Castle upgrades/garrisons/confusion

[bluebird]

In my current campaign as the English, things are going very well, I have conquered the British Isles and still hold my homelands in France. I am at war with no - one and have a good revenue. My problem is castles. I have built a fortress in each province ( I upgraded each one with walls etc along the way.Was this a waste of time or do you have do build each stage to get the maxium fortress in the end? Some of my sieges in fortresses in other games took place in some weedy fortresses that fell rather too quickly.) and no army. The only units I have built are a unit of Royal knights for each province to act as governors and so the fortresses will not fall without a direct assault. Great. No problem. The royal knights can hold off 500 men at least from this position, sallying out to take out siege engines and retreating inside or starting the battle dismounted and holding position behind the last gate.
However, this is the early period (expert difficulty) and cannons have not emerged yet. Will I be able to add cannon towers to my finished fortresses or will I have to start over in each province?

Is it possible to deploy your own catapult units on top of towers? I seriously doubt it but I can't experiment with seiges.

[Darius]

It's not necessary actually. It's just there in case you think you are going to be attacked soon and want to quick build a few more defenses to hold out a bit longer. Also it is not possible to put siege weapons on the walls, though if you use catapaults and the like you might be able to arc your shots over sometimes.

[sir_schwick]

whenever you upgrade to the next fortification level, then the defence upgrades from the previous ones are included. This means that manually building the upgrades is only useful for immediate concerns or if you do not plan to upgrade the fortification to the next level for the rest of the game(pretty common in my games). Remember that the upgrades increase your siege time, so they can really frustrate the enemy.

You're playing Early/Expert as English and the French aren't eliminated? Fix that immediately, especially since it shortens your borders(Burgundy rocks, unless you have to attack it :)). While your at it take out Spain before Phillip II decides to send an armada after you.

[Quietus]

Bluebird,

All you have to do is protect the border provinces. Just protect your coasts from any possible sea invasion as well (building ships; the ai needs a chain of ships to port invade so keep an eye on that).

As you push outward, you really have nothing to worry about the other provinces.

Also, don't go on an army building contest with the AI for you will lose that competition. Don't turtle, but keep expanding.

[bluebird]

If I build up to a fortress without upgrades will the finished product have a barbican? I am sure I have fought a battle at a fortress without a barbican but I might be wrong. It is nearing the end of th 13th century now and the
French are holed up in Brittany, I've pinched Flanders after a civil war and my assasins and inquisitors have eliminated the Spanish. I hired some organ crews to help the defend the fortresses. A unit of Royal knights and an organ crew in a castle will not fall without a direct assault but what's the limit that I can put in each one before they start taking seige damage?
I've not had a war with any faction yet as there are enough rebel provinces to grab but I've not been attacked either - does the expert setting only affect the battle scenes or the stratergy map as well? Less money, more rebellions that sort of thing?

[sir_schwick]

Yeah, you only start with 4k florins and eveyr province is angry. Also the AI gets a +6 morale bonus in combat and will pull all kinds of crazy stuff. Suprised you have not been attacked.

[mfberg]

One reason to build defences after the main building is to get your governor a VnV. The smaller ones take a short time and if you tour your prince around while building them you can have the builder line maxed out by the time they become king.

mfberg

[bluebird]

Last night it all went pear shaped. The danes inherited most of western europe turned their attention to me in two turns I lost all provinces but mercia and northumbria, everyone under seige and no heirs left. managed to live out the storm though, after about ten castle assaults in a row (most of which I lost) the Danish King swallowed a cannnon ball and got himself excommunicated all in one year. I have managed to claw my lands back now but it's constant combat as I seem to be at war with everyone. I managed to win some seiges and some ran out of time - what I don't get is why some seiges have a 30min limit and some are much as 60mins - is this due to the landscape or the forces involved???

- love the way the Mongol horde and the Swiss appear in the game. Would have been nice to have a unit of No-Dachi Samurai show up on the merc panel.

[Empirate]

Battle length only corresponds to the forces involved. Those sixty minute battles had the enemy attacking with A LOT of force, I suppose.

[bluebird]

Yes, rather a lot of vikings trying to do a Kirk Douglas up the side of my castle. I remember in Shogun that battles were shorter in the winter because of the shorter hours of daylight. I'm guessing that is not the case with Medieval.

Can anyone recommend the best garrision forces? My organ guns and royal knights didn't perform as well as I had expected in combat..

[sir_schwick]

If you are in late, try Pikemen. Other than that, spearmen. Archers are decent, but cannot really shoot without causing casualties. Never come out of the walls unless you have a lot of forces. They incur huge casualties by approaching your towers and such, evne if they blast them.

[bluebird]

Yes but, if they have artillery, unless i nip out and smash them and nip back in, the walls wont last long. what I really need is a really, really fast infantry unit that doesn't take up much space. I was playing a campaign on a less difficult setting some time ago and I managed to recruit a small unit of English bandits - these guys were great, like the ninjas in shogun, they could conceal themselves and they were also pretty good at fighting. A unit of these could deploy next to a seige engine and they wouldn't know till it was too late. Problem is, these guys are rebels only and I haven't got a chance of creating the circumstances for them to emerge. - Unless that is anybody knows what factors affect which units arrive where in rebellions - could there be a way to pick and choose?? I am playing on expert and rarely have a hundred men in a fort but no rebels emerge. I think I heard somewhere that it depends on what millitary buildings are in a province but I am not convinced.

I would love to hear from anybody who has had success in bribing specialist rebels as I'd like to add a bit of variety to my army.

[sir_schwick]

No, the walls will not stand against large artillery forces. However it is very difficult to effectively destroy arrow and catapult towers, at least all the ones threatening troops. Also, once a wall is down they will have to march through tower fire and into a spearwall.

The enemy is not going to leave siege equipment ungaurded. Sending a unit of RK or fast infantry will just get them slaughtered, leaving less to help you when the towers can rain death on the enemy. Unfortunately you can only deploy within a short distance of the castle, so 'open field' camoflauged troops will not be helpful.

[Kommodus]

Hi bluebird,

Are you new to this game, or are you simply choosing to play in such a way as to make yourself the defender in castle assaults? Perhaps you enjoy this type of battle, or are simply curious about what happens when you play defensively?

As to your earlier question, you don't have to build every castle accessory. For example, if you are planning to go straight to fortress, you wouldn't build a motte before upgrading your fort to a keep. If you build the motte first, then once you get your keep, you lose the motte and it does you no good. The better path would be to get your fortress first, then add whatever accessories (ring wall/cannon towers/etc) you want - any accessories you added when you had a fort, keep, castle, or citadel would have been a waste.

I have fought very few castle defenses myself, so I wouldn't be able to tell you which units to use to defend. I know that bowmen are not much help, since they can't seem to shoot effectively past walls and gates. I would go for something that can plug a small space, such as pikemen, spearmen, or polearms, and use them stop the enemy at the gate or at a hole in the wall. Attempting to sally out would be difficult unless the enemy placed his troops and artillery in separate locations.

On the other hand, if you are actually playing to win the campaign and not just for the enjoyment of castle defenses, then you need a dramatic change in your strategy. Castles, no matter how strong they are or what you garrison them with, are not very good for defense. Strong armies are far better, and they have more flexibility as well. After all, once you get chased inside the walls of your castle, you've already lost the province and the income from it.

Some basic campaign strategy pointers include the following:

1. Don't waste much time or money on defensive fortifications. Instead, make sure you create the buildings needed to train high-quality troops.
2. Also, create buildings that improve your economy, like farm upgrades and trading posts. You'll need lots of money to build and maintain a strong army.
3. Put considerable effort into building a navy. This would've stopped the Danes' attacks, except into Wessex itself, and it would've improved your income through trade.
4. Defend your borders strongly, leaving only small garrisons in other provinces, unless you need more men to keep order. An army or defensive fortification far from your border is usually wasted.
5. Be aggressive if you want to be victorious. As other have said, you'll get nowhere by turtling.

Of course, it's my suspicion that you already know most of this, and are just trying to learn good castle defense technique. If you play to win, however, you'll almost never have to defend a castle.

[bluebird]

You are right of course. I have already played the campaign and won and and I have been playing this game to get the most out of defending and attacking castles. I have been using one large expeditionary force to plod about capturing provinces and relieving those under seige - hence the questions about garrisioning.

Anyway, this tactic, although a nightmare at first became a winning formula once I had control of the sea and before long all had fallen save the Byzantines in the southern provinces. However, due to my lack of expansion during the Early period ( no conflict = no gains ) by the ten turn ultimatum I could see that I was going to need to claim at least one province per turn to win. I gave it a huge push, sending all those seige-veteran garrisions to to front line, throwing assasins at heirs etc. Just as I reached the the end of the campaign civil war split my empire, my main army defecting and near all my provinces undefended. There was just enough game time left for the rebels to rub my nose in it before the game ended and I was shown the hitherto unseen "You Have Lost" screen.

The campaign was great fun to play though, and my units did some Spartan style defending at times. Billmen proved to be a winner in seiges. Just one lone horseman can destroy a seige engine and get back within the castle wall. Organ guns are not much good against expert troops either.
The AI should have finished me much earlier, but maybe the fortresses put them off. The expert AI performed much better in Seiges too, not just standing around getting peppered till the time expires as I have seen them do on easier settings.

I never did get those bloody bandits either.

[sir_schwick]

So were you usually able to use RKs(non-heir ones) against siege equipment successfully? I am guessing in a castle siege it does not matter if you lose most of that unit, as long as they can't take down your walls or more than one.

[Mablung]

2 or 3 Organ Guns should be able to hold the gate against all attackers, just don't fire them at once, set them to sequence - and control fire yourself! Don't want to waste shots! Place them at the first gate and hold as long as possible, have your Royal Knights dismounted (if in high or late) at the last gate to the keep. It will be damned hard to breech that, virtually all units will rout when hit by the OG salvos - in the confined space the OG does huge damage.

You cannot upgrade a Fortresses walls until you have the Foundry and then the Master Foundry IIRC.

[bluebird]

A unit of Royal knights can get to seige weapons and destroy them and get back in before losing too many. The only problem was that sometimes pursuers would jam the the first gate and stop it from closing. but with ther WMDs out of action the AI has to waste more time swapping with reinforcements. Most of the Royal knights I used were ex heirs anyhow, I had a Henry Plantagenant who could take out a bombard on his own, cut round the back of the fort and get back inside after leading enemy units around the killing zone.

The Organ advice sounds interesting- I was reluctant to fire them in case I blew out my own gate at times but perhaps I was being over - catious..

[Mablung]

Don't worry about the gate, they go fast anyway, it is just a barrier to get a few free salvos in. I have used this technique in custom battles against full enemy armies, the morale drops so low for the routing that it is easy. 3 OGs and some CFKs and you have it made - as long as you have a castle +.

[bluebird]

Royal Knights proved effective in bringind down seige engines and getting back int the castle. Sometimes they can get attacked coming back through the gate, jamming it open and causing a disaster. In this case it is better to run the unit on a fast patrol around the castle walls keeping the attacking unit under fire and away from the gate.

Will organ guns not damage my own gate? Or do I have to wait until they are opened before firing? I will have to try them out again using the staggered tactic.
The most important lesson I learned is that playing out sieges is fun and worthwhile as well. The attacker will always send at least one elite unit to break down gates and they will take most of the defenders fire so it pays to not resolve them automatically. It's also a great way to get rid of the enemy's heir units as the AI thinks nothing of throwing them against your castle walls to their death. So even if you have just one man in that castle play the battle out, your defeat is probably inevitable but the cost to the enemy will be plain to see as you survey the corpses piled around your castle.

[Mablung]

I think they do some damage to the gates but that doesn't matter, the units attacking the gates will rout incredibly quickly thanks to the devastating power of the OG salvo.