Crossbow shooting inward in siege

[agc28]

I recently read a crossbow defense thread in this forum, where people put crossbows on the walls near the gate and allow the enemy enter the gate, and make the crossbows shoot inward. I usually park some infantry at the entrance stairs to the walls to prevent the enemy from climbing up to kill my crossbowmen. I tried this tactic and failed miserably:

I have to divide my infantry into three groups, one in the town square, and one on each side of the wall near the staircase to the upper deck of the wall, where my crossbowmen stands. The enemy infantry will run through the gate and attack my infantry near the gate. The crossbowmen shoot too slowly to have very much effect. The enemy cavalry will just charge through and head for the town square, where I have little defense. If the enemy has heavy cavalry, then I am toast.

The crossbowmen also don't seem to shoot very well at enemy that is near the gate. There also seem to be a problem when the wall platform is very very wide, laterally (this happens when I have a citadel or a large/huge stone wall). They like to stand near the battlement on the outer side on the wall platform. Their LOS might be impeded by the wall-floor and the angle isn't good. (I am shooting mostly at enemy that has just come through the gate and are engaging my infantry on the sides.) How do I solve this problem?

Should I place all of my infantry on the street heading to the town square, facing outward at the gate? This way my crossbowmen can shoot at the enemy back. I tried this briefly but the enemy cavalry just charges through....

Do I need many many units of crossbowmen for this tactic to work well? I have been using mostly the 'urban crossbow militia.' It has a damage of 8, which is a pretty high AP attack. And since they stand on the wall, they don't really need armor. And I use 3-4 unit cards of crossbowmen. and I put 2 units per wall. I only use the walls adjacent to the gate.

[RabidSheepLegion]

OT i think but

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

what i usually do is have about 6 archers long ranged, 6 inf, and 6 spears. Have my archers on the walls two to a section (that's what i call the walls between the two towers) where the siege towers come to burn em up, same way with my infantry and 1 infantry to a ladder as the AI tends to make double rams to their ladders/siege towers lol Also have my spearmen in front of gate in guard mode to stop them coming in when gate is down. When towers been burned I send my archers down to ground on flanks of spears to shoot at enemy with flaming ammo as the sheer mass of enemy usually push my spears back, that are in guard mode mind you.

Back onto topic about crossbows. Could you post some screenies or be a bit more specific? I'm kind of confused about how this inward crossbow tactic works... Then again, I almost always play England due to Longbows lol

[Ichon]

Crossbow need LoS to be accurate though they can fire at something they can't see it is usually waste of ammo. If you click on far edge of battlements away from outward facing side they will move there but it is hard to get them to deploy there at start.

There are a few different ways you can try this tactic. Ideally you have at least 4 crossbow unit, you can sometimes use up to 6 depending on how the walls are situated but rarely more than that or most of them will be ineffective.

Infantry placement is key- of course you need some infantry to hold walls though with 6 crossbow you can also use 2 to help cover the other 4 from sides.

The other placement of infantry depends on the quality. The best place is halfway up the street towards square angled like so / \ facing gate with your General sitting at the top of that angle to absorb enemy cavalry charge then retreat as another infantry move up to close off the angle. This will allow most of enemy army to enter but then bottleneck with their backs to crossbows.

You could also hold enemy closer to gate but crossbow aren't quite as effective there.

If you have less men than these require you can ignore square and just run your general away or back when timer gets close. Your crossbow won't get as many shots into rear of enemy units but most of the enemy will still sit there and slowly perish under volleys. Spend most of your time micro your general or cavalry to make sure they don't get trapped and that timer doesn't expire.

EDIT- you might also read the tactics on leaving crossbows on ground shooting upward towards enemy on walls but that is different topic than your question of shooting inwards.

[Slyspy]

If your crossbows are too close to their target then, yes, the floor of the ramparts blocks their line of sight. This is made worse by the fact that they hug the outer wall and absolutely will not line the inside edge. So the trick is to position them at some distance so that the angle of fire is smaller. The same applies if you want them to shoot from the ground up at the ramparts.

[SirRobin]

Slightly parallel to topic, but:

I noticed that the bigger the castle/city, the worse defence it offers. Paradoxically.

The basic wooden town wall is very narrow, letting missile troops fire at targets close to the wall. Also, the parapet is low and with wide gaps, giving free field of fire for arrows or bolts.

With larger walls, all these elements become constricted.

I love sieges, but find them so poorly thought out, and unfortunately no-one has been able to mod the fundamental problems.

[RollingWave]

Slightly parallel to topic, but:

I noticed that the bigger the castle/city, the worse defence it offers. Paradoxically.

The basic wooden town wall is very narrow, letting missile troops fire at targets close to the wall. Also, the parapet is low and with wide gaps, giving free field of fire for arrows or bolts.

With larger walls, all these elements become constricted.

I love sieges, but find them so poorly thought out, and unfortunately no-one has been able to mod the fundamental problems.

for cities this is true, for castles though, the extra layers of defense is usually worth whatever negatvie it brings. especially due to the AI's horriblly clumsy tactics against multi layered settlements. (can't totally blame them though, I usually am racing against time myself when tackling this sort of settlements.)

[SirRobin]

for cities this is true, for castles though, the extra layers of defense is usually worth whatever negatvie it brings. especially due to the AI's horriblly clumsy tactics against multi layered settlements.

True, though I rarely even see a multi layered caste due to my preference for the early era I don't even think I ever saw the biggest ones with three layers.

En passant, does anyone know if larger cities/castles will fire more or more lethal arrows? I desperately want my big castle to be more dangerous than a little village stockade ..

[Derikari]

You can force the crossbows to the back of the wall by deploying a unit or 2 of something else there first, leaving only the back available for the crossbows. I do it in deployment, but I don't know how effective it is on the fly.

[agc28]

Larger walls/castles will fire normal arrows/flame arrows/ballista/cannon more quickly. but i dont think they have higher damage.

In addition. larger walls/castles will rain burning oil faster.

but to be honest, i dont think the increase in firing speed makes a significant difference in enemy deaths.

[Slyspy]

You can of course build ballista and cannon towers.

[Ichon]

Larger walls/castles will fire normal arrows/flame arrows/ballista/cannon more quickly. but i dont think they have higher damage.

In addition. larger walls/castles will rain burning oil faster.

but to be honest, i dont think the increase in firing speed makes a significant difference in enemy deaths.

It can make a difference in your own casualties though as enemy loses men faster and this causes your army less losses. Makes a big difference when Jihad/Crusade occurring where multiple sieges over several turns without a break.