i'm talking about the square in the middle of a town that your defending or attacking. the square which gives victory to the attacker if he can hold it for 3 mins.

I'm playing the carthaginian campaign now playing on veryhard/medium(read in other threads that on very hard you can get unusually results in battle) and its clear that even when outnumbered 1-4 against an entire roman legion you can still win if you block the chock point leading to the square. In a large city there would be 4 chock points but the enemy would only come through 2. My army consisted of 2groups of spearmen(the one without phalanx), 2 groups of liberian infantry, and 2groups of long shield calvarymen. the roman army consisted of 20full groups of men along with a family member. forgetting the walls. and defending the gate i started by plaing my men in the square at the start of the battle allowing the enemy to take the walls uncontested. 1 group of spearmen blocking each of the 2 chock points the romans would use and 1 group of liberian and calvary as support. waited till i saw 1 of their groups start to waver before sending in my calvary this action broke their spirits and they started running after i moped one of the lanes. i helped the other were i killed their general this made the other group flee and all i had to do was mop them up. total losses. 100+ killed 2.5k. could not get the remaining 300+ as they were 2 close to the walls that they had now conquered.

This method is proven time and time again. only with a larger army. this gives a huge advantage to the defending faction. try this and you will never lose a city again. =)