How to Deploy units Before Seige Battles?

[Teekay]

Hey, new to the forum. I picked up M2TW two days ago, started a nice lil campaign with Venice. Milan broke our alliance and attacked my capital. I had stocked good up on crossbows and bowmen. So, they're coming with a couple of spearmen and some horses, a ram and a ladder-unit. Im thinking, this will be like in Rome TW, I'll just put all my archers up on the wall facing the enemy, and they will be toast in no time. But, to my surprise, I cant deploy units around before the battle, like placing them on the walls and infront of gates. It just places the units in random places, some on the far side of where the enemies are, so they have to run to the other side, making them exhausted.

When the battle has loaded, the camera takes me around the city like usual. Then I press a button to skip it, and it promptly takes me to the city square. A box appears containing the button; "Start battle". I press it, and I'm "live", the battle has started. Then I have to pause the game, locate all my units and place them to counter the enemy.

Is it just me, or...? How do you place out units when defending a city/castle?

Please help

[JustinO]

You should be able to place units in the time that the box containing "Start Battle" is visible. At least you're able to do battles, I can only do them on my other painstakingly slow computer This one just turns black when the battle map loads.

[Hedniskhjäertad]

It happens to me sometime. :/ Quite sad.

[Tom Servo]

I think if they assault you on the first turn you dont have time to prepare thus you dont have a deployment phase.
Btw nice AAR.

[gigagaia]

I don't think this is really an AAR, per se. It seems you need a hand, so I'm going to move it into appropriate forum (Technical helps) where it will get a bit more attention and you can get more help...

[Ragabash]

This occurs when there are enemy spies inside your city and it manages to open gates for the enemy troops. It reflects the fact that enemies manage to assault your city with suprise and so you don't have time to deploy troops.

However, it seems like enemy spies are unable to open gates even if the speech before battle states otherwise, this is a bug for certain.

This is not a technical problem but a game addition that have a major bug.

[Teekay]

Ok, thanks for all the help, really appretiate it. A little sub-question, what is AAR?

EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out, After Action Report.