Questions about castle walls

[hamysho]

I'm sorry if this has already been posted but I searched the forum and couldn't figure it out. My question is does anyone know if the castle walls give bonuses to defending units in Shogun 2? And is it preferable to post melee defense on the walls to repell an enemy scaling the walls or is it better to put archers on the walls.

[al Roumi]

I haven't actually played out many sieges but when I have, the greatest effect I've noticed that the walls have is to protect units positioned on them from missile fire (not siege weapons mind!).

[antisocialmunky]

Missile protection. However the fact that units scale piece meal allows you to grind attacking units into dust.

[Nelson]

I've been in the habit of putting archers on the edge of the walls until the enemy reaches the walls then I replace them with better melee troops. I'm doubt that this is the best method though because of the spectacular line of sight that missile units have both into and out of castles. Not only can they engage units when no LOS exists. They can track and lead fire on targets as they move! It's as though they have airborne spotters, wireless communications and laser range finders!

If you assault a castle with a significant advantage in archers you can just about wipe out many defenders before you try to enter. In the smallest castles at least. I haven't attacked many large ones yet. Ironically the best protected troops are the ones you can actually see at the top of the walls. They have some cover. Units in the center of the castle have no cover and can be cut to pieces despite being out of sight.

Units far removed from the walls can likewise hammer attacking formations that thay can not see. LOS has always been quirky in the Total War series. Range seems to be the only factor that consistently works.

[hamysho]

Thank you for the replies.

Does anyone switch from archers on the walls to melee when units starts scaling the walls because locking the archers into melee seems counter-productive.

Getting attacked by a Satomi - Hojo - Takeda alliance in my game and all I can do is turtle behind my castle. =)

[Daevyll]

I switch archers with melee troops at the walls when the enemy is about halfway up the wall. So far all sieges have been absolute massacres.

Bowfire bonus/cover from walls is significant, to the point where 1 of your achers can trade fire with 3 of theirs to more or less a stalemate. Melee bonus seems even more powerful.

Two Bow Ashigaru and a General make for a very effective garrison, when combined with the free troops from the larger castles. Had absolutely no trouble defending against vastly superior enemy stacks. I might get worried though if there were a few units of mangonels in the attacking army, havent encountered them in sieges yet.

[Daveybaby]

Another vote here for switching the archers out with melee troops just before the attackers reach the top of the wall. Very effective.

I've found that when youre the attacker, having a superior archer force makes you virtually unbeatable. You can shred defending archers in the initial stages (since you can bring your entire force to bear on one segment of the wall) and then just sit there and pound the the defending melee troops and cav into near oblivion. Usually by the time you've run out of arrows a couple of units of yari are sufficient to take out the remainder.

Larger castles make this only marginally more difficult to achieve, If some defenders are out of range of archery fire from outside the castle, just take the castle section by section until they are in range.

Castles really need some kind of shelter against indirectly fired arrows (or better still, just make indirect fire less effective overall vs direct fire). I do find it odd that boats provide better protection against archers than castles.

[Lord Benihana]

I switch out as well, and have had some incredible defense battles (5 of my units hold off an entire stack of theirs) so I think it is beneficial to swap

Speaking of castles - does anyone see why they have moats? Some of the larger castles (and the Citadel in Kyoto) have a moat, but your men can march right across it, and shoot arrows while knee deep in water. I think this makes the larger castles a bit of a liability when compared to say, a fortress.

Thoughts?

[hamysho]

I was wondering the same thing, like if units in the moat have penalties to movement or defense and if it's worth it to pin them in the water with a melee unit.

[Lord Benihana]

I think the only "penalty" is that the units in the moat can't run... but if you are defending a citadel with a small force, a large army could really give you a headache if they spread out their assault

[Daveybaby]

If i was gonna go to the trouble of building a moat around my fortress, i'd probably build it deeper than knee deep. Seriously, what contracters did they use? Went with the cheapest, i bet.

[Daevyll]

If i was gonna go to the trouble of building a moat around my fortress, i'd probably build it deeper than knee deep. Seriously, what contracters did they use? Went with the cheapest, i bet.

Perhaps it was more intended for the benefit of the koi-carps than defense

[Kocmoc]

I'm sorry if this has already been posted but I searched the forum and couldn't figure it out. My question is does anyone know if the castle walls give bonuses to defending units in Shogun 2? And is it preferable to post melee defense on the walls to repell an enemy scaling the walls or is it better to put archers on the walls.

Im not sure, how it works vs the AI, there might be a peak of units you can actual rip of, while sitting in a castle.
My experience from MP:


1. missles are by far the most effective way to defend. Unless the enemy comes up with 70% archer, they have no chance at all.
2. yes, there are bonuses for standing behind the wall, since we dont have any real stats, I guess, that there is somewhere a "defense" counter, which give you some kind of hideprotection, same as woods. To say it simple, the walls block arrows, not completely. So the effect is different from woods.

I dont know how to explain it best. If you zoom in and look the way arrows take, than you see, how many come from above. Im not sure, but the calculation seems to be different from woods to walls. While woods block the arrows with single trees. The wall seems to have also some hidden blocker or advances.

You can destroy walls and than you cant put unit behind that anymore. There is a bug as well, if a part of the wall is destroyed, your unit will use only a part of the wall and the rest stand somewhere behind. If someone has the time, he can test it and publish the stats of that test. I guess, that the mens who are not behind the walls get treated as normal.

[Dreadnought1]

Remember too that the climbing units suffer 'falling' casualties in addition to all those who get shot off the wall by defending missile troops.
The first time I had troops scale a castle wall without having defenders shoot at them I wondered why they were suffering casualties...until I zoomed right in to see the clumsier ashigaru letting gravity do its thing...

On the bigger castles where several climbs would be required together with tower/archer/arquebus/falling casualties, attacking forces are going to be a). totally knackered and b). very few in number.

Cheers,
Dreadnought1

[quadalpha]

Anyone know if arrows are individually modelled like bullets in ETW? Do they get stopped by buildings in the way, or would the archers just not fire/choose a different trajectory?

[antisocialmunky]

Perhaps it was more intended for the benefit of the koi-carps than defense

Unless its dwarf fortress.

[Kagemusha]

If i was gonna go to the trouble of building a moat around my fortress, i'd probably build it deeper than knee deep. Seriously, what contracters did they use? Went with the cheapest, i bet.

According to Togukawa Ieyasu. He reprimanded his son Hidetada for initially making the moat of Edo castle too deep. I guess the idea was not to make them impassable, but rather slow the passing enemy down in order to make them better targets for Yumi and Teppo.

[Rothe]

I can really echo the sillyness of the archer fire into a castle. I think there should be a penalty for range when shooting upwards anyways, and if shooting from outside of a castle it should be penalized vs. troops inside (because you can't see them).

[Daveybaby]

I think there should be a penalty for range when shooting upwards anyways

Well actually, you get the greatest range when shooting upwards at an angle of 45 degrees (well, not quite that if you take into account wind resistance, but anyway...) - what *should* take a hit when shooting upwards is accuracy (you have to be far more accurate to hit when shooting at a high angle because you have to consider range much more than direction) and damage (because the arrows arent travelling as fast they wont necessarily penetrate armour as well). But yeah, there really needs to be a penalty of some kind when firing into a fortress full of sitting ducks.

The original STW and MTW modelled this pretty well, and maybe S2 does also, but archers are such killing machines in this game its hard to tell. My main reason to start battles with archers in front in S2 is so that the enemies archers will pull up in range of them. After that i move my melee troops out in front immediately, to absorb incoming fire instead of my archers (who are doing the bulk of the damage) and save having to bother with skirmishing.

[xploring]

I can really echo the sillyness of the archer fire into a castle. I think there should be a penalty for range when shooting upwards anyways, and if shooting from outside of a castle it should be penalized vs. troops inside (because you can't see them).

I feel the same way. Line of sight seems totally ignored. And samurai should get a range advantage compared with ashigaru. Samurai must have trained a lot more with better instructors and equipments. And their accuracy bonus compared with ashigaru is not enough imo.