Egyptian Seige

[Marauder]

This question is probably applicable to Moors and Turks as well. I'm playing vanilla as Egypt after a dominating performance as England. The change is drastic, going from vast armies of Armored Swordsman, Hospitaler Knights, and Retinue Longbowmen, I now have javelinmen, desert archers, and mamluks.

Switching to a HA-based army has been a lot of fun. On open field battles they are amazing. There is something satisfying about throwing javelins into your enemie's flank. My problem comes on assaults. Calvary in general aren't that good during a seige. What strategies do you guys use to storm the walls as a faction lacking the the HI department? Is it a matter of battering down the gate with peasants and then storm through with the HA?

[Kadagar_AV]

I must say I usually dont field HA in sieges, unless I am defending.

As egypt, what I would do is use two stacks, one runs in advance, beats up enemy armies and siege places in an attempt to lure teh defenders into a sally / attacking with reinforcements from outside.

The other army is infantrybased and will do the actual attacks on citys.

HA's are utterly worthless in offensive siegebattles, imho

[Ratwar]

Well, my strategy involves a lot of praying...

Really nothing in your arsenal can stand toe-to-toe with the heavy infantry fielded by some of the European powers (with the possible exception of Hashashim), but don't let this stop you. There are still plenty of ways to win a siege battle.

1. Siege Weapons- These things (as much as I hate to admit it) are very effective at bringing down walls, giving you a clear shot into the town, and if you get lucky, you'll also get to off sizable portions of units that are guarding the walls. Better yet, the AI tends to withdraw from the wall once it has a few holes in it, allowing your horse archers and cavalry to enter the town to do their thing.

2. Infantry Storm- Even though you lack good solid heavy infantry, don't be afraid to use your Militia (especially the Saracen Militia). It won't be pretty (unless your a face of Bloodism), but they will get the job done given a large enough battle. I'll echo Kadagar's advice in this respect: If you're going after a city, use infantry based armies, if your target is an Army (especially one of those annoying crusader armies), go Horse Archer.

3. Wait- You don't always have to assault a city. In fact, quite often relief armies will attack you, and give you a chance for a field battle that'll give you control of the city.

4. Auto-Resolve- It doesn't take the Walls into account (or at least not nearly as much as it should).

[_Tristan_]

I would use a different approach : make the AI sally.

Use as many as your HA as you can and lure them away from their walls. This is particularly easy and doable if the AI has mostly infantry in the garrison.

Then two things can happen : 1 - if you have enough missile to cmpletely deplete their forces, so much the better. if you don't then...
2 - lure them as far from their walls as possible but keep at least one unit away from yor main body and race it through the gates towards the plaza. If the AI went sufficiently away (and has no cavalry), the timer should run out before it can reclaim the plaza. If it can re-enter the plaza first, then it will remain there to be picked out by your HAs.

This is just an outline as you can add some refinements (using Bodyguards for example)...

[TheLastPrivate]

Make them sally by assaulting with a smaller force.

Draw them away from the walls and destroy them with your horse archers/heavy cavalry.

In any case Saracen militia work just fine as offensive infantry.

[Askthepizzaguy]

This question is probably applicable to Moors and Turks as well. I'm playing vanilla as Egypt after a dominating performance as England. The change is drastic, going from vast armies of Armored Swordsman, Hospitaler Knights, and Retinue Longbowmen, I now have javelinmen, desert archers, and mamluks.

Switching to a HA-based army has been a lot of fun. On open field battles they are amazing. There is something satisfying about throwing javelins into your enemie's flank. My problem comes on assaults. Calvary in general aren't that good during a seige. What strategies do you guys use to storm the walls as a faction lacking the the HI department? Is it a matter of battering down the gate with peasants and then storm through with the HA?

There are many different tactics for dealing with seige situations.

I'm currently writing a strategy guide for this game which will cover units, factions, campaign strategy, battle tactics, tips, tricks, and so forth. Blunted spearpoints and heavy infantry may be one tactic which works well in seiges, because if you can out-bludgeon your enemy you win every time. Just be sure you bring enough men because your losses will be heavy. There is a more cunning strategy. You can win seiges without any heavy infantry whatsoever.

Askthepizzaguy's non-heavy-infantry seige tactics:

Artillery/archer tactic:


Begin with artillery. Catapults the bare minimum, trebuchets the realistic minimum. And bring several of them, 3 to start with, 5 at the most.

1. Find the side of the settlement with the fewest, least concentrated archer towers. Should be between 2 and 3 towers within a given ranged area that you have to deal with.

2. Use the trebuchets/catapults (or better) to destroy the archer towers themselves. Target and destroy. Now the enemy MUST use their own artillery/archers to even hit you as you approach.

3. Take out the walls, and the troops on them. Destroy any height advantage the enemy might have with their own archers. Keep your troops out of harms way as you do this.

4. Make a huge, gaping hole, and several of them, in the enemy's wall on that side.

5. Use horse archers, peasant archers, and professional (longbow-type) archers to clear out any ground troops that are blocking the opening in the walls. Spread out and outgun any archers and artillery, by targeting these troops first as a priority, until their guns are crippled.

6. Target heaviest infantry with catapults, ballista, and trebuchets (inaccurate, so pick the middle of a large mass of troops. Wear them down until you're out of artillery missiles.

7. Block a city street and ensure no enemy troops are on your side of the blockage. Use your weakest defensive unit (spear militia works) to block this street. Now pepper the enemy inside their own town square until you run out of missiles. Keep the grand majority of your best troops out of range of their missile troops to conserve energy and manpower.

8. When you run out of missiles, storm the city center with the entire mass of your force, with your most offensive troops first. Low-attack units might fight longer, but they will cause less damage and still die. This is the part where you will take most of your casualties, however by now the enemy is exhausted, depleted, and broken. You greatly outnumber them, you've taken out their general, heavy infantry, and most of their archers.

9. Keep your mounted units and general, and any units you do not want to take casualties in, out of the melee. You might easily win now, but limit your losses within your best troops (archers, general, cavalry). Use this part to clear out your weakest troops, easiest to replace.

10. You have captured the settlement. Congratulations!

________________________________

Alternate: Sally tactics

1. Beseige the settlement with a force consisting of horse archers alone, with perhaps a pair of heavy cavalry. Do not bring infantry or seige equipment.

2. The enemy will sally if you are significantly undermanned.

3. Deal with their cavalry first, they are the greatest threat. Keep out of range and fire on the run. Surround and fire from the rear. Deplete heavily, then engage in melee and destroy the routers.

4. Deal with their missile troops next, they can fire back. Stay out of range of these while you destroy their cavalry. Fire in cantabrian-circle style, spread formation, and vastly outnumber them. Focus on one unit at a time and annihilate them with arrow rain.

5. Deal with their heavy infantry next. Deplete them, shaken their morale, and charge. Mop up routers.

6. Alternatively, you can wipe out their cavalry, and send one fast cavalry unit to take the city center and hold it for 3 minutes while their slow, exhausted infantry chases your captain/general or attempts to deal with most of your force.

7. Cause a mass rout, when all the enemy forces rout, you automatically win. But, don't end the battle, defeating mass routers allows you to gain valuable experience.

8. If you run out of arrows or do not finish defeating their cavalry (imagine a large sally-specialized force of heavy cavalry) pepper the enemy, continue running until you're out of missiles, and then withdraw from the battle. All you have to do is send most of your troops to the edge of the map they would withdraw towards, and then hit the "white flag" button to withdraw. Use a weak unit of cavalry to delay the enemy force while you withdraw, then withdraw it if possible.

You will lose the battle, but you will drastically weaken the enemy.

_______________________________

Two army strategy: (for large garrisons, citadels, and for dangerous sally situations)

1. Send in an anti-sally force first:

heavy on anti-cavalry forces: spears, archers, javelins, cavalry. Add your basic trebuchets and target the walls. Destroy the walls and any troops who sally.

2. Withdraw all forces that you can withdraw which are useless in the assault: non-missile cavalry, depleted missile troops, weakened spearmen, and artillery men.

3. human-control your reinforcement army, which must consist of a very large portion of archers, horse archers, javelin troops, and more artillery men. Add some fresh spearmen.

4. The enemy have breached walls, depleted/destroyed cavalry, and weakened forces. Use your fresh force to pepper them to death with fewer casualties on your side, breach whatever walls remain, and use your militia spearmen to wipe up any stragglers.

5. Both armies should sustain less than 10 percent casualties, and all units should survive, and the units that get depleted (militia spearmen) can be replaced by either castle infantry or retrain them at the city for more and better militia spearmen. You should not have to return to your territory for more troops, ever. Send any profession troops as reinforcements via ship.

[FactionHeir]

Nicely written

[Askthepizzaguy]

In a broader, campaign-minded sense, since I don't roleplay very often (I'm a blitzer, I focus on capturing the entire eurasian/african continents within my original faction leader's lifetime) I don't typically even use spies, artillery, or two-army strategies very often.

What I found works best as a blitzer, both for moving around the campaign map, and also for defeating garrisons quickly, is to use nothing but cavalry.

If the enemy doesn't sally, hire any mercenary infantry in the region and batter down the gates, and flood the city with your vast horse army. If they don't sally, it usually means you're not undermanned. If you're not undermanned, you can easily batter down the gates with your mercenary infantry and rams (build nothing but rams), and then flood through with your general and top melee cavalry, and the sheer force of that many horsemen will cause a local numbers advantage. The militia/defenders in their way will be pushed backwards, spreading them out, seperating them from their comrades, and that causes their morale to weaken. The bubble gets bigger and bigger until it bursts. You also get a bit of a charge bonus as more horsemen funnel through and reach the enemy. The enemy breaks, and you charge after them towards the city center, mopping up routers and causing a chain rout of the troops behind them. You can easily destroy 50% of their force with the initial charge towards the city center alone.

If the enemy sallies, a totally horse archer/cavalry army will easily outflank, encircle, and rout individually every unit of cavalry, infantry, and archers of the enemy sally force. Wiping up routers is mostly what you do, gaining experience as you move along, and putting same-type depleted troops together to form a full-health unit. Sacrifice rare, un-recruitable troops like mercenaries from a different region, and upper-tier cavalry which you don't anticipate reinforcements for.

The only sticking point is a huge enemy garrison which doesn't sally. That's where you are a little outmatched. As a blitzer, I just ignore these forces or auto-resolve, and continue moving forward. But auto-resolve is a little cheap for a roleplaying campaign, so leave these huge garrisons for others to destroy. Your primary front army is nothing but cavalry, but you've got more generals and slower troops coming behind them, as a secondary front army. This one can consist of your heaviest infantry, archers, and artillery. They will move slowly, even on Jihad, so move fast via ship to get to those enemy strongholds. The first wave decimates 90% of the enemy resistance, and this second wave destroys all resistance.

We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.

[TheLastPrivate]

Lovely, ATPG, just lovely!

We have to take the fact of sheer casualties on sieges as a default scenario, so don't be afraid
to lose troops on the siege. The income from the city will be worth the loss, what matters is
WHAT you lose.

[Sentinel]

ATPG - A few tips for your sallying section.

To tempt the garrison to sally, use just one unit of cavalry to siege the settlement, but have a second (part) stack positioned next to it. The AI will be more willing to sally against the small stack despite the presence of your reinforcement. It seems to see the reinforcement as a lesser threat than it really is.

In the battle map the unit that is being sallied against always starts positioned in front of the main gate. Your reinforcements that were next to them in the campaign screen will enter the battle map from one of the corner of the map.

Run the single unit to the map corner to join up with your reinforcements and all the sallying garrison will follow. This usually strings them out into a long line.
Cavalry arriving first, then missile units, and finally melee infantry.

If you wait until the enemy has almost reached your force, then have one of your units dodge around them and head for the town square then the enemy usually will do a u-turn and race back to protect its town square. This means that your reinforcement can then attack the backs of the garrison all the way back to the walls

Even spear units or heavy infantry will rout when charged from the rear (alt attack) by horse archers. Heavy melee cavalry can produce a mass rout.

Occasionally, not all the sallying force will turn back, a couple of units may continue. But this makes them easy targets to surround and destroy.

edit:
If the garrison contains artillery (catapult or trebuchet), then these tend to stay put and do not always sally with the rest of the garrison, This can make getting to the centre of the settlement difficult, since the gates will stay closed. You have to make a unit rout then wait till they go back through the gate and try squeeze past as the gate open.

[Kadagar_AV]

Sentinel, I can not decide if that is cunningly brutal, or brutally cunning...

[Marauder]

Thanks ATPG! I'm looking forward to your guide. I've been trying to do more seiges without seige equipment. As England (late period, I know you never make it that far) I would have bombards and mortors and had no problem taking even a heavily garrisoned fortress.

With the Egyptian campaign, I'm trying to play with a style befitting Egyptian units: lots of speed, skirmishing, and flanking. Few full infantry melee bloodbaths. Even though I can build seige equipement, I'm having more fun with HA-based armies and picking up the cheap mercenary light infantry I get during Jihads. I like the idea of a second wave of armies to finish off the stragglers.

[Rabidnid]

Make them sally by assaulting with a smaller force.

Draw them away from the walls and destroy them with your horse archers/heavy cavalry.

In any case Saracen militia work just fine as offensive infantry.

Exactly.

If you do decide to assault have at least a 3 to 1 advantage over the garrison and as many towers or ladders as you have troops and auto calculate.

As a last resort besiege with a massive cavalry force and wait them out.