Battle, siege and defence tactics.

[azz505]

Hello everyone.

I'm here today to ask you guys to give me advice and your own personal experiance on tactics on the battlefield. "ATTACKING"

Firtsly, try and base this on the english forces.

I'm haveing some trouble keeping my men alive in sieges so i could use a little advice. Ok things i could do with knowing are Siege tactics for towns with no wall defence to towns with a wall defences and castles.

Another thing i could do with knowing is open field tactics and so on.

Thanks.

[syntax_error]

A little broad, but I'll break it down the best I can. I also play as the English, so I can give some pointers.

Defending a Siege with no walls
Seeing as how quickly you can upgrade to a city with a wooden palisade, it's a little difficult to believe you would have any of these towns. Regardless, I find the best way to find off these types of attacks is to leave a few units in the town center, about three. Preferably, a unit each of archer, spear men, and infantry. Send the rest of your forces, particularly cavalry, out the back of the town, break off in two groups, and circle around their flanks in a pincer-type move. Get in position, but wait for the enemy to enter the city and begin engaging your town center guard before attacking. This will squeeze the enemy between your three walls of attackers and mow them down like a lawn mower. If they break, though, let them run. You're going to have enough on your hands keeping your men alive, as although this tactic has been immensely effective for me, you have to stay on your toes and move your units around. Be prepared to take heavy casualties.

Defending a Siege with walls
Probably one of the easiest types of battles in the game. First off, you're going to want to place your archers on the walls. If your archer units have stakes, like longbowmen, have them place them right inside the walls directly in front of the door, then move them to the walls when the battle starts. If you have spearmen, place them directly behind the stakes and put them in guard mode facing the gate, and perhaps another unit of spearmen or infantry behind them. It will also help if you put two more spear units on either side of the gate facing inward, so you have three units facing and ready when they break through. As the enemy advances, concentrate on taking out the siege towers and ram. If their ram breaks, they have to rely on towers/ladders. If their towers and ladders reach the walls, draw you archers back and move some infantry in before they start climbing. Keep your archers on the ground firing over the wall at advancing forces. If they break the gate, let them rush into the stakes, then push with your spear units. If they start to falter, back them with your reserve spear or infantry units. If you're running the retrofit mod, with the hot oil at the gates, it's even better. Chop them up like a blender and watch them route!

Hope this helps. Now I have to get back to work before I get in trouble!

[azz505]

Thanks for the defence tips, should help me alot.

[RollingWave]

It depends, if they bring signifiacnt amount of aritllery then fighting at the walls is probably a poor idea. I'd just wait for them at the city square in that case. leave your cavs behind the walls to keep the towers on until they're through the gates. then just run back to the square. the square is a pretty evil position because walking up the alley way makes your formation go out of wack and your troops a huge fat target for raneg units. the chain rout reaction is also pretty serious.

keep a unit of gunner types near the end of the alley and laugh as two group of gunners rout entire armies.

[FriendoftheDork]

When defending walls, don't. Unless your forces are almost comparable to the enemy's, you'll probably lose.

Instead keep on unit right behind the gate in order for the towers to wear down the enemy, then when the ram hits the gate run them back to the square where the other units await. If you have siege engines you will get tons of kills from the square, otherwise you'll need to draw in the enemy and flank the first unit that enters the square with your own militias. Sometimes the enemy charges in with cav, in which case even town militias in guard mode can take them out easily. Your worse enemy will be missile units standing off and peppering your forces, in which case you should send out a unit or two to lure in the enemy.

Unless you can break the enemy morale early, expect heavy casualties but at least you can do serious damage on the enemy as well and even win most battles.

[RollingWave]

it kind of depends on what you have, but in vinilla yes the walls don't give you enough of an advantage, espically considering how easily the gates break down.

[Death4free]

am i the only one thats heard of ballistas

jesus man they are like death rays to rams if they take the ram out its pretty much game over for the ai as walls are easy as hell to defend

[davidson065]

If, you have any cavalry make sure to keep them in reserve. They're pretty much useless unless if they can charge in. If your gate gets brokes down, send in your cavalry at that right moment, such as when the enemy forms a "bubble" pushing in to your settlement. Also try to target any seige towers with flaming arrows to knock em down. Any enemt infantry on the walls can buthcer your archers. Also shadow any ladders with one unit of infantry. Enmies attacking from ladders are generally vaunerable when they first come over the wall. You can have one unit of milita butcher a unit of armoured infantry like this.

[Solrac]

I think that you will not get any problem defending your lands on the british isles, but on the rest of the map, i use this tactic:

. Many regions have briges on their borthers, so I place an army (many archers and some spears) on those briges. With this tactic you will have more advantage if you are attacked