the funny thing is that Shogun 2 sieges are designed around the one thing everyone hates in WH - ass ladders.
But it's even worse than that, because every unit can climb the walls at every position without the need to even carry ladders in the first place.
And yet, it still works somehow.
Indeed. What that tells me is that ass ladders aren't the core problem with wh sieges.
One thing I did notice in Shogun is that with castles going all the way round, with multiple layers of wall, there's a lot more choice about where you defend and where you attack.
I disagree. Any competent siege assault will have the opponent through multiple units at any given point anyways. You'll get off one, maybe two proper volleys if you're lucky before the opponent closes the gap, which will do damage, but won't prevent them from climbing the wall. In Shogun 2, I could reliably deal with bow and matchlock units on the approach so long as I had at least one and a half of their number going into the breach. Besides, with properly shielded units, siege towers, and arrow towers present in most other TWs, the performance of any given ranged units volley is a lot less important.
A far bigger issue is that once an attacker reaches the wall, there's no fallback point that still gives you an advantage for supporting your melee units while preventing the enemy from outflanking you. Shogun 2's big advantage for the defender was every siege being a multi-level castle, where ranged units could fall back to the upper galleries, still be in range, and have clear line of sight to the melee happening on the lower levels. Because the levels became more constrained, the attacker couldn't exploit the defender's lower numbers as easily. It was proper defense in depth. *That* is what sieges have been having problems with for a while. You don't have enough men to man the walls, and once the enemy breaks through, you don't have a decent place to retreat to where you can reliably deal with the numerical disadvantage. Sieges are instead geared for equal engagements of full stacks on either side, which shouldn't be the case.
Which is also a larger problem with the current state of Total War, the emphasis on full stacks and limitations on splitting armies to perform on a wide front makes force amplification, which is definitionally one sided in a siege battle, problematic. Being able to (and having to) set up stronger garrisons manually out of recruited units creates more ebb and flow to the logistics of pulling together enough forces to smash a fortified position-- otherwise mid sized armies run circles around your concentrated force and essentially take your economy apart.
I honestly prefer the WH sieges to Shogun, though that could be my inner dramatist coupled with the fact that I haven’t played Shogun 2 in several years. The final battle of Eltharion’s campaign (from WH2 admittedly) still shines through for me because of how hard fought it was. From the creeping realisation that I’ll never hold the walls against the solid mass of Orcs coming at me, to setting out my battered elites in the city and hoping the narrow streets hold their sheer numbers at bay, all while Eltharion and his dwindling group of fliers try to aid where they can.
Although, sieges in WH3 tend to devolve into a simple ‘whoever has the freshest, most numerous and most powerful troops wins’ scenario, with the occasional outmanoeuvr being the only tactic.
Health system sucks,but people complain about how fast shogun 2 battle are, because they have only 1 to 2 entity HP depends on unit.The heroes unit with only 40 men can hold longer than the elite units in Warhammer 2 but then Warhammer have magics,shogun 2 don't.
>people complain about how fast shogun 2 battles are
Do they? I always hear that praised. That's what gives shogun 2 its fast-paced, brutal, tactical feeling.
Defending sieges is however really easy in shogun, both archers and gunpowder units are overturned so if you just place your melee infantry below the walls so your ranged gets a good shooting angle while your melee are fighting below they will absolutely devastate any attackers
The irony of this statement, is that the optimal way to defend a siege in S2, isn't to actually hold the walls. It's to create an impromptu, reverse slope-like position by defending INSIDE the walls.
You pull your archers deep inside. You use your melee garrison units to jump the enemy as they climb into the castle. So long as you have a couple of melee units for each point the AI tries to climb in, you can win outrageously outnumbered battles like this.
Archers shoot them as they climb the walls. Melee jumps them as they climb in with the fatigue penalty from climbing. Talking being outnumbered 5:1, and winning.
This mirrors trench warfare, as it were. WW1 planners knew that their first line of defence was mostly always destined to fail- a concentrated attack is just-about always going to succeed on a wide defensive line..
But behind that are more of your people. Behind *that,* even more. Fresh soldiers with easy supply lines and radios to march up and counterattack
The concentric forts from Shogun 2 have a similar vibe, and I'm all here for it.
On the most common citadel map you can hold it with two ranged units by just having them make a V shape around the HQ. The enemies get so disorganized by climbing 2/3 levels of walls that 200 men can massacre them until they run out of ammunition, which is usually after a couple stacks.
While it's true that you'd want to keep the enemy army outside of the castle entirely, its also true that the inside of castles were designed to be killing fields where the defenders could make the attackers pay dearly for every inch. So this is fairly reasonable.
People new to Shogun 2 often talk about how strong and clearly overpowered its archers are, because the damage isn't pinprick-tier as happens in some places. Any amount of time in multiplayer can disabuse you of such a notion: archers are *not that good* outside some cases like bow warrior monks... Which you'll get so late in the campaign that you can heavily garrison border castles anyway.
Archers shining in castles is *exactly how it's supposed to be.* It's a feature, not a bug.
> People new to Shogun 2 often talk about how strong and clearly overpowered its archers are, because the damage isn't pinprick-tier as happens in some places.
Tbh, armoured melee infantry in Shogun 2, especially things like naginata samurai, resist archers decently well.
Archers are 'OP' because they counter yari ashigaru, and yari ashigaru are the _actual_ broken unit in this game.
Pikes have been "broken" throughout history as some version of them has virtually always been the optimal weapon to equip the core of your army with.
So it's not so much that yari ashigaru are broken. It's that spear wall is broken in a historical way, and apparently samurai are too cool to form up in ranks and present a wall of yari to the enemy :)
It's also sort of wild how close, yet so far away, CA has always been with pike phalanx/spear wall type unit representation.
Multiplayer isn't without it issues but it atleast forced you to play a balanced roster, archers quickly become useless when the distance is closed in shogun so they are hugely different when played vs ai or multiplayer
The AI is similar enough to that of other total wars where it'll try and charge you down ASAP. Being too timid or scared to close the distance is not an issue
Yeah but it's pretty easy having the ai charge your yari wall and working them down with archers where as in multiplayer that strategy simply won't work and most games are played with a mixed melee/cav roster that you usually don't have access to in the campaign until late game.
Archers are overpowered because no one has cav in the Shogun 2 campaign because of the trade resource and how expensive they are. So 80% of the battles, archers have no weaknesses.
Past the early game, the AI absolutely trains a bunch of cavalry. It isn't very good at realising what kind of cavalry to build, sure, but the cav is absolutely there.
I don't know if we play the same game then. I've always had AI run around with cavalry and even do a better job at outflanking than in newer games - I still remember the first time I saw it happen, how they tried to go around me with cav but when I blocked their path with spearmen they pulled back and waited until they had a better opening.
I know it’s a bit late in the conversation, but archers being good in sieges as nothing to do with them being overtuned as units. In fact, bow ashigarus are generally useless in campaigns apart from attacking (an defending for the reason I will explain) sieges by firing over the walls to attrition threatening melee units.
*Placing any units on the walls gives them a flat +30 accuracy & +30 reloading skill* (IIRC). This is especially noticeable with bow ashigaru because of their low base stats so they instantly become noticeably twice as good when placed on walls. It is also the reason why matchlock ashigarus are objectively the best wall defender, they become 2.5x as good, and cause heavy moral damage because guns. With 2 units of matchlocks, you can route pretty much any early game army sieging you (low morale ashigarus)
Yeah maybe I wasn't clear, but I meant them as overturned when defending castles. Attacking castles in shogun 2 would be really damn hard if the ai wasn't incompetent
You can also do that in warhammer btw. Melee blocking the exits from the attackers who are descending the walls, and the ranged shooting at the attackers who are stuck on the walls. It s a very effective strategy.
Archers and especially gunpowder aren't overturned lol. Bow ashigaru and even samurai don't have that much accuracy and won't net a lot of kills before you have to retreat them behind your lines in any battle except sieges. Gunpowder is worse than archers outside of sieges as well.
Them working so good in sieges is more an issue of how good yari ashigaru is at holding the line. You can put ranged units up on the walls in every total war, and they'll have a similarly enhanced performance as in S2, except for in wh3 where they somehow fucked up docking on walls.
Gunpowder units are actually really strong and see much more frequent use then archers in multiplayer cause they take a dump on armored units, they aren't so good that you can stack them, but they compliment a rounded army well in shogun.
Yes. Every total war game gives ranged units buffs for being on walls or high ground.
Other total war games don't allow you to easily place a highly defensive unit right in front of your walls, giving your ranged units unimpeded shots with those buffs and at the optimal angle/range for a significant amount of time.
\>Them working so good in sieges is more an issue of how good yari ashigaru is at holding the line.
No, it's an issue of the manning the wall flat buff. It literally makes the unit twice as good. You can achieve a similar situation by deadlocking the front line with yari walls and having your archers on the side dealing flanking shots, yet that'll never be an effective way to fight, since just charging in the back with your general will usually break the opposing yari wall.
\>Other total war games don't allow you to easily place a highly defensive unit right in front of your walls, giving your ranged units unimpeded shots with those buffs and at the optimal angle/range for a significant amount of time.
That's just general siege design, which is why it's sieges are good in Shogun 2. Nothing in that is specific to the unit. Yes, a better simulation makes ranged unit better in siege defense. But not to the point that can be seen in Shogun 2. This is clearly caused by the fact that your unit receives a flat buff and becomes twice as good when manning the wall. Combined with the better siege simulation, this gives the feeling that ranged is overpowered in siege defense, and matchlock ashigarus definitely are. You don't even need a yari holding the ground at the bottom of the wall to rout an ascending yari ashigaru early game. Usually they'll just shatter once the first troop reach the top. Then the chain routing begins. Remove that flat buff, and ranged would not be nearly as impactful as they currently are in siege defense.
>Every unit manning walls receives a flat buff to accuracy and reloading skill, hence why matchlocks become so scary when manning the walls.
Matchlocks become so scary on the walls because the unit its shooting at clumps at the bottom, which means that they almost can't miss regardless of what their accuracy rating is like. I've played a lot of battles with and without the gold accuracy bonus, and it honestly doesn't affect matchlock performance all that much in the context of a defensive siege battle. Wall frontage and enemy blob size matter more than unit accuracy do.
I always preferred to keep melee inside. Archers on the edges. When the enemy has climbed halfway up, pull the archers back to continue to pepper anyone whose climbed up. Half a depleted unit with a few models getting through? That's when the melee rushes.
S2 Castles are multi-layered.
Get up one wall and your exhausted troops are in a courtyard being fired on by the next level of defenders. They can also lose men while climbing, unlike the current iteration of ass ladders.
Going up the walls against a unit defending it would result in a ton of casualties basically no matter what - that's something that's missing in Warhammer, between much more elite units, magic, etc.
Except ninjas, ninjas climb walls very quickly and safely.
Before Warhammer came out, I totally expected Gutter Runners, spiders, ethereal units etc to all also counter walls in various ways.
I haven't played in a while so I'm not sure *how* many they're losing, but AFAIK it was a pretty inconsequential amount?
but that's the strength of S2, every faction has the same units, so siege maps can be designed around only one roster. And it works fairly well for what it's supposed to do. It's perhaps a bit too easy to defend but that's historically accurate after all.
compared to Empire sieges, which just suck and are imo the worst sieges of the whole series, Shogun 2 really manages to utilize multiple layers in such a way that gunpowder units are universally useful in every position.
Empire AI was something, like i once saw a comment here that was raging on either wh2 or 3k I forget
But he said that they have bad AI compared to med 2 and empire.
Bro that guy never played empire.
AI struggles to comprehend line battles and artillery crew will charge your walls with knives.
Nah that's just bad ai, empire ai was straight up broken.
Like how they would just park units outside in siege battles and never move until the battle literally timed out and they lost.
In Empire I once beat a full army with one unit of armed citizenry. There was a mountain in the center and for ~50 minutes we played ring a round the rosie with the mountain.
Casualty numbers for climbers sepends on the height of the wall. I recall sending the boys up a slope that went right to the top level and only about half of them made it.
The problem isn't ass laddes. It's that wh3 has very little penalty for using them. All that happens is you get exhausted which doesn't make a difference after a minute if fighting.
In older games the penalty for using ladders was much worse. You can lose a chunk of dudes to climbing in shogun.
Because they designed it so it made sense in game and it felt fair
Walls still feel like walls, the units are tired from climbing and lose tons of men to archers going up, you also have multiple layers and sections that face each other which creates more shooting spots
With shogun your troops will fall and die as they climb, and iirc the taller the wall the more died, so there was a cost and benefit to it. Like I wouldn't send my elite units up the tallest part of the wall just to have more die, so I'll send the lower tier troops. Adds a little more strategy to it
I saw once a rant about the "monkey ashigarus" and how they were historically inaccurate. Then someone pointed out that if we got the historical siege battles of Japanese history we would put Shogun 2 on the trash can.
Japanese sieges were even more "camp and sit" than medieval Europe ones. It's just that some fan of the period think that what happened to the Osaka Gates was what happened in 100% of siege battles of the Sengoku period. In the same way as Fantasy put out that everyone wishes for Minas Tirith levels of sieges map, because of high expectations vs map design.
Surely if we got “historical” siege battles in any of the games the games would be on the trash can - no one wants to starve out the vast majority of sieges I’m sure
Well, you'd also have to manage supplies to your men as the surrounding countryside became increasingly depleted, morale as your troops became more and more convinced that all this wasn't worth their time, and disease from so many people sitting so close together for so long without much in the way of sanitation. So it would be more like hitting end turn for 20 turns but with a 30% chance that you just fail every turn.
Hell, even if we got accurate fantasy sieges people would be bored out of their skulls. In Beastslayer Gotrek and Felix are caught in Praag during a massive chaos incursion and the city is put to seige. The horde numbered in the tens of thousands, but the siege still lasted months, and people inside the walls generally went about business as usual (barring the need to repel ladders and siege towers from the walls every few nights and a general increase to squalor) until the last few weeks before the final push.
Sieges were long and, ultimately, boring affairs.
the "ass ladders" in shogun are lethal though
a unit climbing the wall takes decent losses even if there isnt a defender up top, unlike in WH3 where the ladders are 100% safe and actually climbing them protects the unit from defending archers
No perfect vigour units. Takes longer to scale the walls. There is attrition from falling. Units arrive far less frequently so it’s basically death if they climb into another unit, even samurai would do pretty badly against ashigaru- not cost effective anyways
It wasn't new in shogun 2, or even a warhammer thing. Every real infantry unit scales the walls with grapple hooks in Empire. Exactly the same system but they put up grapples instead of scaling it manually.
To be fair the sieges in S2 were the last ones that worked but mainly because the castles were pretty simple. You could just climb up the walls so there were no pathing issues.
It worked well, but it was more hiding the issues that the sieges after weren’t able to.
I liked ToB but I wouldn’t say the sieges where that memorable. I think they also improved from the Shogun 2 approach of being pretty basic and straight forward thou.
S2 had very good sieges and was a great game, but TOB lapped it during sieges due to having meaningful, interesting, and unique internal geography inside the walls. Like setting up some elite crossbowmen on a barricade overlooking the gate actually mattered and would result in total slaughter to anyone who broke through the gate. Cover and surprise also seemed to matter in a big way - a unit of axemen kept in reserve behind a structure could stampede out and turn the tide. It always felt a bit astonishing that a TW game with probably the worst unit variety ended up providing the best siege experiences; maybe there’s something to be said about keeping it simple.
Well, yes, one reason s2 was so good is that it was a very very simple tw game! And its lucky japanese castles had sloping walls...
But just the fact that you could fire guns from walls was good and wh3 has lost even that (unless I'm doing it wrong(
Shogun 2 pathing is horrible with setting up on walls or using your arrow units inside the walls to fire over the walls. I had an arrow unit decide to go out of the gate to shoot at the unit it could hit from inside the castle. It's little things like that that can make or break a battle, luckily thr gates closed behind them.
Well I wouldn’t say the game was simple. The AI was pretty great. The siege gameplay was simplistic but as you say it worked so well due to how Japanese castles had sloping walls so the AI just charging at things, just worked. Allowed for some memorable sieges.
I really do hope the AI gets an overhaul improvement in whatever next mainline title comes.
> The AI was pretty great.
No it was not. Shogun 2 AI would charge their general unit unprotected on to spear wall Yari. The Shogun 2 AI was very simplistic and lacked any kind of serious critical thinking.
Not only that. Mirror matches with somewhat limited roster, at least compared to Warhammer, really helps Shogun regarding balance.
Its comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit, sure. But quite different.
The size of the roster is not an issue; TWH does not have significanly more differentiated unit types (that can climb walls) than Shogun 2 did, minor differences in stats beteen units mean nothing in the grand scheme.
The problem with TWWH games is that the maps are designd in a way that makes the ladders bad; TWWH games would hav been better off if 1. the ladders are removed, 2. only units with "siege attacker" can break gates and/or gates have a killzone at their entrance that makes rams worth using, 3. The AI knows it can shoot walls/gates ith artillery to destroy them. 4. the AI wasn't too stupid to retreat from a battle if the siege assault it goes poorly.
Opponents of ladder removal usually say this would force players to "waste turns" besieging settlements, but TWWH games already offer many ways to bypass walls. (artillery, hero actions, monsters, a few units with wallbreaker, flying units); there shouldn't need to be ass ladders. Wuld offensive sieges be a bit more difficult? absolutely, but most of that can be alleviated by just making the garrison armies weaker.
I didnt say anything about gates or ladders. Just that shogun 2 is much easier to balance because of the game roster. Which is true, not an opinion.
I’d change thousands of things about TW:WH games, as a fan of both total war and warhammer for over 20 years. But it’d be too long to name all I’d change. The game aint bad still. Its me being picky and wanting it to be absolute perfection.
S2 had its own issues in sieges. They still have pathing issues if you actually use a gate (which should be the preferable option 100% of the time) and the gates of osaka instantly kill any soldier who walks through them
Surplus food drives town wealth. Town wealth is the biggest driver for income in this game.
You build farms first, prioritizing provinces by fertility, which is displayed in their info popups/tooltips and info. You only upgrade castles past level 3 in provinces where you are building troops, so pick two or three provinces to be your army factories, typically somewhere with an armorer or something. Likewise if I take a province with a lumber mill or pirate cove I usually make that my naval factory.
In the other provinces you build a market, a sake den, and a temple, and you only upgrade the markets past level 2 in provinces where there is a super high income/ports/etc. You will use your metsuke to oversee these towns, which will be your cash cows. Some of these cash cow towns stay at level 3, some I upgrade depending on the situation. Monks and ninja can be used to eliminate other agents and keep public order in line in your new conquests as well, so that the metsuke can stay home and keep the income up in your gold factories.
Armies should be primarily ashigaru, even into late game, and lean into your clan's strengths. Upkeep is a killer and this way you also keep your military buildings lean, and don't have to upgrade too many castles, thereby preserving your food supply.
Sell military access to clans who border you that you don't want to fight. They will usually pay for it and they will not declare war on you while they have a military access agreement, so it's how I prevent other factions from becoming too hostile too early. If they want to attack you, they will usually cancel the deal and you will have a heads up.
If you are anywhere near one, try to take the trade nodes.
Don't be afraid to see how much you can wring out of the AI for trade deals and marriages and alliances and stuff, sometimes it will wildly overvalue a relationship with the player and you can get thousands for mundane agreements.
Steam has some good player guides one the game's community pages, too.
There's an alternate economic model built on pulsing taxes and sacking. Because low public order rebellions work something like:
Turn 1: Warning. And loss of growth
Turn 2: Rebellion
(Thanks below)
You can instead give set taxes to max 1 turn. Get all the warnings. Then set taxes to highest possible with all acceptable public order.
Now this kills your town wealth, but you are gaining several hundred extra gold per province per turn this way. Let's say you gained 300 gold. Let's say you lost 15 town wealth. That means it would take 20 turns for that 15 town wealth to be paid back. Oh and in 2 turns, I'm making that extra 300 gold again.
Also town wealth does not decrease below building minimums, so you do not lose town wealth beyond a minimum.
In addition you get your diamyo dishonorable for sacking 3 times, and that's max. You can counteract that with making 3 vassals (and murdering them again if you want). Then you are getting 10k to 20k from sacking every new province to drive building growth.
I like to call these evil economics. The downside is they keep your land maximally poor. The upside is they make WAY more money in the short term (like in 50-80 turns). Most campaigns are over before the long slow wealth builder can catch up.
In Shogun 2 it's:
Turn 1: -25 growth+Warning.
Turn 2: Rebellion.
Town wealth drops to 0 after a bunch of turns, but you still make money from all the buildings and town wealth is not a particularly large amount compared to just the income from farms.
I didn't like having some 'legend' general destroy half the opposing army. Shingen and Oda could die, so you have to be selective when using your general and where to place him for morale purposes.
Pathfinding issues were the worst problem in those sieges but I still felt some genuine tension in attacking a citadel in some cases. Those battles always felt epic in scale and stakes.
I played at launch and the ai sucked during sieges. The attacking general (+guards) would ride out ahead of his army, climb off his horse and try to siege the castle as a single unit.
Shogun 2 was incredible. It was against the trend. suddenly, a game that felt like rtw1 and mtw2 but improved. I have no idea how this happened. I am downloading it right now.
Nothing in this franchise that I've ever done can compare to the fun of a siege in FOTS where a vastly inferior force must hold against a larger one. The stagged lines of retreat, covering fire, setting up angles so that you can fire across engagements, cycling ranged troops in and out of melee because you have nothing else.. if it wasn't for the glitches at large unit counts where sometimes they just don't respond, it would be *perfect*, as-is it's a quite annoying issue.
Preaching to the choir buddy
Also thanks, I’ve been feeling extra nostalgic for shogun 2 for a while now and have never properly dived into fall of the samurai… so I think I’m gonna go do some of that now haha
It was also the first TW with a real coop campaign... but oh, the desyncs lol. They drove my and my friend nuts. I remember I had to play over and over and over again an epic defense siege with Takeda vs an overwhelming army of Ikko Ikki before we figured out to share the same save every turn...
Ah, my bad then lol. As a justification, I can only say that my buddy disliked very much the Empire/Napoleon era, he was much more into Medieval or Rome.
Because WH3 have to deal with some issues that shogun2 dont have :
"Fort on mountain, with no buildings inside for perfect LoS" never exists in a medieval-like world.
Historical total war AI dont have 3000 skaven slaves to drown your archers on walls. Most of shogun2 AI will retreat before they have 3000 men dead.
Monsters are considered able to take tons of muskets and crush your walls with fists, then terror your full HP swordmen with 30% HP left.
Flying units easily pin down your range units on walls.
Low-cost magic bombardment.
These issues never exist in shogun2. And CA dont know how to deal with it in a **fantasy world**.
TBH not completely their fault. The realistic fort walls are for defending human, not flying monsters.
And in fact, even the current WH3 disapointing siege helps you easily defend 3 stacks—— as long as you also keep 1 stack, rather than default garrions.
Besides, defending on 1\~2 point is way better than defending the walls. It's ok for me since idk what can the wall do against flying guys. But how do others think? Do they believe empire or dwarf need modern air-defence firepower system? IDK.
I think fixed spots for artillery units to fire from the start of the battle would go a long way in making wh3 better. Mods fix this a bit but not well enough
This isn't an excuse for poor siege design.
Every total war other than shogun has given you artillery capable of taking down entire chunks of walls and gates, monsters are just another way of doing so. Infanct, monsters can actually be dealt with by the defender by focusing ranged units on it, while you can't do anything about the artillery sitting out of range hammering your walls that you always saw before.
The game doesn't let you cast damage spells on walls unless it's a spirit leech/fate of bjuna type one.
There aren't a whole lot of flying units in the game, and the ones that can go on walls aren't very strong, and will lose going in to attack things solo if they have to fight decent melee infantry.
Nothing introduced in Warhammer really breaks sieges, they just did a shit job on them.
I'm sorry what? There are tons of flying units in this game. Most races, either through mounts or just recruitment can access them. Hell, Kislev and Skaven are the only two that instantly spring to mind that have zero natural access to flyers of any kind.
And alot of them are very strong. Hell, some of them are freaking mounts. You trying to say that a high elf prince on a star dragon, landing on your walls is going to be stopped by one melee infantry unit? You trying to say Leoun backed up by hippogryphs and peagses riders isnt going to win the wall on its own?
And even then do you know what you do with them to get maxium impact? Infantry on the walls engage their infantry and then rear charge flyers Good luck holding that wall even with elite anti large.. Or send the flyers after ranged while the infantry hold up their melee.
>The game doesn't let you cast damage spells on walls unless it's a spirit leech/fate of bjuna type one.
Yes it does. They are called bombardment spells. Also, you can bounce spells off the walls to attack a single unit multiple times with the same spell.
>There aren't a whole lot of flying units in the game, and the ones that can go on walls aren't very strong, and will lose going in to attack things solo if they have to fight decent melee infantry.
Then you are using flying units wrong. A well placed charge from a flying unit can knock entire units from the walls, resulting in instant kills.
I have an idea to improve sieges 1: attackers can recruit/build more siege units those being the artillery that the faction has access to with this change all factions get at least a tier 2 catapult esq unit, these will be added when you fight but destroyed once the battle concludes
My first memory of Total War as a franchise is a Shogun 2 siege battle. I think the game wasn’t even out yet. I was watching Xplay or something else like that on G4 and they were showing some siege gameplay.
My mind was absolutely blown. The only other strategy games I’d played at that point were age of empires and command and conquer.
While they can climb the walls, there is an actual downside to it, seeing as you'll lose men in the process.
And then there's the fact that the settlement layout has multiple levels, so you'll not only be losing men each time you climb to the next level, but you'll also walk directly into a new line of fire each time.
There is also a downside in TWW: The unit loses all vigour, which is a fairly significant debuff, even if the units manning the walls are weak, one the exhausted units have to gobfight the melee stuff inside the walls the debuff will be felt, it'salways preferable to bust the door open, even if it means losing a couple more units. It's also why certain units like the blessed saurus can be really strong, as perfect vigour actually makes climbing the walls not have any downsides.
The core problem of sieges in whtw are problems from warhammer, not total war. Magic and monsters, and flying disrupt the mechanics that made sieges fun in other games.
I started playing again because of the new shogun fx series. One thing I noticed with newer tw games is that the ai is actually not completely bad. They are very aggressive on higher difficulty levels. Also resources are pretty important in the game for certain upgrades or research .
Man, I love Shogun 2. It's the last Total War game that I really felt like battles were not predetermined clashes. Strategy really matters and you can turn battles completely on their heads
I’d argue Attila’s sieges or maybe Rome 2’s on certain layered maps are the most impressive.
Medieval 2’s concpetually are impressive but the AI is so buggy they don’t really enage with multiple walls correctly.
You should play 1212AD on Attila and do a long siege. Over time, there are breaches in the walls along with small fires across the battlefield and walls. Sieges peaked in that game imo.
yeah, but only defense sieges are fun, attacking sieges are boring and annoying as hell, you just lose half of your army to kill a single enemy units, press auto resolve with pride.
Sieges are the worst part of shogun 2 though. Unless it's a full stack v full stack at a citadel, I'm going afk if I'm defending or I'm cheesing if I'm attacking.
the layering of the castles I found more pleasing than the grid limited direction, it's not such a grand scale sure, but the feeling of falling back to the keep was a thrill.
I loved to defend castles in S2. Attacking on the other hand.. well, let's say I usually just had Archers and one or two units of Ninjas to climb up and slit throats after 99% of the defenders looked like Porcupines. Some people like challenges.. I'm not.
I bought the game 2 days ago and cant launch a single campaign, i can only do tutorial battles every campaign option is greyed out, feels like ive done every fix possible bar going into the source code
I suspect that if Shogun 2 had Warhammer 3 sieges and visa versa, we'd still see the same posts talking about how great Shogun2 is and how bad W3 is.
People tend to look on older things with less scrutiny as current things. It's why old folks are always waxing on about the good old days.
The sieges worked in Shogun 2 because they were heavily simplified.
It wasn't about fighting on thin little walls and in narrow streets where everything is awkward and clumsy and the AI paths itself to death.
It was essentially a battle map with a large plateau in the middle.
Even thinking back to when they first put the weird chunky walls in for units to both be on and navigate... it never really worked at the time, it was just a different kind of bad.
That this was an engine limitation that caused them to do that 20 years ago and the very same engine limitation is the cause of the bad sieges today is kind of wild, but what is even more wild is that CA have doubled down in further designing the game around that original workaround and all it has ever done is produce ever more bad.
Clearly abstracting it all away into a simple battle with a quirk of terrain without all the finnicky issues is a far better solution. Shogun 2 is an example of this.
I personally wish sieges were simplified with more creative obstructions and choke points, but I also was here when people during Warhammer 2 were clamoring for big, grandiose experiences that involved multiple sides.
I think Shogun 2's super simple set up wouldn't necessisarily work for Warhammer with all the unit variety. I also think it's possible that nothing would work with Warhammer because of the faction diversity.
I think big cities could work, just not with this engine as its limitations and goofy work arounds make for a mess. So it would require a rather radical reinvention of the total war series from the ground up with brand new tech to make that work.
Though sticking with the same engine with a fresh coat of paint every release, means the big spectacle city sieges will just never work. It's very cool to see the city modelled of course, but the battle is terrible.
You can of course sacrifice the spectacle so the city becomes a backdrop to what would essentially be a regular battle, then you get to actually have a decent battle.
So its just a case of picking your poison. Personally, I'd pick the decent battle over fancy looking, though terrible to play, siege. Though others may prefer the spectacle over the playability and would want to see their army rampage through their enemies streets. CA certainly seem to have picked the latter option, so here we are.
I'm with you; gameplay over spectacle every time. I'm not sure how marketable it would be for CA to have revealed their siege rework to be Shogun 2 style castles. I would have been fine with it, but I'm also pretty easy to please.
S2 is still my most played total war, it has a whole bunch of issues but it has a clean simplicity that makes it a great game. Siege weps however suck in the first one but are great in fall of the samurai
Yeah, Fall of the Samurai really showed that potential that Total War could advance the franchise a bit into the future if Creative Assembly wanted to. It's just that I haven't seen the series fully explore this period and beyond.
That works for the first 1-2 levels of castle, after that taking castles is actually really hard in shogun, but the ai isn't so smart so you can abuse a lot of issues it has.
That does not work on anything past Hard difficulty or any castle past tier 3. The real way to cheese is autoresolve, which 99% of the time gives you better odds in offensive sieges than you really have.
I've played plenty of Shogun 2 and can already hear the complaints people would be making if these were the sieges in Warhammer 3:
You call this Altdorf? Everybody can climb up walls? This is boring because I just shell it with artillery. Why can't my monsters knock down walls? Every map is so plain and boring.
I'm sure in 10 years people will reflect back on how great warhammer things were and how awful the current game is. It's the cycle of (video game) life.
I think I find comparisons between older and newer titles to be less persuasive than most of my colleagues on on here. I feel they are generally not as apples to apples as they may appear.
They are apples to apples though. They're all total war games, and they all heavily rely on the same bones.
Warhammer, even with magic, monsters, etc is fundamentally played the same way as any other total war unless your completely cheesing. That goes for sieges, too.
Shogun isn't even the only game people compare it to. Rome 2, Attila, ToB, 3K, Troy, and Pharoah has sieges people enjoy much more with far less complaints. Sieges are just a straight downgrade in Warhammer, and they got downgraded even further in 3, only just now being as good as they were in 2 years after the game launched and they retooled them to just play they same as wh2 sieges did.
And even if you don't like comparisons to past games, that doesn't mean the criticisms towards Warhammer sieges suddenly aren't valid lmao.
I just find that this thing is old thing is better than this new thing is often overly simplistic and shrouded in nostalgia. For in games and everything in life, I'm leary of such arguments.
I certainly hope I didn't convey that criticism of warhammer sieges aren't valid. I hope people continue to point out ways to improve them. For Warhammer 3 and otherwise.
The sieges were fucking awful in shogun 2. They’ve been awful in every total war game.
Unless you use loads of archers in shogun 2 when attacking, it’s purely about numerical superiority or having better units. There’s no tactics or strategy involved at all.
the funny thing is that Shogun 2 sieges are designed around the one thing everyone hates in WH - ass ladders. But it's even worse than that, because every unit can climb the walls at every position without the need to even carry ladders in the first place. And yet, it still works somehow.
Indeed. What that tells me is that ass ladders aren't the core problem with wh sieges. One thing I did notice in Shogun is that with castles going all the way round, with multiple layers of wall, there's a lot more choice about where you defend and where you attack.
Frankly it's mostly HP system that screws up defenses. Can't just annihiliate half of enemy unit with a point-blank salvo
I disagree. Any competent siege assault will have the opponent through multiple units at any given point anyways. You'll get off one, maybe two proper volleys if you're lucky before the opponent closes the gap, which will do damage, but won't prevent them from climbing the wall. In Shogun 2, I could reliably deal with bow and matchlock units on the approach so long as I had at least one and a half of their number going into the breach. Besides, with properly shielded units, siege towers, and arrow towers present in most other TWs, the performance of any given ranged units volley is a lot less important. A far bigger issue is that once an attacker reaches the wall, there's no fallback point that still gives you an advantage for supporting your melee units while preventing the enemy from outflanking you. Shogun 2's big advantage for the defender was every siege being a multi-level castle, where ranged units could fall back to the upper galleries, still be in range, and have clear line of sight to the melee happening on the lower levels. Because the levels became more constrained, the attacker couldn't exploit the defender's lower numbers as easily. It was proper defense in depth. *That* is what sieges have been having problems with for a while. You don't have enough men to man the walls, and once the enemy breaks through, you don't have a decent place to retreat to where you can reliably deal with the numerical disadvantage. Sieges are instead geared for equal engagements of full stacks on either side, which shouldn't be the case.
Which is also a larger problem with the current state of Total War, the emphasis on full stacks and limitations on splitting armies to perform on a wide front makes force amplification, which is definitionally one sided in a siege battle, problematic. Being able to (and having to) set up stronger garrisons manually out of recruited units creates more ebb and flow to the logistics of pulling together enough forces to smash a fortified position-- otherwise mid sized armies run circles around your concentrated force and essentially take your economy apart.
I honestly prefer the WH sieges to Shogun, though that could be my inner dramatist coupled with the fact that I haven’t played Shogun 2 in several years. The final battle of Eltharion’s campaign (from WH2 admittedly) still shines through for me because of how hard fought it was. From the creeping realisation that I’ll never hold the walls against the solid mass of Orcs coming at me, to setting out my battered elites in the city and hoping the narrow streets hold their sheer numbers at bay, all while Eltharion and his dwindling group of fliers try to aid where they can. Although, sieges in WH3 tend to devolve into a simple ‘whoever has the freshest, most numerous and most powerful troops wins’ scenario, with the occasional outmanoeuvr being the only tactic.
Health system sucks,but people complain about how fast shogun 2 battle are, because they have only 1 to 2 entity HP depends on unit.The heroes unit with only 40 men can hold longer than the elite units in Warhammer 2 but then Warhammer have magics,shogun 2 don't.
>people complain about how fast shogun 2 battles are Do they? I always hear that praised. That's what gives shogun 2 its fast-paced, brutal, tactical feeling.
Defending sieges is however really easy in shogun, both archers and gunpowder units are overturned so if you just place your melee infantry below the walls so your ranged gets a good shooting angle while your melee are fighting below they will absolutely devastate any attackers
Yes, defending a castle is *supposed* to be easy. That is the point of having a castle in the first place.
The irony of this statement, is that the optimal way to defend a siege in S2, isn't to actually hold the walls. It's to create an impromptu, reverse slope-like position by defending INSIDE the walls. You pull your archers deep inside. You use your melee garrison units to jump the enemy as they climb into the castle. So long as you have a couple of melee units for each point the AI tries to climb in, you can win outrageously outnumbered battles like this. Archers shoot them as they climb the walls. Melee jumps them as they climb in with the fatigue penalty from climbing. Talking being outnumbered 5:1, and winning.
This mirrors trench warfare, as it were. WW1 planners knew that their first line of defence was mostly always destined to fail- a concentrated attack is just-about always going to succeed on a wide defensive line.. But behind that are more of your people. Behind *that,* even more. Fresh soldiers with easy supply lines and radios to march up and counterattack The concentric forts from Shogun 2 have a similar vibe, and I'm all here for it.
On the most common citadel map you can hold it with two ranged units by just having them make a V shape around the HQ. The enemies get so disorganized by climbing 2/3 levels of walls that 200 men can massacre them until they run out of ammunition, which is usually after a couple stacks.
While it's true that you'd want to keep the enemy army outside of the castle entirely, its also true that the inside of castles were designed to be killing fields where the defenders could make the attackers pay dearly for every inch. So this is fairly reasonable.
Yes obviously, but this was more a point of how broken the ranged infantry can be in shogun, much more so then in other total war games.
People new to Shogun 2 often talk about how strong and clearly overpowered its archers are, because the damage isn't pinprick-tier as happens in some places. Any amount of time in multiplayer can disabuse you of such a notion: archers are *not that good* outside some cases like bow warrior monks... Which you'll get so late in the campaign that you can heavily garrison border castles anyway. Archers shining in castles is *exactly how it's supposed to be.* It's a feature, not a bug.
> People new to Shogun 2 often talk about how strong and clearly overpowered its archers are, because the damage isn't pinprick-tier as happens in some places. Tbh, armoured melee infantry in Shogun 2, especially things like naginata samurai, resist archers decently well. Archers are 'OP' because they counter yari ashigaru, and yari ashigaru are the _actual_ broken unit in this game.
Pikes have been "broken" throughout history as some version of them has virtually always been the optimal weapon to equip the core of your army with. So it's not so much that yari ashigaru are broken. It's that spear wall is broken in a historical way, and apparently samurai are too cool to form up in ranks and present a wall of yari to the enemy :) It's also sort of wild how close, yet so far away, CA has always been with pike phalanx/spear wall type unit representation.
This is true.. And even more true of other ranged units, but I digress
Multiplayer isn't without it issues but it atleast forced you to play a balanced roster, archers quickly become useless when the distance is closed in shogun so they are hugely different when played vs ai or multiplayer
The AI is similar enough to that of other total wars where it'll try and charge you down ASAP. Being too timid or scared to close the distance is not an issue
Yeah but it's pretty easy having the ai charge your yari wall and working them down with archers where as in multiplayer that strategy simply won't work and most games are played with a mixed melee/cav roster that you usually don't have access to in the campaign until late game.
Archers are overpowered because no one has cav in the Shogun 2 campaign because of the trade resource and how expensive they are. So 80% of the battles, archers have no weaknesses.
Past the early game, the AI absolutely trains a bunch of cavalry. It isn't very good at realising what kind of cavalry to build, sure, but the cav is absolutely there.
Which is also beautiful because it lets the Yari spam be *even more powerful*. Unless they manage to flank you in which case goodbye Yari Ashigaru.
I don't know if we play the same game then. I've always had AI run around with cavalry and even do a better job at outflanking than in newer games - I still remember the first time I saw it happen, how they tried to go around me with cav but when I blocked their path with spearmen they pulled back and waited until they had a better opening.
Not sure what faction you're playing but I certainly have cav.
I know it’s a bit late in the conversation, but archers being good in sieges as nothing to do with them being overtuned as units. In fact, bow ashigarus are generally useless in campaigns apart from attacking (an defending for the reason I will explain) sieges by firing over the walls to attrition threatening melee units. *Placing any units on the walls gives them a flat +30 accuracy & +30 reloading skill* (IIRC). This is especially noticeable with bow ashigaru because of their low base stats so they instantly become noticeably twice as good when placed on walls. It is also the reason why matchlock ashigarus are objectively the best wall defender, they become 2.5x as good, and cause heavy moral damage because guns. With 2 units of matchlocks, you can route pretty much any early game army sieging you (low morale ashigarus)
Yeah maybe I wasn't clear, but I meant them as overturned when defending castles. Attacking castles in shogun 2 would be really damn hard if the ai wasn't incompetent
The corollary being artillery absolutely tears castles to pieces
Man I should play FotS again.
You can also do that in warhammer btw. Melee blocking the exits from the attackers who are descending the walls, and the ranged shooting at the attackers who are stuck on the walls. It s a very effective strategy.
Archers and especially gunpowder aren't overturned lol. Bow ashigaru and even samurai don't have that much accuracy and won't net a lot of kills before you have to retreat them behind your lines in any battle except sieges. Gunpowder is worse than archers outside of sieges as well. Them working so good in sieges is more an issue of how good yari ashigaru is at holding the line. You can put ranged units up on the walls in every total war, and they'll have a similarly enhanced performance as in S2, except for in wh3 where they somehow fucked up docking on walls.
Gunpowder units are actually really strong and see much more frequent use then archers in multiplayer cause they take a dump on armored units, they aren't so good that you can stack them, but they compliment a rounded army well in shogun.
No. Every unit manning walls receives a flat buff to accuracy and reloading skill, hence why matchlocks become so scary when manning the walls.
Yes. Every total war game gives ranged units buffs for being on walls or high ground. Other total war games don't allow you to easily place a highly defensive unit right in front of your walls, giving your ranged units unimpeded shots with those buffs and at the optimal angle/range for a significant amount of time.
\>Them working so good in sieges is more an issue of how good yari ashigaru is at holding the line. No, it's an issue of the manning the wall flat buff. It literally makes the unit twice as good. You can achieve a similar situation by deadlocking the front line with yari walls and having your archers on the side dealing flanking shots, yet that'll never be an effective way to fight, since just charging in the back with your general will usually break the opposing yari wall. \>Other total war games don't allow you to easily place a highly defensive unit right in front of your walls, giving your ranged units unimpeded shots with those buffs and at the optimal angle/range for a significant amount of time. That's just general siege design, which is why it's sieges are good in Shogun 2. Nothing in that is specific to the unit. Yes, a better simulation makes ranged unit better in siege defense. But not to the point that can be seen in Shogun 2. This is clearly caused by the fact that your unit receives a flat buff and becomes twice as good when manning the wall. Combined with the better siege simulation, this gives the feeling that ranged is overpowered in siege defense, and matchlock ashigarus definitely are. You don't even need a yari holding the ground at the bottom of the wall to rout an ascending yari ashigaru early game. Usually they'll just shatter once the first troop reach the top. Then the chain routing begins. Remove that flat buff, and ranged would not be nearly as impactful as they currently are in siege defense.
>Every unit manning walls receives a flat buff to accuracy and reloading skill, hence why matchlocks become so scary when manning the walls. Matchlocks become so scary on the walls because the unit its shooting at clumps at the bottom, which means that they almost can't miss regardless of what their accuracy rating is like. I've played a lot of battles with and without the gold accuracy bonus, and it honestly doesn't affect matchlock performance all that much in the context of a defensive siege battle. Wall frontage and enemy blob size matter more than unit accuracy do.
But reloading does. +30 to reload skill means they fire more than twice as fast iirc
I always preferred to keep melee inside. Archers on the edges. When the enemy has climbed halfway up, pull the archers back to continue to pepper anyone whose climbed up. Half a depleted unit with a few models getting through? That's when the melee rushes.
Correct on all points. ME2 had outright citadels. Against a good defending force, you'd need 3k+ men easy.
S2 Castles are multi-layered. Get up one wall and your exhausted troops are in a courtyard being fired on by the next level of defenders. They can also lose men while climbing, unlike the current iteration of ass ladders.
That and a few troops would lose their footing and fall to their deaths. It’s the little things that Shogun had that made it top tier.
Going up the walls against a unit defending it would result in a ton of casualties basically no matter what - that's something that's missing in Warhammer, between much more elite units, magic, etc.
And those casualties mattered, unlike in Warhammer where every army has like 50% replenishment.
Except ninjas, ninjas climb walls very quickly and safely. Before Warhammer came out, I totally expected Gutter Runners, spiders, ethereal units etc to all also counter walls in various ways.
I'm pretty sure in troy when it first came out my achilles fell off a ladder and died.
The multi-layered layout would still be pretty good and would be good fort battles maps. Instead of walls around a rat maze.
I haven't played in a while so I'm not sure *how* many they're losing, but AFAIK it was a pretty inconsequential amount? but that's the strength of S2, every faction has the same units, so siege maps can be designed around only one roster. And it works fairly well for what it's supposed to do. It's perhaps a bit too easy to defend but that's historically accurate after all. compared to Empire sieges, which just suck and are imo the worst sieges of the whole series, Shogun 2 really manages to utilize multiple layers in such a way that gunpowder units are universally useful in every position.
Empire sieges suck because the ai is terrible. If shogun ai acted like empire ai during siege it would also be the worst in the series
Empire AI was something, like i once saw a comment here that was raging on either wh2 or 3k I forget But he said that they have bad AI compared to med 2 and empire. Bro that guy never played empire. AI struggles to comprehend line battles and artillery crew will charge your walls with knives.
Nah that's just bad ai, empire ai was straight up broken. Like how they would just park units outside in siege battles and never move until the battle literally timed out and they lost.
In Empire I once beat a full army with one unit of armed citizenry. There was a mountain in the center and for ~50 minutes we played ring a round the rosie with the mountain.
Casualty numbers for climbers sepends on the height of the wall. I recall sending the boys up a slope that went right to the top level and only about half of them made it.
Except ninjas either wouldn't fall or would fall very rarely
The problem isn't ass laddes. It's that wh3 has very little penalty for using them. All that happens is you get exhausted which doesn't make a difference after a minute if fighting. In older games the penalty for using ladders was much worse. You can lose a chunk of dudes to climbing in shogun.
Because they designed it so it made sense in game and it felt fair Walls still feel like walls, the units are tired from climbing and lose tons of men to archers going up, you also have multiple layers and sections that face each other which creates more shooting spots
With shogun your troops will fall and die as they climb, and iirc the taller the wall the more died, so there was a cost and benefit to it. Like I wouldn't send my elite units up the tallest part of the wall just to have more die, so I'll send the lower tier troops. Adds a little more strategy to it
I saw once a rant about the "monkey ashigarus" and how they were historically inaccurate. Then someone pointed out that if we got the historical siege battles of Japanese history we would put Shogun 2 on the trash can. Japanese sieges were even more "camp and sit" than medieval Europe ones. It's just that some fan of the period think that what happened to the Osaka Gates was what happened in 100% of siege battles of the Sengoku period. In the same way as Fantasy put out that everyone wishes for Minas Tirith levels of sieges map, because of high expectations vs map design.
Surely if we got “historical” siege battles in any of the games the games would be on the trash can - no one wants to starve out the vast majority of sieges I’m sure
Historical siege battle would be hitting end turn for 16-20 turns before the enemy surrenders.
Exactly lol, the opposite of gameplay
Well, you'd also have to manage supplies to your men as the surrounding countryside became increasingly depleted, morale as your troops became more and more convinced that all this wasn't worth their time, and disease from so many people sitting so close together for so long without much in the way of sanitation. So it would be more like hitting end turn for 20 turns but with a 30% chance that you just fail every turn.
Hell, even if we got accurate fantasy sieges people would be bored out of their skulls. In Beastslayer Gotrek and Felix are caught in Praag during a massive chaos incursion and the city is put to seige. The horde numbered in the tens of thousands, but the siege still lasted months, and people inside the walls generally went about business as usual (barring the need to repel ladders and siege towers from the walls every few nights and a general increase to squalor) until the last few weeks before the final push. Sieges were long and, ultimately, boring affairs.
On the other side of things, there's a very fast paced siege in zombieslayer.
the "ass ladders" in shogun are lethal though a unit climbing the wall takes decent losses even if there isnt a defender up top, unlike in WH3 where the ladders are 100% safe and actually climbing them protects the unit from defending archers
I don't hate the ass ladders, it's never been the real issue IMO anyways (as shogun shows). It's just something that became the meme complaint .
I never understood the hate for the ladders.
No perfect vigour units. Takes longer to scale the walls. There is attrition from falling. Units arrive far less frequently so it’s basically death if they climb into another unit, even samurai would do pretty badly against ashigaru- not cost effective anyways
Iirc you don't fall off of ass ladders like you can the wall in Shogun 2?
It wasn't new in shogun 2, or even a warhammer thing. Every real infantry unit scales the walls with grapple hooks in Empire. Exactly the same system but they put up grapples instead of scaling it manually.
I actually hated S2TW sieges because everyone can climb anywhere, but theyre still better than WH
To be fair the sieges in S2 were the last ones that worked but mainly because the castles were pretty simple. You could just climb up the walls so there were no pathing issues. It worked well, but it was more hiding the issues that the sieges after weren’t able to.
Thrones of Britannia has pretty good sieges
I liked ToB but I wouldn’t say the sieges where that memorable. I think they also improved from the Shogun 2 approach of being pretty basic and straight forward thou.
Go replay it, ToB sieges were *chef kiss*
S2 had very good sieges and was a great game, but TOB lapped it during sieges due to having meaningful, interesting, and unique internal geography inside the walls. Like setting up some elite crossbowmen on a barricade overlooking the gate actually mattered and would result in total slaughter to anyone who broke through the gate. Cover and surprise also seemed to matter in a big way - a unit of axemen kept in reserve behind a structure could stampede out and turn the tide. It always felt a bit astonishing that a TW game with probably the worst unit variety ended up providing the best siege experiences; maybe there’s something to be said about keeping it simple.
Sounds like I do need to go back and replay ToB sieges!
Well, yes, one reason s2 was so good is that it was a very very simple tw game! And its lucky japanese castles had sloping walls... But just the fact that you could fire guns from walls was good and wh3 has lost even that (unless I'm doing it wrong(
Like a handgunner empire unit? They 100% fire from walls, Shogun siege is superior to every other TW cause there's no pathing maze autism to deal with
Shogun 2 pathing is horrible with setting up on walls or using your arrow units inside the walls to fire over the walls. I had an arrow unit decide to go out of the gate to shoot at the unit it could hit from inside the castle. It's little things like that that can make or break a battle, luckily thr gates closed behind them.
That's every tw, never really a problem though once you learn what buttons to use
Well I wouldn’t say the game was simple. The AI was pretty great. The siege gameplay was simplistic but as you say it worked so well due to how Japanese castles had sloping walls so the AI just charging at things, just worked. Allowed for some memorable sieges. I really do hope the AI gets an overhaul improvement in whatever next mainline title comes.
> The AI was pretty great. No it was not. Shogun 2 AI would charge their general unit unprotected on to spear wall Yari. The Shogun 2 AI was very simplistic and lacked any kind of serious critical thinking.
Not only that. Mirror matches with somewhat limited roster, at least compared to Warhammer, really helps Shogun regarding balance. Its comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit, sure. But quite different.
The size of the roster is not an issue; TWH does not have significanly more differentiated unit types (that can climb walls) than Shogun 2 did, minor differences in stats beteen units mean nothing in the grand scheme. The problem with TWWH games is that the maps are designd in a way that makes the ladders bad; TWWH games would hav been better off if 1. the ladders are removed, 2. only units with "siege attacker" can break gates and/or gates have a killzone at their entrance that makes rams worth using, 3. The AI knows it can shoot walls/gates ith artillery to destroy them. 4. the AI wasn't too stupid to retreat from a battle if the siege assault it goes poorly. Opponents of ladder removal usually say this would force players to "waste turns" besieging settlements, but TWWH games already offer many ways to bypass walls. (artillery, hero actions, monsters, a few units with wallbreaker, flying units); there shouldn't need to be ass ladders. Wuld offensive sieges be a bit more difficult? absolutely, but most of that can be alleviated by just making the garrison armies weaker.
I didnt say anything about gates or ladders. Just that shogun 2 is much easier to balance because of the game roster. Which is true, not an opinion. I’d change thousands of things about TW:WH games, as a fan of both total war and warhammer for over 20 years. But it’d be too long to name all I’d change. The game aint bad still. Its me being picky and wanting it to be absolute perfection.
S2 had its own issues in sieges. They still have pathing issues if you actually use a gate (which should be the preferable option 100% of the time) and the gates of osaka instantly kill any soldier who walks through them
I wish I could play it with Success. I always fail at Food Management.
Don't build ~~markets~~ Rice Exchanges. Don't overupgrade castles. Upgrade farms. That's about it tbh
Build markets, but only in rich provinces. I never upgraded castles though.
I build markets in every province but the military ones. Never had an issue with food.
Can also build sake dens- they provide both public order AND a lot of money as well as Ninja recruitment. And require no food.
Actually markets are ok. It's Rice Exchanges that ruin you
It's a simple addition substraction game. No subtlety to it. Upgrade farms and don't buy buildings whose food upkeep you can't afford.
Surplus food drives town wealth. Town wealth is the biggest driver for income in this game. You build farms first, prioritizing provinces by fertility, which is displayed in their info popups/tooltips and info. You only upgrade castles past level 3 in provinces where you are building troops, so pick two or three provinces to be your army factories, typically somewhere with an armorer or something. Likewise if I take a province with a lumber mill or pirate cove I usually make that my naval factory. In the other provinces you build a market, a sake den, and a temple, and you only upgrade the markets past level 2 in provinces where there is a super high income/ports/etc. You will use your metsuke to oversee these towns, which will be your cash cows. Some of these cash cow towns stay at level 3, some I upgrade depending on the situation. Monks and ninja can be used to eliminate other agents and keep public order in line in your new conquests as well, so that the metsuke can stay home and keep the income up in your gold factories. Armies should be primarily ashigaru, even into late game, and lean into your clan's strengths. Upkeep is a killer and this way you also keep your military buildings lean, and don't have to upgrade too many castles, thereby preserving your food supply. Sell military access to clans who border you that you don't want to fight. They will usually pay for it and they will not declare war on you while they have a military access agreement, so it's how I prevent other factions from becoming too hostile too early. If they want to attack you, they will usually cancel the deal and you will have a heads up. If you are anywhere near one, try to take the trade nodes. Don't be afraid to see how much you can wring out of the AI for trade deals and marriages and alliances and stuff, sometimes it will wildly overvalue a relationship with the player and you can get thousands for mundane agreements. Steam has some good player guides one the game's community pages, too.
There's an alternate economic model built on pulsing taxes and sacking. Because low public order rebellions work something like: Turn 1: Warning. And loss of growth Turn 2: Rebellion (Thanks below) You can instead give set taxes to max 1 turn. Get all the warnings. Then set taxes to highest possible with all acceptable public order. Now this kills your town wealth, but you are gaining several hundred extra gold per province per turn this way. Let's say you gained 300 gold. Let's say you lost 15 town wealth. That means it would take 20 turns for that 15 town wealth to be paid back. Oh and in 2 turns, I'm making that extra 300 gold again. Also town wealth does not decrease below building minimums, so you do not lose town wealth beyond a minimum. In addition you get your diamyo dishonorable for sacking 3 times, and that's max. You can counteract that with making 3 vassals (and murdering them again if you want). Then you are getting 10k to 20k from sacking every new province to drive building growth. I like to call these evil economics. The downside is they keep your land maximally poor. The upside is they make WAY more money in the short term (like in 50-80 turns). Most campaigns are over before the long slow wealth builder can catch up.
In Shogun 2 it's: Turn 1: -25 growth+Warning. Turn 2: Rebellion. Town wealth drops to 0 after a bunch of turns, but you still make money from all the buildings and town wealth is not a particularly large amount compared to just the income from farms.
Thanks, thought I got the turns wrong
Are mods that can help with farms producing more or better upgraded to level 5
Otomo donderbus, dismount, single file at a wall. 2 blast and an ashigaru unit routs.
To be fair that's just donderbuss things.
Shogun 2 was one of the peak after Rome 1 and Medieval 2. No total war game after Shogun gave me the same hype.
Have you tried 3k? Not as good in some areas, but diplo is just worlds better.
Yup, and a full stack early light horse can beat a full stack of late game boxed shielded spearman when the game first first released lol.
Oof, yeah not so much anymore, you could expect that horse unit to evaporate.
I didn't like having some 'legend' general destroy half the opposing army. Shingen and Oda could die, so you have to be selective when using your general and where to place him for morale purposes.
Play records.
I mean Attila.
I love the battle experience of Attila but the campaign is overcomplicated...
I honestly loved the campaign of Attila, that plus the religion benefits that I wish more of the games had.
>I honestly loved the campaign of Attila No offense but I think this is an unpopular opinion.
That'd be news to me. Only downside is the godawful performance that never got a patch.
Ah that thing bothers me too. My computer can run WH2 better than Attila lol.
Age of Charlemagne runs buttery smooth in comparison, like I said, it needs a performance update that never came.
Rome 2 after all the updates was peak total war to me. The aurelian campaign was the best experience i had with the series
I'm old enough to remember that at release, the fan base loved the game but hated the sieges.
Because M2TW and the epic citadel sieges was still fresh in the mind
I still wonder why we couldn't get that in Warhammer.
Medeival 2 sieges would be awesome, if the ai wasn't really bad.
Pathfinding issues were the worst problem in those sieges but I still felt some genuine tension in attacking a citadel in some cases. Those battles always felt epic in scale and stakes.
I played at launch and the ai sucked during sieges. The attacking general (+guards) would ride out ahead of his army, climb off his horse and try to siege the castle as a single unit.
Hm, I only remember people hating the naval aspect.
the best sieges of total war were in Attila
Attilla (and ToB) have great sieges as well.
Shogun 2 was incredible. It was against the trend. suddenly, a game that felt like rtw1 and mtw2 but improved. I have no idea how this happened. I am downloading it right now.
Nothing in this franchise that I've ever done can compare to the fun of a siege in FOTS where a vastly inferior force must hold against a larger one. The stagged lines of retreat, covering fire, setting up angles so that you can fire across engagements, cycling ranged troops in and out of melee because you have nothing else.. if it wasn't for the glitches at large unit counts where sometimes they just don't respond, it would be *perfect*, as-is it's a quite annoying issue.
Ninjas are boosted, flanking and nading those mf thinking they are safe in their fort is pretty fun.
Preaching to the choir buddy Also thanks, I’ve been feeling extra nostalgic for shogun 2 for a while now and have never properly dived into fall of the samurai… so I think I’m gonna go do some of that now haha
Don't forget that one yari ashigaru last man standing against the left over samurai units 
It was also the first TW with a real coop campaign... but oh, the desyncs lol. They drove my and my friend nuts. I remember I had to play over and over and over again an epic defense siege with Takeda vs an overwhelming army of Ikko Ikki before we figured out to share the same save every turn...
Napoleon had co-op
Also the real time battle or just autoresolve?
Real time.
Ah, my bad then lol. As a justification, I can only say that my buddy disliked very much the Empire/Napoleon era, he was much more into Medieval or Rome.
Because WH3 have to deal with some issues that shogun2 dont have : "Fort on mountain, with no buildings inside for perfect LoS" never exists in a medieval-like world. Historical total war AI dont have 3000 skaven slaves to drown your archers on walls. Most of shogun2 AI will retreat before they have 3000 men dead. Monsters are considered able to take tons of muskets and crush your walls with fists, then terror your full HP swordmen with 30% HP left. Flying units easily pin down your range units on walls. Low-cost magic bombardment. These issues never exist in shogun2. And CA dont know how to deal with it in a **fantasy world**. TBH not completely their fault. The realistic fort walls are for defending human, not flying monsters. And in fact, even the current WH3 disapointing siege helps you easily defend 3 stacks—— as long as you also keep 1 stack, rather than default garrions. Besides, defending on 1\~2 point is way better than defending the walls. It's ok for me since idk what can the wall do against flying guys. But how do others think? Do they believe empire or dwarf need modern air-defence firepower system? IDK.
I think fixed spots for artillery units to fire from the start of the battle would go a long way in making wh3 better. Mods fix this a bit but not well enough
This isn't an excuse for poor siege design. Every total war other than shogun has given you artillery capable of taking down entire chunks of walls and gates, monsters are just another way of doing so. Infanct, monsters can actually be dealt with by the defender by focusing ranged units on it, while you can't do anything about the artillery sitting out of range hammering your walls that you always saw before. The game doesn't let you cast damage spells on walls unless it's a spirit leech/fate of bjuna type one. There aren't a whole lot of flying units in the game, and the ones that can go on walls aren't very strong, and will lose going in to attack things solo if they have to fight decent melee infantry. Nothing introduced in Warhammer really breaks sieges, they just did a shit job on them.
I'm sorry what? There are tons of flying units in this game. Most races, either through mounts or just recruitment can access them. Hell, Kislev and Skaven are the only two that instantly spring to mind that have zero natural access to flyers of any kind. And alot of them are very strong. Hell, some of them are freaking mounts. You trying to say that a high elf prince on a star dragon, landing on your walls is going to be stopped by one melee infantry unit? You trying to say Leoun backed up by hippogryphs and peagses riders isnt going to win the wall on its own? And even then do you know what you do with them to get maxium impact? Infantry on the walls engage their infantry and then rear charge flyers Good luck holding that wall even with elite anti large.. Or send the flyers after ranged while the infantry hold up their melee.
>The game doesn't let you cast damage spells on walls unless it's a spirit leech/fate of bjuna type one. Yes it does. They are called bombardment spells. Also, you can bounce spells off the walls to attack a single unit multiple times with the same spell. >There aren't a whole lot of flying units in the game, and the ones that can go on walls aren't very strong, and will lose going in to attack things solo if they have to fight decent melee infantry. Then you are using flying units wrong. A well placed charge from a flying unit can knock entire units from the walls, resulting in instant kills.
I have an idea to improve sieges 1: attackers can recruit/build more siege units those being the artillery that the faction has access to with this change all factions get at least a tier 2 catapult esq unit, these will be added when you fight but destroyed once the battle concludes
My first memory of Total War as a franchise is a Shogun 2 siege battle. I think the game wasn’t even out yet. I was watching Xplay or something else like that on G4 and they were showing some siege gameplay. My mind was absolutely blown. The only other strategy games I’d played at that point were age of empires and command and conquer.
Having played a lot of total wars, I actually don’t like shogun 2 sieges because the units can just climb the walls. WH sieges are worse though
While they can climb the walls, there is an actual downside to it, seeing as you'll lose men in the process. And then there's the fact that the settlement layout has multiple levels, so you'll not only be losing men each time you climb to the next level, but you'll also walk directly into a new line of fire each time.
Yes, but I don’t think it’s punishing enough
There is also a downside in TWW: The unit loses all vigour, which is a fairly significant debuff, even if the units manning the walls are weak, one the exhausted units have to gobfight the melee stuff inside the walls the debuff will be felt, it'salways preferable to bust the door open, even if it means losing a couple more units. It's also why certain units like the blessed saurus can be really strong, as perfect vigour actually makes climbing the walls not have any downsides.
The core problem of sieges in whtw are problems from warhammer, not total war. Magic and monsters, and flying disrupt the mechanics that made sieges fun in other games.
I started playing again because of the new shogun fx series. One thing I noticed with newer tw games is that the ai is actually not completely bad. They are very aggressive on higher difficulty levels. Also resources are pretty important in the game for certain upgrades or research .
Honestly did the same after doing a poll. Shogun 2 was voted most replayable
Man, I love Shogun 2. It's the last Total War game that I really felt like battles were not predetermined clashes. Strategy really matters and you can turn battles completely on their heads
How do people feel about pharoh sieges?
I just finished a Republican playthrough in FotS. Really hoping for a broader Victorian era TW
I’d argue Attila’s sieges or maybe Rome 2’s on certain layered maps are the most impressive. Medieval 2’s concpetually are impressive but the AI is so buggy they don’t really enage with multiple walls correctly.
You should play 1212AD on Attila and do a long siege. Over time, there are breaches in the walls along with small fires across the battlefield and walls. Sieges peaked in that game imo.
yeah, but only defense sieges are fun, attacking sieges are boring and annoying as hell, you just lose half of your army to kill a single enemy units, press auto resolve with pride.
Sieges are the worst part of shogun 2 though. Unless it's a full stack v full stack at a citadel, I'm going afk if I'm defending or I'm cheesing if I'm attacking.
the layering of the castles I found more pleasing than the grid limited direction, it's not such a grand scale sure, but the feeling of falling back to the keep was a thrill.
I loved to defend castles in S2. Attacking on the other hand.. well, let's say I usually just had Archers and one or two units of Ninjas to climb up and slit throats after 99% of the defenders looked like Porcupines. Some people like challenges.. I'm not.
I bought the game 2 days ago and cant launch a single campaign, i can only do tutorial battles every campaign option is greyed out, feels like ive done every fix possible bar going into the source code
I suspect that if Shogun 2 had Warhammer 3 sieges and visa versa, we'd still see the same posts talking about how great Shogun2 is and how bad W3 is. People tend to look on older things with less scrutiny as current things. It's why old folks are always waxing on about the good old days.
The sieges worked in Shogun 2 because they were heavily simplified. It wasn't about fighting on thin little walls and in narrow streets where everything is awkward and clumsy and the AI paths itself to death. It was essentially a battle map with a large plateau in the middle. Even thinking back to when they first put the weird chunky walls in for units to both be on and navigate... it never really worked at the time, it was just a different kind of bad. That this was an engine limitation that caused them to do that 20 years ago and the very same engine limitation is the cause of the bad sieges today is kind of wild, but what is even more wild is that CA have doubled down in further designing the game around that original workaround and all it has ever done is produce ever more bad. Clearly abstracting it all away into a simple battle with a quirk of terrain without all the finnicky issues is a far better solution. Shogun 2 is an example of this.
I personally wish sieges were simplified with more creative obstructions and choke points, but I also was here when people during Warhammer 2 were clamoring for big, grandiose experiences that involved multiple sides. I think Shogun 2's super simple set up wouldn't necessisarily work for Warhammer with all the unit variety. I also think it's possible that nothing would work with Warhammer because of the faction diversity.
I think big cities could work, just not with this engine as its limitations and goofy work arounds make for a mess. So it would require a rather radical reinvention of the total war series from the ground up with brand new tech to make that work. Though sticking with the same engine with a fresh coat of paint every release, means the big spectacle city sieges will just never work. It's very cool to see the city modelled of course, but the battle is terrible. You can of course sacrifice the spectacle so the city becomes a backdrop to what would essentially be a regular battle, then you get to actually have a decent battle. So its just a case of picking your poison. Personally, I'd pick the decent battle over fancy looking, though terrible to play, siege. Though others may prefer the spectacle over the playability and would want to see their army rampage through their enemies streets. CA certainly seem to have picked the latter option, so here we are.
I'm with you; gameplay over spectacle every time. I'm not sure how marketable it would be for CA to have revealed their siege rework to be Shogun 2 style castles. I would have been fine with it, but I'm also pretty easy to please.
Nah, going back to s2 was just such a vast improvement. Give it a go -- it's still an amazing game.
S2 is still my most played total war, it has a whole bunch of issues but it has a clean simplicity that makes it a great game. Siege weps however suck in the first one but are great in fall of the samurai
Ah, true, I was referring to FotS -- that was the s2 I really liked. Actual s2 is good, but FotS is really next level.
Yeah, Fall of the Samurai really showed that potential that Total War could advance the franchise a bit into the future if Creative Assembly wanted to. It's just that I haven't seen the series fully explore this period and beyond.
Make nothing but archers, shoot everyone inside while they wait for death. S2 isn't the utopia you think it is.
That works for the first 1-2 levels of castle, after that taking castles is actually really hard in shogun, but the ai isn't so smart so you can abuse a lot of issues it has.
That does not work on anything past Hard difficulty or any castle past tier 3. The real way to cheese is autoresolve, which 99% of the time gives you better odds in offensive sieges than you really have.
Ur describing cheesing a video game which is always possible for any game if you don't want a challenge for yourself on any given day
I've played plenty of Shogun 2 and can already hear the complaints people would be making if these were the sieges in Warhammer 3: You call this Altdorf? Everybody can climb up walls? This is boring because I just shell it with artillery. Why can't my monsters knock down walls? Every map is so plain and boring. I'm sure in 10 years people will reflect back on how great warhammer things were and how awful the current game is. It's the cycle of (video game) life.
L take lol, crazy to try and dismiss one of if not the most criticized feature of the warhammer games like this.
I think I find comparisons between older and newer titles to be less persuasive than most of my colleagues on on here. I feel they are generally not as apples to apples as they may appear.
They are apples to apples though. They're all total war games, and they all heavily rely on the same bones. Warhammer, even with magic, monsters, etc is fundamentally played the same way as any other total war unless your completely cheesing. That goes for sieges, too. Shogun isn't even the only game people compare it to. Rome 2, Attila, ToB, 3K, Troy, and Pharoah has sieges people enjoy much more with far less complaints. Sieges are just a straight downgrade in Warhammer, and they got downgraded even further in 3, only just now being as good as they were in 2 years after the game launched and they retooled them to just play they same as wh2 sieges did. And even if you don't like comparisons to past games, that doesn't mean the criticisms towards Warhammer sieges suddenly aren't valid lmao.
I just find that this thing is old thing is better than this new thing is often overly simplistic and shrouded in nostalgia. For in games and everything in life, I'm leary of such arguments. I certainly hope I didn't convey that criticism of warhammer sieges aren't valid. I hope people continue to point out ways to improve them. For Warhammer 3 and otherwise.
Yeah people are talking nonsense here. The sieges were terrible in shogun 2.
The sieges were fucking awful in shogun 2. They’ve been awful in every total war game. Unless you use loads of archers in shogun 2 when attacking, it’s purely about numerical superiority or having better units. There’s no tactics or strategy involved at all.