Defending a town

[E.K]

I know how to defend a castle well but I always wonder whats the best way to defend a town or city. Do you leave some units in the town square or pile em at the front gate or just place everybody on the walls?

[Steven the conqueror]

I suppose you are talking about cities than have already the walls in which the troops can position....

I suppose that there are some factors....

if the enemy have artillery and you dont have a mod that improve the IA just take them to the town square because the IA will bombard you until the walls are dashed.....

actually defending the town square is pretty easy, into the streets , get your better spearman into the front, infantry behind, and the archers at last, the enemy will get into a bottleneck while your arches fire to them, you can add some calvary into some street near the main street to flank the enemy.

if the enemy doesnt have artillery my strategy is this one:

usually the IA got a ram or two,a siege tower and some stairs, just get your archers to the wall , with some infantry (preferably heavy infantry) to support them if the enemy gets to the wall, some spears into the door to welcome the enemy if they break trought, light cavalry into streets near the walls so if you need to retreat they can cover the retreat and the general with heavy calvary in the town square.

[E.K]

I suppose you are talking about cities than have already the walls in which the troops can position....

I suppose that there are some factors....

if the enemy have artillery and you dont have a mod that improve the IA just take them to the town square because the IA will bombard you until the walls are dashed.....

actually defending the town square is pretty easy, into the streets , get your better spearman into the front, infantry behind, and the archers at last, the enemy will get into a bottleneck while your arches fire to them, you can add some calvary into some street near the main street to flank the enemy.

if the enemy doesnt have artillery my strategy is this one:

usually the IA got a ram or two,a siege tower and some stairs, just get your archers to the wall , with some infantry (preferably heavy infantry) to support them if the enemy gets to the wall, some spears into the door to welcome the enemy if they break trought, light cavalry into streets near the walls so if you need to retreat they can cover the retreat and the general with heavy calvary in the town square.

Thanks thats helpful

Although I have my General behind my spearmen at the gate, just to provide some inspiration.

I am talking about cities and am using the mod Stainless steel 6.1.

Finally, I know it is possible to defend a fortress or citadel with only a half stack or less but is it possible to have a similar size army defending a city?

[Steven the conqueror]

Against a full stack???, only if it is composed of peasants xD

talking seriosly it again depends of the enemy units, once with egypt, the bizantine empire asault a city with a full stack while I just have

3 archers unit
1 archer calvary
3 spearman
1 mercenary spearman
1 general body guard

I put my general in the right-front corner of the walls , while in a T shaped street I put all my spears in a compact force and all the archer behind, the enemy break trough and the spearman where resisting but their my troops were taking heavy casualities fron the enemy archers , so I run my general into them, he was killed , but as the enemy divided its forces to fight my general the spearman pushed them outside the city and then with my calvary I chase the routers


if you know you cant win the battle try to get it to draw, so you have time to bring reinforments, a nice tactic is what I call "the mega schiltrom formation!!! " it consist in a compact group of spearman in schiltrom formation, once againt the HRE they have like 600 troops while I just have 270 with this tactic every time the enemy charge they will suffer heavy losses, after a time they will desist of attacking so you can increase the high speed to 6X and get a draw (you must have activated time limit obviosly) but this is only if you know you dont have a chance to win, and if you have plenty spearman

[E.K]

Against a full stack???, only if it is composed of peasants xD

talking seriosly it again depends of the enemy units, once with egypt, the bizantine empire asault a city with a full stack while I just have

3 archers unit
1 archer calvary
3 spearman
1 mercenary spearman
1 general body guard

I put my general in the right-front corner of the walls , while in a T shaped street I put all my spears in a compact force and all the archer behind, the enemy break trough and the spearman where resisting but their my troops were taking heavy casualities fron the enemy archers , so I run my general into them, he was killed , but as the enemy divided its forces to fight my general the spearman pushed them outside the city and then with my calvary I chase the routers


if you know you cant win the battle try to get it to draw, so you have time to bring reinforments, a nice tactic is what I call "the mega schiltrom formation!!! " it consist in a compact group of spearman in schiltrom formation, once againt the HRE they have like 600 troops while I just have 270 with this tactic every time the enemy charge they will suffer heavy losses, after a time they will desist of attacking so you can increase the high speed to 6X and get a draw (you must have activated time limit obviosly) but this is only if you know you dont have a chance to win, and if you have plenty spearman

Thanks for all your help


I have got 2 try mega schiltrom
LOL

[spH3RiCal]

You could try to burn down the enemy tower with your archers. If you succeed, there will be only one spot to defend up on the walls - where the ladders will be placed. Then try to hold the gates with everything you got. Usually the AI sends the whole army through the gates so you can win the battle at the ladders (it will send one or two units - a spearmen unit on the walls should do the job), then guide your unit down the ladders and flank the opponent at the gates.

[Valandur]

Depends what your fighting against...
If I'm outnumbered 2:1, and I'm defending a fortress or Citadel, I'll often use a retreat action. I'll keep my archers on the first wall, with a unit of light cavalry in front of the gate to keep the towers firing. Once the enemy reach the gate, I'll withdraw my cavalry and archers to the second ring, and do some more damage.
Finally, I'll retreat to the third ring where my infantry will be waiting and hopefully by that time my archers would've caused significant damage so I can just pile up my men in front of the gates and hope to hold them there.

[Muagan_ra]

You might want to consider having a Trebuchet or Mortar behind the walls - these can (with some skill) be very usefull in knocking down Siege Towers and enemy artillery. Ladders are the only thing that you can't prevent from reaching you, but between the attrition of the men being fired at and having a strong unit defending they shouldn't be a problem.

I think prevention is better than fighting.

[E.K]

You might want to consider having a Trebuchet or Mortar behind the walls - these can (with some skill) be very usefull in knocking down Siege Towers and enemy artillery. Ladders are the only thing that you can't prevent from reaching you, but between the attrition of the men being fired at and having a strong unit defending they shouldn't be a problem.

I think prevention is better than fighting.

Yeah I just did a custom battle with a trebuchet and a mortar and I destroyed the siege towers.

I also got a lucky shot and killed their general really quickly

[Hooboo777]

when an enemy has besieged you, engage in battle before they get ladders, rams etc that way they just sit there outside the castle doing nothing. NOW
what you have to do is shoot them with ranged units and they just sit there getting shot

[Silverheart]

When defending a City-settlement, there are so many factors and circumstances that might or might not happen, that it´s impossible to explain an ultimate strategy - the result would be an entire book, with one enormous chapter for every faction in the game!
My recommendation is, instead, that you (through trial and error) find your own "standard" garrison, a combination of troops that works for your style of battlefield strategy.

I prefer to defend All settlements, castle or City, by not allowing the enemy to get further than to the outer wall. I only retreat if the battle at outer wall is clearly lost.
I focus on Archers working in tandem with upgraded towers, Pike-, Halberd- or Spearmen in tandem with more solid Infantry, and Heavy Cavalry to charge out and harass artillery-crews and those enemies who are busy carrying siege equipment.
In settlements that aren´t under threat of heavy attack, I prefer to simply build up a small force of approximately
1/6 cavalry, 2/6 missile troops and 3/6 infantry - with upgraded towers and properly used, 6 units of militia can easily defend a city from a full-stack army of heavy elite troops.
I wouldn´t recommend relying on it, though... ^::^

[Ishiro]

Why worry about the enemy climbing your walls when you can disable their initiave with 2 heavy cavs. Just charge with your two knights the ladders carriers then go for the siege tower with the closest knights. There you go, you have disabled their wall takers force keeping your archers away from harm's way and now all you have to do is defend is the main gate. Just place the best spear unit you got in defense mode (i would suggest you use one of the castles provide) plugging the entrance of the main street and your general behind them. Place a ballista (disable "their fire at will", enable "flame arrows") on each flank of the gatehouse (as close as the walls as possible), guarded by a free-upkeep unit nearby. Wait for the enemy to break in and as soon as this happens mark your targets with the ballistas; aim for the middle units if possible to cause generalized panic among the enemy troops. It wll take some time before they rout, but it will happen. Btw, don't worry about loosing your 2 knights, when you win you'll probably get some healed.

[Somerandomdude2]

Why worry about the enemy climbing your walls when you can disable their initiave with 2 heavy cavs. Just charge with your two knights the ladders carriers then go for the siege tower with the closest knights. There you go, you have disabled their wall takers force keeping your archers away from harm's way and now all you have to do is defend is the main gate.

Because you have an enormous advantage fighting on walls against troops with ladders or siege towers. Send your worst infantry unit or some melee-capable archers to defend against a wall assault and you'll kill the attackers more efficiently than you would any other way. Besides, once the attackers are down you can use their ladders to get your infantry outside the walls and flank the enemy, or kill routing troops.

Seriously, fighting on walls is a really bad situation for the attacker; don't relieve them of this burden.

[Lennert]

Yes, it's better to take out the tower and ram crews. This way all of the enemy infantry will gather around the foot of the ladders and struggle to get up fighting your infantry on the wall. Then you sally out with your cav and defeat the enemy cavalry, when you have, charge the enemy infantry at the base of the ladders causing a mass rout. Battle won, without the enemy ever setting foot within your walls.

[Ishiro]

Because you have an enormous advantage fighting on walls against troops with ladders or siege towers. Send your worst infantry unit or some melee-capable archers to defend against a wall assault and you'll kill the attackers more efficiently than you would any other way. Besides, once the attackers are down you can use their ladders to get your infantry outside the walls and flank the enemy, or kill routing troops.

Seriously, fighting on walls is a really bad situation for the attacker; don't relieve them of this burden.

Perhaps, but by allowing the enemy to climb your walls, you take away valuable units from the gatehouse that could help crush the enemy at the gates; moreover the gatehouse causes more damage to the enemies than the walls towers because of the boiling oil, that can also cause very weakened morale troops to rout very very fast. And now all you have it's one unit at the gates plus the general and zero archers or xbows, because they got butchered by the enemy at the walls. Therefore denying you an incredible asset that could reduce greatly the morale of the enemy troops (flame arrows). Besides if you have seige pieces such as mangonels or catapults and you place them in the main street behind the spearman plugging it, you'll cause more damage when the enemy army it's aligned to the door rather nearby the walls, which accuracy will be most likely null.

Yes, it's better to take out the tower and ram crews. This way all of the enemy infantry will gather around the foot of the ladders and struggle to get up fighting your infantry on the wall. Then you sally out with your cav and defeat the enemy cavalry, when you have, charge the enemy infantry at the base of the ladders causing a mass rout. Battle won, without the enemy ever setting foot within your walls.

I don't think so, to attack the siege tower i grant you that, but to fight the cav units of the sieging army sounds like a suicide move to me, because they most likely will have a general and 2 heavy cav units at least, not to mention cav archers, you might be able to route a couple of cav archers but only one heavy cav (if you'r lucky), by then your cav will be so depleted they'll have no chance to produce a successful charge even against that bunch of inf units waiting to climb the ladders and will most likely be routing back to the settlement, and even if they do they will get crushed by the remaining of the enemy cav. Because in the end, the idea to protect a settlement is to have the less number of units possible in order to safeguard your economy, and two cav units per settlement should be enough to do so, at least IMO.

[Lennert]

Sounds to me like you are just a bad cavalry general..

Here is an example of a battle where I've used said tactic, you can see the attacking army(the 2 units you can't see were merc x-bows) and the army I was defending with in the screenshot. I came out on top with a heroic victory. This is on VH/VH.

Edit: Oh, and I also got reinforcements consisting of a general and a half unit of mailed knights. You can see him standing next to the city in the pic. If you're asking yourself why I have those 4 standards defending my city, I got them as a reward for a mission the previous turn.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[tudor93]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

lol at the Moorish stack

[Lennert]

Yeah, and that wasn't even the first, definitely not the last Sicily is just as bad.. Later on the Byz joined in aswell. (Sorry for OT)

[RollingWave]

The only times I would consider defending the town squares is...

A. when the enemy has a boatload of cannons / trebuchets

B. when i'm defending a settlement that only has pallisade.

Otherwise always defend the wall first.

The most imbal trick of defending against AI is to just lay a stake at the gate, let them ram the gate and laugh as their general and expensive cavalries all impale themself on the stakes. this is basically fool proof against the AI.

[Lennert]

The only times I would consider defending the town squares is...

A. when the enemy has a boatload of cannons / trebuchets

You should sally out and charge their artillery crews in that case.