Archers are nice, but matchlocks are even better. They can rout the first attackers before they even reach the walls.

Interesting, I much prefer defending. Although I find defending the smaller castles/forts much more enjoyable than the large ones

I see it the same way, there's simply not enough men to go around all the walls of the big fortresses.

Then again i may look at sieges all wrong any way, i try to keep the enemy out at all costs(I guess i look at it through a Western perspective).I am sure i read some where that the Japanese would lure attackers in to killing zones inside their fortress.

Found it, here's the article http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/12/03/hands-on-shogun-2’s-siege-battles-2/

The link doesn't work, it comes up with a page saying "Page not Found"

Backatcha - I've been coming to HG for 3 years

Yeah Lost, I've seen you before but I hadn't seen you posting here at S2H yet.

And Army Ranger is right, the Japanese Castles were actually designed to be complex for the specific purpose of creating killing zones. Unfortunately this doesn't quite translate to the gameplay because typically, once they're up over your walls your finished. Unless you pull back to a higher level and defend that of course.

Defence becomes slightly irritating after a while because of the agressiveness of the AI, which leads to you having to play constant sieges. Besieging a castle is much more interesting, and more difficult, and thus more entertaining from my perspective.

[This message has been edited by Wolfpanzee (edited 04-16-2011 @ 02:06 PM).]

the A1

The AI, my friend Let's say it was a typo.

Just defended a fort on my campaign that was bordered next to a large waterfall leading into the ocean...quite beautiful It truly is great to get your archers in position and watch arrows cut into your enemy. With two ashigaru archer units I routed a Yari ashigaru before they even got to the wall. I find that having a katana samurai unit mixed in with the archers helps when they begin coming over the walls.

I also noticed that counter archers are still pretty effective. I had one of my defending archer units get quite a few losses.

Are you placing your archers on the border thing yeah? It's just then they are a bit protected.

I love watching the enemy fall off the walls, especially their General unit.

Yeah even placed against the walls they receive casulties

The walls do protect your archers, but don't expect any miracles. Also, they only work from one side so you can sometimes shoot at them from the side to kill them easily.