Defense VS Offense

[Yinafra]

Do you prefer to defend or attack. I prefer defending because i can often win with armies of 500 or so vs up to and over 2000 when defending a city and a little less when on a good hill

[the new username]

im more fan of attacking, on attack i can apply very tactics

[tudor93]

both

[dannyalex]

believe me at vh vh u cannot only attack...

[diez]

if u mean in battlefield:
when i have smaller army i full defence.
when i have equal i w8 for the enemy to come,and when they are close enough i counter-charge them.this way i make gaps into their formations,and dont lose charge points.

[Shasqua]

Strategically attack and tactically defend. If you let the enemy invade, your lands will be devastated, your trade will plummet, and the enemy will lose nothing but expendable soldiers at most. You must go on the offensive. On the battlefield, however, let the enemy come to you. Time will be on your side, and you'll be able to soften up your foes with missiles before charging.

[In3x]

Strategically attack and tactically defend. If you let the enemy invade, your lands will be devastated, your trade will plummet, and the enemy will lose nothing but expendable soldiers at most. You must go on the offensive. On the battlefield, however, let the enemy come to you. Time will be on your side, and you'll be able to soften up your foes with missiles before charging.

This

[PrestigeX]

I HATE defending -- its just a pain for me.

I usually try and fight all the battles in the field. - And most of the time when I am attacking a settlement I use the auto-resolve, but most of the time that is not necessary...because I will send my army to siege and then the enemy sends its own reinforcement army -- so it may be 2 to 1 odds AGAINST my army , which is typically my favourite battle - esp when they come from 2 different sides in the map and I have to use every last unit in order to win.

That is typically my strategy - field battles, wipe out as many as I can hoping that the only garrison left to besiege is the remnants.

For field battles armies, I usually concentrate on cav -- heavy cav, light cav (always important I find), archer cav if possible, and lots of foot-archers/xbows, and then filler infantry like spears etc...

I rarely go for expensive heavy infantry, because I rarely fight those sieges and that is where I find heavy inf most important is fighting on walls or busting into the gate.

[diez]

I HATE defending -- its just a pain for me.

I usually try and fight all the battles in the field. - And most of the time when I am attacking a settlement I use the auto-resolve, but most of the time that is not necessary...because I will send my army to siege and then the enemy sends its own reinforcement army -- so it may be 2 to 1 odds AGAINST my army , which is typically my favourite battle - esp when they come from 2 different sides in the map and I have to use every last unit in order to win.

That is typically my strategy - field battles, wipe out as many as I can hoping that the only garrison left to besiege is the remnants.

For field battles armies, I usually concentrate on cav -- heavy cav, light cav (always important I find), archer cav if possible, and lots of foot-archers/xbows, and then filler infantry like spears etc...

I rarely go for expensive heavy infantry, because I rarely fight those sieges and that is where I find heavy inf most important is fighting on walls or busting into the gate.

i use this strategy too.i go to camp uphill,and leave down some horse archer to wipe out the strongest enemy units.many archers,if i can i have a mangonel,and heavy inf,with scilthromed spearmen in them to keep the formation stable

[Aymer de Valence]

Always feel a lot more confident when defending, especially if i have some spearmen. Have a general, a caroccio standard, a few archers and about 6 units of spearmen in Venice and the AI will NEVER take it. Hope i haven't just jynxed myself

[Diamond]

I'm absolutely horrible at attacking a city during siege, but in the field I'm pretty good. On the campaign map, I prefer to attack, because if a city of mine is sieged, I can always send troops over, but if you attack on the campaign map your enemy will probably be too busy defending.

[In3x]

I'm absolutely horrible at attacking a city during siege, but in the field I'm pretty good. On the campaign map, I prefer to attack, because if a city of mine is sieged, I can always send troops over, but if you attack on the campaign map your enemy will probably be too busy defending.

Here's a tip for attacking settlements, completely ignore siege towers and ladders, these are two excellent ways to get your soldiers killed. Instead, push everything up the gut, even if the gateway has boiling oil. Once you have broken the defenders immediately around the gateway move all your cavalry to the city centre as the rest of your troops fight their way towards them, hopefully your cavalry will be first to the centre or able to quickly mop up any troops there then it is simply a matter of waiting 3 minutes.

PS: Try to keep your troops in a big ball (the blob) as you fight your way down the streets. Stacking troops on to of one another is a great way of making your troops surround the enemy as well as overwhelming them with multiple hits before they can even attack. Once your troops are engaged you will see that troops at the back of your forces will start to back away from the fight, simply order the rearmost units to run through the enemy troops, once a sizeable number are in contact with the enemy right click to order the attack (I call this the surge and it is mighty effective). The blob is very effective in siege warfare as your troops will be engaging enemy soldiers 3-5 on 1.