Rise of the Samurai Castles

[hessia78]

I have played the rise of samurai campaign and I want to know what does the Heian period (the time where rise of the samurai) takes place castles look like. I know that they would be different from the castles from the Sengoku period (the vanilla shogun 2 campaign takes places during the Sengoku periods)

[von stoker]

the first level castle is a settlement with no walls- 2nd to 4th level castles have vertical wooden post walls. they are different to Shogun 2 castles. level 5 castle is a S2 type castle

[Himster]

The Heian period was an exceptionally peaceful, the fortifications from the Nara period (which were substantial) had been left in disrepair. Monasteries were the most heavily fortified as most fighting done during the Heian period was between rival monastic orders (especially around Yamashiro, Omi and Yamato provinces). In ROTS what is being represented are provincial governor manors/samurai ancestral homes which represented the center of localised government (always connected to a local urban are) as open conflict increased between rival samurai families fortification would increase into something that would resemble samurai castles in later periods in general layout and tactical philosophy, the distinction being primarily the materials (stone was reserved for holy-sites) there was little to no stone involved in their construction, their size and the speed at which they were built, many lords believed the coming war to be a short affair and wanted the most cost-effective way to defending their families and position. Traditionally a government building would be on the highest point available, not particularly for tactical purposes, mostly for aesthetic purposes, (the building should also face south, have a mountain to the north west and have a river/artificial pond to the south west) This tradition lead to a ready supply of defensible complexes that samurai lords (when in ascendancy) took advantage of by increasing the defend-ability of the position by adding earth-works, wooden pallisades, walk-ways, choke-points and kill-zones, canals/moats and in one instance a (Mizuki) flood-plain and a collapsible damn with the intention of washing away any invading army by collapsing the damn.

The samurai of this period are often depicted as rural bumpkins, this is not accurate, particularly the lords (being related to the imperial family by definition) were well educated, urbane and sophisticated, the largest wooden buildings that were ever built were built in this period, in the north were very well fortified/defensible cities and towns, Kyoto was not built to be defended, infact any siege of Kyoto ended in victory for the attacker. Given the warrior ethics of the period fortifications were not considered paramount: they were a last ditch (sometimes literally) attempt to survive and rarely succeeded. The ideals of the time highlighted single-combat in the form of mounted archery duels, only when such combat failed was the use of fortification considered optional.