Settlement defense tricks and tips
Figured it would be a good idea to start a thread on how to defend a settlement (town or castle, but obviously castles are a bit easier to do) from attack. I'd like this to focus on good techniques and not bugs (the infamous ladder bug, the occasional siege tower bug) to defeat erstwhile attackers. I'll start with some obvious pointers and a couple tricks I use:
- lob flaming projectiles at flammable siege engines: flaming arrows and naffatun napalm bombs are good choices. If they enemy only has one ram, aim for that first. Being able to free up all your gate defense units to the walls is a tremendous help, and effectively takes the enemy cavalry out of the equation. Regardless, one should ALWAYS garrison endangered cities with at least 4 units of troops capable of shooting flaming missiles for this reason.
- make sure to man the walls with the right type of units. Remember that swordsmen/axemen tend to beat spearmen in melee combat, so try not to man your walls with spearmen if you can help it. If you're stuck with militia, use town milita instead of spears if you can - short spears do better against infantry than longer anti-cavalry spears.
- stick to the town center if you expect to lose the walls easily. If, for whatever reason, you expect to not pose much of a challenge at the walls, keep your forces in the town center. Make each soldier's life count for more, as they'll all fight to the bitter end.
- remember that the town is mazelike. It's a good idea to keep cavalry units waiting off in the wings to hit enemy units in the flank or rear as they march down the main avenue.
- remember that enemy units hold shields in their left hands. If you need to overload archers on one segment of wall over the other, choose the left side (so they shoot at the enemy's right side)
- flat trajectory shooting can really pay off at the gate. Once the gate is broken through, a suicidal unit of crossbowmen or some ballistae shooting down the alley can cause a lot of pain for the advancing enemy by shooting right into the crowd of oncoming troops.
- catapaults are good, but risky. One well-placed flaming catapault shot can really turn the tide in a siege battle, but be careful about where you aim them. You don't want to nuke your own troops by mistake, much less your general. If you're planning on using some catapaults, keep them in the village square. The game likes to place them by the walls, and they're useless there.
- trebuchets are all-around useful. Catapaults and ballistae are more accurate against troops, but trebs can clear the castle walls to take out enemy siege towers and rams (if you're lucky) before they get to you. Leave the flaming ammo off here. If you're fresh out of good mechanical targets, lob cow corpses into the oncoming enemy to ensure an easy time of routing your nauseated foes at the walls/gate. In a pinch, you can use the flaming ammo, but it's even less accurate than the catapault. Pray it doesn't go too astray...
-spear wall units come into their own. There's a lot of debate on the usefulness of these units (I've always liked them, to be honest), spear wall units are exceptionally handy at guarding gates and alleys, where their immobility and weak flanks don't even come into play.
-schiltrom units take up space. Good thick schiltrom blocks can clog up a major alleyway or constrict a gateway.
-when in doubt, aim for a rout. If the enemy absolutely overwhelms you, your only hope is to go for a chain reaction rout, hopefully by killing the enemy general. This can be done if you're sneaky about it, usually by luring the enemy general in past your gates and then crushing him. I often do this with a "cup" of infantry and then a "hammer" of cavalry or shock infantry. Let's use a diagram (not to scale) to illustrate:
=== : wall
|||: gate
-: empty space
X: defensive infantry, either in spearwall or schiltrom, if available
Y: shock unit
========||||||===========
YY--------------XXX-----------
YY------------XXX-------------
YY--------XXXX----------------
The idea is that the enemy will charge through the gate and get stuck on your defensive infantry. The secret is to not charge your shock unit(s) into them too early, or else you'll only get a partial rout and enemy units will keep pouring through the gates and will overwhelm your hammer unit, which means you're still going to get slaughtered. Once you've got a good number of enemy units through the gate and engaging your poor defensive infantry, let loose with a powerful charge on their flanks. This should route some or all of the units. If not completely successful, feel free to withdraw your hammer unit(s), especially if it's a heavy cavalry unit, regroup, and charge again. Repeat until you've managed to kill the enemy general and/or start a mass rout. Chase them down.
Different strategies depending on enemy army configuration:
mostly cavalry: destroy the ram at all costs. Then deal with the other threats. Without the cavalry pouring in through your gates you should be fine.
mostly infantry: man the walls until contact is made and then retreat (assuming they can overwhelm you). Position your best units down key alleyways and position your missile units off down side alleys. As the enemy advances towards your center, shoot their flanks and rears to pieces. Make sure to protect your archer units from any of the relatively few cavalry units the enemy brought with.
mostly archers: if, for whatever reason, the enemy is using mostly foot archers, then you should engage them in a missile duel, as your walls offer considerable cover. Wait until they get tired, and then sally out with all available units to spook them away.
lots of siege engines: hide in the town center. You don't want to lose half your army to collapsing walls.
horse archers: let them into the city. You heard me. Let them in. Once they're stuck in alleyways, they're relatively easy to pin down and carve into. Engaging them outside the walls in the open is not advised at all. Alternatively, with enough archers you can shoot them down, but it's likely to take some time and chasing them down is tedious at best.
That's all that comes to mind immediately. I welcome all to add their own methods for succeeding in city defense.
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Originally Posted by mikeon
in the valley."
