Strange Castle Assault

[cdeford]

Playing XL mod, Byzantines, early, hard.

When playing a faction that I know will be in the front line when the Golden Horde shows up, I use a tried and trusted method of dealing with them - upgrading the defences of the province or provinces most likely to be hit, garrisoning it/them with hand-picked troops, then withdrawing all other units.

The Horde invariably assaults the castle and even if they succeed in taking it, they've lost so many men and are so weakened that they are fairly easy to deal with thereafter. Often they fail in the assault, losing perhaps 2,000 men in the process.

However, in my current game, my first using the XL mod, things went very differently. First off, the Mongols had a lot more mortars than I've noticed before - but that's OK, that could happen. But also, they just ween't taking many casualties from the castle defences. This was in Georgia, it was a Citadel with ballista towers, and the damage seemed far less than ordinary arrow towers. I can't remember if I've ever managed to develop a province to this stage before when facing the Horde, so I don't know if ballista towers are simply not as effective as arrow towers anyway (though since it's an upgrade they should be) or whether this is a feature of the XL mod.

So the Mongols knocked down my outer wall, at which point I withdrew all my forces to the inner bailey. Thereupon, the Mongols came in through the outer gate, even though it hadn't been breached (presumably the mechanism is now assumed to be in the enemy's hands, but at that point they had no troops inside the castle). The Mongols now infested the outer bailey, and although I had missile troops inside, they took HARDLY ANY CASUALTIES either from my archers or the castle defences, while the Mongol archers shot my troops to oblivion! The result was an ignoble defeat, the loss of Georgia (and some elite troops) and absolutely no dent in the size of the Horde.

Another thing I noticed was that the Mongols were speedily destroying my huge inner stone walls just by firing arrows at them, which is hardly realistic!

So, what gives? Should I not have upgraded to ballista towers? Or are there some tweaks in the XL mod that causes this? You don't get that many assaults against well-developed castles in a game, so this may just be something I've never seen before.

On a related note, what determines how long a castle can hold out during a seige, food-wise? If you stick a decent-sized garrison in a castle, it never seems able to hold out more than a year or two.

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, cdeford!

Unfortunately, I can't answer most of your question, as I rarely bother with ballista towers. I don't *think* your problem has anything to do with the XL Mod, as I'm pretty sure the castle defenses weren't monkeyed with. I'll ask VikingHorde in his thread for the XL Mod, though, and double-check to make sure that's the case.

On a related note, what determines how long a castle can hold out during a seige, food-wise? If you stick a decent-sized garrison in a castle, it never seems able to hold out more than a year or two.

The smaller the garrison, the longer it can hold out during a siege. This is to reflect that a small garrison doesn't use up all the food stores and other supplies as quickly.

[roman pleb]

If it was possible, you probably should have upgraded to catapult towers, as that is when the Horde really begins to suffer when assaulting your castles. Ballista towers only kill a single person per shot, but a catapult can wipe out around four men, although you probably already knew that.

[The Stranger]

Arrow towers are less deadly against armoured units but fire more rapidly i thought. i guess that is the difference youve noticed

[BHCWarman88]

if your had a stronger Castle,it would have been better..

[Martok]

VikingHorde did tweak some of the projectile units, cdeford, but he doesn't specifically remember if ballistas was one of them. So it could be that your ballista towers aren't as effective in XL as they are in the regular game. In my experience, though, ballistas are of only limited usefulness anyway; catapults are much more effective.

[cdeford]

Thanks for your help Martok and everyone's replies.

I'll try to get catapult towers ready for my next game

[The Stranger]

i nver build the upgrades, like motte, bailey, ballista towers etc. cuz i never figured out why they were useful. i just upgrade all the way to fortress and than build the cannons. does it matter in the end if i build those previous upgrades?

[Martok]

i nver build the upgrades, like motte, bailey, ballista towers etc. cuz i never figured out why they were useful. i just upgrade all the way to fortress and than build the cannons. does it matter in the end if i build those previous upgrades?

Well speaking for just myself, I do build upgrades for castles that are sitting in my frontier provinces. The way I look at it, I've expanded to where I'm content with my borders, so there's no reason *not* to go ahead and add the upgrades to my border castles. This is particularly important that I do this since I often (read: a majority of the time) don't build higher than "Castle" in my outer provinces--I rarely build Citadels and Fortresses on the outskirts of my empire.

EDIT: Oh, and you're welcome cdeford.

[Come Together]

In response to the walls being knocked down from just arrows, perhaps it was your balista towers shooting at your own walls, and eventually destroying them. It's happened to me before, but its pretty unlikely that they destroy the walls on their own.

[finneys13]

Well speaking for just myself, I do build upgrades for castles that are sitting in my frontier provinces. The way I look at it, I've expanded to where I'm content with my borders, so there's no reason *not* to go ahead and add the upgrades to my border castles. This is particularly important that I do this since I often (read: a majority of the time) don't build higher than "Castle" in my outer provinces--I rarely build Citadels and Fortresses on the outskirts of my empire.

EDIT: Oh, and you're welcome cdeford.

Stupid question, but why not build higher than castles in your border provices?

[Dutch_guy]

Stupid question, but why not build higher than castles in your border provices?

Probably because they are frontier provinces, and can be taken by an enemy bordering the said province. Why waste money and time on a disaster waiting to happen ?

That's my view on the matter.

[Martok]

Probably because they are frontier provinces, and can be taken by an enemy bordering the said province. Why waste money and time on a disaster waiting to happen ?

That's my view on the matter.

Exactly, Dutch_guy.

[Ludens]

i nver build the upgrades, like motte, bailey, ballista towers etc. cuz i never figured out why they were useful. i just upgrade all the way to fortress and than build the cannons. does it matter in the end if i build those previous upgrades?

No, it doesn't. In fact, I seldom build them because they are a waste of money unles you are expecting a castle attack or a siege (IIRC they also add supplies). However, if you want to add some protection and are unable or unwilling to fully upgrade the castle they are a simple and cheap solution.

[Vladimir]

Build the minor upgrades on your borders because they give you increased defense quickly. Upgrade to at LEAST catapult towers when expecting a horde siege; I recommend building a fortress. Ballista towers will do little more than destroy your own walls. Catapult towers however, can kill the enemy general as he waits for his shock troops to breach the gate. Building the minor improvements also helps your governor and faction leader gain the great builder virtue

[The Stranger]

In response to the walls being knocked down from just arrows, perhaps it was your balista towers shooting at your own walls, and eventually destroying them. It's happened to me before, but its pretty unlikely that they destroy the walls on their own.

i had that once. my siege equipment in the castle knocked down my own walls. i also oncel set my town on fire with RTW

[The Stranger]

Probably because they are frontier provinces, and can be taken by an enemy bordering the said province. Why waste money and time on a disaster waiting to happen ?

That's my view on the matter.

hmm. i always build those upgrades on my border cities so i can create high quality armies on my borders. retrain high quality troops when they fought off an attack. the troops hold the borders and only a army that massively outnumbers me can drive me away from my borders. and with the citadels and fortresses i can sustain a siege longer. long enough to make a succesfull counter attack.

that is my point of view.