Do you defend in depth at fortresses?

[SirRobin]

I have been wondering if there is any advantage in defending the inner keep in a fortress assault. Usually I only defend the outer wall, and if I defended the keep also, I'm worried that I might spread my forces thin and simply get destroyed piecemeal.

Any experiences with pros and cons?

I tried once to fall back to the castle but because of the pathfinding, most units got stuck..

[Stolet]

I usually keep my infantry in central square, and get maybe 2-3 units of cavalry (best use light, something fast, but heavy will do too), place the cavalry near the outer wall so I can make the towers fire. When the gate is at about 85% destroyed, I start falling back to the second wall, stand by the towers again, until the enemy breaches the second gate, then I fall back to the central square. If the enemy has ladders, I put some heavy infantry on the last wall, and the others defend the gate, enemy usually uses rams to move into the central square.

Pros: one fight on the walls, BUT you get enemy casualties from two more walls with towers (more cavalry - more towers can shoot); enemy rams often get destroyed by towers in the inner walls, so they have to go all the way back for another one, which takes them time and causes them more casualties while the towers shoot them in the backs; a large number of enemy soldiers are killed before they reach the central square - so it's like fighting a normal siege, just with 20, 30 to 60 or 70% (if you have cannon towers) less enemy attacking you

Cons: can't think of any lol, yea your citadel is more damaged, but you lose a lot less soldiers

Of course if you have 3 sets of walls, it's a citadel, probably you'll be defending fortresses more, but still, they have one "bonus" set of walls so the same technique can be applied. In castles, well, it's like defending a city, but you will probably suffer less damage if you wait at the city square, cause there's only one road leading to it.

[SirRobin]

Actually I just tried falling back to the second walls at a fortress now.

I noticed:

1: outer walls dont shoot into the courtyard, even though there are clearly arrow slits on them. (they are manned of course)

2: arrow towers are incredibly weak, the AI stopped working midway so my towers have been shooting at the enemy in the courtyard for half an hour now with 6x time enabled, very slowly withering away the enemy militiamen and crossbowmen.

3: the enemy units can get down to 4 men and still not rout. One of my swordsmen units is at 2 men and still standing too.

4: Mangonels are pretty useless defending the fortress, it's a lottery weapon that might hit once out of ten shots..

[Praefectus praetorio]

4: Mangonels are pretty useless defending the fortress, it's a lottery weapon that might hit once out of ten shots..

If you use mangonels right they can save your settlement against superior enemy numbers. Hold their fire until enemy breach the gate to minimise friendly casualties but you could also fire over the walls when there are no friendly units in way. When enemy swarm in through the gate have some infantry to hold them in place while mangonel just few feet away fire their exploding barrels. You can easily get even hundreds of kills with mangonel and rout enemy units instantly. Mangonels and trebuchets are my basic garrison units in border settlements.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[InsaneHanz]

If I have a decent garrison inside the fortress/citadel, I use the following strategy.

Archer militia or any expendable units go on the outer wall near the gatehouse.

All heavy infantry and some spearmen are kept in the inner wall. I set up an open box formation of heavy infantry right inside the last gate. I keep my General near this open box to keep morale high. If I'm lucky I have a mangonel or preferably a catapult with flaming ammo behind the open box formation. I use the extra spears or other infantry for wall protection in case they bring ladders.

[Stolet]

Once the enemy pass a wall, the towers positioned on that wall will stop shooting. In RTW the towers were still firing, and the AI never wanted to run, just marched through the city while all the towers fired at him, so it suffered MASSIVE losses before even reaching player's forces, so this made siege defence too easy and they decided to change the towers in M2TW.

You should upgrade your towers at least to ballista ones, I mean, if your fortress is in a border region, always upgrade defences so you don't have to keep a huge garison inside the fortress. Once you get to cannon towers, you're pretty much safe, even in city sieges enemy loses like half of it's army (by just standing in range and doing nothing) only to the towers.

The routing thing depends on the commaner, is he alive or dead, does he have high chivalry, is the unit engaged in fighting or not, etc. In sieges, if a unit is just standing and taking the tower fire, it shouldn't rout until there's just a few men in it, cause it's not really in danger, it's just stupid and stands in front of a tower and takes the arrows lol.

[Incomitatus]

The one time I defended a fortress (I prefer field battles) I found it useful to put archers on the outer wall, and crossbowmen on the inner wall. The inner wall is higher and crossbowmen have the range to fire over the heads of the men on the outer wall. At least they can on some sides of the fortress. Who wouldn't want two layers of pointy flying death launchers?

[Mithrane]

Outer walls get expendable or long-range archers. These use fire-arrows and focus on the rams. Once the enemy reaches the walls, the majority of the archers run to the next inner wall. Extremely expendable archers might stay to keep the towers going (and oil in kingdoms / SS). Units which I think will handily take care of themselves might remain.

Inner walls are manned by archers with flame-arrows on. Keep flame arrows on until all rams are destoryed, enemy routs, or second gate is near broken. If there is a third wall, fall back if gate is near broken and repeat. If not, move crossbows to "side" walls. This way, when the enemy makes a dent into your forces, you can rain down all hell on their heads from two sides. Keep archers on walls, but turn off fire-arrows.


If you are facing a "train" of sieging forces, ala Mongols / Timurids, make a larger stand on the outer walls and try to keep their siege engines from making a hole. This can be done with counter siege engines or cavalry charges. Note that most cavalry charges will not make it back into the keep if sent out to destory the siege engines. Once they have done their job, run them to the edge of the map and "withdraw/retreat". This way, they can be used in the next battle.

[Nazgûl Killer]

When I defend a fortress with two levels of walls (Or three, some mods have three I think), I tend to defend the outer walls lightly, while keeping all my infantry, spearmen and cavalry at the plaza aside for two, cheap, expendable infantry/spearmen units to hold the enemy at the gates long enough.

All my archers are placed on the outer walls, but beforehand I plan almost to the tile where I'm going to put every single archer battalion once they must retreat. When the inevitable happens and the outer walls are breached, and even before that, all my archers pull back to the second level, during which time the expendable units cover their retreat.

By the time the archers are already in position again, the outer walls have been taken and the two units are dead or routed. And then, comes the enemy's hard part - The inner walls are protected by infantry, spearmen and archers. Not to mention the cavalry waiting to cut into them on both sides once/if they breach the gates.

So, yes, I defend in depth. But only a fool would abandon the outer defenses. The reward is higher than the cost. You may lose a cheap unit or two, but you hinder the enemy's entire army - And if done properly, you can actually hit them so hard that they have no chance of winning the battle anymore.

[Psychonaut]

I usually only use the first walls, but then again, I'm a horrible at strategy/tactics. I put my archers/crossbows on the walls (with some swordsmen if they have ladders/towers) and just put most of my infantry near the gate and have a massive fight right there. I win most of the time, but lose about 30-50% of my army.

[Incomitatus]

Tired units fight less efficiently and have lower morale. Always make the enemy expend as much stamina as possible before the main fight - makes for a quicker rout and less casualties among your own men. Exhausted units, even elite ones, can be slaughtered by Fresh cheap units, especially if they've been taking fire from the defences and archers and crossbowmen on the walls while they struggle past layers of defence and are forced to fight expendable spear units blocking gates.

Relying on defence-in-depth permits you to reduce the size and quality of your garrison while maintaining as effective a defence. Just do it! (Or don't... up to you. Like I said, I rarely defend sieges... preferring to use garrisons as the hammer to my field army anvil.)

[SirRobin]

So you suggest setting up defenders in layers from the start, or to withdraw units later?

And you use the weak units as first line defence, right? I've been wondering if it's best to use the tough guys for front line, then militia and archers for second line.. since the enemy will be weakened by that time

[Stolet]

You'll weaken them either way. If you're not sure you will win, better keep the heavy guys for the end, not lose them at the beginning.

[Rakoua]

My standard siege defense for fortresses consists of a small force (two units at most, sometimes depleted) at the outer gate, to man the towers and if they're archers, rain their own death on the enemy. In fact, I did once defend Hamburg this way as the Danes and the Norse archers killed 200 of their light infantry they sent up the wall to remove them!It was on MD/MD default unit size.Anyway, I find the small force quite effective at slowing down the enemy, destroying rams and reducing enemy morale. And of course, it tires out the enemy.The second wall consists of archers and crossbowmen on the wall, and it it is available, I put a unit of crossbowmen at a wall on the enemy flank, as I find that they don't often go and climb up that wall to remove them. They are decimated by the towers and missile troops, and mostly routed. I keep a unit of light cav in the square and potentialy a general that go chase the routers and break any remaining resistance.

[Gromovnik]

I use only some cannon fodder units at the outher wall gates (to keep the towers shooting) and heavily man the inner walls. If I don't screw up something, I can usualy defend myself against any assault with a half stack or so.

[Sightles]

Put all my infantry in the inner keep along with any heavy cav. On the 2nd wall, I place all my archers as to hit the enemy whenever he is preparing to attack the next tier. I usually keep one or two heavy infantry here to protect my archer's retreat. If I have any skirmishers or light cav of the type, as soon as the enemy breaks the second tier, I go as guerilla as possible in the limited space I have. I love slaying tons of enemies before they even come close to the inner keep.

[penquin11]

When I defend a fortress (though I believe that a citadel is better for defending in depth (layers)) I do use depth defending, for one I find that certain units are more useful later in the siege, these are usually your light cavalry (if u hav some), or your light infantry, as if they are used at the beginning they will end up fleeing (in a epic battle) and cause more harm then good, however by the time the enemy gets to the second wall they will or should have lost half of their men, using archers (cheapies) to attrit them further while using light infantry and pikemen to guard the breech will do the trick!

[Incontinenta Buttox]

I defend in depth only if it looks like I have to.

I always have one expendable unit to stand and die in front of the outer gate, to allow my units on the walls the time to retreat to the second line of walls.

[Muagan_ra]

I always just defend the main gate, if you pile enough men at it, it is normally sufficient.

[E.K]

I always just defend the main gate, if you pile enough men at it, it is normally sufficient.

I find that I lose too many men for my liking when I pile men at the main gate. I defend in layers and use my towers and archers to their full potential before having to get into heavy melee combat.