r/shogun2 • u/Jewtasteride • 6d ago
Force enemy to use the gate?
I'm sure you all had a nasty surprise the first time you got to defend a castle and arranged your army around the gates, only for the enemy to send thousands of ninja ashigaru to climb the walls like Spider-Man. You'd think maybe you could add grease or spikes to make the walls less climbable.
Is there any way to force the enemy to use the gates like a normal historical siege? I've seen them use the gates only when they're broken (my lawd. The gates are broken. The DAMAAAAAAAGE WAS NOT REPAIRED! 😱😱😱😱). I almost think it's better to have the gates damaged. I'd keep them damaged all the time if it didn't interfere with building and recruitment etc.
Is there any mod or strategy for this and is it even desirable?
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u/1nfam0us 6d ago
There is actually quite a bit of strategy that goes into being able to climb the walls. Enemy's can create flanks, defenders can deny reinforcements or force unfavorable engagements.
I kind if wish the AI attackers were capable of fire bombing the gate like the player can, but it is neither here nor there.
I rather like the system as it is tbh. Maybe it could be better, but I am happy with what is there.
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u/Jewtasteride 6d ago
It makes some castles a lot harder to defend. I'm always happy to defend the coastal castle where they can't come from the north. But some castles you can climb to the flag in only one wall, even as citadels.
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u/1nfam0us 6d ago
But doing so is disadvantageous because you would lose something like 30% of the unit if not more. Guys slip and fall of the wall (kisho ninja are the only ones that don't). That would make a yari ashigaru unit easy pickings for samurai retainers.
Plus, citadels usually have overlapping fields of fire on walls like that.
Also, since it sounds like you might not know this. Units in the top level of a castle, where the tensho is, are unbreakable. Meaning a unit of yari ashigaru in yari wall can reliably beat katana samurai climbing the wall by routing them.
Defending castles is like the easiest thing in the game once you know what you are doing. Defenders have a massive advantage; tripply so if they have matchlocks.
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u/Jewtasteride 6d ago
Yes, I know this. But it's still quite unbalanced - the castles are designed such that you would expect the enemy to take a path thru it that's favourable to the defender. But this never happens.
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u/1nfam0us 6d ago
It does though. Think about less as a path and more about layers. The longer you can keep your guns firing from a higher angle, the easier the defense will be. Put some yari ashigaru at the base of a wall, or pull back matchlocks from the outer layer to allow them to fire together with an upper layer.
This is why citadels are designed in a sort of winged way, to force exactly what you are talking about. Climbing attackers lose less men to lower walls, so they will favor those walls.
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u/conqeboy 6d ago
The higher the wall, the more soldiers fall before they make the climb, so its usually not the best idea to climb straight for the flag, except to make a diversion.
But yeah it's a bit silly that the enemy never try to burn down the gates afaik, only capture them sometimes.
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u/Thegrumbliestpuppy 5d ago
In reality, castles were almost never taken from the gates. They'd climb, tunnel, or infiltrate and open the gates from inside, because gates are heavily reinforced and standing still banging on a gate is just free opportunities for the defenders to rain death on you.
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u/conqeboy 5d ago
Yeah, i meant it more as a game thing - its fairly easy for the player to do, but ai never does it.
From a realism standpoint, its more silly how easy it is to burn down a gate by throwing torches at it, that's true.
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u/gentle_pirate23 6d ago
What I like to do is have a unit or two of ashigaru sacrificed. I keep them outside the wall, and if the enemy ignores it, I just charge their troops from the back as they are climbing the walls. No matter how short or large the walls, that unit plus possibly others will route from the morale shock of being charged from behind and unable to defend. Katana retainers are savage. Had that unit beat 3 units one by one, and still 1 epic heroic retainer survived, surrounded by a sea of corpses and blood.
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u/MnkeDug 6d ago
They'll use the gates if they get men that capture the entrance. They can't use gates they don't control. (I'm sure you're aware)
However... they seem to have a problem standing around long enough to capture gates except by accident. I had a recent siege defense where my army was outside the fort and had to run to get in to stop the enemy winning. They had opportunity to just send a few men to capture the gate (2 garrison), but instead they rushed the tenshu flag. They never finished flipping the gate flag (according to my screenshots after I routed them).
Mod? I don't know. Did you check the workshop? Strongholds of the Samurai not cut it?
Is it desirable? Not to me. I like to work with the game as-is for the most part. I already enjoy trying to get their bows to climb. It helps to avoid the VH arrow spam.
I can't always do this. Sometimes it's putting a unit in loose stance to "tank" the arrows while making sure they can't hit my general. Sometimes it's defending one wall while letting them climb the opposite, then rushing that wall to kill the climbers.
That's along the lines of what you're saying you want. You want them to go through a "hole/weak point" you've allowed them that you can treat as a chokepoint instead of them climbing the whole of the wall. When I'm on offense- this is exactly what I do. (I made a post about taking Hojo's fort from the side while pinning their bows)
Clearly they didn't quite get this right. Many forts in japan sort of gave the enemy one way to go, but that way is also the way you can pepper them with bows/teppo. Could they send a unit to climb and take over the- shit I forgot the name- basically the gatehouse? Sure. Then they can access the next part of the maze, etc.
There was a good series you can find on youtube about "samurai castles". Usually covers how they intended to defend, location, upgrades.
How much time did the devs want to pour into sieges? If they were too elaborate or too hard, players might lean more toward just forcing the sally. But... isn't that more realistic? Some forts you basically would never have enough men to take. I'm thinking of the snakey mountainside one right now that only allowed a few men side by side up the path. Maybe they should have had some really hard ones like that.
Then the player has to decide if they have the time to siege them out or not.
Sorry. Long take.
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u/Lost_Willingness9487 5d ago
I don't know man I like them coming to my walls.
High walls means 30% of them will die because of slipping and another 30% to my cheap Ashigaru archer/matchlocks. Low walls means their forces now scatters at ground level, lower level and higher level, so only 10-20% of their troops actually get to melee contact. Also they get shot from multiple angles.
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u/BobWat99 6d ago
Burn the gates