Sieging

[ichi]

UK is right, use a lot of arty (Culvs are best) to knock several holes in the walls in different places. I like to try to damage the points where interior walls meet the outer walls, you can kill two birds with one stone so to speak.

Once the walls are down use your remaining shots to destroy the nearest towers. Hold your infantry/cavalry back out of arrow/ballista range until ready to go in, then approach the castle in loose formation, with units side by side rather than in a column to reduce the rolling rock effect.

Try to get enough holes that you can get in and hit the defenders in the rear - this is a good use for cav. Heavy armor is the best to use in the frontal assault.

ichi

[fuddha]

Well, best tactic for sieging is not to attack. Those 54 men can be held with 100-200 men tops. Rest of your armies can then deploy as you wish. After all, you are still going to keep those 100-200 men as governor and basic defense.

Only time I attack a castle, is the time that it is absolutely imperative for me to control that province, so I can produce special units or smth like that.

And I don't see how 236 casualties could be a problem?? I've had many a seige with a lot more casualties...

[Ulair]

Assaulting a castle was, of course, a horribly messy business. The Forlorn Hope wasn't called that for nothing...

If you're really worried about casualties and really need to assault, you could make use of the (slightly cheesy) auto-resolve loophole: if you auto-resolve the assault you invariably lose fewer troops. I think I read once that this is because the comp forgets to apply the major morale bonus the defenders get in auto-resolve, but not in the real deal.

I always auto-resolve these days, partly because assaults get a bit dull after the initial "wow!" factor of the first half-dozen or so.


Ulair

[CherryDanish]

The only way to make an assault less costly, artillery and then send in heavy troops. That said, I employ slightly different tactics on using artillery.

I target towers first starting with catapaults, then balista, then arrow towers. If you miss a tower, chances are you'll hit a wall, if you miss a wall, chances are you'll miss completely. By the time I have half a dozen flat towers, I usually have as many flat walls and bagging key walls is usually easy with 1/3 or more of your ammo left. If you have ammo left with half the fortifications flat, target enemy troops.

Withdraw the artillery when out of ammo or destroyed and bring in loads of heavy infantry and cav. Send in the infantry on march, set them to run/charge when close to the walls. Send the cav in before you set the infantry to charge, try to channel your assault through different holes in the fortifications to avoid traffic jams. If done right your cav should hit the defenders seconds before your infantry arrives to support. When heavy troops are not available I use scores of archers to weed out and snipe the enemy general and cav units. On my asaults I usually walk away with a 2 to 1 kill ratio in my favour. The only fights I ever really lose anymore on "hard" are castle sieges when I play the muslims (too early for gunpowder and heavy troops by the time I reach the endgame).

Some minor advice. Castles really don't dish out much damage unless it's later in the game and they have gunpowder based artillery. Don't bother targeting artillery towers unless you are assulting an upgraded citidel and you are planning to storm the gates (take out the bastion outside the main gate). Although the AI seems to be pretty accurate on defending artillery, it's still not accurate enough to be a real threat, and will be a HUGE help to you when you get your troops inside. Their artillery will weed out your troops by the handfull, but since it will fire on you inside it's own walls, it will weed out it's own troops and knock down it's own walls.

The biggest ally for a castle defender is bad pathing. Assaulting troops will get stuck on walls where they will get torched and rained on by arrows. Always target wide open paths and use the waypoints (shift+click) to make short distances between the waypoints in straight line of sight bunny hops. Nothing sucks more than having your troops stuck on a wall somewhere when you're going after enemy missle troops with them and you're distracted because you've got the enemy general pinned with your cav.

Lastly, even if heavy troops are not available, ALWAYS use high morale troops and an expendable general. Holding a general back is likely going to get him a bad V&V, while sending him in will likely get him killed. The jedi tactic only works for defenders in siege assaults. Losing a general will likely route your troops who take a morale hit for assaulting a fortification.

[Procrustes]

I dunno, my tactics are a little different. When assaulting something small you can burn down the wooden walls and gates with just some archers - I use enough flaming arrows to make a hole then I back them out of missile range. With tougher castles I prefer a couple of arty, but you don't need a lot if you are patient. Try to find a spot where you have a little bit of a hill - gives your arty a lot more range. Situate your arty so that the castle is just barely in range - you want to be as far from the castle defenses as possible. Put your troops behind your arty. You need to be able to knock down gates or walls that will let your troops get into both parts of the castle. Once you have all the holes you need, use the rest of your arty to fire on any missile towers or just withdraw them. Now send in some cheap polearms or axes - UM, MS, vikings - and maybe some spears. Approach the castle in loose formation - you'll loose less men to arrows - and switch back to close formation just before you charge the breech. Send something versatile (not spears) through the gate first - they are likely to get chewed up. Don't worry about bringing cav - any cav the enemy has won't have the room to manuver on you inside the castle - you'll kill them a lot quicker if you just march a unit of spears at them. Same goes for missiles - your own archers will die quickly from all the fire that is coming down on them. Don't squeeze your archers into the castle assault - let them stay safe and kill the defenders by pinning them with some infantry within their own walls.

As you can see, I expect casualties but I'm trying to limit them to my cheap grunts and not by good campaigning troops. I'm not above assaulting the gates with infantry if I don't have any arty - just use something tough and/or cheap. Halbs are great for castle assaults if you can get/afford them. I use peasants sometimes, but they do route and if you have too many your whole army can mass-route. (But they're great for throwing against the gates if you have to.) Mercs can also be quite useful. I am not too good about building big arty seige trains, but I do look for any merc arty I can find - two or three pieces is usually enough even for the biggest of castles. Even though your units will take some good losses, you will find that they also kill a lot of enemy and gain a lot of valor. When you merge these remnants you may develop a bunch of uber-sgts - in my current Italian campaign I have found that I now have several units of 4 and 5 valor urban militia!

I use good generals for this all the time - I just keep them back with all the troops that aren't taking part in the assault. It still counts as a victory for your general and can help him get another star. It does not give them bad vices. Sometimes you'll even earn the "expert seiger" virtue - though I'm not sure what triggers that one.

And finally... my favorite way, when it works, is to use a spy to open the castle gates. The odds of success are usually pretty low, especially for green spies and especially if the seige has been short. But when it works you get the entire province with all the builds intact, and you don't loose a single man. Pretty cool. Another thing I'll often due is to assassinate the besieged general in the same turn I assault his castle. I may be wrong, but I believe it gives the defenders an extra moral penalty that turn. Also, it's a cheep way to train some green assassins.

[CherryDanish]

I use good generals for this all the time - I just keep them back with all the troops that aren't taking part in the assault. It still counts as a victory for your general and can help him get another star. It does not give them bad vices. Sometimes you'll even earn the "expert seiger" virtue - though I'm not sure what triggers that one.

This is part of the randomness of the game. In one campaign I held back my generals in 5 sieges and ended up with neg vices for 2 of them. I have NEVER got the expert sieger virtue, except once where I bribed a general who already had it.

I may be wrong, but I believe it gives the defenders an extra moral penalty that turn. Also, it's a cheep way to train some green assassins.

You are correct, but in sieges the moral hit isn't worth it unless you get defenders outside the wall. Once behind fortifications the enemy will not run.

[Procrustes]

This is part of the randomness of the game. In one campaign I held back my generals in 5 sieges and ended up with neg vices for 2 of them. I have NEVER got the expert sieger virtue, except once where I bribed a general who already had it.


You are correct, but in sieges the moral hit isn't worth it unless you get defenders outside the wall. Once behind fortifications the enemy will not run.

I mis-spoke - those skilled/expert/specialist seiger titles decrease the number of years you have to wait out a seige - I've gotten the first, but it seemed random as you said. The other v&v is the skilled/expert/specialist assaulter - they add command stars to your general when assaulting a castle. I've managed to get the first one in difficult assaults, but I'm not sure exactly what triggers it.

Thanks for confirming the thing about moral penalties after assasinations. I hadn't really thought that it wouldn't mean much in an assault.

P.