I just don't understand how to play this game (mainly about fighting garrisons)

[squeehunter]

Whenever I want to attack a city, I'll send a full stack at it but there's usually a full stack PLUS the garrison I have to deal with. I can't fight double my strength. Or, for example, I was just playing as Armenia. I attacked the city to the north of me. They had a full stack, so I sent two full stacks against them. Then they made two stacks PLUS the garrison. I just don't get how I'm supposed to overcome the strength of the enemy. I tried luring out the enemy by raiding so we could fight away from the city but the red ring around the enemy city is so big, I usually have to fight off their garrison to.

Is there a good tutorial video or something I could watch to show me what I'm supposed to do? I love this game (47 hours played) but I never get farther than like 20 turns because of this issue.

[builder680]

i noticed the first few fights with this mod are very tough. need to be walking around with at least a double if not triple stacks to conquer places. i also noticed a navy is HUGE in the beginning. for example as Rome it's amazing to build a decent navy at the start... for first containing - then eventually conquering - carthage.

[chadwicknight]

Hello buddy,

here is what you can do to overcome the odds:

- It's important before starting a war to stack up some money first, so you can bear the negative income from the max amount of army you can muster and/or better troops quality for many turns before your chest is empty. I usually don't start a war unless I have 50k (denarii/gold/whatever it is) in my treasury.

- Send a spy around the town you want to attack before committing, so you can see how many armies you'll have to fight. Also you can see the quality and composition of the enemy.

- You can also use the said spy to sabotage one of the armies so they can't reinforce the battle for 1 turn, but if your agent is not trained enough the chances that he'll succeed are low.

- If you developed a general as a Tactician you can use his 'Night Fighter' ability to fight at night as an attacker, so every enemy general/captain which doesn't have that particular trait won't be able to reinforce.

- If you have done everything in your power and you still have to fight a superior force (being it in quality or quantity), your best option is to force a defensive battle in a fortified stance.

To do that you should position your army just outside the border of the red circle around the enemy town you want to attack (you will see the said circle if you mouseover the town) and fortify your position by switching the stance of your army. This red circle is basically the range in which the garrisoned troops can reinforce an outside battle.

Note that you must have enough movement points to switch stance so be careful.

At this point the enemy, sure of his strenght, will probably come to you with everything he got, including the garrison army of the town. But he's in for a nasty surprise.

Defensive fort battle:

- During the battle block all 3 entrances of the fort with the best troops you have.

- Keep some troops outside of the fort: the best candidates for this are for sure your cavalry, skirmishers and/or any unit with the 'stalker' ability . With these units try to avoid contact until every enemy is engaged with your troops defending the fort.

- If you are lucky only 2 entrances or even 1 entrance will be under attack. Use the troops from the free entrance to reinforce the others. You will also have a nice exit for your fortified reserves.

- When the enemy is fully committed to the battle, unleash your free troops and send them to attack the rear/side of the big blob stuck in the pitched battle around the entrances.

- Don't understimate the power of skirmishers. If they can fire freely inside the big enemy blob from behind they will kill hundreds of men within seconds! ( many skirmishers have also a focus fire ability so you can bombard a small area of the map within range instead of attacking one specific unit, but thread carefully, this ability is powerful but has still some bugs/issues)


That's it. By doing this you can overcome a greatly bigger/stronger force than yours. It will take some practice but you'll find out that you can actually beat with minimum losses even a 4:1 or 5:1 force.

After the battle is over according to the plan, you will have 'severely damaged' if not 'entirely annihilated' the enemy force and you can finally attack the town and finish off the survivors for an easy second victory!

Hope this will help.

Cheers

[leonardusius]

- Don't understimate the power of skirmishers. If they can fire freely inside the big enemy blob from behind they will kill hundreds of men within seconds! ( many skirmishers have also a focus fire ability so you can bombard a small area of the map within range instead of attacking one specific unit, but thread carefully, this ability is powerful but has still some bugs/issues)

Still not know how this ability work ! What bugs do you know ?

[chadwicknight]

Still not know how this ability work ! What bugs do you know ?

Sometimes I found those units unable to fulfill the order. The tooltip says they are firing, aswell as the firing icon, but in truth they just stand there in combat stance not using ammos. I noticed that this happens when they don't have a huge line of sight or when they are very close to your main line.


Most of the time the ability works fine and its a blast .

[Daergar]

Bring two or three army stacks, not one.

[FlashHeart07]

Or make it easier and download my submod which reduces garrisons so you wont run into 20 unit garrisons all the time

[KAM 2150]

Either that or simply fight their one stack plus garrison stack with your single stack and take easy victory. Remember that big portion of garrisons is made of unarmoured, unshielded rabble that go down very fast.

[gornoviceanu]

Your average heavy infantry slaughters most garrison units, don't be intimidated by the auto resolves prediction of the battle.

As for winning a siege fight.. in un-walled settlements I try to draw my enemy into the fight in streets. Anything from skirmishing infantry, archers or pilla from melee troops will work. Once they are out on streets numbers matter less since it's a bottleneck and your superior infantry can slowly chop at them. Once 1 street has fallen it's pretty easy to flank the others and win the day


When attacking a walled city, it's very important that you win the walls without losing too many soldiers, because the AI usually organizes another defense in the streets. To do this, try sending your troops in waves - first you send medium / fodder infantry. When you see your men are starting to lose on the walls, send in the next wave, which should be composed of your better troops. Always send some ladders / towers to cap the enemy towers, they can kill a lot of your troops if left unchecked.

[TheRazaman]

Whenever I want to attack a city, I'll send a full stack at it but there's usually a full stack PLUS the garrison I have to deal with. I can't fight double my strength. Or, for example, I was just playing as Armenia. I attacked the city to the north of me. They had a full stack, so I sent two full stacks against them. Then they made two stacks PLUS the garrison. I just don't get how I'm supposed to overcome the strength of the enemy. I tried luring out the enemy by raiding so we could fight away from the city but the red ring around the enemy city is so big, I usually have to fight off their garrison to.

Is there a good tutorial video or something I could watch to show me what I'm supposed to do? I love this game (47 hours played) but I never get farther than like 20 turns because of this issue.

Some good tips have been given already but I'll add one or two. Assuming your assassin fails, they don't attack you when you're in a fort or raiding and you don't yet have Night Commander — highly recommended you do get this skill on all your armies of conquest:

If they have 2 stacks, then they'll have 1 inside the city and 1 outside. Generally speaking, you will want to attack the army that's outside of the city. This will force the other stack and the garrison to both leave the city. On the open field you will have a marked advantage due to your superb tactics.

The only time you would not want to do this is if they have a massive cavalry advantage, in which case, your best bet is to find someone else to attack.
If it has to be this city though, then you need to set up an ambush or place one army in fortification stance with the other behind it (so that they have to attack the fortified army) in raid stance and goad them into attacking you — which even if they don't should still net you some good income from the raiding. Ideally, you would also setup on the campaign map to have a slope advantage and/or forest to blunt the effectiveness of their cavalry.

[Soontir]

Now it may have unexpected repercusions. Once my riding army plundered everything they were able to, started starving and then winter came. Another legion lost. I had sesions when in few hours only progress i made, was to lose three stacks in stupid way andit's beautifull as it happened before only during mongol invasion in mtw2.

[Samir]

mounted units are expensive in upkeep so maybe keep them low priority in the beginning until you have the money running. for one stack of mounted units you basically get 2 stacks of heavy infantry and nothing will stop that especially in a siege.

you can use a small stack to siege the city, keep another medium large stack next to it and lure them into sally out. in open field they are usually not much of a hassle. also spies make it possible to not only act on armies or cities, but you can pretty much scout the whereabouts of armies and use that for sneak attacks.

also remember, soldiers who die dont need to be payed, especially true for blasting all your extra money into hiring mercenaries to be sacrificed in the siege, but hey, your heavy infantry still can use the bloody ladders they left behind

If nothing helps, go Med2Milan ally and backstab until you are powerful

[FlashHeart07]

The ability work like the 'throw pila' for the romans. You click the ability button and click the designated spot. Your skirmishers will then fire in this area and hit any units within this area. Its a way to hit multiple units in a small area. I dont know about any bugs but its a bit OP as the AI is unable to use it. But that also goes for the 'throw pila' ability.

[squeehunter]

Thanks everyone, I will try this stuff out.

[FlashHeart07]

Bug or game limitation

[ptagi]

Bug or game limitation

Neither, just common sense if you ask me. Imagine you are a javelin thrower and you stand just behind sword fighters. Are you able to throw your javelins over to the enemy in a straight line?

Archers, crossbows are able to wreck havoc from behind your main line. Javelins have to be in front of your main line first and when the enemy infantry is committed, sweep them around the line and let them throw their things into the back of the enemy. Javelins works the best when they don't have friendly units between them and the enemy.

To be honest, I don't like javelins. I use them if I don't have anything else (like Rome, they have to start with them until they can have the crossbows). I rather like to use slingers (the Funditori, Briton slingers), Egyptian/Persian archers, crossbows. These are also very handy to lure the enemy out of their forts if you don't have onagers because they outrange the fortress towers. They also do quite some damage to defenders on the wall if you happen to attack a walled settlement (but this can be avoided by luring them out by sieging or attacking a reinforcement force in the area)

[JCB206]

Neither, just common sense if you ask me. Imagine you are a javelin thrower and you stand just behind sword fighters. Are you able to throw your javelins over to the enemy in a straight line?

Archers, crossbows are able to wreck havoc from behind your main line. Javelins have to be in front of your main line first and when the enemy infantry is committed, sweep them around the line and let them throw their things into the back of the enemy. Javelins works the best when they don't have friendly units between them and the enemy.

To be honest, I don't like javelins. I use them if I don't have anything else (like Rome, they have to start with them until they can have the crossbows). I rather like to use slingers (the Funditori, Briton slingers), Egyptian/Persian archers, crossbows. These are also very handy to lure the enemy out of their forts if you don't have onagers because they outrange the fortress towers. They also do quite some damage to defenders on the wall if you happen to attack a walled settlement (but this can be avoided by luring them out by sieging or attacking a reinforcement force in the area)

Agreed on the common sense and the way you are using them.

I always have 2-4 Peltasts in the army. Very very effective units. Can win skirmish fights, can stand in line and hold most infantry, and are extremely agile to swing around the flanks. And of course javs from behind is the deadlier than a cavalry charge. If it wasn't for cavalry mopping up after fights, they would be my winners in the kill column. They are great in conjunction with the phalanx and assisting cavalry for flanking.

[FlashHeart07]

Well if that is the case then yes it would be common sense