Your best FoTS siege tactics

[Winterspawn]

Yes, I would like to know you most efficient siege tactic for FoTS.

As Imperialists it's pretty easy, take enough units of artillery and perhaps even a full stack fleet of boats, and shoot the out of the defenders, mopping up the few survivors when actually entering the castle. This works against full stacks of defenders and you shouldn't lose over a 100 soldiers when you handle it right. It's boring as hell but sending you firearms soldiers agains a bunch of samurai on a wall is suicide. Unless ofcourse, you do have a tactic that makes you able to fight that way.

The Shogunate supporters are the ones who have a harder time attacking. Even the weakest firearm units can take out a considerable amount of soldiers that approach the walls, giving you quite a few losses even though you can kill the entire firearms unit on the wall with barely any losses if you use melee samurai.
Burning down the gate is another possibility, it kills many defenders when the gate explodes, but you will also lose many soldiers because of the gunfire, and when you finally get through the gate they just block your path with some units, so while you are stuck they can shoot some more that are waiting in front of the gate. You can use artillery on the Shogunate side, just like on the Imperialist side, but that makes it very unautentic to me, and feels just wrong, maybe a couple of units will suffice for shooting the gate or something.
What works for me is sending one unit of samurai for burning down the gate, while sending some others to climb the wall, and that way fight untill the last defender is dead, that way you have all units at their wall distracted so you bow kachi can help you as well without being shot to smithereens. You can replace the unit of samurai with artillery for shooting down the wall if you took some with you. Bow kachi can be very important for shooting on large lumps of defenders when their firearm units are in melee, if you get them in range of the firearms units they will probarly die when the firearms units are on the wall.
Cavalry is pretty useless, unless you want to enter the castle on an undefended side, where you can use your cavalry do dismount, burn down gate, mount them again and charge into battle, so they don't lose the advantage of having horses.

Anyway, how do you handle sieges, I'm talking full stack vs full stack, you can decide what units both sides use, that just makes it more interesting.

I do use Darthmod but that doesn't change the tactics you can use.

[PT_ReVoLuTioN]

Well im playing with the imperialists but my attacking tactic is always the same take 2 artillery units like parrot gun or even better armstrong guns and stay like 20 - 30 minutes bombarding the hell out of the enemy, destroy the walls where the enemy have units and gates as they will die quickly, use killzone and sharpnell abilities the are really usefull. Im not sure if this is possible with the shogunate if not try send some levies in loose formation to draw the enemy fire while the melee units get to the walls.

[Humble Warrior]

I find climbing the walls for my troops unauthentic. I just would never tell my men to do it in reality -maybe a bunch of commandos, like the Ninjas, yes, but in reality I would see it as the men needlessly when they need the energy to fight.

I have no trouble in fighting the enemy with artillery and navy bombardment. I arty them to death, Navy arty them to death, then walk in through the open front gates and finish off the defenders.

If I can`t do that, I siege until they surrender.

[Winterspawn]

Well im playing with the imperialists but my attacking tactic is always the same take 2 artillery units like parrot gun or even better armstrong guns and stay like 20 - 30 minutes bombarding the hell out of the enemy, destroy the walls where the enemy have units and gates as they will die quickly, use killzone and sharpnell abilities the are really usefull. Im not sure if this is possible with the shogunate if not try send some levies in loose formation to draw the enemy fire while the melee units get to the walls.

As the Imperialists, I ussually have 4 units of Armstrong guns and for open field battles also 2 units of gatling guns. Oh yeah, I discovered one fight where I forgot to change my gatling guns for other units that on some maps there are hills, and when you place your gatling guns on those, while the fortress is still in range, you can shoot the hell out of the defenders with your gatling guns as well. They killed a entire units before running out of ammo. Getting those guns (exept for Gatling guns) is possible at tech lvl 2 I think, so it still fits in Shogunate gameplay. Levies rout imedeatly when under gun fire, but they can be quite usefull actually, I have seen some units of mine that had only a 100 losses, and killed over 900 enemy line infantry, this is quite rare, but when supported by samurai they are just as strong. This is with darthmod however so spear levy units are 450 men (I haven't played it for a couple of weeks now so I'm not that sure about that number).

I find climbing the walls for my troops unauthentic. I just would never tell my men to do it in reality -maybe a bunch of commandos, like the Ninjas, yes, but in reality I would see it as the men needlessly when they need the energy to fight.

I have no trouble in fighting the enemy with artillery and navy bombardment. I arty them to death, Navy arty them to death, then walk in through the open front gates and finish off the defenders.

If I can`t do that, I siege until they surrender.

Climbing the walls can be quite stupid yes, but I usually only let 2 or in some cases 3 units of samurai or kisho ninja do it to draw away some men that are defending the gate and to stop the gunfire on my men waiting till the path through the gate is clear. They always survive until the gate is clear and do quite a lot of kill with few deaths when fighting line infantry. Big artillery and naval bombardement is something I dissaparove of when playing Shogunate, I like to play them more like how I play Shogun 2, I usually don't go over tech lvl 2 or 3 as them.

[FriendoftheDork]

If you are fighting full stack vs full stack and only using obsolete units, you should pretty much expect to take horrendous casualties and only win if you have superior melee troops and morale. Since all the walls will be lined with enemy line infantry, climbing them is suicide and even closing on the castle is deadly. Best thing is probably to use Bowmen to soften them a bit, then send in levy infantry to start a (losing) shooting duel while your melee troops knock down the gates. Once they are down you will probably have lost or heavily reduced 2-3 cheap levies, and then you send in Katanas etc. to get the enemy in close combat. You will take casualties, but as long as your men are engaged they will not suffer much more fire than the ones they are fighting.

Before the invention of cannon, sieges were either about waiting out the defenders or rushing in with vastly superior numbers.

[Winterspawn]

If you are fighting full stack vs full stack and only using obsolete units, you should pretty much expect to take horrendous casualties and only win if you have superior melee troops and morale. Since all the walls will be lined with enemy line infantry, climbing them is suicide and even closing on the castle is deadly. Best thing is probably to use Bowmen to soften them a bit, then send in levy infantry to start a (losing) shooting duel while your melee troops knock down the gates. Once they are down you will probably have lost or heavily reduced 2-3 cheap levies, and then you send in Katanas etc. to get the enemy in close combat. You will take casualties, but as long as your men are engaged they will not suffer much more fire than the ones they are fighting.

Before the invention of cannon, sieges were either about waiting out the defenders or rushing in with vastly superior numbers.

What exactly do you mean with a full stack of obsolete units? A stack composed entirely or almost entirely out of levy units? I tend to have no levy units on Imperial side and a few spear levy on Shogunate side. On Imperial side they aren't really needed that much because your line infantry and such are capable of defending themself in melee against the levy, and on Shogunate side I use some spear levy, they are very cheap and the fastest unit to train because samurai and such take 2 turns to recruit. Spear levy can give you amazing, jaw-dropping results when used properly and when they are adequatly supported.

But what do you mean with "send archers too soften them up a bit". When you make them shoot at line infantry who are on the wall, they'll maybe kill 5 of them before getting entirely whiped out.

[FriendoftheDork]

double post

[Humble Warrior]

On a slightly different tac... Defense. As Shogunate when I`m defending, especially early in the game, I find a lot of Levy spearmen do a grand job of protecting the `castle`, especially if attacked by rifle wielding Imperials. I pull back and force them to me, then attack. Rotating them as they wear down.


Later in game, when I have decent troops with rifles and even kneel fire, I`ll set up a `vector` kill zone where the enemy climbs up as usual and simply get slaughtered once up top. It can be quiet nice wiping out whole units and watching them rout before even half the group has reached the top. That`s if you go modern of course.

[Erwin Rommel]

Divide units in two. One group which is more experience and has chances of staying alive without taisho support, aka the guys with more morale and killing power like samurai kachi units and cavalry. The last one is the more numerous "bait" group which encompasses the rest not chosen for the first group. It has to have more men/units than the first group and it must have a taisho.

(then again, I prefer to bring 2 taisho)

Have the 1st group hide amoung the trees and be positioned on one of the 2 lower kuruwas, the 2nd on the other one.

The 2nd group should move out first, but not too close to be shot at, but close enough to let the enemy see that you are about to concentrate on one of the lower kuruwas. (there are mostly 2 lower kuruwas anyway.). The enemy will then concentrate on that kuruwa being threatened. As in diverting all troops to that position.

Now then the 1st group should leap into action when the enemy is in the process of diverting forces. Cavalry is ideal for this, they can get to the lower kuruwa quickly, dismount and then go to the walls, takeover the gates for the infantry catching up.

Ideally the enemy will be caught in disarray, they could react to the new threat but it weakens there position not to mention by that time, the 1st group already have prepared positions instead of assembling around piecemeal due to the wall.

At this point you can send in the bait group to the walls and gates in a mass attack just to get the enemy's attention. Because the moment they repositioned there troops to meet the 1st group's threat is a moment they cant fire nor react to the bait group's assault.

Hence the need for the taisho's "ganbatte"

With the enemy busy, the 1st group is free to capture towers, open gates and cap the tenshu and hell capture the gate in the honmaru or even attack the rear.

Just like Hideyoshi did in Inabayama Castle............well close enough.

(No. Not the part where he raised Sunomoto Castle in one day. Then again I'd loved to do Hanbei's coup of Inabayama Castle with just 16 men. )

[FriendoftheDork]

What exactly do you mean with a full stack of obsolete units? A stack composed entirely or almost entirely out of levy units? I tend to have no levy units on Imperial side and a few spear levy on Shogunate side. On Imperial side they aren't really needed that much because your line infantry and such are capable of defending themself in melee against the levy, and on Shogunate side I use some spear levy, they are very cheap and the fastest unit to train because samurai and such take 2 turns to recruit. Spear levy can give you amazing, jaw-dropping results when used properly and when they are adequatly supported.

But what do you mean with "send archers too soften them up a bit". When you make them shoot at line infantry who are on the wall, they'll maybe kill 5 of them before getting entirely whiped out.

Obsolete = old fashioned.. I mean all the dojo units really.

Archers have better range than most gunners, so they can safely stand at max range and pepper the walls. They can also, unlike gunpowder units, shoot OVER walls without being at them, so they can rain fire on enemies not on the walls too.

Spear levy does fine in melee against most shooters, but if climbing walls against shooters they will probably rout before they even get there.

[Humble Warrior]

It`s interesting, but I don`t use archers-ever. It`s another of my self-imposed rules which I use. I will not stand for it because what they do is impossible.

The fact that archers shoot further than guns flies in the face of physics, reality and logic. it`s even worse than the siege wall climbing enmass. It shouldn`t happen and there are times I could really have used archers. It irks me when I see the AI using them too. If I could I`d mod them out or change the range.

Why o why did CA make such an idiotic decision?

[ccgr1121]

I'm sure if you ask in the modding workshop, they'll tell you how to do that, Humble.

Also, according to this thread, archers have drastically reduced range.

[Humble Warrior]

I'm sure if you ask in the modding workshop, they'll tell you how to do that, Humble.

Also, according to this thread, archers have drastically reduced range.

Really? I`ll have a look.

But when I`ve played (Offline not Online), I`ve had AI enemy archers shooting and hitting my rifles before my rifles could even fire! I don`t care if archers ranges range have to be modded to a ridiculously short range if necessary, but they must be shorter than gun ranges.

To me it`s enough that they can fire over enemy troops - and I believe they should have the fire while hidden ability too, like some sharpshooters, but not the range. In fact they should be harder to discover than sharpshooters because arrows give no smoke or muzzle flashes. This would keep them realistic. Dunno why CA couldn`t figure that one out.

[weirdoascensor]

What? Another "Shogunate Dont Use Guns" Thread?

Scans of Nakanishi Ritta's Book:

Aizu, Choshu, Tokugawa Shogunate, and Satsuma Infantry. The Shogunate Infantry Elite Denshutai uses Bolt Action Rifles.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Shogunate Artillery

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

French-Made Bronze Guns of 4/6/8 pdr, Something Like This:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Why not using Guns? If you play Traditionalists...yes.
Shogunate? supporting a centralized Hereditary Dictatorship do not make them forbid you use Guns...

[FriendoftheDork]

It`s interesting, but I don`t use archers-ever. It`s another of my self-imposed rules which I use. I will not stand for it because what they do is impossible.

The fact that archers shoot further than guns flies in the face of physics, reality and logic. it`s even worse than the siege wall climbing enmass. It shouldn`t happen and there are times I could really have used archers. It irks me when I see the AI using them too. If I could I`d mod them out or change the range.

Why o why did CA make such an idiotic decision?

Do you impose yourself also to never use guns, because smoothbore matchlock muskets are reloaded in an impossible short time, while the bowmen fire too slowly?

[Winterspawn]

Divide units in two. One group which is more experience and has chances of staying alive without taisho support, aka the guys with more morale and killing power like samurai kachi units and cavalry. The last one is the more numerous "bait" group which encompasses the rest not chosen for the first group. It has to have more men/units than the first group and it must have a taisho.

(then again, I prefer to bring 2 taisho)

Have the 1st group hide amoung the trees and be positioned on one of the 2 lower kuruwas, the 2nd on the other one.

This is something I tend to use as well, although I usually send in my strongest group as bait instead of the weakest group. Since the Strongest group can easily defend themselves agains firearms units and spear levy they'll kill many of them before the weak group arrives, that I splitt up once inside to take towers, gates and artillery units or other units my strong group can't immedeatly reach.

Now you'll all say that it's dumb to let your strongest group take most casualty's, but I just want as few death soldiers as possible, their importance or skill doesn't really matter to me be it's the overall number of casualties that counts.

Obsolete = old fashioned.. I mean all the dojo units really.

Archers have better range than most gunners, so they can safely stand at max range and pepper the walls. They can also, unlike gunpowder units, shoot OVER walls without being at them, so they can rain fire on enemies not on the walls too.

Spear levy does fine in melee against most shooters, but if climbing walls against shooters they will probably rout before they even get there.

It`s interesting, but I don`t use archers-ever. It`s another of my self-imposed rules which I use. I will not stand for it because what they do is impossible.

The fact that archers shoot further than guns flies in the face of physics, reality and logic. it`s even worse than the siege wall climbing enmass. It shouldn`t happen and there are times I could really have used archers. It irks me when I see the AI using them too. If I could I`d mod them out or change the range.

Why o why did CA make such an idiotic decision?

Well, like I said, I play with darthmod for the better AI and bigger unit sizes, but one of the things it also changes is the range of weapons. That way bow units will be outranged by any kind of gun, makes it a bit harder for us traditionalists.

What? Another "Shogunate Dont Use Guns" Thread?

That's now what I mean. What I mean is that when playing Shogunate, I don't like to use guns on the battlefield because that way the gameplay is just the same as when playing Imperialist. Once you get the Shogunate Infantry there will literaly be no difference at all between your armies and those of the Imperial enemy. I do use artillery ofcourse, but even then I restrict myself from having many. I just like to play the Shogunate side different from the Imperial side. I do it for gameplay reasons.

[Erwin Rommel]

What? Another "Shogunate Dont Use Guns" Thread?

Like this?

But then if one plays Shogunates a guy is supposed to be anti- Modernisation anyway.

Oh and love the new screens, I still cant figure out though if hatsumurigasa (pointy hat) is exclusive to the Imperials or to the Shogunate?

[Slaists]

Yes, I would like to know you most efficient siege tactic for FoTS.

You can use artillery on the Shogunate side, just like on the Imperialist side, but that makes it very unautentic to me, and feels just wrong, maybe a couple of units will suffice for shooting the gate or something.

Both sides were using modern weapons [rifles and guns] at the time. Read up on the history of the conflict.

[Winterspawn]

Both sides were using modern weapons [rifles and guns] at the time. Read up on the history of the conflict.

Yeah, I know, that was an unfortunate thing to type here, read my last post and you'll understand what I meant.

[Humble Warrior]

"But then if one plays Shogunates a guy is supposed to be anti- Modernisation anyway."

Did you actually take some simple comment I wrote in another post about FOTS to make some weird point in this thread?

Wow, I`m right in there between the grey matter aren`t I?