Are archers any good in sieges?

[ArcturUs]

I don't know whether this topic has been covered, but I would like to know the truth. Should I take any archers at all with me during sieges? Is it worth to send them instead of sending more heavy infantry?

[phonicsmonkey]

Yes! The way to win sieges with low casualties (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?88794-How-do-you-minimize-casualties-when-assaulting&highlight=minimising+casualties)is to get your archers onto the walls (usually the best way is to get into the city through an undefended gate which causes the enemy to abandon the walls) and then lure the enemy from the town square into the archer kill zone which is blocked off by your best spears set to guard mode. They will take serious casualties without breaking your lines before retreating to the town square. You can then lure them out again using cavalry to charge and retreat.

Rinse and repeat.

[econ21]

I guess you mean when you are the attacker? I find archers can reduce the casualties a lot. One trick is to take part of the walls, secure them and place your archers on them. You effectively turn it into an inverse siege - your archers can rain death on the enemy, protected by their walls and your melee infantry on the ground.

The other thing is that when the battle gets to the city centre, you can shower the defenders with arrows and use the chokepoints to protect your archers. Often the AI can be passive and just gets whittled down to nothing.

Plus, I often can't face a siege assault and just starve the enemy out. If they sally, they come out piecemeal and are easy prey for your archers.

EDIT: Phonicsmonkey beat me to the punch!

[phonicsmonkey]

Great minds think alike!

[ArcturUs]

I guess you mean when you are the attacker? I find archers can reduce the casualties a lot. One trick is to take part of the walls, secure them and place your archers on them. You effectively turn it into an inverse siege - your archers can rain death on the enemy, protected by their walls and your melee infantry on the ground.

The other thing is that when the battle gets to the city centre, you can shower the defenders with arrows and use the chokepoints to protect your archers. Often the AI can be passive and just gets whittled down to nothing.

Plus, I often can't face a siege assault and just starve the enemy out. If they sally, they come out piecemeal and are easy prey for your archers.

EDIT: Phonicsmonkey beat me to the punch!


yea, i wanted to know what to do if i were the attacker. In defense well, I don't know whether its a bug or something, when I play defense, the AI doesn't come forward at all. Once i start the battle it moves a little and then drops all rams, ladders and towers and goes back and stays there, I have to take my units outside and then chase them out, and I hate that terribly, I mean what's the point of playing defense siege when you can't use your walls and towers :furious3:. I rather sally out before the AI assaults.

Anyway I'll try that tactic you have said in assaults.

[where's yur troosers]

I always try to have a balista in every settlement. When you sally and the enemy falls back as you describe I send out any cavalry and the balista. My cavalry removes my opponent's archers whilst the seige engine lines up parallel to the bad guys and opens fire. I take out their horsemen first then infantry as, when the balista runs out of ammo, I can send my own archers out to finish the job fairly safely.

There have been occasions when the AI has had the sense to do the obvious and charge the balista, but it nearly always just allows it to sit nearby mowing its troops down in droves.

[ArcturUs]

I put my pavise crossbowmen onto the walls like phonicsmonkey said, and I was surprised by their kill rate, all of them had atleast 40 kills each :laugh4:. Atfirst they were shooting at an upward curve, but later they started to shoot straight down at the enemy, thnx for the help :medievalcheers:

[phonicsmonkey]

Atfirst they were shooting at an upward curve, but later they started to shoot straight down at the enemy

The longer you can keep the enemy in the kill zone (ie. where your missiles can get a clear shot at them) the more effective this tactic will be. You might consider switching off fire-at-will mode until the enemy is in the right spot, to save ammo and maximise the effectiveness.

[ArcturUs]

I came across this fortress siege of late and I tried the same thing, although I must admit I couldn't get a very high kill rate with pcb,
https://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx24/Ezilkannan/0018.jpg


https://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx24/Ezilkannan/0019forums.jpg
But considering the fact that it was a fortress with complex buildings blocking the view for them, I guess its ok. :uhoh:

[Lord Brennus]

I often leave my Archers behind in a siege
btw, this is my first post since December.

[ArcturUs]

I often leave my Archers behind in a siege


Well that's what I used to do before I learnt about this tactic from phonics, from what I have seen, you can use archers by taking the enemy's walls and they seem to get a good kill rate especially if you are assaulting a city(whatever be the level, small, large or even huge). Although you can't get the same amount of kills in castle sieges, they are not completely useless.


btw, this is my first post since December.
lol wb :P :welcome:

[Alrik]

On the contrary, castles are so small that you can usually find a wall to occupy that'll allow your archers to reach the foe regardless of where he's hiding. Here it may be necessary to turn the fire at will off, so that you don't coax the enemy into attacking you prematurely.

Personally I prefer to have my crossbows on the walls, archers only get a spot if there's room, seeing as they are pretty good att shooting over the friendly units in front of them anyhow....unlike the crossbows...

[Ratwar]

Sure, Archers are great in Sieges!

Someone has to carry the battering ram.

Anyways, besides just firing into the square or the wall ambush already described, Archers are rather worthless in sieges. That is to say that they're worthless, unless you exploit them, in which case they're all powerful like just about anything else in M:TW2.

[Black Prince]

I think for the defender they're a must, but for the attacker probably not worth it. Anyway siege engines are so overly powerful in this game that walls don't stand much of a chance, so just bring some siege engines along!

[Alrik]

I'm not sure what people have against archers, in sieges they really shine, streets are narrow and they can volley just fine over their own friends. To win a fight you want to have as many of your guys fighting and as few of the enemy doing so at any point, that's why killpockets are so effective and that's why archers are so good, because they can fight even when the enemy can't fight back. Crossbows are less useful as they typically need a much better line of fire to have any real effect, hence I put crossbows on the walls and my archers I put to good use long before that. With archers you can turn an ordenary street into a killpocket, juct block it with something tough in guardmode and pour arrows into it as enemy units approach.

[Russian bear]

Im really a big fan of archers :D In any situation really. In sieges streets are just to narrow to let all your units fight. But when half your units are archers and the other half is infantry, you can let all of them fight. Besides that i really love fire arrows because they completely demoralize the enemy and when they run you can quickly hunt them down with a charge of your cav. taking out sometimes hundreds of units of a time. And its a great way to punish hit and run tactics sometimes used by your enemy cavalery. Finally the enemy tends to blob up at the square. But yeah i usually have 1-2 catapults to take out enemy archers, because archer archer fights are not very usefull especially when your enemy is on the wall and you tend to hit them less.

[snowjak88]

Well, as an example of what not to do ...

Playing England on Medium, I shipped a boatload of troops off for Jerusalem right after the Pope called a Crusade, fairly early on in the game; so that army consisted of a whole mess of spear militia, a few knights, a few longbowmen, and my General. They landed, took Jerusalem, and settled down for a very, very long bout of building and pacification.

Well, obviously constant rioting ensued; and as much as I was able to keep a handle on my spear militia being mobbed by angry peasants, the third turn of rioting saw my General get killed.
Along with his entire bodyguard.
Which meant that my entire army got kicked out of the city and replaced by a whole mess of smelly, rebellious camel-herding local-yokels. :stare: Thus, I had to assault Jerusalem that next turn, along with an obsolete army of half-strength spearmen and archers.

So I hired as many mercenaries as I could (a few units of spearmen and crossbowmen); and started strategizing.
I decided that The Thing To Do was to create as many breach-points as possible, as fast as possible. So I needed ladders. Lots of ladders.
Then I drew up my troops in three contingents: on the two sides of the city, one each of spear militia, crossbowmen, and knights; and the balance in front. The plan was that the enemy would concentrate on the front, allowing my side troops to storm the walls and open the gates for the cavalry, who would troop into the city and hit the garrison from the back. Meanwhile, my front-door doodz would commence a regular sturm-und-drang, with battering ram, ladders, and longbowmen support.

Well, to make a long story short:
-=- The rebel Egyptians had two unites of javelinmen opposing each of my flankers. My spearmen and crossbowmen were evenly matched numerically; and so completely cut down. My half-strength cavalry decided "well, this sucks", and looped back around to the front.
-=- My front-door-doodz were able to get on top of the wall, but suffered horrifying attrition (60-80%). My ram-doodz broke the door down and milled around the street, running back and forth and ignoring every entreaty to go the **** up on the walls and help their buddies from the 501st Coventry out!
-=- I eventually won the slugfest, once I got the front-door-walls stabilized, my one intact spear unit blocking the street against his General, and my longbowmen deployed where they could sweep the square with direct-fire. And I cried over my poor, broken companies for several turns afterward. (And Jerusalem is still ungoverned, some twenty turns later. I'm busy mucking around in Moorish Spain, and crusading against the HRE, to care much.)

I learned many things from that bloodbath, not least of which is a new respect for siege-towers, heavy artillery, and the inadvisability of dividing one's forces against an entrenched and prepared foe.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

It is a well known fact, that archers in sieges, in defense and attack have proved dangerous and excellent. It's history. Archers were effective and they still are.

[Sacred Band]

In defense yes. Hardly use them as attacker. If you have a multi-level castle you can just let the enemy come over the first wall, which forbids them the use of siege towers and you can snipe the poor infantry who are carrying the ladders :stop: