Ready to rumble?

[Pater Familias]

Here's the deal:
I'm playing Retrofit Mod as Russia. We're in Ryazan (large town on the Eastern edge of my empire). I have a full stack in the city (heavy, heavy on archers). I have two more almost full stacks in support position: half cavalry, then archers, then a few spears and a couple of artillery pieces.
The Mongols have five stacks lined up.
It's been two turns since they besieged me, so I'm losing strength through attrition in the town. But if I sally or use one of my external stacks to break the siege, I'm fighting Mongols on their favorite turf.
I have a half-stack in Kiev and another in Novgorod, so my primary goal is to bleed the invaders dry. They don't have the depth to take more than two minor cities if I can make them pay at least man-for-man to take Ryazan.
Oh, and I never reload a game, so if I make the wrong decision, I'm stuck with it.
Do I take the fight to them, or sit back and play defense?

[Harry Lime]

Moved to Battle Planning

[Stildawn]

Well for your question I wouldn know, never been good at castle battles etc. And your right mongols on the plains are nasty.

My advice would be to move ya armies back (the external stacks) to the next river/bridge. Rearrange your stacks to have a heavy archer and like maybe 6 hi or pike/spear troops, place this stack on the bridge(s) and move the others back (so they cant reinforce the bridge stack).

Let Ryazan fight it out when they assualt the walls you usually get a pretty good kill ratio with the assualt.

Then when they come to advance after Ryazan falls, they will attack your bridge stack(s) its important not to have a supporting army close to the bridge stack or else its less likely the mongols will attack, but that one stack if done right will just simply lay waste to mongol army after mongol army.

Position ya hi/spears/pike right on the bridge (blocking it off at your end) then a half circle of archers around them, take the archers off skirmish and have everyone on defensive. Put both a unit of hi and spears/pike across the mouth of the bridge (so that they can defend against both attacking infantry and cavalry) And just hold this position with your archers slaughtering them.

After each battle, bring up one of your support stacks and bring the bridge stack back to full strength then retreat back.

This will bleed out all the mongols one after another (even when attacked by few stacks at a time) often with heroic victories. After all their stacks have died on your bridge, simply advance with your now greater force to total victory.

Added bonus is you'll have a few (as many bridges that get attacked) awesome generals at the end of it, nothing brings up the stats of troops and generals than wasting armies twice or three times your size hehe.

[Pater Familias]

Thanks. I'll give it a try ... I got a short reprieve because a longshot assassin killed their faction leader at the heir's request. His heir, out of gratitude, pulled back his armies, although they're starting to circle back my way now, about five turns later ...