Citadels

[Bringer Of Storms]

I was recently playing a Stainless Steel BGRV VH/VH campaign. (Probably.. No.. The hardest mod I have played. Check it out if you haven't. BGR is just pure evil.) It's not often I'm on the defending side in this game, but in my recent campaign I had a citadel of mine attacked. To be honest, I was completely lost, a small child left alone in a big city. In all my years of this game, I've never had to defend a three tier settlement. Conquered many, never defended one. I won, but I defended it as I would a normal settlement.

I felt like I didn't defend it correctly though, the place has to have more than one wall for a reason, and I just don't know how to utilize it. The idea of separating my army between the walls sickens me. Three small forces is easier to crush than one large one, or is this principle abolished when defending a citadel?

Regardless, is there any other way to defend such a settlement other than the way you would defend a one-walled settlement?

[Ruprecht]

I think you have the right mentality. Then again it is purely situational, in that an attacking army laden with heavy siege equipment can't be successfully "Funneled" as they turn your walls into swiss-cheese. That circumstance might necessitate the use of your inner walls, save you ride out and do a hit-and-run with your cavalry.

Though i cannot remember the last time i had to use those inner defenses, probably because i don't play with big nasty mods like BGR-V. But i would agree that splitting up your forces is generally less effective unless of course the situation allowed for it.


Sounds like you're having fun. Wish i could say the same.

[complete noob:(]

The way i usually defend citadels is man the walls with any missile/infantry troops (so the towers attack the enemy), and let the missiles fire on the enemy. Then i fall back, and put missiles on wall #2 to do the same thing while my infantry are busy setting up to defend the inner wall. Then when they breach wall #2 missiles repeat and from there it is just a normal siege battle. Any cavalry just runs around inside the city attempting to flank and annoy the AI to death. This way you can reduce their soldiers more than a normal city battle, all your troops still stay together (except cavalry), and there are fewer places to defend, so you can easily bottleneck the enemy.

[Diamond]

Defending it like a regular settlement is a good idea. The only reason you'd want to defend the second and third keeps is to pull back if you're getting slaughtered. If you're in the middle of combat, however, it may be difficult to break your entire force off to retreat. If you truly need to pull back into the inner keep (say you lost the walls and you feel like a battle of attrition is in your favor because you have better numbers) I recommend a cavalry charge to the enemy's side to occupy their forces while your slower infantry are heading backwards. Make sure your spearmen are in the back of your retreating formation. They can turn around and defend well against a cavalry charge. Having something like your archers or swords in the back is asking for it.

[mansch]

I don't know how it works in the game, but in a real situation. Archers with melee on the outer wall until stormed, archers fall back behind the second wall to give support/cover for the melee. If the wall is overrun/breached, fall back with the melee to the second wall. This can go on for as long as you have walls. Your archers can rest directly after a fall back (melee to messy to give proper support), melee can rest after fall back. Therefore your forces get rest breaks while the enemy is under constant fire. Cavalry is mainly useless in city's or close quarters, but sorties can be done between the walls.
The trickest part is the fall bakc of the melee as they need an opened gate.

[tudor93]

IMO it's not a good tactic to defend every line and then withdraw when the enemy approaches, you lose time (by this I mean that instead of withdrawing from the first line to the second your archers could use it to stay on the second one and fire at the enemy because by the time your archers regroup on the second wall the enemy will already be near it so your archers will have time to fire like ... only once or twice before they have to withdraw again (on the third line)) and your units tire quickly runing all the time from wall to wall ....
I usually put all my units on the third line except for maybe 1 or 2 weak units that I place in the first line to activate the towers and do some serious damage (especially if the towers are balista level or above)

[Delvecchio1975]

If you want to get the full benefit from citadels, place archers on the outer walls, and let them (and the towers they're in between) fire until the sieger gets close to the walls. Make sure you can withdraw them to the second wall in time before the gate of the first wall is breached. The AI will hang around intelligently a while between the first two walls, so your withdrawn archers will have plenty of time to empty their rucksacks onto them. Hang around as long as you can so the 2nd ring towers keep firing as long as possible. Then withdraw to the third wall, where you have your skirmishers on the walls, and swordsmen to replace them once their rucksacks are empty as well. inside the third wall have your spearman form a line, in guardmode, that is not too close to the gates, so that a ballista (or x-bows or something similar) at the far side can shoot fire bolts into the AI coming through the final gate.
Using this technique your enemy in 70% of the cases will not even breach the third gate. Additionally you can stake each gate, but some/most consider that a cheat.

[Diamond]

Why is that considered a cheat? It sounds like a great defensive tactic to me. I wonder why I hadn't thought of that.

[VIP]

Why is that considered a cheat? It sounds like a great defensive tactic to me. I wonder why I hadn't thought of that.

Why not use auto-win, then? If you are apt to abuse bad coding, you might save yourself some time and efforts as well.

Yet again, if that makes you happy, carry on. It is your prerogative after all.

[Macunaíma]

Cannon towers. That is all.

[Delvecchio1975]

Why is that considered a cheat? It sounds like a great defensive tactic to me. I wonder why I hadn't thought of that.

because it kills 80% of enemy cavalry coming through the gates, although I have seen occasions when the AI has the wit to walk rather than run through them and keep their horsies alive. Even the ballista firing from the side is considered by some a cheat (though not by me) as it is a pretty unrealistic scenario that would never work in reality.

[Thasinta]

Why is that considered a cheat? It sounds like a great defensive tactic to me. I wonder why I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'd do if I had to defend a castle or a gate. I'd have my soldiers place stakes, dig deep pits and fill them with stakes (and then cover them with thin planks so the enemy wouldn't see it until too late), and generally try and place as many traps as I could. Makes sense to me.

[ccgr1121]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'd do if I had to defend a castle or a gate. I'd have my soldiers place stakes, dig deep pits and fill them with stakes (and then cover them with thin planks so the enemy wouldn't see it until too late), and generally try and place as many traps as I could. Makes sense to me.

The thing is, in the game your stakes are fully visible. However, the AI is so stupid it will still run all of its cavalry into them, regardless. Therefore, some (including myself) consider this to be an exploit and therefore a cheat.

[jameseagle15]

Am I the only noob here who doesn't know how to place stakes?

[Macunaíma]

Am I the only noob here who doesn't know how to place stakes?

You need specific units to do that (longbowmen, for example). When you are positioning your units before the battle there's the option of putting stakes in front of these specific ones.

[The Useless Member]

Worse than a Citadel in S2TW.

[Willowran]

its been said, but i do it a little differently. throw two suicide units on the outer wall (to activate towers). second wall usually has 3 suicide units (same reason). inner wall has a super-ridiculous number of archers. (i try to make the suicide units ranged. ive found that often i wait too long before trying to pull 'em back, and they break my gates/ride down my fleeing archers with cav. hence "suicide" units).

the ai is really bad at mobalising (mobilising? mobalising?). even on VH/VH. they'll wait until (nearly) every unit in their army is inside before moving on to the next wall. then they move veeerrrry slowly, stringing themselves out in the process. their seige equipment usually arrives last to the party, and the ai pose nicely for your towers for quite a bit before you even need to worry about defending anything. i concentrate fire on any ladder carriers. let the ram get through and smack anyone stupid enough to walk through my gate. all of my melee dudes (cav as well) are withing the final wall. usually the enemy has lost enough units by the time they hit the last wall i can just to a cav charge and route them all, and i dont have to lose a single inf soldier, or any archers beyond the possible loss of the expendable suicides.

ive found the archers tend to be especially effective if you can stick 'em on an inner wall within range of the gates of a futher-out wall. nice thick clumps of ai that are asking for arrows. it would be a shame not to oblige their wishes...

[Blood Raven]

I defend the final wall, less area to defend. It also concentrates your defensive advantage in a siege assault