I need help in sieges!

[war91]

This is just unfair. I'm playing on easy, and I just lost a siege battle even when I outnumbered them. What caused this?

1. My FIVE units of archers went to attack the archers on the wall (just a castle), and I spread them out and put them in loose formation. After each unit lost ten or so men, I noticed that they missed every single time! So they were beyond useless, while the enemy archers were getting them with every shot, even though my archers were even spread out.

2. When my ram got to the enemy gate, a unit of town militia came out, but only half made it out the gate before it closed again. They started attacking the ram, so I told two units of Mailed knights to attack them. After my mailed knights lost about five men each, they suddenly stopped attacking. I told them and four units of spear militia to attack, but they wouldn't. The spear militia had to get back on the ram (still under attack) and break the gate down. Meanwhile I lost many men because my archers sucked and didn't kill ANY of the archers, and because of a stupid bug (even at 1.3!) I lost most of my spear unit because they couldn't attack back! Finally the gate opened (they sent units through) and I got in.

3. After finishing off their archers (had to use spearmen and cavalry when they came down), I proceded to set up my units right outside the town square:

Crossbowmen
Spear militia Spear militia Spear militia Spear militia
Archer Archer Archer Archer
Mailed Knight Mailed Knight

4. After one volley from all ranged units, their peasants attacked. The spear militia held them off, but they lost several men before the peasants backed off. Then their town militia attacked (remember, this is just one unit of peasants and just one town militia) and my spears held them off, but I charged the cavalry when I noticed they were loosing!

5. Their light cavalry charged head first into my spearmen, and they break through the first two rows (Again, only one unit of cavalry), and after they are beaten, I don't have one unit of spearmen with more than 15 men. In fact, one unit is dead.

6. Their leader (heavy cavalry) charge, and kill off my spearmen, kill off my cavalry (one unit only had one man left, the other had 11), and I quit the battle at that moment since their general might as well have been god since he beat all my units.

I then felt beyond cheated and reloaded the game.

Please, what am I doing wrong? I tried to distract their archers, I used formations, I did everything I could do, and I even outnumbered them; on easy! What did I do wrong to be so horribly beaten!?

[dr_guerra]

Okay. What kind of town was it? Was battering rams your only option? Could you have used ladders or siege towers? They are much more effective. Siege towers especially.

I don't know if you had the option, but heavy infantry are the best for taking walls and breaching first.

If you don't have heavy infantry, try to use the best infantry available. Remember that axes, swords, maces are better than spears against other infantry, while spears are best vs cavalry.

When you use your cavalry to attack enemy infantry, line them up, then double click to charge them. A proper charge can massacre a company of troops, just don't use your cavalry against spears.

First thing I recommend is get rid of the damn archers on the walls, using ladders. If not. Break the gate down, charge up the stairs and butcher the archers in melee combat.

Try not to get surrounded, and if your men route, have your general nearby to rally them.

The more details on the units you have, the units they have, if it's a city or castle, and what kind, and other information would help greatly if my answer is not sufficient.

[war91]

More information:

Mod: Custom Campaign mod

Faction: Rebels

Enemy: French

Map: Map of Iberian Peninsula

Castle: Toulouse

Army: four units of peasant archers (three with one chevron, all with bronze shield), one unit of peasant crossbowmen, two units of mailed knights, three units of spear militia, one unit of sergeant spearmen, one unit of jinetes (captain), one ram. All have level one armor (bronze), most have one or two chevrons

French army: three peasant archers, one sergeant spearmen, one town militia, one peasant, two mounted sergeants, Prince Louis. Only one archer unit has one chevron and level one armor. All the others have nothing. One unit of Mounted Sergeants has only 7 men.

So should I just ditch the ram and go for ladders?

[Serious J]

Don't expect your archers to do anything worthwhile to units on walls. Get them to shoot at units on the ground behind the walls instead.

Your knights stopping their attack is a common thing that happens in gateways, it's a bit of a pathfinding thing. When that happens, order them to run past the unit instead of attacking them, they'll at least be able to claim the gateway.

It also sounds like you didn't have a general in the battle? That's a big no no for siege battles of any city/castle with a wall bigger than a palisade. Your unit morale and stats will be much lower without one and you'll suffer much more casualties.

[war91]

Don't expect your archers to do anything worthwhile to units on walls. Get them to shoot at units on the ground behind the walls instead.

Your knights stopping their attack is a common thing that happens in gateways, it's a bit of a pathfinding thing. When that happens, order them to run past the unit instead of attacking them, they'll at least be able to claim the gateway.

It also sounds like you didn't have a general in the battle? That's a big no no for siege battles of any city/castle with a wall bigger than a palisade. Your unit morale and stats will be much lower without one and you'll suffer much more casualties.

1. So ignore the wall archers?
2. You don't understand, the gate was closed, and half the enemy was stuck, so I couldn't run past them and I couldn't claim the gate.
3. The only general for the rebels on the map I picked is El Cid.

[Serious J]

1. So ignore the wall archers?
2. You don't understand, the gate was closed, and half the enemy was stuck, so I couldn't run past them and I couldn't claim the gate.
3. The only general for the rebels on the map I picked is El Cid.

1: Send your infantry on the walls with ladders. They'll tear apart the archers quickly enough. Don't rely on just rams. Your goal in sieging the enemy is to overwhelm them as much as possible, just going through the gate is suicide in most cases, especially if you have kingdoms which has boiling oil.

2: Sorry, didn't notice you said the gate closed, this is a regular problem that cavalry face when trying to attack a unit that is partially inaccessible to them, similar to when a unit is half on the wall and half on the ground, you can't command them to attack the unit. I would have ordered my archers to fire on those units at that point. One thing you can also do is just move your cavalry close to the gate as possible and continuously order them to attack, they'll get a couple every few seconds.

3: I meant that you didn't have a general. Never siege the enemy without a general unless you want excessive casualties.

[war91]

3: I know what you meant, I'm saying that the only general I have (on the other side of the map) is El Cid. I don't have any other generals.

Thanks for the help so far.

[war91]

That didn't go very well...

I set up my army along another wall, with only three towers instead of the six at the front.

I quickly ran two ladders close together at the wall, and my four spearmen went up. My archers still missed the ones on the wall, until they could shoot at the town militia coming up to the walls, and at that time I had four spearmen up, and attacked the archers. Before they got there, they had one unit of town militia come up in front of the archers, so I attacked them with all my spearmen.

The result?

I killed ten town militia, and lost all my spearmen. I had just made the town militia rout (they still had twenty left) when I attacked their peasant archers. They routed the rest of my spearmen in melee. The rest of their army (I had about 350 at the start, they had only 150 or so) came down and killed me fully.

This can't be right. One unit of town militia slaughtered my four units of spearmen, with one unit of peasant archers finishing them by routing them?

This has to be a bug, that should not be happening on easy, or any difficulty for that matter.

[war91]

Mistake: I had 547 men, they had 281.

Edit: Newest report:

Just tried the battle again. This time I used four ladders, and ran them right to the enemy archers.

Conclusion:

All my spearmen started with more than 55 men, not one unit of spearmen made it past the wall, they all routed. I get another crushing defeat.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I can't suck that bad can I? If starting in different places and using four ladders and outnumbering the enemy 2:1 doesn't work, what does?

[war91]

Actually, forget this.

If playing fair and using good tactics causes me to lose four units spearmen and get me a crushing defeat, I'm just going to spawn 20 units of grand bombards (it's only 1112), blow the walls and the archers off the face of the earth, spawn 20 units of elephant with gunmen on top of them, and go rape prince whatever his name is. Then we'll see who gets the crushing defeat!

Edit: And you thought I was just kidding!

The first wave


End of the first wave


The second wave


End of the second wave


The Third Wave


End of the Third wave, and the death of Prince Louis




The map

[Strom]

Attack from multiple directions at once. If you have more units than they do then you should be able to get some men onto the wall unopposed using ladders and a ram. When an unopposed ladder unit starts climbing the AI will often run a unit to counter it, leaving another section undefended, quite possibly the gate.

You can then use your numerical superiority to isolate and surround his units either by climbing multiple adjacent sets of walls or by climbing one, running down into the castle and then up onto the wall behind him. They'll be much more likely to rout if you're attacking them from two directions and hitting them with flaming arrows from a third - often you can position archers on a small castle so they can stand on one bit of castle wall and fire obliquely onto a different wall at the same level.

Save your archers until you can get them on the walls and have them fire downwards onto the enemy, typically with flaming arrows. Nearly all castles have the courtyard in arrow range of at least one section of wall and given enough arrows you should be able to kill the prince. Enemy units find it difficult to storm walls that have several units of archers on them firing flaming arrows, they tend to break. Having archers fire up onto a wall is pretty much a complete waste of arrows, time and archers if the enemy towers or units have the range to shoot you.

[Viking Prince]

Don't worry. It is a learning curve. I will not bore you with all of my mistakes as a newbie. You have good advice here from the previous posts. I can tell you from personal experience that you need to set this aside for a day or two. Reread the advice and see what will work in you situation.

Rephrasing some of the advice:

1) Use several methods to get inside. A ram, one tower, two ladders. Move them up together spread out. Also keep your cav closer.

2) Use your archers to at least draw fire. The enemy archers will want to fire flaming arrows on the tower and the ram. Each volley against your archers is a volley not against you equipment. Flaming arrows are less accurate, but it is hard to miss a ram and a tower. Keep them busy on other targets.

3) When the gate opens, DROP THE RAM! Also have a second unit of infantry against the wall close to the gate. When the defenders come out to melee, let them come to your unit that dropped the ram. This will get them out of the gate and allow the other unit close to the wall to attack on the flank. Once both of your units are engaged, watch to see how the melee progresses. Use your horn while charging the cav to break the unit. With luck, you will get inside.

4) You need a general. You might get lucky, but I am not yet good enough to fight settlements as the attacker without a general. Partially this is because the heavy cav body guard can make or break an attack. Also, use the horn to rally as often as possible. Especially when a melee has gone for a bit of time or as the soldiers are fighting from the ladders.

5) Keep trying. You will get it. Good luck!

[Winter_Is_Coming]

Having played Rome: Total War, I thought it would be an easy transition to Medieval: Total War 2, but I lost my first couple sieges too. A few things I'd emphasize from the above posts:

1) Attack from at least two sides, three if you have enough troops. The computer cannot tell which side poses the biggest threat. I try to send a battering ram and a ladder to each side along with a unit of archers, while sending my main attack force of a tower, a ram and three ladders up the middle(ideally, but if you have less troops, you have to improvise).

2) The idea is to get over the wall as fast as you can, wherever you can. Clear the walls as fast as you can. Put your own archers on the wall to help. The only good way to make a unit rout on the wall is to attack them from two sides.

3) If you have lots of calvary, get a gate open, send some infantry in, then charge your calvary through. Your calvary will push their way through the enemy and all of a sudden their infantry has been pushed back, and your calvary is in position to turn around and charge them in the rear.

4) Once you get the enemy retreating to the town square, fire on them as much as you can with archers, and then attack with infantry from all sides. If you just attack from one side, expect some losses.

Eventually you get the hang of it to where you can take a city on very hard despite being outnumbered, it just takes some time. Expect to take some heavy losses early on. Also, when you first start a game, your infantry usually sucks, so don't be afraid to lose them. You're going to have to replace them with better units anyway.

[dr_guerra]

Winter has some excellent suggestions.

Remember that attacking from the ladders is the hardest way to attack. Use your very best troops and BACK them up. Try not to use ladders directly on the enemy, but adjacent to the army, so they don't just slaughter your men as they climb over.

I'm quite tempted to try out your mod & saved game. Having a General is pretty damn important. But I think even your captain gets the rally ability, which you should use often when assaulting the walls. Try to sandwich enemy troops on the walls, and don't let your archers shoot the walls. It's a waste of manpower, better to save their arrows for when you're inside the town.

Also, TOWERS are better than ladders! Try to use everything at once on different spots. Then concentrate your forces on one enemy company at a time. Try to route them, and as they route, cut them off with cavalry and butcher them.

[RollingWave]

a few tip on seiges

1. NEVER use ladders unless the units going up the ladders is VASTLY superior to the units on the wall ( I mean knights vs archers / peasents. not spear milita vs town milita) the advantage of the ladder is that you can run with it. so use it! run to section with no one defending.

2. if your going to assault the walls. use towers. multiple towers. and even then pick your spots, find the places with less of a defense and use your best unit to climb up the towers.

3. never use great units to hold the ram. your going to take significant damage anyway . don't waste the damage on your knights, use things like town milita or something with a big shield that builds cheap. i often find myself using archers ! because...

4. archers do nothing in the first phase. the only thing archers really do against anything where people can stand on walls is really attract the missile fire, they're not going to cause much damage. but they're decent for distracting the enemy archers. and shooting at them still causes moral penalty which should at least give your infantry a little help once they're on the walls. having a lot of archers in seiges is pretty useless. unless you could somehow get the on the walls and flip the table against the opposition.

5. if you can bring seige equipment, bring it! catapults and ballistas do nohting aganist higher level walls though. but against lower level walls they work fine (ballistas against wooden pallisade and low level gates, catapult against wooden walls or first level stone wall. the wall is a huge advantage to anyone on it... so BRING IT DOWN!

in truth. seiging in MTW2 (and the whole TW series) is a hell lot easier than it would have been in real life. where the defenders on the wall wouldn't be so nice to just wait for you to climb up the ladders and where towers were really not usable thx to moats (don't even need to be water moats. just bad holes and clunks makes it impossible to use towers)

[war91]

I just looked at some stats, and I was surprised.

It turns out town militia have better attack and defense than spear militia. No wonder I could never beat them.

I do have one question though: what are short spears good against? Are they just faster or something?

And thank you all for the immense help. After I let out my frustration with the huge attack of grand bombards, I redid the battle and won. The help was really... helpful (excuse the pun).

[Viking Prince]

In general, militia units are best used as free garrison units in settlements. Spear are best against cav and town on the walls until they die. Both are useful for anti rebel forces along with some militia archers and a general. If you are Spain or a similar faction you simply use the Jinettas for anti rebel forces and the militia are only really used as free garrison.

Short answer - lawn gnomes for the city gates.

[dr_guerra]

Ehh? Town Militia isn't better than militia spears? Anyways, use your amoured sergeants to grab the wall. Siege towers are better than ladders. Use ladders where there is no opposition.

Try to support your troops. I like to always have fresh reinforcements nearby.

Dude, upload the savegame and mod you're using, I really want to give it a whirl.

[war91]

It's just the Custom Campaign mod.

I chose the Iberian map, and played as the rebels.

[Serious J]

I'm surprised so many people are suggesting siege towers over ladders. I only use ladders because I got sick of seeing every other siege tower go up in flames before it even got close to the wall, let alone when it's at the wall with 30 guys in it.

Ladders are fine, you just can't send a solo ladder unit to a part of the wall, you need at least 2-3 to overwhelm the defending units.