Longbowmen's stakes in sieges...

[manbaps]

used are almost like cheating. Particularly if they only have battering rams. If you place the stakes just behind the gate it turns into a massacre as the ai seems to be blind to stakes. It charges all its cavalry in and well a blood bath ensues, it made the hordes, particularly the tirmurids a cake walk. If you place more than one stake aswell i think it increases the killing ability so you can even take out most of the elephants. The ai also nearly always only knocks down the walls either side of the gate... so place stakes there aswell!!!!

[Anubis King]

i always thought about this but never tried it

[katank]

Stakes don't work against eles. Eles just crunch your stakes (runs over it and then it disappears). Try it in a custom battle. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to deploy stakes outside the gates to block battering rams.

[Dearmad]

screenshot of the bloodbath please?

[Shahed]

Yeah, sounds great to me.

[Zatoichi]

Yeah, I found out I could do this in my first English campaign, and couldn't have held onto my Middle East crusade holdings without it - the Mongols just love to be turned into kebabs!

In fact I actually raised an issue about this in the original pre-update 1 bug thread, requesting that the stake option be disabled during siege battles. However, this was not implemented in patch 1 but personally I've decided that it is a cheese tactic, and have vowed not to use it again.

Well, unless I really have to...

Mind you, I did lose my king to this tactic as he chased routers out of the gates, and when I unthinkingly ordered him to return inside the city he managed to impale himself on the spikes - oh the irony! Hoisted by his own petard, no less.

[Ice]

It seems reasonable. It makes sense defenders woud block the only entrance into the city with sharpened wooden stakes.

[Zatoichi]

Yes, but as there's only a very small minority of factions which can do it, it makes for a somewhat unbalanced advantage when defending in sieges.

On top of this, it's not a tactic the AI ever employs, suggesting even more that it is an unintentional bonus for the human player.

The trouble is, cheesy tactic or not, it's so darn tempting!

[katank]

he managed to impale himself on the spikes

Cav can actually get impaled by the stakes? I thought it was purely area denial.

[Zatoichi]

Cav can actually get impaled by the stakes? I thought it was purely area denial.

Oh yes indeedy - it can get quite messy. A lot of micro-managing can be required to avoid some serious 'friendly impaling' casualties.

[Shahed]

Yes cavalry get killed on the stakes. I've deployed a nice box of stakes around my army in custom using Jani Archers. Once the enemy army was decimated by missile, I gloriously charged out my cavalry over my own stakes and ohhh my freakin goat .......... ..... it hurt !

If enemy cavalry charge into them, they're done. Horse steak for dinner.

[Bijo]

I find it particularly funny to see how they fall off their horse in a nice 360 jump. Well, maybe not all the way 360 :P

[katank]

Can anyone confirm if they hurt eles then? I see elephants simply walk over them and they disappear.

I'm wondering if producing a dense thicket of stakes is actually a viable anti-ele strategy.

[Shahed]

The problem I see in custom is that they will just shoot the enemy to death unless they have no ammo.. but I'm going to try it.

[Shahed]

Soldiers ! Today we shall learn the Pentagon formation !


Where we stand around and get shot up! Hold the line ! *ahem*




Notice, these Eles are EXP 0, look at how many they killed with ammo alone.


They don't seem to want to charge into stakes, so I remedied that by charging one unit to lure them in.


They trample the stakes, and proceed to have lunch.


Or so they thought.


It does not work if they charge, but it might on some occasions prevent them from charging instantly.

[nameless]

I'm a little surprised no one has noticed this yet.

I see no problem with it, the AI actually will try to compensate for it.

I've used this tactic to defend a fortress in Acre where the Mongols kept besieging it.

Cavalry can pass through stakes so long as their WALKING. I've seen the AI do this during sieges where they walk their cavalry past my stakes, boy was I mad when they did that.

However, it's a hit and miss, sometimes the AI will run their units through, sometimes they don't and will simply walk. If you place it at the gates they'll mostly run through. If you put it a wee bit behind, after a couple runs the AI will compensate and order its troops to walk.

[Shahed]

Walking cavalry will usually be able to walk thtough the stakes, but it depends on good they are "pathfinding".