The seige of Acre

[where's yur troosers]

Playing as England H/H. By way of background things had been going steadily and well. In the West I have the British Isles, Iberia, Scandinavia and most of France as well as Northern Germany. In the East I have a very reasonable, if somewhat under-developed empire centered on Antioch and Acre.

I have been good to my allies, though they have all betrayed me save Byzantium and the Papal States and am the Pope's favourite.

The Mongols showed up near Bagdad. I usually find them easy as England due to their tendancy to hurl themselves onto my archers' stakes. Its a bit cheesy, but somehow I never tire of seeing hundreds of the elite cavalry impaling themselves trying to cross a bridge or enter a town.

Maybe its because I tried a tougher setting, but this time things did not go according to plan. Because I was engaged in a 2 front war against the Spanish and French I did not have the resources to plough into my major castles or troop production. The 1st wave of Mongols beseiged Antioch and whilst they lost over a thousand men and 3 generals it was taken. I took it back with a crusade 2 turns later. The surviving mongols and the other waves faffed about marching hither and thither. I sent one army after them and picked off straggling small stacks and was perfectly content in the knowledge that Antioch and Allepo were full of unhorsed knights and longbows.

They avoided those, took Jerusalem from the rebels and sent waves of troops against Acre and Gaza. Thus far they have been repulsed, but due to my lack of planning in those settlements (which I thought would be used simply to send troops north to garrison Antoch) they have become vunerable.

Now Acre is under seige. I have 6 longbows, a variety of infantry (mostly DFKs) and 2 units of artilery. Nothing at full strength and no cavarly. The reason I am worried is that the beseiging army comes fully equipped with trebuchets so my usual cheesey stakes at the gates wont be enough. They will puncture the walls in various places and I will be faced with multiple incursions and do not have the infantry to block them.

Any suggestions?

[_Tristan_]

Run !!!

Doh ! You can't...

Just kiddin'

[Bilgediver]

Did you turn Acre into a city? Or did you leave it a castle? If its a castle (i.e: at least a Fortress level), I usually abandon the outer gates and go immediately to the inner gates.

[A Nerd]

In my experience, I have always found that the AI won't siege the inner gates. He just takes the outter ones and waits so that I have to leave the inner gates and go to him. Perhaps it is the difficulty level I am playing. It can be annoying, but I have won siege defenses when the AI attacks with siege equipment from two directions. Just defend the outter wall while he knocks it down on the other side, he then just sits there while I win on one side then I go to him and defeat him on the other side. The AI was the Danes at the time, I don't know if other factions act differently. Again, perhaps it is the difficulty level.

[Bilgediver]

Are you sure about that? Often they sit just inside the outer gates and need to wait for their crew to bring in the siege equipment from outside. Oftentimes I find they have to walk all the way outside to their first battle line and pick up another ram or set of ladders.

[A Nerd]

Are you sure about that? Often they sit just inside the outer gates and need to wait for their crew to bring in the siege equipment from outside. Oftentimes I find they have to walk all the way outside to their first battle line and pick up another ram or set of ladders.

I have never seen this happen. Though I am impatient, perhaps there is some pause before the AI makes a move as you say (for example, when they seige the outer walls with siege equipment, there is a pause before the AI actually starts using them), this is a possibility. I play with no battle time limit, so perhaps I should just wait it out and see, but again, I grow impatient if the AI takes too long and the battle is going in my favor.

[Bilgediver]

Ah, I think its the no battle time limit, too. I've noticed the AI has a propensity to just sit there and wait you out. Sometimes they actually try and attack you, and other times they just sit there waiting for you, its like they know "I know you have somewhat of a life dimwit, you could leave your computer on forever until I know you're away from it so I can spank your troops, or just come out and meet me so I can spank your troops now".

I hate playing with the no battle time limit for that specific reason. It makes it easier to win defensives especially if they are assaulting a castle with multiple inner walls, because it takes time to breach each one, and by the time they actually reach you half the time is already gone.

[A Nerd]

I hate playing with the no battle time limit for that specific reason. It makes it easier to win defensives especially if they are assaulting a castle with multiple inner walls, because it takes time to breach each one, and by the time they actually reach you half the time is already gone.

This is a nice strategy, I didn't even consider that it would perk up the AI during a siege! On the other hand, and the reason I don't use a battle timer, is because I sometimes feel rushed (especially when conducting a siege) to win the battle. Would be awful if I was cleaning up the city square and the timer ran out and I lost! On the field this wouldn't be much of an issue but during a siege it would be a concern of mine. I lack in generalship if you know what I mean!

[where's yur troosers]

Thank you for your assistance, but it ended up a damp squib. I deployed stakes everywhere I could, positioned by meagre infantry around the gate, set my treb to fire rotting cows, pressed start then raced by longbows and yoemen to the walls.

The Mongols in their infinite wisdom did not fire a shot with their artillery, but came at me with seige engines. As you would expect my towers and archers opened fire, I landed a cow in their line of advance to the gates and once they broke through several hundred horses from the 2 stacks threw themselves on my stakes rather than walking through.

Result 2 more dead 9* generals, Mongol losses over 1000, my losses under 250 (their towers made it to the walls). I even managed to sortie at the end and capture the Trebuchet crews.

I captured Jerusalem 5 turns later thereby extinguishing the Mongol threat.

[Vladimir]

It's a bit late now but a catapult or two are great for defending the city center. Bottle the enemy up and as long as you have a clear field of fire you can usually paste the baddies with fire. It's also easy to stake the center.

[Bilgediver]

Vladimir, I usually only do that for Cities, especially if they're birnging missile siege engines

[sharpshooter]

Hmm ... I've only faced the Mongol (and Timurid) invasions directly once, as Turkey (vhd/vhad). Both went for Antioch, which I'd upgraded to cannon towers. The first turn they sieged I'd attack them from the city. Instead of sallying I'd sit there, and they would obligingly come within range of the cannons. At 70% losses (around 45% for the Timurids) they would withdraw.

I screened the front of Antioch with single units of nobodies, which they didn't attack as long as the back door (the bridge to the north of Antioch) was open, i.e. not blocked with a unit. With the Mongols I could run a single unit from Adana onto the bridge after they started the siege to cut off their retreat. 10 stacks of Mongols were completely destroyed this way, and I took 3 in the field. The Timurids were smarter and would put another unit on the bridge to prevent escape being blocked. They took ages to whittle away.

I'd like to try other ways of dealing with them, but I was so scared the first time round I wanted to cower behind the city walls. The bridge at Aleppo is appealing for the future.

Their behaviour is curious - like crusade armies. Both let me keep armies in Aleppo, where I was retraining Ottoman Infantry, and running them back and forth. If Antioch was completely screened they would head south towards Jerusalem, and then I'd open the bridge again.

The disadvantage of this is that it took me about 50 turns each to get rid of them. I'd like something quicker another time - and sitting there watching for 10 minutes with the speed on 3 didn't end up a satisfying battle experience. (With the Timurids I had a couple of cannon which I brought to the gates. These would fire on the elephants, who would run amok after a while).

Anyways, I'm so late to this game that everyone probably knows all this already, but thanks for listening :D

[Myth]

My first bit of advice is to always play on VH/VH, the orignal unmodded game is too easy as it is. By the time you can comfortably secure provinces in the Holy Lands you are already well past the early game (which is the only moderately hard thing even on VH/VH).

Now as far as the Mongols are concerned your problem is logistical rather than tactical. Lack of decent infrastructure in the cities you are holding means no retraining, which means no reinforcements and thus no reasonable way to fight outside of your city walls.

I'd suggest loading as many ships as you can muster, full of stacks upon stacks of Hospitaliers, Armoured Swordsmen, Dism. English Knights and Retinue Longbowmen. You should be swimming in florins - use them! Get every general you can as well. Then fight and try to keep them alive. Start a crusade as soon as you can, target a far away eastern town. Use it to bring more reinforcing stacks from Western Europe and to get nice Chivalry and Command upgrades for your generals. The main advantage of a well developed Western country in M2:TW is the endless supply of high-quality troops.

[RomeLegionary]

Yes its a benefit that you must take advantage of when short on reinforcements. I know this is for medieval 2, but back in the day when i played barbarian invasion total war i played on hard settings and had a similar situation where the huns cam in hordes toward constantinople which i was defending with only 2500 troops. When they attacked they had 9900 troops total with 6500 infantry type units and 2400 cavalry units. I made sure their rams were all burnt down and just held them up on the walls for a little over an hour until every one of the infantry units was dead. Then i moved out of the walls with my cavalry and chased down the rest of them killing 7900 mongols in total while only suffering roughly 550 dead. It was one of the best fights i had on there.