Wall battles

[Tai-Pan]

I'm relatively new to Medieval II, and had a question about wall-top fighting. I noticed that when my troops attack their troops on the walls, usually only a couple guys are fighting where the two units come together. I also discovered that if I give my troops the order to march to the other side, through the troops, or even just order them to march into the middle of the enemy uint, lots more guys will run to where the two units come together, then I can click attack and a lot more guys are fighting. Is this an effective tactic?

It seems that having more guys at the front should be better, especially if they outnumber the enemy. However, it seems like shortly after I give this order, the unit starts to do worse. I've only done it a couple times, and it has been against big groups of mixed enemy soldiers on the walls. I'm wondering if a couple of different things may have adversely affected my tactic. The first is the possibility that while my soldiers were running, the enemy got a "free hit" on them, and that may have started a domino effect that hurt my unit. The other is that using this tactic simply accelerates the results. If they have better infantry, they'll win.

Any thoughts?

[Don Esteban]

I think the best tactic is to leave your wall troops in guard mode. What you suggest breaks formation and maybe this is why it doesn't work so well.

[Galain_Ironhide]

I'm relatively new to Medieval II, and had a question about wall-top fighting. I noticed that when my troops attack their troops on the walls, usually only a couple guys are fighting where the two units come together. I also discovered that if I give my troops the order to march to the other side, through the troops, or even just order them to march into the middle of the enemy uint, lots more guys will run to where the two units come together, then I can click attack and a lot more guys are fighting. Is this an effective tactic?

It seems that having more guys at the front should be better, especially if they outnumber the enemy. However, it seems like shortly after I give this order, the unit starts to do worse. I've only done it a couple times, and it has been against big groups of mixed enemy soldiers on the walls. I'm wondering if a couple of different things may have adversely affected my tactic. The first is the possibility that while my soldiers were running, the enemy got a "free hit" on them, and that may have started a domino effect that hurt my unit. The other is that using this tactic simply accelerates the results. If they have better infantry, they'll win.

Any thoughts?

I do this every siege battle I play where I am the attacker, I also find I have better results when doing it too.

My process is this. 1. Men climb the wall. 2. Start fighting. 3. double click to other side of the melee. 4. Men start running through enemy. 5. Click attack when enough of my guys are in the mix. 6. Let the slaughter begin.

Be careful as to which units you choose to fight on the walls, for example a unit of Spear militia is not going to fight well against a more armoured and professional foe (or for that fact, your spear militia unit probably wouldn't beat a bunch of granny's armed with rolling pins due to the defensive bonus they receive on a wall). When I can I use a Heavy Sword unit to do the hard work or even a medium armoured sword unit. I stay away from using spears and 2-handed units on offensive wall battles as much as possible.

Your guys will occasionally take a "free hit" on the way through but as soon as you have commanded them to re-engage they all usually take a swing bak at the enemy.

Do not mistake one thing though, you WILL NOT win every time you fight on a wall (unit vs unit). Be prepared to take a lot of casualties if fighting a formidable foe.

Lastly, whether you have thirty men fighting at once or only just 2 fighting and the rest watching, the whole unit is taking a fatigue hit, so the more men you have in the melee, the better before they all feel like they want to take a nap from watching too much action.

[IncubusDragon]

If you're defending, guard mode for spear units and if you've got a sword unit as rush support, you'll be hard to beat and nigh on invincible if archers can support too... but you need the aggression if you're attacking so leave guard mode off - and yes, if you click beyond the unit of 1st contact then your men will keep pressing forward and maximise your unit's killing ability.