How to defend when you know you can't win

[The Mad Monk]

Sometimes in the campaign you get attacked, beseiged, or ambushed by a overpoweringly larger force with your miniscule detachment of militry might...

Ex - I remember one time I was playing as the Julii and I had conquered all of Illyria, Southern Gaul, and North Eastern Iberia. I had all my legions on the various hostile fronts but left Arimium-Arretium-Segesta almost empty. Thriving huge cities but with garrisons consisting of 2 Hastati, 1 Velite a General left over from the Pre-Marian Reforms. Well a rebel stack, a STACK, appeared rondomly from the Rome area and beseiged Segesta.. I've never seen a rebel army try to siege a city so I had very little quantity and quality of troops so I got pwned.

I had remember something about defend the Square not the walls so I Placed my units in a line that chopped th esquare in half. (Hard to explain) kinda like
.______________
|\
|.\
|..\
|...\
|....\
|.....\
|......\
|.......\
|........\_____

That...



So needless to say I adopt a plan for a inlfict massive casualties on the enemy before getting overrun by the masses.





So, Is there anyway of inflicting more casualties than you lost in a battle? If So How?

[Roman_Wolf]

in such battles, I tend to use sally forth every turn and try to hurt them as much as possible by ranged units and cavalry but without commiting my melle units for the fight.

As for hopeless battles which are fought in the open and not in cities, I occasionaly tend to take advantage of a game problem. I withdraw all my units and leave a single unit of cavalry (preferably a general's bodygaurd). then I coontinue running around the map until time runs out and I win ( this suck I know. but I only do it when I'm going for a perfect campaign winning record)

[Legio]

Winning is very easy as the Romans. Today I played as the Scipii, and I had besieged Pontus at Sardis. I had 8 principes and 3 hastati. The garrison was 6 eastern infantry, 2 scythed chariots, and the faction heir. Two full stacks tried to relieve the garrison (each consisted of 1 scythed chariot and then hillmen spam). I won pathetically easily by forming a box (noobish, I know, but effective).

[The Mad Monk]

Well... Those where both noob-ish taktics so Is there any way without cheating??

[Legio]

Well... Those where both noob-ish taktics so Is there any way without cheating??

I guess you can just keep good troops in your settlement. Also, build stone walls as fast as you can and then just defend the town square- up to half of the enemy will die walking towards you.

[Solrac]

sometimes archers can do miracles

[Entropy Judge]

So, Is there anyway of inflicting more casualties than you lost in a battle? If So How?

Use Cavalry and Archer-heavy armies; repeated cav. charges inflict casualties completely out of proportion to the number of men in the unit, and since Cavalry units have better stamina than infantry, they can run off, rest, and return. Archers on a hill or a wall have a powerful height advantage - it increases their range and (IIRC) the power of the arrows, so they become even more dangerous.

[fourganger]

At least you had a general! This is a screen from my last Roman campaign on RTR;



Not only did I repel the seige, I killed the faction leader (you can see the rememants of his odyguard fleeing from the field on the minimap)! All with 2 units of Principes and a unit of Libyan spearmen.

They sent up a seige tower, and the Roman troops handled this. Any unit coming onto the walls was attacked on both sides. The Spearmen guarded against ground incursions, beating off some heavy Punic cavalry and a unit of spearmen. Eventually, the guys on the wall needed help so the spearmen had to go up and help. As they did so, the rest of the Carthaginian army ran into the city (taking lots of casualties from the city defences). After dealing with the troops on the wall, my three units ran full speed to the city square. The captain's unit (consisting of him and 4 Principes) got there first (with only 30 seconds to spare), and were immediately charged by the enemy general and the rest of his cavalry, and were wiped out.

However, I was then able to flank charge his mass of cavalry with my spearmen, and this is where the enemy general was killed. After wiping out his cavalry, my Spearmen advanced into the square and were charged by what remained of the Carthy infantry. It looked pretty grim, but I pulled a flanking manoeuvre with my 4 remaining Principes. With the loss of their faction leader, these 4 guys were apparantly too much to take, and the rest of the enemy fled.

[Selifator]

You can use a general to run rings around your walls, and let the towers shoot the enemy. This will work with a sally but not with a siege attack by the enemy. The towers will shoot and the enemy will be busy chasing you. Without time limit this can be done endlessly.

[htismaqe]

You can use a general to run rings around your walls, and let the towers shoot the enemy. This will work with a sally but not with a siege attack by the enemy. The towers will shoot and the enemy will be busy chasing you. Without time limit this can be done endlessly.

I try to do this as much as possible, but sometimes the AI just won't chase no matter what you do.

[fourganger]

I try to do this as much as possible, but sometimes the AI just won't chase no matter what you do.

If you use a family member, they usually go for it.

Always remember to run clockwise, so that units will be taking fire to their unshielded side.

[MABUS2012]

use the most direct routes the ai will take to ur square and post up some guys with some missile troups behind and some caverly around ready to flank or ambush in a way

[avesta]

use the most direct routes the ai will take to ur square and post up some guys with some missile troups behind and some caverly around ready to flank or ambush in a way

This is a great tactic. You inflict a few casualties with the missile troops but more importantly lure them into a perfect ambush.

[Agent Miles]

A rather large ERE army laid siege to Salona where my WRE ruler and a couple peasants were the only defenders. The AI only built one siege tower and at the start of the battle, they started wheeling it from one side of the gate to the other, in I suppose what was intended as a surprise. Well my Caesar and his bodyguard charged out and set it ablaze. The battle instantly ended before the AI could attack him. Hail Caesar!

[Lord Feloric's Ambassador]

If you know your going to lose and you cannot withdraw try to take as many enemies with you as you can. My Lord sometimes resorts to using unorthodox strategies to ensure the enemy has a significantly weaker army after the battle, even if the battle ends in defeat.

[Legio]

Exactly. I was playing vanilla BI as the Sarmatians, and the entire Gothic hordes besieged Constantinople. I had stone walls, a bunch of virgin archers, and a bunch of virgin and armored HAs. I sallied and slew 2900 of them, but lost all of my troops (345)when I ran out of arrows. Destroyed teh Goths as a faction the next turn with a relief army.

[darthbane7]

Well, when defending, if you are out on the open field*, that kind of attitude is a little harder to pull off, especially if you play as a faction with limited cavalry (i.e. Greek City States). If I get trapped with 4-6 armored hoplites against tons of hastati and principes (10-12), like I usually do in campaign, I lose, as all the romans throw their pila, and with no walls to run behind,...... needless to say my hoplites are slaughtered.

Any way out of that?

*I realize this thread may only be about sieges, but the title says differently.

[Lord Dakier]

Defending is like a Wii, Its too easy to do. Forget blocking the square and forget blocking the walls. Block the streets man!

Mod: XGM
Faction: Greek Cities
Outnumbered?: Hell Yeah...

I was outnumbered the once something stupid like 7 to 1. I was besieged by many stacks of Macedons. I had my Spartan Royal Guard, heavy peltast, half a unit of Crete Hoplite... something like Crete and Phalangites. I was surrounded by 3 different computer players so holding the wall was a deffinate no as my soldiers were too spread thin. The square seemed like a fairly good idea but being outnumbered by Macedon long Phalanx pikes compared to my smaller pikes was also a bad idea. But what if I could cramp their units. That way I would only have to fight few of their much longer Phalanx spears. So my Royal Guard being strongest took the flank on their own. My heavy peltast took the other flank which was not really under threat. My phalangite and Hoplite took the front hoping to equal the cramped up numbers. The battles goes and my walls are easily taken. They finally get nearer to my square and we engage battle. My Royal Guard are outnumbered around 6 to 1... as expected they took quite a few casualties but held theyre line. Then at the front the bloodshed was being shared at equal rates... as I was outnumbered but they were cramped we done well to stop their advance. However I noticed a weakness in my own plan, the Peltast!... it seems infantry was preparing to flank me. I used my heavy peltast to hold their ground long enough for my Hoplite to assist them. The infantry were defeated, however without the support of the Hoplite my Phalangites were starting to take heavy losses... therefore I had them return but with the heavy peltasts. Macedonian Hoplites suffered great losses from the heavy spears of the peltast in their crowded groups. It was so bad they turned sour and started retreating. Over at the Spartans battle it appears they had dealt with 3 sets already and was in battle with another 3. However the Macedonians was reinforcing another 3 sets of hoplites, I removed my front guard to aid the Spartans in defeating theyre enemy. In the end I had an amazing siege record which sorry to say I didnt screen it but yeah the battle was about 1 hour and thirty minutes long.

[Lord Thesaurian]

In your case, when besieged, it is best to allow the besieging army to sit there while you gather reinforcements for the counterattack, especially when one of your larger cities is attacked. In general, however, when faced with an impossible foe, it is best to simply withdraw. When you cannot withdraw, try to make ur foe pay dearly for victory by taking out his best units, generals, or equipment. And when even this seems impossible, just charge into the fray and cut ur losses.