How To WIN Offensive Sieges - A Quick Battlefield Tactics Guide - Total War: Shogun 2

Intro done at 0:33
Hello everyone! This video will be the main guide on how to win all of your offensive sieges. Watch and learn how you can also easily defeat all of your opponents hiding behind their walls. In under 4 minutes you'll be able to brush up your knowledge on how to always be a successful castle gate buster!
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Thank you so much for watching! :)

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Hello everyone! I know that theory and practice are two different things, so I'll probably upload a full siege (with the boring parts sped up) with unscripted commentary, where I explain my thought process and actions throughout the siege. If you haven't subscribed yet, be sure to do so, so you won't miss it when I upload it in the coming days! Also for those of you having a hard time finding the description, here are the links again: Discord: discord.gg/SRTH5wxPa2 Patreon: www.patreon.com/VikingGeneral Again, thank you all for your continued support! :)

[@F31.58]

Also, a little point out. When Fighting to the Death status active on the units, it gives debuff to all combat stats (attack, defence, charge, accuracy, reloading), so you should not really worry about it. The best thing you can do is force the enemy to this status, by simly lowering its morale, where unit could be "broken"

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Yes, that is true! I think I forgot to mention it sadly.

[@ChungusOmega]

Stats dont matter when you have the OP yari wall

[@DarkTider]

Huh...thats good to know, since I figured it was the same status debuff as it was in Rome: Total war, where it buffed the defending units in their last stand, to the point it could give you the edge when it kicked in....ill stop trying to avoid the status effect...

[@Gabriel-ip6me]

How to win an offensive siege: - Step 1: Buy cannons. - Step 2: *BOOM* 💥

[@demomanchaos]

How to win offensive siege in 4 steps- 1- Siege the enemy out. 2- Siege the enemy out. 3- Siege the enemy out. 4- Siege the enemy out.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

That is possible too, but I find that to be too much in-game time consuming. It's definitely faster in real time though!

[@akkeut1324]

I am so bad at offensive siege. I always combine 2 armies and auto resolve.

[@GeraltofRivia22]

That's boring and should really only be done when the defending garrison is equivalent to your own army. Offensive sieges aren't that difficult if you know what you're doing, especially if you have artillery or bow warrior monks.

[@demomanchaos]

@@GeraltofRivia22 Main problem is pathing, and you can save a lot of men by forcing the enemy to sally out (Which means they are the Attackers and will walk into your lines and thus easier to destroy).

[@GeraltofRivia22]

@@demomanchaos never had much problem with pathfinding, except manning walls, but that's only a problem for defensive sieges. If you know what you're doing, you really won't lose that many men during an offensive siege, especially if you have bow warrior monks or artillery. Winter attrition + casualties from a field battle definitely add up. Plus, even if you do take more casualties, your army will still be back to full strength sooner because you didn't waste turns waiting. This doesn't apply if you are roughly evenly matched, then it's definitely better to wait for them to sally out.

[@sirmiglouche8274]

Through a good enough management of the campaign map I did not parttake in any offensive siege (outside of auto resolve the retaineers) but I always felt sad to dodge a whole part of the gameplay, I may continue to do so because your tactic involves a lot of micro and I must train a bit more if I want to be as proefficient in legendary... Great video!

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Thank you! Actually, my tactics don't take a whole lot of micromanagement, but it does take a lot of time. Especially if you want to switch out the bait with your archers. But yeah, you probably don't want to have battle timers on with these strategies :P

[@zombiegamer1069]

Offensive sieges are much easier if you have good archers but with that said i have bow warriors monk with high levers and i still struggle some times

[@ALEX20hoc]

Or you can milk the Ai and use general or other cavalry unit to enter the castle gates, ai garrison unit start chasing it, then you engage in a small contact near the castle gates and ai continue to pursue this unit even outside the castle, where you can kill it easily. Continue this procedure 1 by 1 with every other enemy unit - profit.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

But that's such an extreme cheese method.... and I love it!

[@ALEX20hoc]

@@TheVikingGeneral i also use this to take Mino with only 1 General unit on Turn 1 when i play Oda, i make the retainer unit chase me to the far side of the map, then run and capture the castle flag XD

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@ALEX20hoc Ah, the good ol' medieval 2 strats :P

[@chaseme2hell]

​@@ALEX20hoc omg this is genius, id didn't think of using this

[@zombiegamer1069]

Thanks im 3 years late to know this sweet cheese but i might use it

[@cynfaelalek-walker7003]

This shall help me win without utterly annihilating my armies

[@blight1934]

This is where bow monk warriors are handy with Accuracy upgrades...They'll knock out 200-400 kills no problem if used correctly. even enemy archer can't reach you (if they don't have bow monk warrior or daikyu samurai).

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I didn't use bow monk warriors because they indeed make offensive sieges very easy, and I wanted to focus on situations where you didn't have them. Although I should've mentioned it in the video, since I also mentioned fire rockets. :P

[@_NoName_314]

never thougth of doing all that when taking a castle... seriously... i always tried to keep it as intact as possible to avoid repairs lol

[@JayJayM57]

Same

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@JayJayM57 @No Name Against small forces I also avoid damaging the castle, because it prevents me from recruiting there the next turn and to save a bit of money. But just burning down the gates and a few towers generally doesn't cost too much money. Autoresolving apparently manages to damage the castle a lot more anyway.

[@alejodavies]

I just did this twice in the same turn, against well defended Oda forts. I me the walls, towers and gates intact, because once Oda's murderstacks are just a cross the bridge and I need all the defensive help I can get to hold them off. For once my yari samurai were MVPs, quickly scaling walls and capturing towers/gates, letting the bulk of my army swarm in uncontested.

[@rizalalbar]

A quick and a great video as always. From my experience of playing, doing offensive sieges is kinda start easier when you have artillery. Especially if you have used the ninja agent to sabotages the gates before hand. Usually when i done that, it's optional to use artillery to wreak havoc to the defenders like how you said about using the fire rockets. but the cons of using artillery in comparisons with fire rocket were the fixed position. So it's not that flexible, although you can still kill some of the enemy unit on the wall if it was in range of the artillery. That way you can be less worried with defender's range unit.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I specifically left out the fixed artillery. While it can do some damage, in my experience the artillery is very inaccurate, and it slows you down on the campaign map.

[@rizalalbar]

@@TheVikingGeneral the accuracy and slow down on the campaign map is true.sadly for the campaign map there's nothing i can really thibk of except put an agent to increase the army movement range Here what i do for the accuracy case, recruit them from a province where they have master bowmaker(+20 accuracy) and build a hunting lodge (+5) to get exceptional accuracy. Oh and if you also build an Archery Dojo that province, you can get additional +2 accuracy for any unit that have range weapon o that one province. I know there's only about 4 province that have artisan. So here's an easy solution for that : Mods. There's a mod where you can build province specialty on your buliding slot.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@rizalalbar I guess experience will also help artillery units a bit more ;)

[@rizalalbar]

@@TheVikingGeneral well it's true. I couldn't agree more dude ;)

[@VaNDaIUKR]

Bait archers, loose all your arrows, capture Tenshu. This should help lover my casualties

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I certainly hope so!

[@alejandrorojas6835]

Very useful info, your vids are part of the reason I came back to Shogun 2 lol

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Glad to hear it! :)

[@christopherwebber3804]

I seem to remember something about shooting down the length of a wall, not at a 90 degree angle - just find the right position to shoot, you can easily eliminate the enemy archers that way. Sieges are very difficult in this game but I always fight them out.

[@RocketHarry865]

I have a slow tactic which uses bow ashigaru as improvised siege weapons. First you need at least 2 units of bow ashigaru. Then you position them in front of the walls just outside of the enemy bow range. Thirdly activate fire arrows and concentrate fire on a section of the wall that has defenders on it. With enough fire arrows the section catches fire, you withdraw the bow ashigaru to safety. Then watch as the burning section burns down killing the defenders on the walls. Wait for your ashigaru archers fire arrows ability cool down ends then rinse and repeat until you run out of arrows or the enemy has run out of archers.

[@joeslendeer75]

The most fun in shogun 2 siege battle is when you on defending side just wait until enemy started scaling your wall and then move your archer/gunner to the back of your yari ashigaru line ,and then spam yari formation on your yari ashigaru unit just make sure you have a reserve yari ashigaru unit to replace your tired yari unit and you'll be able to kill thousand unit with just 8 yari ashigaru just make sure you reduce the number of enemy missile unit or your defence will be broken immediately

[@GalladeTheWarrior]

This is exactly the kind of explanation I've been looking for, thanks :)

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Glad to hear it!

[@totalmadnesman]

Excellent video mister! Just one more thing tho, what about fighting Offsensive sieges, but without destroying any tower nor gates? For me this is THE key factor to do the fight myself. For example, fighting the siege yourself so not to damage the casstle and then using it the next turn as a defense against enemy reinforcements!

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Oh, the strategy is pretty much the same, but you just climb the wall instead of destroying the gates and you focus a bit more on capturing towers.The biggest difference will be the amount of casualties you take.

[@totalmadnesman]

@@TheVikingGeneral Thanks chief! mLooking forwared to the next one ;)

[@alejodavies]

Bring yari samurai, Wako raiders or ninjas to quickly scale the walls and secure a foothold.

[@ultimoguerreiro82]

Play with Chosokabe, have loads of daikyu/bow monks. Stand beyond enemy range. Mow down enemies. Win.

[@comradedawid5292]

Those garrison unuts are no joke. Once had all my armies far away and a naval landing in Kyushu caught me off guard. A force of 2,000 medium quality troops, was attacking my city. My garrison was roughly 440strong. The samurai retainers i had chared any unit that climbed a wall, killed its not yet organized units, retreated into my archers range, and then finished the depleted unit. I has 3 sets of walls the enemy attacked for taking casualties climbing them and after most their nlee troops died their cav had to dismount. I barley won with something like 2 units of retainers both depleted to like 10 or so men survived and the enemy took like 1000 losses with the rest being routed. They took winter attrition attacked again and were destroyed easily.

[@crusadingtemplar]

played shogun 2 loads, I've always loved the sieges. but its always a bit sadist when it's campaign gameplY however after watching this I will say my troops seem to come out of the victories a lot less mangled

[@masaheimoi]

Here is my way of doing offencive sieges: 1 Outrange enemy archers with your bow warrior monks and kill them 2 Kill as much other enemies with your bow warrior monks by toggling of their free fire. Then aim for their most manly units when they are In one place. Enemy does like to move around doing nothing. 3 IDK just storm the place.

[@fategrafit4792]

Hey, can you do a video about army composition, like how many of a certain unit you should have. It would help a lot also thank you for this guide.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Army composition is on the to-do list ;) but it might be a while before I reach it

[@pancytryna9378]

*Great, now do the same but for Fall of the Samurai*

[@TheVikingGeneral]

From what I heard, it's mainly just using artillery and sharpshooters.

[@Madmagic]

These videos are incredible

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Thank you :)

[@johnbeaudoin6228]

Thank you so much! This is something that I really needed!!

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Glad it was helpful!

[@grandengineernathan]

question, I know that if I concede defeat while in the middle of the offensive siege I will loose half my army and then it will break the siege, but if I wait for the timer to end, does it do the same ? Too lazy to test out, thanks

[@Bobbybobwat]

It’ll break the siege, but I don’t think you automatically lose any men.

[@CapitalTeeth]

Here's how you win sieges. Don't fight in offensive sieges. You're better off waiting until they attack you. That's when they lose all of their defensive advantages in a castle.

[@Lapran3]

Good when you don’t have any nearby armies or agents to worry about, but if you’re dealing with a near-peer with about as much war economy as you it may not be viable all the time. A second army could swoop in to relieve them, forcing you to face a two armies instead of just one. Or heavens forbid that one ninja you failed to spot ganks your daimyo

[@cathybetter2245]

archers. i won the ENTIER map with 3 companies of polemen. And 10 companies of archers. DONE. I put my polemen 2 men deep, and a long line, making a U protection around my archers. ANd lumped my archers in the tighest group i could. And that is all it took. I took the entire map. seiges were easy. So many arrows, that i could kill EVERYONE in the castles.

[@frostyguy1989]

The only time I do a siege battle is if the enemy fort is unimproved and only has the standard samurai retainer garrison. In which case, I'll use my archers to kill them within their own walls. I get a pristine fort with no casualties.

[@jonbaxter2254]

Thanks man, great tips.

[@markemmanuelbuenaventura4126]

The first method I learn into besieging is lure the archers position in gate then I'll sacrifice a unit of yari ashigaru to burn down the gates then explosion happens.

[@dmitryfalkovich833]

in all honesty i like defending more than attacking-you can pull through with mostly ashigeru troops vs much more valued armies, simply because it does away with their greatest weakness-low morale, as they will fight to the death. for difficult assaults, being nooblord that i am, if i cannot safely autoresolve, i bring about my full stack of katana samurai and charge. most of them bug out and just stand there after climbing, however since AI never uses yari wall indoors, my samurai rack up quite the death toll.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Defending is indeed much easier, but it can still be tricky if the enemy army has a lot of missile troops.

[@Apple_Apporu]

@@TheVikingGeneral From what i experienced, enemy archers always seem to target yari wall formations so i leave one of them to bait archers when most of the enemy melee force is dead then i sally out or leash the archers to force them to climb i win most fights with this strat even with only just a lvl 1 garrison

[@dingo23451]

He forgot something: NEVER USE Mangonels, they hit nothing and have practically no ammo.

[@Михаил-ю8ъ3д]

Early sieges: the bait. Common sieges: wipe out enemy range units by burning the walls with flame arrows. Late sieges: the monks rape.

[@believeinthenet]

Does this archer bait tactic not work anymore? Cause I keep trying to do it, ashigaru starting to get fired at and then just backing a little bit back, but then when i try and take my archers around all the enemy archers start moving too

[@nguyenhuukhanh5660]

Your video is very good . It helps me alot

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Happy it helped :)

[@samuelcorrea8260]

Mmmm I have a better way, all u must to do it's slowly put near he and said: Roses are red The sea is blue Are u the shogunate? Because I did for u. Good luck conquering castles (and Onna busshis)

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Haha, thanks! Onna busshis are pretty susceptible to missile fire though ;)

[@gizmoapangalook121]

I take a yari ashigaru and run in loose formation and run them in front of my archers where they take fire before my archers. Keep them always running and switch them out if they get below 2/3s strength.

[@sylveradercyl7283]

I'm a bit in a pickle rn, I didn't bring any Bow ashigaru and only have matchlocks for range. Good thing cannons are present and able totake out all enemy firebombs and bow within the first single shot, sometimes taking out their general as collateral

[@TheWarRoomChannel]

Great video! But still too scared to assault kyoto lol

[@ПётрПавловский-щ1х]

Do it.

[@angryviking8808]

Want to win offensive and defensive seigebattles? Chosocabe bow monks with exceptional accuracy

[@ilikeanime1610]

I usually don't auto resolve ever, *except* for siege

[@ChungusOmega]

Fall of the samurai Step 1) armstrong spam Step 2) win Vanilla Step 1) fire rocket and mortar targeting units on walls and towers Step 2) ??? Step 3) vanilla sieges kind of suck in my opinion

[@Galaxy-o2e]

How to win an offensive siege battle: 1.Continue siege 2.Annihilate enemy in field battle 3.Profit

[@rikifukushima9855]

thanks now i dont have to lose 50% of my army

[@_helper_5789]

I like to siege the castle but when I m on realm divide with -1000 economy, siege is the last thing I wanna do

[@lucagerulat307]

Archers with a range of 175 and watch the defenders die unable to return arrows.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

End turn until defenders starve or sally

[@FrostFire1987]

i really struggle to keep my army losses low during attacking, defending is fine

[@brainwasher9876]

Late game offensive sieges are a joke. Get about 1 bow warrior monk unit per three defending units, and just mow them all down with your superior range and amazing accuracy. Overall, though, I prefer sieging out or laying an ambush outside the enemy town, just because field battles save time.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Yup, field battles are definitely quicker. And I didn't include the bow monk in the strategy because it trivializes the siege. Although I should've mentioned it alongside the fire rockets.

[@Saint-uj4uo]

How I took Kyoto: maxed out no dachi samurai and honestly it was an easy win

[@davidjr4903]

Attacking castles is super easy, just get great archers

[@agnc_2233]

pls make a video about the naval units next

[@TheVikingGeneral]

They are on my to do list, but they are pretty far down the list I'm afraid. :(

[@kingmaker5076]

R u MrsmartDonkeyLp ur voice sounds familiar

[@elyastoohey6621]

These are one thing I almost always refuse to do manually. Except on tiny bases where I dominate the enemy or dominate with archers so I don’t damage the building. Otherwise I autoresolve.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I completely understand that. I find it very rewarding to manually take castles that autoresolve wouldn't, but I understand that having a battle take an hour of their time isn't for everyone.

[@elyastoohey6621]

@@TheVikingGeneral oh yeah. I don’t have time for that. It does make legendary a bit more tricky though as you gotta plan and bait the A.I to take a field battle. Or you have to stomp a castle garrison with 2-3 stacks. But the sieges are arguably broken in shogun 2. Frankly the lack of any and all siege equipment, like rams, ladders. Assaulting them is an absolute pain, and defending them is very very easy. The attacker gets an immediate moral penalty. The defender like you said gets reload bonuses. And some other defensive bonuses, like overwhelming the enemy who just climbed up. And all troops but ninja take casualties climbing. Defending is too easy. I’ve had 8 units, 6 of them the garrison defend suruga castle from 2 full stack choaskobe landing parties at the same time. 2. We only had like 50 guys left at the end playing on maximum unit size. But we held. It was awesome. But it didn’t feel real. Meanwhile you attack an enemy, without using the tactics like baiting archers and slow advances, and your army gets decimated before they even make a dent. Shogun 2 has amazing field battles, albeit too much of the same maps. That lane hill with 5 approach paths. The best campaign map ever done. But the sieges are lacklustre. Albeit are usually the best way to beat the A.I

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@elyastoohey6621 I think it does make a bit of sense, since historically, castles were basically unsaleable and mainly functioned for delaying armies. And I understand the extremely close defense battles, I have one where I only had 12 troops left, with 11 of them being bow ashigaru (and a lone yari ashigaru) I personally like to take my time and take the defense apart piece by piece. Although I think that Atilla has the best sieges.

[@elyastoohey6621]

@@TheVikingGeneral yeah. I had one. Where legit, they had a yari sam unit and their general and I had two half strength now ashi’s left. I used the covering tactic. One covers the over. Then blocked with the smaller unit. So my larger one could keep firing. They annhialated my small unit but they ended up routing when facing my larger bow ashi numbers. One of those amazing wins. Had their general or yari sam unit made contact they would have slowly won as their morale increased due to winning the melee. They were so close to completing their charge. Yeah. Those castles were very hard to take. Usually starved out. Or just overwhelming numbers like Hideyoshi could bring. What I mean I find weird is that you can assault them in the first place. Your boys just climb up the wall like it’s nothing. The layouts are fun to fight on. But they’re so impractical for a Japanese castle. Some of those castles were amazingly designed. Wall after wall. And you’d have troops in alcoves in both firing black powder and bow weapons at them. Stick in these corridors of death. Vs those big fields with a parapet the game gives us. Ive heard some mods make the castles better though

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@elyastoohey6621 I generally don't play with mods, but I might do some mod reviews in the future.

[@christov4202]

Hey everyone, is there an easy way to show enemy Archer range? At the moment I can only see my units range. Any help would be super helpful for doing these seiges

[@GeraltofRivia22]

Play on easy or normal battle difficulty

[@calamitoso0066]

I do not know in legendary but usually the answer is arrows, lot's of arrows.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Yeah, archers are GREAT in offensive sieges. :)

[@fred4800]

The archer thing doesn't work

[@diapason89]

How to win offensive sieges: 1. Play as the Otomo (or convert to Christianity) 2. Build European cannons 3. ???? 4. Profit

[@LEEGOOVER9901]

Still cannot digest of how to offensive... Always stuck on the gates and archer towers xD got my army killed almost all the time trying manual siege

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I have a full siege video (which is 50 minutes long, with ~35-40 minutes of actual sieging) which may help. But fighting offensive sieges can be very tricky and a battle can turn very quickly from rolling over the enemy into a disaster.

[@LEEGOOVER9901]

@@TheVikingGeneral thanks mate, ill looking into it xD

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@LEEGOOVER9901 Good luck, hope it helps! :)

[@TheFlyingZulu]

I like to use bow warrior monks to out range their archers.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

That defnitely helps, but you might be better of manouvering around still, since the walls do block quite a bit of arrows.

[@meliocurie1809]

Without fire rockets I wont be sieging it's too hard I take less casualties auto resolving.

[@kierznercaores8809]

I disagree you should always siege them out fight them on the field on top of a hill since you're defending it'll be easier

[@karlmagro8806]

Good graphics but i can’t understand a word. You have to slow down This of constructive criticism 😇.

[@briandinh9169]

The virgin donkey vs the vikCHAD

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I thought I replied to this comment before, but apparently youtube thinks I haven't :P

[@jlima5509]

great video. tho no mention of kisho ninjas? those guys are beasts in offensive sieges. they can climb walls the fastest out of every unit, and they never die while doing so, then they can run with stealth to capture important points like gates to the upper levels or the tenshu and end the battle quickly. having 2 or even 3 kisho ninjas can cheese almost any siege

[@TheVikingGeneral]

There are a few things I didn't mention, for example using bow warrior monks to outrange, but I didn't mention the kisho ninja's because I feel that deserves it's own video. I'm still planning to make the video's about the units I haven't covered yet, so it will eventually be covered. Hopefully xD

[@Juraimy]

How to win offensive battle real step 1: autoresolve

[@ltmatthewakj2466]

But I like starving them out

[@TheVikingGeneral]

I mean, you definitely can. It's just not optimal in most cases :P

[@ltmatthewakj2466]

@@TheVikingGeneral because I don't like assaulting where it's costly and dangerous. But I like your tactic anyway. Thanks man.

[@TheVikingGeneral]

@@ltmatthewakj2466 Glad you like it! You're welcome. :)

[@alejodavies]

E C O N O M Y

[@TheVikingGeneral]

It's next on the list, after the defensive siege video

[@alejodavies]

@@TheVikingGeneral Awesome, keep it up!

[@donjuanmckenzie4897]

Just bring lots of archers lol

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Pretty much yeah :P

[@henryhamilton4087]

Use bow monks 😂😂 They have better range than other archers, and AI rarely used bow monks

[@TheVikingGeneral]

Yeah, I should've also mentioned it alongside the firerockets. I definitely had a few seconds to spare :P

[@henryhamilton4087]

@@TheVikingGeneral Yep, both defnitely works for sieges. Fire rockets work better in the siege but is less useful in field battles and has a harder unlock requirement, while bow monks are just a staple late game ranged unit.

[@beb5587]

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