Best Defence For Cities with Minimum Losses.

[Drag529]

What would be the best tactic for defending one of my castles?
The one I like doing is letting them get inside my castles than fighting in the streets with spearman blocking major paths to the town center and archers behind them.

[Saibot]

That's a good strategy. But in my experience all sieges (except the ones where they attack you with a incredibly small force) cost you quite some men. But I usually use my spearmen to stand in a V-formation in front of the gates & wall breaches.

It works for me in Rtw and it still does in M2TW. In this way the enemy will walk straight into a trap, getting attacked from all sides with no place to go. This will usually cause all the normal and poor morale units to rout within about 20 seconds of fighting. Make sure the enemy doesn't capture your walls and just gets you in the back when they come down.

I hope this helped you out a bit.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

There are two methods.

1. Create a U shape deathbox around the gate (or breach) with spears and heavy infantry in reserve. Don't try to block the entrance with units in schiltrom because the momentum of the AI army will destroy them. The AI army will charge through the gate (or breach) and will lose speed when turning in your direction. Your spears will kill the cavalry when they have lost their speed and you can use the heavy infantry as back up during mêlée.

2. If the enemy is to strong to defend the walls like that. (multiple armies or lots of artillery = lots of breaches) deploy in the town center and create there the killing boxes. Because your troops are in the center they won't route. If you support your infantry with archers (flaming missiles) you can route a lot of enemies. Usually the enemy attacks from two directions. It is possible that at a certain point in the battle the enemy simply stops attacking. This happened twice during my Turkish campaign: My city Constantinople was once attacked by four crusading armies all with either siege equipment or with siege artillery. Since I couldn't defend four walls I deployed in the city center. I was mostly attacked from two directions and sometimes from a third one. The first two French stacks (one commanded by the French king) were easy defeated when a very strong Hungarian stack entered the city. The Hungarians had lots of archers and lots of heavy knights (dismounted and mounted) Although my units were very tired they were holding their positions. When the Hungarian king died the stack started routing. Next a HRE stack under command of the emperor attacked. The emperor also died and some of his units were fleeing the battle field. The remnants of the four stacks were still outnumbering my forces but didn't attack any longer. They just stood there and shouted commands, but didn't move. The only thing they did was firing arrows. I spread out my army and waited for the timer to run out. This was the most strangest or amazing heroic victory I ever had. I don't know if it is a bug or something but I managed to do it again later in the campaign while defending Iraklion against three Italian stacks.

An other good part was that I killed three faction leaders during the battle for Constantinople.

[T-wester]

for minimal losses spearmen at the gate and crossbowmen/artillery to the side

[Loser ^^ :)]

I have always used a big group of heavy calvary jsut to go and take out the ram/seige towers. Also set arrows blazing on the seige towers. That will usually stop the enemy for about 5 minutes, setting the timer down a lil, then, you just blast away. btw, I usually sacrifice the heavy cal;vary, cus after that they are not too good.

[Drag529]

thanks to all that have posted, ill try all ur ideas..
i hope to hear more

[homefry]

Is it better to have your units on defend mode when defending the gate or have them attack the enemy right when they enter the gate?

[Lord Firkraag]

I put them around the gap in a loose U shape, then when the enemy comes through I charge them, forming a tighter U and getting the enemy some nice morale penalties.

Getting charged from 3 sides = rout

[Drag529]

lol i guess it depands on what units you have..
if you have spearmen or pikeman..hold ur grounds
if you have swordman or other heavyinfantry...attack.
but that jsut me

[homefry]

I just did a mini experiment and it's better to have them attack than to defend.

This is with spearmen.

[Bluice]

If the enemy is to strong to defend the walls like that. (multiple armies or lots of artillery = lots of breaches) deploy in the town center and create there the killing boxes. Because your troops are in the center they won't route. If you support your infantry with archers (flaming missiles) you can route a lot of enemies. Usually the enemy attacks from two directions. It is possible that at a certain point in the battle the enemy simply stops attacking. This happened twice during my Turkish campaign: My city Constantinople was once attacked by four crusading armies all with either siege equipment or with siege artillery. Since I couldn't defend four walls I deployed in the city center. I was mostly attacked from two directions and sometimes from a third one. The first two French stacks (one commanded by the French king) were easy defeated when a very strong Hungarian stack entered the city. The Hungarians had lots of archers and lots of heavy knights (dismounted and mounted) Although my units were very tired they were holding their positions. When the Hungarian king died the stack started routing. Next a HRE stack under command of the emperor attacked. The emperor also died and some of his units were fleeing the battle field. The remnants of the four stacks were still outnumbering my forces but didn't attack any longer. They just stood there and shouted commands, but didn't move. The only thing they did was firing arrows. I spread out my army and waited for the timer to run out. This was the most strangest or amazing heroic victory I ever had. I don't know if it is a bug or something but I managed to do it again later in the campaign while defending Iraklion against three Italian stacks.

You say their were 3-4 different factions crusading and attacking at the same time, interesting.

I've always wondered, do they all wait for a simultaneous attack together or is it a coincidence that they all rocked up on ur doorstep at the same time?

[homefry]

I also wonder because I've never been able to siege a settlement that was already being sieged.

[Shazbot]

If your allied to the sieging faction, you can join them in a siege.

[Bluice]

Yes but actually waiting for all of the stacks to rock up before continuing on with the siege.

[Lord Firkraag]

The AI sometimes maintains the siege longer just so allies can assist.

[Cybugger]

My prefered defence technics are:

-Loose U formation around the gate/breach with only spearmen. Have some heavy infantry behind. As soon as your spearmen reach "Tired" status, toss in you HI. By this time the enemy's cavalry should be dead, and their survivors should also be "Tired". A massive charge of HI into a group of tired infantry should wipe them out.

-Use any cavalry you have to charge the ram(s), then withdraw. Rinse and repeat. During this time, the enemy is being whittled down by your towers and archers.

-If the enemy has siege towers, and i can't burn them, i normally place 1 squad of HI in front of each one of them (on the wall), and wait. When they land, carnage insues. If my men loose and break, i have a squad of spearmen at the base of the wall, near the door. When the enemy come out, they have no speed, and they just get massacred by a fresh squad of infantry.

Note: I personally find cavalry are pretty useless in castle defences (apart from disruptin rams and/or towers). Exception: the heroic last charge. Situation: the enemy have broken through your walls. Most of your troups are either dead, dying or routing. Wait until the bulk of the enemy's army is walking through one of the tight streets. Unleash all your cavalry in one last ditch attempt at victory. Works 50/50.

[miserable09]

My prefered defence technics are:

Note: I personally find cavalry are pretty useless in castle defences (apart from disruptin rams and/or towers). Exception: the heroic last charge. Situation: the enemy have broken through your walls. Most of your troups are either dead, dying or routing. Wait until the bulk of the enemy's army is walking through one of the tight streets. Unleash all your cavalry in one last ditch attempt at victory. Works 50/50.

I'll also sometimes send them out a side gate and swing around
hitting the enemy from behind... Again a bit of a crap shoot, but, sometimes it'll make whole groups of enemies route... Or sometimes they simply turn around and promptly grind your horses into hamburger...

[johnnyg]

If you happen to have horse archers, send them out and draw the enemies into the firing range of your towers and then run back inside. The AI will either send calvary after them and then retreat once you're inside or send the entire stack after you. Usually I only use this when I sally against a siege, since the AI tends to back off and make you come to them.

Otherwise, I always defend the gate/breaches with spearmen in schiltron formation, one on each side of the opening (slightly off center on each side so as to funnel them) with more spears/HI behind them. I don't find that I take terribly heavy losses, as the enemy either is stuck on the spears or their momentum is slowed enough that the non-schiltron troops can take care of the rest.

[Town Watch]

Pike militia in ranks of 3, and then some tough heavy infantry in ranks of 2 within the actual pike's reach.
O = pikeman
X = DFK
--- = pike

OOOXXX-- The Gate.
OOOXXX--
OOOXXX--


hopefully you understood
BTW: You should keep pikemen in guard mode at all times I think, but If your at it, you can switch between guard and non-guard modes with Heavy Infantry, as long as you keep them in the pike's reach.

[Oploc]

i use some spearman/militia to raid the enemy catapults/battering rams, with 3-4 units of archers trying to burn any other seige equipment. Unless its a town i actually have units stationed in. XD