Siege Tactics

[andrewmuir]

None of the TW demos prepared me for the fact that I spend most of my time in Invasio Barbarorum defending myself inside from the besieging hordes or in M2TW iI seem to be always attacking the enemy closetted in their castles. Short of Ctrl A and doubleclicking on the plaza venter can anyone help me with useful tips for both attacking and defending in sieges.

Andrew

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Attacking:

High Morale Troops. No matter how well you manuever your people, some aspects of a siege assault always entail frontal assaults. Only troop quality will save you in such cases.

Accurate Artillery. Make a hole quickly, target large concentrations of enemy units to provide "covering fire." Flaming ammo is a must for covering fire, despite collateral, but forget it for walls, it just doesn't help.

Look for blind spots on the walls. Few walls are perfect, you can often find a spot to roll up a tower or send in ladders with little or no counter-fire from town towers. Better to fight along the walls for a bit with a largely intact unit than to try a gatehouse assault with half your group dead on the path back to the start line.

Troop armor matters. With mobility limited, lightly armored units take a pounding quickly. Don't leave them exposed. If on the wall, use the heavily armored unit over the lightly armored one -- except for running around the undefended wall and siezing towers, speed is everything for that task.

Lead with firepower. Don't run through a breach unless time forces you. Send up a hard-hitting shot unit to decimate the defender group that's standing and waiting for your troops. Once they take some hits and back off THEN send in the swords.


Defending:

What do you have to use?

If you don't have a lot of shooters, defending the wall may not work -- perhaps you should just wait in the square where you can't lose morale and hope the attrition goes your way.

If you have a lot of spears, consider standing near expected breaches or blocking roads they MUST go down. Long pointy sticks from building to building have no flank to be turned! Put them just on the far side of an intersection and your defending cavalry will have a flank to hit while their struggling on your spears. You can do this multiple times and make the trip to the square just plain suck.

Use your defenses as much as possible. Tower gunners have buckets of ammos socked away -- your archers don't.

A small sally by light cav may be enough to draw some of his troops toward it in response....and under the guns of your towers. Sometimes worth it to stop up a broken gate with a unit you know will be overwhelmed after a bit just so that the gatehouse can burn/shoot into the crowd trying to push in.

If you're a counter-puncher, try hitting them exactly as the last of the men in that unit comes through the breach. They'll mill about out of formation for a few short seconds -- and get butchered.

Don't let javelin troops stay on fire-at-will. Their very limited ammo is particularly hard hitting coming down from a wall, so choose who you'll hit and when, don't let the computer waste all your shots at the first peasant group coming forward.

[andrewmuir]

That`s what I call service. I have printed out a copy and pasted it by my monitor. I have learnt the hard way that if you have no artillery and you want to break down the gateway then you better have two rams because one will always either get stuck or catch fire. Also putting a spy inside helps open the gate but usually only when you have the resources to open it anyway.

Thanks for some really thoughtful advice.

Andrew

[Severous]

When defending dont wait for the assault.

You sally immediately on your first turn after they start their siege. Use your cavalry to pick out the weaker enemy troops and lure the stronger slower infantry toward the walls and your shooters and wall towers.

[andrewmuir]

When defending dont wait for the assault.

You sally immediately on your first turn after they start their siege. Use your cavalry to pick out the weaker enemy troops and lure the stronger slower infantry toward the walls and your shooters and wall towers.


How do I put troops in the wall towers ...or are they already there?

Andrew

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The towers are crewed and fired independently. Last person into the tower controls it, and it shoots at their opponents.

Click units onto the walls themselves the same way you'd reposition them on a battlefield.