Castles & missiles

[Cardinal]

I have noticed that whenever I assult any type of fortification (mainly forts), I get peppered by arrows, from the defeders, although there are no achers there. This is understandable enaugh, though I wonder if having missile units in the fort, keep, etc. adds to the missile hail?

Secondly I have noticed the AI tends to just sit the sieges out (as in S.T.W. until the patch was released), or has anyone else had their fortifications assulted yet? Then I wonder, (in the famous final words of Eric Idle in the "Say no more" sketch), what's it like?

[hrvojej]

Walls also fire arrows, especially wooden stockades. Then, you have arrow towers, and ballista towers. The ai will attack when it thinks that it has an advantage, much like in the open filed battles. Usually, this means just before it's about to fall.

I found a nice strategy to induce ai to assault castles and posted it here:
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/Forum7/HTML/002041.html

[Cardinal]

Still, does filling you castle up with archers and crossbows have any effect on the fortifications fire-power (bar your missile units just shooting over the wall)?

[hrvojej]

Not to my knowledge. And they can't really fire over the walls effectively, only when on higher ground and therefore having a clear trajectory for shooting while the enemy is still away from the walls (crossbows are pretty useless due to their flat trajectories). They do have a role when the enemy breaches the gate, and gets a greeting of quiver in their face, after they have already been demoralized/decimated by the castle defenses. This is the only useful role that I have found for gunpowder units, since they'll cause the morale drop even lower due to the fear factor, and cause a lot of units rout immediately.

[This message has been edited by hrvojej (edited 10-05-2002).]

[Hakonarson]

Archers and crossbowmen can definitely shoot from within the walls, but only from the higher ground around the keep.

If they are too close to the wals then they don't shoot over them, AND, if they are right underneath the walls they take casualties from chunks of wall falling on them - LOTS of casualties!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

I can attest to that from yesterday!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Defending sieges is fun, but the AI doesn't do a good job attacking. Often it willl knock a hole in your wall and then stop shootign with it's artillery even if it probably has heaps of ammo left. You can just put a couple of units of Spear inside teh gap with "hold ground" orders and butcher anythign that comes through!

Especially if you have an archer behind them! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Oh and 100 man units are great in castles because the system splits them into 2 x 50 man units for you. So a single spear + a single archer is a powerful defensive force against the AI.

For example yesterday I had a Danish fort defending against hte Turks - the fort was a Castle with arrow towers and a stockade.

I had about 200 Vikings, 120 archers 60 crossbows and 60 Pavise arbalest.

The Turks had 2 ballistas as their artillery - they set up withing arrow range of the fort and KO's about 67% of a waqll before my return fire reduced them to 1 man each.

Then the AI broke down a section of stockade and attacked the fort gate with Vikings. I sat a couple of units of vikings behind the gate, and an arbalest unit uphil behind them - when the gate was KO'ed the Turkish vikings (!) came through it but were repulsed without too much bother.

Then the AI put htose Vikings, a horse archer unit and a small spear and militia into the area enclosed by the stockade and just sat them there while they got peppered. Eventually I sendt my vikings out and wiped them all.

Time ran out for the AI, and it had to retreat - it was a fun game tho! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[hrvojej]

Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:

Oh and 100 man units are great in castles because the system splits them into 2 x 50 man units for you.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, but only for the defender, afaik.