I just fought the most horrible battle ever

[war91]

And I learned that Cretan archers are hugely over powered in the melee department.

Well, after I attacked Crete (as I read in the faction guide), I decided it would be no problem. I got two siege towers, and set them up on both sides of three units of Cretan archers that were on the wall. After the usual losses by the enemy archers, my men got on the wall. One unit of Greek Hoplites attacked one unit of Cretan archers on their flank, while my heavy peltast and spearmen (doryphoroi) attacked the other two units of archers on the other side. What followed was horrible: my hoplites lost over half their units in melee with the archers, while both my other units lost half as well... In Melee With Archers in fact they almost routed.

I finally won the battle, but I lost more than half my men in all my units, most caused by those bloody Cretan archers; most of which weren't even caused by missile fire!

And then in the town square, I pinned down their one unit of Greek hoplite and generals bodyguard with two units of militia phalangites, while my third unit of Militia phalangites went around, formed up behind the enemy hoplites, and attacked them from the rear.

I killed all 461 of them and lost 578. None of my units had more than 50 men after the battle. Most of the deaths of my phalangites came after I flanked their unit of hoplites.

What did I do wrong? I think Cretan archers are way overpowered in the melee department; obviously they should be deadly at range, but should be routed and torn apart in seconds in hand to hand.

[DimeBagHo]

I've had similar problems fighting on walls - sometimes seems like defending units get an insane bonus.

What happened in the square is more normal - hoplites will usually do some severe harm to militia phalangites. Militia phalangites have a low attack, so they are not very good at finishing off the enemy. They are really better suited for holding off the enemy in an open field battle, while some other unit type flanks.

[war91]

Is there any way to lower the wall bonus? For both the AI and Human player? Does the player even get a bonus, or is it just for AI?

Just after I posted that, I remember the same thing happening in every total war game I've ever played. So I guess they can't get it out of their heads that whatever god-like power that's bestowed on to wall defenders isn't exactly fun.

[Scutarii]

Wall bonuses should definitely be toned down, if possible. I've experienced similar things, but I nearly always avoid siege battles on stone walls + above ( or autoresolve if clearly in my favour + I can retrain).

[Stilgar CG]

Other factors: (i) Units that push and climb tower are always tired, even hoplites; (ii) they enter the battle one-by-one, and I watched them die pretty instantly (could this be a factor?). (iii) Oh, yeah, bloody towers are firing at you, so you loose your men faster.

So, I am asking if there is really a bonus for defending walls or it's just a combination of factors?

Sending a tough melee unit ahead and then another missile unit (e.g. peltasts-type) for "covering fire" did often the trick for me.

Militia phalangist are pretty weak. As soon as they loose the phalanx formation, they die fast. Were your first two militia in guard mod, Scutarii? This could help to keep the fight going for a bit longer.

[war91]

Other factors: (i) Units that push and climb tower are always tired, even hoplites; (ii) they enter the battle one-by-one, and I watched them die pretty instantly (could this be a factor?). (iii) Oh, yeah, bloody towers are firing at you, so you loose your men faster.

So, I am asking if there is really a bonus for defending walls or it's just a combination of factors?

Sending a tough melee unit ahead and then another missile unit (e.g. peltasts-type) for "covering fire" did often the trick for me.

Militia phalangist are pretty weak. As soon as they loose the phalanx formation, they die fast. Were your first two militia in guard mod, Scutarii? This could help to keep the fight going for a bit longer.

I tried using slingers and my own archers to cover them, but it didn't work. Archers on the ground can't do much damage against archers on walls, so they all missed most of the time.

Wall towers didn't shoot at my men while they were on the walls.

All the units jumped out of the siege tower at the same time, and they attacked at the same time.

My phalangites stayed in phalanx formation during the entire fight (in the court yard). The two that kept them in place were in guard mode.

But I did notice that the walls kept on shooting my men even after I got the "Captured walls" message, so I had to rush them in.

[Stilgar CG]

war21: I typed Scutarii's name by mistake when asking about militia phalangist , sorry, war.

I meant to send a missile unit on the wall and fire from the wall at the defenders that are engaged in melee. Friendly fire might occur, but you get rid of the defenders faster. Commonly you fight for the main gate to allow your army to enter, right. And you want to do it fast.

As far as I know, each tower should be taken separately: you have to walk one of your units on the wall and reach that tower. Then, it will stop firing at you (and will fire at the enemy). I usually take in this way all the towers that are positioned close to the route my units will take on their way to the main square (you'll see multiple 'wall taken' messages). This will minimize casualties.

About jumping at the same time from the siege tower; it might depend on the order given to the unit in the siege tower (form up vs. attack). Anyway, forming up on the wall first (if enemy allows) and then giving the order to attack seems the best option to me.

Finally, about those "super-archers". Indeed, Cretan archers have some skill in melee. But I am not sure they are overpowered in melee. What could have happened in your case: first, the combination of all factors (losses, fatigue (if 'on'?), perhaps some defending wall bonuses (not sure about their existance) etc.).
There is another thing with missile units though: I am sure that first row of slingers and skirmishers will fight in melee, whereas those in the back might still fire their missiles (if fire at will is on, I guess). Just watched skirmishers doing that in my last assault of a roman city. I wonder if archers can do the same :hmmm:? If so, your hoplites and spearmen were meant to die fast.

Finally, I think you did great when you finished off a unit of hoplites and general's bodyguard unit with 3 militia units.

[TM Is Back]

ME archers can do that indeed. I had problems with that last time, i lost 2 groups of Marines against one Creten archer group

[war91]

war21(It's War91 ): I typed Scutarii's name by mistake when asking about militia phalangist , sorry, war (Quite alright).

I meant to send a missile unit on the wall and fire from the wall at the defenders that are engaged in melee. Friendly fire might occur, but you get rid of the defenders faster. Commonly you fight for the main gate to allow your army to enter, right. And you want to do it fast.
That's what I did. While the spearmen (right wall) had the archers pinned, my peltasts (thsomething) fired on the archers.

As far as I know, each tower should be taken separately: you have to walk one of your units on the wall and reach that tower. Then, it will stop firing at you (and will fire at the enemy). I usually take in this way all the towers that are positioned close to the route my units will take on their way to the main square (you'll see multiple 'wall taken' messages). This will minimize casualties.
Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks.

About jumping at the same time from the siege tower; it might depend on the order given to the unit in the siege tower (form up vs. attack). Anyway, forming up on the wall first (if enemy allows) and then giving the order to attack seems the best option to me.
I actually did that. I let them all out, and they attacked. Although not all was on the wall. On the right side, I had time to line all my peltast on the wall, and then charged the archers (in the unit cards it says they can deal with light infantry, so I figured archers were no problem). My spearmen joined soon after.

Finally, about those "super-archers". Indeed, Cretan archers have some skill in melee. But I am not sure they are overpowered in melee. What could have happened in your case: first, the combination of all factors (losses, fatigue (if 'on'?), perhaps some defending wall bonuses (not sure about their existence) etc.).
1: I didn't lose but a few troops from each unit when they got to the wall.
2: Fatigue is on, but it said they were fresh.
3: The archers each had one silver chevron.
4: I guess it was mostly the wall.
There is another thing with missile units though: I am sure that first row of slingers and skirmishers will fight in melee, whereas those in the back might still fire their missiles (if fire at will is on, I guess). Just watched skirmishers doing that in my last assault of a roman city. I wonder if archers can do the same :hmmm:? If so, your hoplites and spearmen were meant to die fast.
1: Shouldn't hoplites (big shields, long spears) be able to just absorb arrows from the front? Or were archers made stronger in this mod. Since in vanilla I could just let the archers shoot the hoplite from the front, and not lose many.
2: I watched the entire battle up close. Not once did I see the archers fire when they were engaged; they all got swords out. I also didn't see the towers fire at all; only when my slingers and archers tried to get close.

Finally, I think you did great when you finished off a unit of hoplites and general's bodyguard unit with 3 militia units.
Thank you.

Also, my archers and slingers lost the archer battle. While they got shot down by enemy arrows, I doubt I ever even killed one troop by using my own archers. Which reminds me of the fact about wall bonus:

1) It seems units (defending) on wall get a huge bonus, whether it's just AI or not I don't know.
2) It seems archers on walls get a bonus (maybe) against troops on the ground while using ranged, while archers on the ground get a massive disadvantage trying to fire back at the archers on the walls. Or maybe the disadvantage given to ground archers is so bad it seems to give a bonus to archers on walls.
3) If 1 and 2 are both right, that would explain this battle.

[TM Is Back]

Last time i had something like this aswell. I was defending and put my guys onto the wall. (I was GCS the enemy Macedon). My army was made of some thureo-whatevers i always forget there names :p- and 3 units of militia phalangites and a 5 star general.
The enemy had one thorakitai, 3 dorophuroi, some theruos and one phalangite. I had some reinforcements consisting of 2 units of militia phalangites, one unit of light cavalry, and 7 units of tureos.

Well the enemy attacked me with one siege tower, two ladders and a ram. As alwyas the ram was destroyed by my towers. The tower was not. The enemy reached the walls and climed it. The east side was easily defended by me only tureos were climbing there so everytime one reached the top it was slain by my militias.
The other ladder was more difficult there the phalangites climbeb. I managed to kill them with many pila's.
The siege towar reached the walls and a unit of thorakitai. got out of it. After that came some tureos and then finnaly a unit of dureo That's were things went bad.
I managed to defeat the enemys that used the ladders and my reinforcements reached the city as well.

I send some of my militia reinforcements to get into the city climb on the walls and then start fighting the Macs in theirr back. Guess what, the enemy completely destroyed my 2 fresh militia's and lost only 40 units At the other side of the front my soldiers were being slaughtered as well. The thorakitai fought like mad man killing Greek after Greek while i only could kill one Mac after having lost 30 Greeks. Finnaly my last skirmishers from the ground managed to kill the Macs with their pila's.

I lost a total of 1200/2000 soldiers and the enemy only 700. And then i was the defender.....700 of these deads were done by just that one unit of thorakitai.

[Stilgar CG]

TM, militia phalangists are peasants with spears, did not you know

[TM Is Back]

I do i do, but when using swords, you should be able to cut some guys but now they were slaughtered not by the thorakitai but at the hands of the dureos, which are peasents as well.

[Stilgar CG]

TM, as far as I understand your militia pahalangists were climbing the wall to hit enemy in the back. This happens slowly, they arrive one by one, could not do much damage to the enemy, I guess, and therefore died easily. Finally, after you fed the enemy with your first militia unit, the enemy got an experience boost, right

On walls phalangists are pretty useless (bad swordsmen, no phalanx on walls of course). I used phalangists (third-level barracks), and those died of hands of peltasts on walls just like that, let alone militia phalangists.

[Unknown Soldier]

Cretan archers rock - single silver chevron + weapon bronze gives 10 melee atack I believe and 10 archery

I had a unit taking out siege towers with fire arrows vs. the Selucids in the defence of perganum.

Selucide went on for quite a while as their 3 unit of war elephants got cooked by oils at the gates.
Kehbabs all round that night in the heroic victory city celebrations
Mwha ha ha ha ha

I think I got screenies somewhere.

Defenders on stone walls get a big boost. Tactic is to attack a wall without defenders or sap point or artillerize them into submission- siege towers are made of wood, says it all really.

[Ubernotnoob]

i did some editing on my EDU, and i found this:

type greek hoplite militia
dictionary greek_hoplite_militia ; Militia Phalangites
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Light_1
soldier greek_phalangite_levy, 60, 0, 1
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap
formation 1.4, 1, 2.8, 2, 8, square, phalanx
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 8, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.5
stat_pri_attr long_pike, spear
stat_sec 3, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,0.9

simply put, the militia phalangites, once they lose their phalanx formation and pull out their swords, their stats are only 3, 8 which is as bad, if not worse than some missile units. for example, a normal peltasts have the melee stats of 3,8 as well, so sending militia phalangites to defend a wall is worse than sending in those doropurioi 3,11(spelling?). and cretan archers(5,11) have better base melee stats than the doropuroi as well

[Deiphobos]

I find the wall bonuses quite alright as they are. If I can remember correctly there used to be a rule of thumb for defending a fortified position like a castle, and that was that a defending party should be able to face up to ten times its size without trouble.

The drop in attributes for the phalangites is very interesting... and frightening. I gotta check out the other phalanx unit.

[Stilgar CG]

I was not aware of existing of any wall bonuses. Could anybody tell what are those?

[Unknown Soldier]

Archers on walls = men eating sausages er .. no thats a british joke.. sorry yes that was it = height advantage like being on a hill = better range and falling arrows have more momentum due to gravity = 'big' advantage

[war91]

I'm well aware of that.

I just hate the fact that at the start of the battles (most I fight), the enemy go straight to the town square, leaving no targets behind the wall. Only on top.

[Ferrus]

I have fewer losses when storming walls now as I played this game over time. The main problem I believe is that when fighting on walls, you cannot use the full strength of your units as they are filtered thinly when attempting to flank attack the defenders. I use a mixture of towers and ladders, and have seen a huge improvement in my storming of walls. The trick is to overwhelm the enemy in multipoint assaults, timing the ladders to face and deploy directly into the enemy as your men that was deposited by the tower on an undefended section of the wall run right into the defenders. Swarming the enemy with bodies, being attacked in two places at once, actually more due to the multiple ladders, and watch the slaughter begin. Plus having the right men to do it helps too. Heavily armoured troops like hoplites are too sexy on the walls.