Destroying stuff in sieges

I apologise for the vague title, but I have three questions/observations about destroying stuff in sieges (amazing, I know) I'd like to ask:

1. What's the deal with units being able to torch gates and towers? A while back, I was able to use my troops to set alight a gate by throwing torches at it in both singleplayer and multiplayer. A while later, I was unable to do this anymore, in either multiplayer or singleplayer. I would assume a patch had eliminated the ability, but one of my opponents in multiplayer was able to torch my tower using his infantry. He suggested the weather could have an effect, but in multiplayer there is no weather, so that appears to be out. I haven't done any real research on this, so I'm probably missing something obvious - can only certain units torch buildings, or something?

2. Is there any way to get bow units to target the ramparts with their flaming arrows? Is it even possible to burn down the ramparts with flaming arrows?

3. (possibly a bug, but I thought I'd see if anybody has tips to get around the problem): I was mucking about with fire rockets in a custom battle the other day, and when I ordered them to attack a gate or wall, they would walk up until they were directly next to the wall/gate, and fire their rockets vertically upwards. Needless to say, this was highly innacurate, as well as causing some hilarious friendly fire incidents :laugh4:. The ground up to the castle was slightly sloped, but nothing too drastic, so terrain shouldn't have had any effect. Anybody know what the problem is?

Thanks in advance.

With regards to 2, I don't think that's possible. Destroying the castle is nigh impossible in S2TW, which is a shame, I would have loved to see destructible castles.

Well, I ran a little experiment in a custom battle and it looks like I've found the solution to #1, for anybody that's interested. It seems that only melee infantry and dismounted melee cavalry can torch towers and gates. Missile infantry can't, not sure why. I didn't test dismounted bow cav, the general, or any more exotic units, but I don't plan on storming any castles with those unit types anyway.

Missile tropps can, just need to switch to melee option...
2) I've seen it happening, maybe after selecting fire arrows, walls become targetable, or maybe that time it happened was a very lucky trajectory event...
3) I can hit the gate just fine, since there are both gate and gatehouse as suitable targets maybe your position determined that...

1) All units can burn down gates/towers. You need to be dismounted if cav and in melee mode if missiles. It's definitely much harder to do this if it's raining.

2) It's possible to burn down walls and ramparts. You need alot of fire arrows though. Seems easier to do this with a few units of bow ashigaru since they have more troops than bow samurai or bow monks. Don't bother trying to set towers or gates with fire arrows. Easier to do this with melee infantry throwing fire instead.

3) No clue with this. It's not just fire rockets. Bow units when told to use fire arrows to burn down a gate or tower, they will start to walk right up to it. At other times, they will shoot just fine. Can't be bothered with it as there are better alternatives to either.

Thanks for the response guys, its nice to know archers can in fact torch gates/towers (for some reason, I tried taking fire at will off, but forgot about melee mode :inquisitive:). spicykorean, have you found a way to target ramparts with fire arrows? If I hover over them, even if I've pressed the fire arrows button, it just displays the 'ladder' to start climbing.

I think that I misunderstood what ramparts meant.
You're right. You can't directly use fire arrows on the wall. I've only been able to do it shooting fire arrows at an angle on a unit taking cover at the wall/rampart.

So far I've only used siege weapons in the tutorial but there I was unable to destroy the walls of castles. I could damage them 100% but that had no clear effect.
Is this a bug or are you unable to breach walls in Shogun2?

The damage isn't to the sloping foundation/walls, it's to the 'ramparts' on top of them. When a section of wall is destroyed, the 'ramparts' in that area are destroyed. Damage is visually represented by damage to the ramparts. This prevents defending units from 'docking' at that point, which makes it easier for units to scale the wall at that point. It also removes the extra missile protection that the ramparts provide to any docked unit. Because the foundation/walls themselves aren't destroyed, this action doesn't have the same level of significance that it did in games like RTW or M2TW; units still need to climb the walls to get in, so they're still more dispersed than they would be rushing through a breach in one of the other games.

Thanks for the answer.
It's a strange twist of logic. CA was able to moddle crumling walls in the past just fine. Any reason they are doing it this way now?

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

Thanks for the answer.
It's a strange twist of logic. CA was able to moddle crumling walls in the past just fine. Any reason they are doing it this way now?

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I would guess part simplicity and part realism. They've already vastly simplified the siege system (and improved the BAI) in the last couple games by allowing units to scale castles anywhere without siege equipment. Maybe they had difficulty programming the AI to properly destroy a section of wall and then utilize that breach without also making its movements extremely predictable. At the same time, there may be a realism element to it, as the 'wall' is really just a motte covered with stone. The stone itself can be damaged, but mottes themselves are notoriously resistant to artillery. Japanese castles really did use that kind of construction on a regular basis.

Enemy burned up my gatehouse with fire arrows last night. The guys I had stationed in there took mass casualties from the fire

Sorry for bringing back an old thread, but how exactly is it possible to use fire arrows against structures. Simply right-clicking on them as if they were people doesn't do anything. I notice it does seem to be possible for a split second after clicking the fire arrow button, but that just seems to cause the archers to walk up to the structure rather than shoot at it.

I have noticed that, too. It would be nice if we can use Bow Warrior Monks' fire arrows to destroy an arrow tower from outside its range. :on_panda:
But maybe that's exactly why it is prevented.