Crazy Castles and Frustrating Forts

[Feanor]

On a campaign with the HRE the Italians made their final stand in Corsica. The only man to escape the battle was the Italian Doge himself who retreated to his fort. What annoyed me was that this one man meant that the fort would never fall without a direct assault. One man! You'd only have to wait and listen for the toilet to flush and then bang, you're in.

This is crazy. Is there a way to edit the game so that the strongholds fall without a minimum garrison?

[Shoraro]

I wish there was. It's amazing the amount of bowfire one man in a castle can do, too.

Still, if you don't want to assault, you could try assassinating the annoying bugger

[Desiderata]

One other annoying thing with this situation, you can't destroy the buildings that are up in the province until you capture the castle/fort - like they're magiaclly protected or something!!!

[Feanor]

Excellent point. I'd have liked to have seen the poor Doge coming out of his hole to be greeted by nothing but rubble and scorched earth.

[Desiderata]

It does seem a crazy thing to have that hard coded as it was a historical tactic used by the English against the French throughout the 100 years war - began with a 'r' and basically IIRC meant going in, razing and then leaving b4 the big blue army machine could chew up the ickle red army

[Red Harvest]

The lone man in the castle thing is an annoying problem. The bowfire, etc. represents a sort of small stationary garrison/militia from what we can tell.

There are various reasons that you can't destroy various structures until a castle falls. The primary reason is to prevent rapid destruction of laboriously built structures on AI land. In an earlier version the initial invasion destroyed too many structures, the result was that AI factions quickly whittled their own good provinces down to low tech through "province swapping." The AI was bad about trading three or four provinces each year among multiple factions, but never assaulting the castles. Believe me, the system we have in MTW now is far superior to the old one for single play. The AI armies were usually primarily very low tech back then, partly because of the rapid loss of structures. There is not much point in fighting 2,000 peasant/dozen ballista armies.

In reality, probably quite a few structures in a province would remain intact while the main fortress held. One reason is that a number would likely be within the walls. Plus some would be within other defended locations (not shown.) While they could be destroyed, it would mean splitting your forces for "mini-sieges" and taking additional casualties. Also, in some cases, while the structure could be destroyed, the real key would be the skilled people that ran them. These people could trickle away into the countryside, etc. awaiting final disposition of the struggle.

[Soulflame]

I really hate the 1-man garrison too. And it happens alot with kings, since they can somehow escape combat when they are completely enveloped.

This is actually the reason that I almost never run down fleeing enemies when there are but a few units which got attacked. This increases the garrisson and makes sure you don't have to wait 5+ years for the castle to fall.

One time was really annoying: they had a citadel with only 15 spanish men left. It wouldn't fall without an assault, but assaulting it (with them having barbicans and all the rest) meant maybe over a hundred victims (I tested and autoresolve had 200+ men dead). So I spent 15 years, every turn burning 1 of those garrisoned guys at the stake for heresy.. heh

[Adrian II]

The lone man scenario isn't that silly, the fact of the matter is you're facing one very powerful and prestigious knight plus the generic garrison that's supposed to come with every stronghold. Remember you're moving icons on a screen, most of which are only partes pro toto, partial representations of reality. This was an age when dynastic rulers counted for something and walls were literally inpenetrable, the be-all and end-all of earthly power and prestige. So quit moaning, have a go at their walls and then get your halberdiers in there on the double, gentlemen.

[katank]

or just one assault unit and your general and autocalc the damn thing.

using a small fraction of your force to do this is very important on larger fortifications as the casualty for autocalc seems proportional to army size.

[Red Harvest]

I sometimes autocalc the 1 man things just because it is such a long waste of time on big fortifications. I never use autocalc otherwise. Unfortunately, autocalc often let you off to lightly on losses for massive fortifications. With a Citadel or Fortress armed with cats or cannon you could easily burn off 400 decent troops getting to the king hiding in a corner. And by the time you got there you were so exhausted you could lose another 100 or so before he croaked.

I wouldn't try just my king and a 100 man force. I've seen a single high star general in an upgraded castle (7 star or so, and he didn't have any "runner vice") win an autocalc against a 3 star and a couple of units (on expert.) It was something like 125 men killed with zero losses to the single man defensive army. That was a harsh lesson... Ouch! Use just as many men as you would if you were going to fight it out.

[Quietus]

When a faction is down to 1 province, make sure you bring enough archers (to shoot the faction leader since he can't be ransomed anymore).

Also, have a Steppe Cav (a must in an army; or any fast horse will do). Have it in reserve (don't use them in battle) about 2 1/2 rows deep but put it in wedge after that. Pin the AI leader with a spears and shoot him with archers. If he tries to escape, spring your steppe cavalry(should be close to the fight), he's going to be caught easy (but don't try to follow him with the other infantries, that will only slow down the fast horse).

I always catch the faction leader or important generals this way. Try to divide the AI's provinces so that you can ransom the faction leader (or heirs) multiple times till he is broke. Leaving a faction in an island is good too, so you can consolidate on the mainland. Most of the time a faction left on an island will be broke.

If the faction leader dies, then you got rebels that you can bribe or storm (depending on the situation).

[Sethik]

I usually jump out of the province and wait a turn. The 1 man automatically leaves the castle and then I just send in a single small cavalry after him. It is very annoying though.

I remember one time I changed building settings so that all castles would buildin a turn and cost next to nothing. The result was citadels in half of Europe and me waiting 6+ years for each seige because there were only 30 or so men inside...

[Oaty]

I've never had high casualties going after 1 man in a fortress. Each wall you take down by 50 percent or more stops that wall from firing. So once I breach the wall I start knocking down all the other walls halfway and only send in troops once the siege equipment is out of ammo. I've never taken more than 20 losses I believe. Also I send in cavalry even though they are bigger targets they get there a lot faster and run under most of the arrows plus if most of the walls on 1 side are knocked down it wo'nt be until they are right up near the castle until they come under fire. Another thing is a castle or a fortess with a ring wall the A.I. never camps out in the inner keep. The A.I. always runs to the other side of where the siege engines are at

[Adrian II]

I bring lots of artillery (which I replace by reg troops once they're spent) and I always start out firing at the towers, not the walls. Shots at walls usually hit the mark, shots at towers miss 2 out of 3 times even with culverins and serpentines. But if they miss the tower, they usually hit the nearest wall. This way I take care of most catapult, arrow and balista towers (in that order) as well as the walls on the side where I want to storm them. If I have any ammo left this goes into the keep and keep towers as well as the walls on the far side in the hope of occasionally hitting an enemy unit.

After that I send in high val upgraded troops, not canon fodder as most people apparently would, since a quick end to the siege cuts your losses. Ranged units are practically useless while storming a castle, I always check afterwards and no matter how well I have positioned them during my attack they rarely kill more than three or four defendants. They may serve other purposes during siege, I know, but when push comes to shove I tell them to smoke 'em if they got 'em and just watch the show.

The A.I. always runs to the other side of where the siege engines are at

Lol. After midgame when I have loads of culverins, I like to put some on a hill on the other side of the castle in a sort of artillery pincer, keeps them running.

[katank]

@red harvest, you serious? I usually have equal rank gen and use 1.5-twice number of troops as defenders and always win on expert.

@oaty, you'v enever taken more than 20 casualties in an assault? you serious? what level castles were you attacking? 2-3 burning oil attacks coudl kill as many.

@adrian, you use siege equipment the way that one is supposed to.

using cannons on opposite sides and then heavy cav streaming in will finish a siege quickly.

fodder is only used if you don't have siege weapons and need to tear down the walls.

[Oaty]

@oaty, you'v enever taken more than 20 casualties in an assault? you serious? what level castles were you attacking? 2-3 burning oil attacks coudl kill as many.

I'm being on topic here wich is when there is only 1 man in the castle. You can pretty much cut losses if you have trebuchets or better. Trebuchets can easily break the inner keep(not the keep tower) while pretty much staying out of range and taking a few hits. So I break down the walls with mass siege weapons and if you take the walls out quickly the firing comes to a near stop because you just disabled most of there arrows that were within range of them. 3 mangonels should do well even if a cat tower takes 1 out you still have a good chance of taking down 3 walls.

Now without siege equipment your right it can be just plain deadly especially if its a citadel and barbican or better. And if theres hundreds of men in there it may not be worth assaulting it because it will fall soon enough. And when it comes to assaulting I always use the elitest unit that is sure to get the job done and I'd have to say in about 1/3 of my assaults I inflict more casualties(this is assaults with siege wepons) than I take. Only thing I'll use crap units for is breaking the gates. Heres just a little hint it can take up to 4 units of urbans just to flush out 1 unit of urbans but 1 tough elite unit will flush that unit of urbans 1 cmaa is cheaper than 4 UM's. I always look what's in there and occasionaly it will be all elit units that will hold out for 3 years, that is when it is not worth it to assault the castle

The killer with sieges I always run my troops in the castle to minimize missle deaths. Whats the comp do on the battlefield runs all over the place then when its time to assault the castle they just walk up to it, now tell me that is'nt crazy.

[Procrustes]

I prefer to use a lot of spies and assassins (and sometimes inquisitors) in castle assaults when I can. They're cheap, and your chances of success are pretty good most of the time. Move them into the province with your armies or the turn right after you invade. If you have the time, seige for a year or two before you use your spies - it will increase your chances markedly. If you aren't dealing with a lone general, a successful assassination will also lower the moral of any other troops left in the fort for one year so combine your assassinations with assaults.

[Adrian II]

I like sieges and actually prefer to slug it out, but I'll be sure to give your suggestion a try in cases of persistent Papal reappearance & the like, Procrustes. I guess you send in your spies one turn later because of the watchtower/borderfort/enemy guards problem, right?

[Procrustes]

Yup - if your spies and assassins accompany your invading army you will loose a number of them to border forts, etc. Best to have them sitting in the adjacent province. Besides, their chances of success are pretty slim during the first year of most seiges, especially if you are seiging something big (like a fortress or citadel).

(Higher valor spies and assassins are better at sneaking past border forts, but some still get caught.)

EDIT - BTW, thanks for the good advice regarding seige arty. One of my player shortcomings is that I rarely seem to have built or bought enough arty, so my assaults get awfully bloody. Probably part of the reason I tend to rely so much on agents. Besides, I love getting all the goodies with a province - I hate capturing then and then having to rebuild everything (especially ports).

[katank]

siege arty is nice.

culvs make assaulting even citadels not that painful.

before cannons, I usually use catapults as the accuracy is better than mangonels or trebs.

I've seen v0 mangonels miss with all their shots and it's pretty frustrating.

catapults bounce low enough to hit and do some damage.

besides, by the time you get mangonels, you can get v1 catapults which are better.

cats also are smaller and wrecked less often.

by the time you get trebs in high, cannons aren't far off so why bother?

[Red Harvest]

I only play on expert. Don't know how anyone can claim they take less than 20 casualties against a lone holdout in a fortress or citadel on expert. Highly unlikely. Typically you take that many from arrows in the back when you actually engage him. Then there is the charge to the walls, turning, running between the walls, etc. Perhaps it works this way if you have a 7 star general on expert and are using a single unit of royal cav. Most of my castle assaults are 3 star generals or so. (Partially because this will help them get another star.) The guy in there is often high valour and won't die easily. He will often take several out on his own and I've seen these jokers make units rout. The risk of that becomes higher with a single unit charging in to engage--no supporting unit morale bonus. If it is a peasant in there, yeah, it's easy.

I'm usually not carrying around a lot of siege gear on the 1st turn of siege. Just enough to breach two walls if necessary. Cats get taken out quickly by catapult and ballista defenses on many maps. Low level cannons explode after about 3 or 4 shots. It is not unusual to only pierce the wall in one or two places. If you don't have much siege gear, then you have to storm a gate. Chances of storming a gate with less than 20 casualties are slim to say the least. Yep, I'm not for a second buying that boast about never losing more than 20.

Yes, if a person has the right army and general, they can probably take it down without extreme casualties. But I rarely have a siege heavy army in the province--it is usually a fighting army that took it. I could wait 3 or 4 turns to get a specialized siege army in place...but then I would take enough casualties that it would negate the whole purpose of delaying the assault, not to mention lost income, and extra cost of maintaining a siege force.

Regular castles, keeps, and forts are no problem. Those higher level ones are deadly.

[katank]

I find some high valor spies in the viking map esp. to be a good solution for the dilemma.

castles aren't bad but once catapult towers are integrated, it becomes pretty nasty and citadels are tough to crack with fortress almost impossible without siege.

there's also the +8 to enemy units besieged so they'll fight like hell. on expert, a total of +12 will make even peasants more or less fight to death.

[Adrian II]

Good to be on the air again, for a moment I thought I was the only one barred because of some intractable policy reason or software hiccup.

Red Harvest, your may consider keeping a sizeable siege train in tow and moving it into enemy provinces in the same turn as your regular armies. Your siege crews won't take part in the battle but may take the lead as you attack the castle in the next turn. If you don't ant them to (for instance because it's going to fall after one more turn anyway and attacking it isn't worth the effort and losses) you simply withdraw them so they won't suffer siege losses.

I wouldn't judge other peoples claims, but I do get good results in castle sieges (and I do mean castles, not forts) held by 200 defenders or less. At over 200 I never touch the castle. In some cases I lost only seventy or so, provided I managed to tear down several walls and most towers on the business side of the castle as well as use high valour and seriously upgraded assault troops. Halberdiers are my favourites for tackling defending infantry and cavalry, I only send in my own cavalry to take out defending archers. Oh, and I rarely touch castles with culverin towers and so on, simply because they outclass my siege train. Only once did I tackle a fortress with artillery barbican and all and I still carry the bruises.

[katank]

arty tower stuff is definitely not worth assaulting.

that's simply a death trap.

catapult towers are the highest my assaulting forces will possibly go up against.

I usually end up getting culverin siege trains after a while but still it's sometimes a pain.

I use halbs for grunt work too but find it very useful to upgrade their morale so they last. if no second level (+3 religious structure), I tend to use CMAA instead with some armor.

heavy cav I would use but only for dashing into an open area pounded apart by my siege or accessing enemies way on the other side that infantry woudl never be able to reach.