Town defence?

[Savage_Swede]

I just wanted to discuss what you other SPQR fans do when defending a smaller town without stone walls.
lt has described any times how the romans acted in the field, in terms of formations and tactics. But ive never heard anything about how the romans did when defending a small town.
So how did they do historically and how do you others do when defending?

I usually just cram myself up in the middle with really thick formations and wear the enemy down until they flee. Cheating i guess you would call it..

[Lord Agelmar]

I leave the walls where their battering rams are going to hit clear, then put troops in between. Letting them in makes them somewhat easier to control. Then another unit, usually a General, goes out a side gate and rams in the back of them whilet hey are still trying to get in. Works like magic, unless heavily outnumbered.

[Savage_Swede]

Well in SPQR you usually ARE heavily outnumbered. So what do you do when they just come swarming like roaches?
You could basically survive any attack if you just cram yourself up in the middle. Unless they have alot of skirmishers. I got attacked by 10,000 gauls two turns after i occupied one town. It was a total massacre.

[Drunken]

As brtuii against greeks ive found the best way to win is to look for the quickest rout to the flag in the centre. This is where most of the enemy should go, with a few units going round the sides.

Hopefully there will be one of those smaller court yards , cram lots of troops into the streets around the courtyard, and some in the court yard to replace those that die.
This works best when there is two roads into the court yard. Then when one street is captured by you, you can move those troops through the town to get behind the enemy in the next street.
Best always to keep some units back to defend from behind.

Hope this helps

[Kingdark]

10.000 your joking right

[lt1956]

Well camping in the center is cheap, and really whats the whole point of playing the game if we dont have a challenge. lol Basically you should have LARGE garrisons for your border cities instead of a couple units, then sieges at the walls would be fun. How would you feel if the AI camped at the center on Every siege you did, that would be very fun to me and neither is hiding in the center. Its cheating because your units will NEVER rout because they cant in the center. I think CA should have NEVER added non routing in the center, players have exploited that flaw since the first days of RTW.

Lt

How to play a siege, you defend the walls until all is lost and your units start to break and your missile men are out of ammo, then withdraw inside, but staying there from the beginning is pathetic. sorry.

[Kingdark]

you got a point there, but would it be if it where real? i would rather wait as long as possible before risking my life against a bigger power then my own, as a commander of those days...

[Savage_Swede]

Well camping in the center is cheap, and really whats the whole point of playing the game if we dont have a challenge. lol Basically you should have LARGE garrisons for your border cities instead of a couple units, then sieges at the walls would be fun. How would you feel if the AI camped at the center on Every siege you did, that would be very fun to me and neither is hiding in the center. Its cheating because your units will NEVER rout because they cant in the center. I think CA should have NEVER added non routing in the center, players have exploited that flaw since the first days of RTW.

Lt

How to play a siege, you defend the walls until all is lost and your units start to break and your missile men are out of ammo, then withdraw inside, but staying there from the beginning is pathetic. sorry.

Well pathetic is a little harsch isnt it?
Well at that particular siege, i had just taken the town with the only army i had there. I just had to much to loose to stand at the holes in the wall. If that town would have fallen, so would all of my towns in western gaul. And money was real tight (about 1000/turn) and i already had 4 legions. Western, fighting gauls. Eastern, fighting dacians, greeks,germans. Greek, legion fighting greeks and the last legion trying to help scipii in sicily.

But the whole point of this thread was to find others ways except the cheap ones and except trying to hold out 10,000 gauls just by blocking the 10 holes in the wall.
I want some tactical advice, not some commentary to point out how pathetic i am at defending.

I do everything else according to the SPQR bible
And do you know how the romans did when defending towns?

10.000 your joking right

Are you joking? This is SPQR... I fought a 12,000 man greek army before.

[lt1956]

Pathetic is a good word, you were desperate and that would be in a pathetic state. lol

But I didnt mean that as an insult against you, the move of defending the town center in RTW without even trying to defend the walls is Pathetic. Hope that clears that up?


Anyway, do as I suggest defend the walls and pull back when its lost, The whole point is sometimes you get overrun and lose no matter whats at stake there is no reason to exploit, otherwise you might as well use the give money command when your tight on funds its the same thing. I find the challenge more fun for me than winning, I have lost battles and I might have won if I used exploits, but then that would cheapen the victory for me, after all if you were against a REAL player the camp in the center wouldnt work, the AI doesnt handle sieges that well in RTW. I wish I could find a way to remove the bonus in the center. :-(

[Decimus Equitius]

Or what would be even better is make it so the defending team doesn't route at all. Near the wall or where ever inside the town. Because the line that protected the wall didn't break from cowardice but from suffering to many deaths from the attacking side.

[MasterAdnin]

Lt, is there anyway to make more town squares around the city. So like say, for a Minor City, you have to capture 3 out of 4 town squares in order to win the battle? That would be kinda cool.

I usually put my most expierienced troops at the area where the AI is going to attack, and then when they knock down the wall, I just charge 'em to beat them back and break morale.

Adnan

[Lord Agelmar]

I only meant heavily outnumbered as in your have only three units of cards to a full stack. Otherwise my tactic still works fine.

[panasonic]

well, ive just learned this exploit today lol, cos ive always covered the holes. the only "cheap" thing i ever did was cover the holes and then have some more troopes to block the roads in case the walls were breached, this would allow the troops that routed time to get unrouted by going behind my lines