delete

[RubiconDecision]

no longer interested in participating

[Re_Minder]

Impossible due to defense mechanics- as long as enemy is at a certain distance the gates won't ever close, and if you move away the enemies will capture the gate and then it won't ever close unless you recapture it.

[Double A]

Maybe if you station cavalry outside the gates, or they take side exits out of cities to sally as the enemy approaches? Maybe it's impossible...wishful thinking on my part. There's so little being released as far as battle tactics.

For example, I've thought of using rams as defensive barriers. If you make enough, with no intention of using them, merely acting as a blockade, then the enemy will charge into them, while your archers pick them off, and slowing down a frontal assault from their sally. Know what I mean? I'm very interested in things other than the hammer and anvil, pinning techniques, oblique attack, etc.

Most highly advanced tactics and formations simply don't work in M2TW because of unit mechanics.

[xcorps]

Wishful thinking.

It's more effective to sally on the first round of the siege with archers and cavalry. Most of the time, the enemy army will draw his lines away from the seige equipment. Use your cavalry to destroy the machine operators and enemy archers, but don't engage his infantry or cavalry.

If he has cavalry, screen your archers with spearmen. Line your archers up for a long wide line right in front of your walls until you are done with your cavalry. Then march them forward (autofire and skirmish modes off!). Keep on eye on your range, and the instant you get in range of his lines, send a stop order and focus your archers on one unit, preferably the heaviest infantry he fields. Keep your cavalry out of it for now. It's very likely that you'll watch his lines either stand there and take your fire, or skirmish back and forth towards your archers. Be ready to move your archers back toward the walls, because he may send a portion of his forces on a charge. He won't send them to engage you at the walls.

With this type of back and forth, I can defend a city with 5 crossbow archers and 3 cavalry against just about any size army. Yesterday I inflicted 900 causualties while taking only 30. It's exploiting the capabilities of the AI, yes...but then so is just about every battle.

[xcorps]

Sounds like a great battle tactic. Would make a good tactics guide if you included screen captures. Pretty wild considering the slow rate of fire for crossbows. I hope you do this. Can't see why they freeze up like that. The AI does seem coded for single siege turns mostly. Not sure if they make extra rams, so destroying or at least killing their initial ram team does seem to be very fruitful.

The AI in vanilla does suicidal things. Cavalry AI will always do bizarre attacks on the defensive line of spears. Not sure why, but placing your own cavalry directly behind the spear/infantry mix with archers in the immediate front tends to make them charge blindly into the mix, which is total screwed. When they do sally they bring out the cavalry on the wings often, but then fail to use them to flank your own. Jinettes do seem to work, as well as some Jinette/mailed knight combinations.

Taiji made an extraordinary BAI for his submod(BBB) for Deus Vult, but it overheats my processor. It stops a lot of the stupid AI tactics. It would be very interesting to see if your wall sally tactic works for it.

The slow rate of fire of the crossbows is overshadowed by their casualty rate. Direct fire into their lines is murderous. You may have a bit of a clickfest if there are a let of seige machinery in the way (it breaks up your lines and messes with the ranges, also slows down your skirmishing) or if there is a levy or hill preventing you from firing direct. Also, if you are really into the micromanaging, you can stagger individual fire orders to your units if the ai doesn't surge forward too much. You can put an enemy unit under a constant barrage of fire with 4 mercenary crossbow units. I don't think this makes them break faster, but it's fun to watch.
It's the direct fire from the archers that makes this work. Arching arrows aren't as accurate, which is why I always spread the lines out as far as I can. When the archer units are deep, the back few rows will fire overhead. It's also why I try to pull his cavalry (hobilar are really good for this) out so I don't have to put spearmen in front of the archers, but the spearmen lines aren't as much of a pain as a hill or levy.
Some of the hill maps really make this shine, because you can position your archers in depth to keep constant fire on any attacking foes, so that they are under constant fire until they break when they get too close.
Mixed archer units also make it a pain, because the variety of ranges force you to constantly run your short range archers around while exploiting with the longer range units. I tend to lose Balkan archers very quickly when I have hired them.
I haven't measured it, but I'm willing to bet that the seige prep is based on how many units you have garrisoned. I usually keep double the number of free units in spear militia, and enough missile units to defend successfully. That usually gives me a couple of turns to send some cavalry reinforcements from another city or fortress.

I also take a lot of missile casualties from javeline throwers and kerns. Unless you focus on them, they can get a couple of shots off before they break.

Taiji made an extraordinary BAI for his submod(BBB) for Deus Vult, but it overheats my processor. It stops a lot of the stupid AI tactics. It would be very interesting to see if your wall sally tactic works for

I might finally download a mod then.

[Scelesticfish]

The AI managed to pull this on me in one battle. Their cavalry rushed out and murdered a fair deal of my spearmen while they were trying to ram down their gate, when I finally got the spearmen to let go of the ram, the enemy cavalry started to retreat into the castle, and Most of the remainder of my spearmen were cooked by the oil.