Defending Citys

[Manwarrior]

Can some one tell me how to boost the citys defense I find city's very bad to defend, the archers are not very efective on walls, and the city arrows and ballista towers are a joke. Its not even good to defend a city, its much better to fight the enemy on a bridge, or on a place with good terrain advantage

So please can some one tell me which files should I change to add more power to city arrows, ballista, and to add some boiled oil in the gate?

Thank you

[Lazy]

1. descr_walls.txt
2. descr_projectils.txt
or something very near that... both in the data folder

In 1 you can set how fast they shoot ( tower_level 1 is arrow-tower and tower_level 2 is ballista-tower ).
Every kind of walls has their own entry! You have to change this for stone walls, large and huge! If you look at it you will see!

In 2 you can change the damage/mass/accuracy of the missles/bolts.
The lower the accuracy number is the more accurate the bolt is!

Be aware the tower_level has to entries of how fast they shoot... the second is for burning projectiles!
In 2 you will find "ballista_bolt" and "balliata_bolt_fiery"... self explaining do not change the names in 2!

I never even tried to look after the oil... but it´s there too I bet!

[Manwarrior]

1. descr_walls.txt
2. descr_projectils.txt
or something very near that... both in the data folder

In 1 you can set how fast they shoot ( tower_level 1 is arrow-tower and tower_level 2 is ballista-tower ).
Every kind of walls has their own entry! You have to change this for stone walls, large and huge! If you look at it you will see!

In 2 you can change the damage/mass/accuracy of the missles/bolts.
The lower the accuracy number is the more accurate the bolt is!

Be aware the tower_level has to entries of how fast they shoot... the second is for burning projectiles!
In 2 you will find "ballista_bolt" and "balliata_bolt_fiery"... self explaining do not change the names in 2!

I never even tried to look after the oil... but it´s there too I bet!

Ok thank you very much I will look into it

[Artorius798]

Cheaters...

[Lazy]

Cheaters...

Learn reading... troll!

[Swerg]

Cheaters...

Adjusting the descr_* files adjusts stats globally. The AI gets the same advantages he does using this method.

[Aragorn]

lazy +rep

[BigHairyMelon]

For Cities I find defending the walls far too costly, even in fortresses i always start on the second wall and give the enemy the first. Once you lose the gate your men on the walls are screwed anyway. Cities in general are designed to have battles fought in the streets as no one should expect to hold the walls forever. Use the narrow streets as choke points with units in shield wall so the enemy cannot use their numbers to the full advantage. Then put your archers back on higher ground to rain death on them. catapults work wonders here as well. You must note that while it is all well and good to make the towers stronger it works both way. Your leet army may very well get blown to shreds before they reach the walls when you are the attacker. That I think is one of the reasons why the towers are done this way.
So in short:
Do not defend the walls or place units right in front of the gate. There are exceptions like pike units and javelin skirmishers but they can be used in the streets just as effectively.
Bottle neck the enemy in the streets with shield/spear wall troops. Skirmishers behind if you have any
position archers and or siege weapons further behind your infantry preferably a bit higher.
Set them to flame attack (works wonders against orcs and other low morale troops)
Watch as the enemy burn beneath your fiery death.

[Dutch-Balrog]

^ I agree with that. And i actually think that it is way too easy to defend cities, i put my archers behind the walls and some infantry on them. When the gate falls, i already have my 2nd defence line ready some more back in the settlement. I let my archers fall back when the ram reaches the gate.
In towns, i have 3 groups of infantry in the street behind the gate, not at the gate itself. I got my archers on both sides of the gate, ofcourse far away from it. When the gate falls, all enemy units are charging into my melee infantry in the narrow street, my archers kill most of them from the sides, somehow the AI never attacks them when you put them far away enough.

[Guurt]

Sally out with all your ranged forces, only fight as long as you have arrows/spears...

Run your troops back into the fortress, wait out the clock.

Then when your enemy does their siege you will have reduced their forces during the "sally out" phase.

This also works if you have mounted forces, but of course if the attacker has more/better ranged and or mounted forces then this won't work.

I generally try to keep mostly ranged forces to defend as sallying out can be the difference between victory and defeat.

[kraxmause]

If you want to enable boiling oil, take a look post #7472 and #7478:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...2#post10734392

[Iapetus]

Sally out with all your ranged forces, only fight as long as you have arrows/spears...

Run your troops back into the fortress, wait out the clock.

Do you have to wait out the clock in a sally battle?

Does it have a different result to [ESC]-quitting the battle (once all your units are back inside)?

[Bungo Baggins]

Do you have to wait out the clock in a sally battle?

Does it have a different result to [ESC]-quitting the battle (once all your units are back inside)?

If you killed enough enemies, you will not be warned that you'll loose that battle by quiting.

Instead you'll get informed that the sally was sucessful.
Quiting now results in a draw, so it's a nice way to bleed the enemy dry without many casualities.
(If you have enough archers)

[TheDarkKnight]

If you killed enough enemies, you will not be warned that you'll loose that battle by quiting.

Instead you'll get informed that the sally was sucessful.
Quiting now results in a draw, so it's a nice way to bleed the enemy dry without many casualities.
(If you have enough archers)

Indeed...I was forced to sally out against a VASTLY superior force cause the city (E. Osgiliath) had Faramir and I didn't want to lose him if the enemy didn't attack during the siege and just waited it out. Lost about a thousand men but I managed to kill off four thousand or so. Unfortunately it didn't break the siege but it gave the invaders (damn crusade being called on me) something to think about.

[TheRomanRuler]

My siege tactic is to defend evry level for some time, like in siege of Minas Tirith (but more succesfully). I put 2 archers and 2 inf on the walls, and when they are dead, i full back.
I never give anything to enemy without a fight!

[BigHairyMelon]

The good thing about giving them the first wall of a fortress/Citadel is that the AI for some reason use another ram to take down your gate so they take AGES to get it there and while they do this they just sit outside your walls and let you shoot them :p kill a good half of their army that way lol

[Kawee]

Here's a Siege defense guide, done a long time ago. It's not updated, but it has some good tips in the thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ge+defense+101

[iffi]

Here's a Siege defense guide, done a long time ago. It's not updated, but it has some good tips in the thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ge+defense+101

I finally tried the ballista trick while playing Mordor. It is darn effective. One unit of ballista got 700 kills one time. They are surprisingly accurate as long as you don't mess up with targeting. Another nice surprise was how well they shot over friendly units, so you can safely keep a unit between the ballista and the enemy at the gate.

Often it feels like a trick thought. You can hold the enemy at the gate as a big mass (a big dense target) with your units on left and right side of the gate. Only sometimes they send a unit towards the ballista (or probably towards the win area).

When defending West Osgiliath, I added a unit of troll catapults to the mix. Awesome! They also were accurate enough, the only friendly fire losses came when I forgot to pay attention to the targeting.

The enemy roots quickly, recovers, comes back for another shot in the face, roots, recovers.. repeat the loop n times until you want to finish the battle by sending out your other units to clean up.

[Gigan]

Defending is easy. It only gets hard when the ai sends all its troops in the gateway and basically tramples everyone there.

[iffi]

Can some one tell me how to boost the citys defense I find city's very bad to defend, the archers are not very efective on walls, and the city arrows and ballista towers are a joke.

Archers on the wall is sadly a game-engine fail (unless you shoot an enemy that is already inside your settlement).

What I have found to be a much better way to defend a wall is to use heavy infantry.

Deploy it on the ground, not on the wall itself! When you see where the enemy ladders/siege tower is about to end up, order your men there. This way they end up in the correct position in a nice coherent formation (not spread all over). When the enemy is just about to jump on the wall, order the unit to attack them. The bigger the difference between your and enemy unit strength, the faster and easier the enemy is dispatched (that is why I use heavy infantry). You may suffer only single digit losses! And since the game engine almost never tries to use the same ladders again, you can send your unit back on the ground to fight the horde trying to come through the gate.

One exploity use of archers to defend a wall is to set them on guard mode and then when the enemy jumps on the wall order them to shoot the same enemy. They are able to last an unrealistically long time.