Garisson your cities and castles?

[mcederholm]

Hi

I have searched the forums for the best way to defend your strategic castles and cities, but haven't found much.

As far as I know, lots of archer troops is good, but what is the best way to defend your cities and castles?

What I want is to have as few units as possible in the castles/cities so that my full stack armies can spend their time conquering new provinces, but I want my strategic border provinces to be guarded as best as possible so that it can defend properly or at least put up a very good fight that will decimate the attacker enough so that I can more easily re-take the city...

any thoughts?

thank you for everything on this forum!

//Matthew

[econ21]

Good question and welcome to the Org!

I've found it hard to have a "just adequate" garrison. Whatever is big enough starts to look like a proper field army. So I've started gravitating towards just a token garrison with a field army stationed within a day's reach to rush to their aid. Ideally, one army can cover 2-3 settlements. Obviously, you can come unstuck if a spy opens the gates...

When thinking about garrisons, I tend to prioritise swords - I need something strong to hold the walls. For the gates, I am less sure - it seems more like a matter of attrition. Both swords and spears will lose men to AI cavalry and swords. Plus the AI is pretty smart at blasting at least 3-4 holes in the wall, which brings me back to my original point - 3-4 spears, plus swords, plus archers, plus backup to cope with the attrition = close to one of my field armies.

[zverzver]

This is too big of a question as there are so many strategic issues to take into account. If you give a more detailed account of your situation I may have some thoughts for you. Who are you playing, what is the situation with your neighbours, how is your economy, what cities you need to protect, what turn is it and so on.

Sorry for no usefull info.

[mcederholm]

My thoughts with the question was to get some general advice regarding defending castles/cities.
When I played france, I didn't use archers at all, but now playing the Byzantine, I have a lot of trebizond archers around.

But as econ21 says, when you're up to 3-4 swords, spears and archers, your above a half stack, and suddenly, it's more of an army than a garisson...

I've heard though that even peasant archers are valuable when defending a castle.
Is militia any good (except for italian militia that I know is good) for defense? Or should one use better troops?

//Matthew

[sapi]

The ideal garrison would be professional troops (hybrid units like byz guard archers are perfect as they can beat most units in melee) supported by a general's cavalry unit, but it's hard to get them and as you said, it quickly becomes something that would be more useful as a standing army....

[econ21]

I use militia in cities because it is free upkeep, but I've virtually never beat off an AI assault with it. Typically the AI has dismounted feudal knights or other swords that tear through militia. I also find that, without a general, low grade men such as militia tend to break eventually during attritional conflict (VH difficulty).

Archers are ok on the principle of making your enemy suffer from the assault - I target the nasty units to thin them out in preparation for when I come back for vengeance. I still tend to lose more men than the AI, but to honest, I don't mourn militia whereas the AI will feel the loss of its spearhead units.

[sapi]

econ, if you position your militia in schiltrom formation near the gate, but with enough room to let the ai in (i'm presuming you're using spear militia), they will fight and die to the last man.

Since the AI likes breaking down your walls, wait until one of the attacking forces is repulsed and send your general outside the breach and charging into the back of the enemy attacking through the gatehouse and/or another breach.

On vh difficulty they'll break almost instantly.

[vitch]

I like to fill up the militia spots and an archer unit but always have a spy in my own cities too. Your own spies can detect and kill enemy spies and hopefully avoid the open gates scenario. The AI prefers to seige than attack straight away if the gates are closed so you usually have time to redirect reinforcements to your beseiged city.

During the AI turns you may spot enemy spies that you don't get notified about (accompanied by the heartbeat sound effect). So if you see/hear that get one of your own spies in there quick.

[KARTLOS]

My thoughts with the question was to get some general advice regarding defending castles/cities.
When I played france, I didn't use archers at all, but now playing the Byzantine, I have a lot of trebizond archers around.

But as econ21 says, when you're up to 3-4 swords, spears and archers, your above a half stack, and suddenly, it's more of an army than a garisson...

I've heard though that even peasant archers are valuable when defending a castle.
Is militia any good (except for italian militia that I know is good) for defense? Or should one use better troops?

//Matthew

militia troops are fine, often they are equally as good as equivelent proffessional troops so i wouldnt worry about using them, particularly in castles.

my suggested garrisoning force would be a mix of archers and spearmen, 4 of each can withstand a much larger army. having a unit of light cav is useful for harrassing ladder units and clearing up the routing enemy. the cheapest units such as slav levies, town milita and peasants do have some value at seiges as well as they are adequate for defending walls as the defender seems to get massive wall defence bonuses.

often i find the enemy have a fair number of cavalry at seiges. they then often break your door in with a ram. plug the gap with your spearmen, the cav then slowly advance onto the spear points and shit loads will die. often their general dies like this and then the rest of the troops will break. if you manage to position your cav outside the walls you can create a situation were the enemy fighting in your doorway rout and then run straight into your cav.

another factor to bear in mind is that if you are at peace or in alliance with your neighbours, having a well garrisoned (near to full stack) settlement by the border will put them off breaking the agreement to the point that it will never happen - the ai only tends to seriously attack winnable targets. thus it is better to garrison border settlements with more troops than inland ones.

[KARTLOS]

I use militia in cities because it is free upkeep, but I've virtually never beat off an AI assault with it. Typically the AI has dismounted feudal knights or other swords that tear through militia. I also find that, without a general, low grade men such as militia tend to break eventually during attritional conflict (VH difficulty).

Archers are ok on the principle of making your enemy suffer from the assault - I target the nasty units to thin them out in preparation for when I come back for vengeance. I still tend to lose more men than the AI, but to honest, I don't mourn militia whereas the AI will feel the loss of its spearhead units.

i find milita fine for defending - it is best to be fighting in a plughole situation such as your broken gate or a breach in the walls.

i agree about the risk of them breaking due to low morale - a general helps for this but so does having 3 or 4 units fighting in the same tight spot.

[KARTLOS]

My thoughts with the question was to get some general advice regarding defending castles/cities.
When I played france, I didn't use archers at all, but now playing the Byzantine, I have a lot of trebizond archers around.

But as econ21 says, when you're up to 3-4 swords, spears and archers, your above a half stack, and suddenly, it's more of an army than a garisson...

I've heard though that even peasant archers are valuable when defending a castle.
Is militia any good (except for italian militia that I know is good) for defense? Or should one use better troops?

//Matthew

it goes without saying that any city should have at least its full implement of free upkeep milita troops. (obviously they provide a public order bonus as well)

[Moah]

Of course as Scotland you get Pike Militia and Heavy Pike Militia as free upkeep in cities - they can really hold a breach! Vastly superior to spears.

Watch out for enemy archers though.

And I haven't tried them on Castle walls yet so I don't know how effective they are against ladders and siege towers. The AI keeps abandoning sieges against me so I haven't tested them as much as I'd like. I also find it hard to curb my natural instinct of "Relief army! Attack the rear!" to drive them off.

[dismal]

I would first differentiate between "internal" and "border" cities.

An internal (i.e. one that has no border with another faction) city tends to face about zero chance of being attacked. These also tend to be mostly converted and have minimal unrest issues. I usually garrison these with no more than free militia units - about 50/50 spear militia and some sort of ranged milita unit. Though it harldy matters.

Border cities I tend to have garrisoned with professional armies. Generally, with whatever army recently took them. Usually, when I take a city I leave the army there while I start building churches, and maybe a defensive spy. After a couple turns, I'll start making militia so I can move my professional army on to the next target. I might have to leave as much as half a stack behind for a while to keep order until things settle down, but eventually those border cities become internal cities if I keep moving forward. Castles can be drawn down much more quickly, and generally captured castles are quickly put to work retraining/replacing troops that are lost or need to be left behind for garrison/order issues.

There is a bit of an art to when it is time to "de-militarize" a city. I might be more or less aggressive about it depending on how much I need the troops elsewhere. I suspect this is where I am not as aggessive as the hardcore rushers, who would just keep pushing forward leaving as small a garrison as possible even in their just conquered cities. The phrase "the best defense is a good offense" applies quite well to TW games.

With the patch's increased naval invasions, the AI has a jones for certain cities that it will keep trying for over and over. These cities require a little more garrison, but I find that even 8 or 9 units of mixed archer/spear militia are usually up to the task of defending walls.

I also am quite methodical about building watchtowers so I get plenty of warning about potential attacks. With the new multi-unit training queues, you can grow a garrison very significantly within a couple turns if you need to.

[Foz]

Several people have suggested keeping minimal garrisons and instead keeping larger armies nearby to aid against sieges. This is a pretty good idea from what I've seen, but I have a somewhat different take on it. Primarily, I use some cavalry for this purpose, freeing up the bulk of my forces to continue the offensive. They have the best movement on the campaign map, and so represent the best chance of covering multiple provinces at once. Likewise they enter battle in great position to flank the enemy when alleviating a siege, and with greater speed they can influence the engagement at a much earlier time than most other units could conceivably do so. It's a similar tactic to keeping cavalry by the side door(s) of a settlement when defending so they can go right out in the field and wreak havoc on the enemy... except it spreads the same cavalry units across multiple settlements, and therefore should be more efficient. Fighting on multiple fronts is an immensely useful position to force upon the enemy when he sieges you, and cavalry (whether in the city garrison or coming to the rescue) seem to be the best way to get the job done.

[dumas]

This is cheap, but effective.

I normally have about 4 archer/xbow militia (or whatever the number the town can support for free) and 2 trebuchets. If the attacking enemy doesn't have trebuchets, I greet them on the first turn and fire away from behind the walls. Even if the enemy have catapults, the AI seem to get them out of range 90% of the time and they just sit in the middle of their formations and not firing (but getting hit by my longer ranged trebuchets). If the enemy catapults do fire at my walls or if they have trebuches, I get a group of archers outside in loose formation and the catapults will always change the target to the archer unit outside. Then, I make that unit run along the wall to dodge the catapult fire and also to make sure that the missed catapult boulders don't land in the same part of the wall. Enemy calvary don't seem to charge as long as the running archer units stick pretty close to the wall, and even if they do, they'll be heavily damaged by the wall defence and your other archers. Enemy archers are likely to follow your archers outside, but their formation will be facing the running archers and in the range of your archers on the walls. If your group of archers don't survive before the enemy catapult runs out of ammo, send another one out.

By the end, your 2 trebuchets would have cut down a full stack of enemy to less than half while you sacrifice one or two of your archer units. Added bonus is that half the time, you end up killing the enemy general and they just leave the field lifting the seige. Hopefully, you have at least a half-stack of "real" army roaming around to clean up the mess on the next turn.

[Skott]

Personally, I find defending in the streets the easier thing to do if I'm unable to sally out and meet the enemy before they assault. In most cases the enemy puts holes on either side of the gatehouse and then tends to destroy all towers before advancing into the city. This is usually too many holes for me to try and defend against so I take advantage of the city's winding streets (they usually arent straight like in RTW) and plug them with lots of infantry with cats and archers to the rear. The AI doesnt use flanking side streets like they did in RTW. In most cases it tries to advance down just one avenue and sometimes down two but in most cases it selects the most direct path. This is easier to defend against. You can defend the walls and have men standing on them till the end but whoever controls the city square is the victor.

Mass men in depth is the trick to street fighting. In RTW you didnt need to use depth as much because the cavalry in RTW wasnt as strong as it is in MTW2. In this game AI cavalry can just walk thru troops (which is bs IMHO but nothing one can do about it) so you have to make sure your troops have depth instead of one solid line. Basically just plug the street with infantry masses. If you have cavalry of your own you can run them around behind to hit the enemy in the rear but if you are forced to withdraw them be sure not to retreat them back around to your city square because the pursuing enemy forces may follow. Have them withdraw somewhere away from the city square until the pursuing enemy gives up the chase.

[SnowlyWhite]

militia for cities(how many are free upkeep, spear militia as they have 75 men - not that riots are the problem that it was in rtw, but... out of rtw habbit:p), 2-3 pessies in castles.

In all honesty... the ai attacks are obvious from so many miles away, you have plenty of time to get back(ok, I'm watchtower obsessed, and 90% of the time I have a spy in every enemy city on my border). Also, the ai NEVER(or ok, in ~10 long campaigns, I never noticed it) sieges you when you're already attacking one of his cities unless you share a huge border.
Combine the above with the ai's passion for carrying tons of siege eq/artilery which makes his armies crawl and you should have plenty of warning. Also, as a side note, never saw him assaulting in the 1st turn(even when he has siege eq., he'll just sit there patiently to build his ram only to bombard your walls in the next turn...).

When I just conquered the city:

- it already has a trained spy in it(I keep training them till they reach max. - just go in the city again and again every turn) so the chance he gets in a spy vs. my guy with 9-10 skill is close to nil(not that he uses the opened gates anyway, but...);
- I redo my units, and what needs training I gradually send back to retrain(3/turn, or whatever, so the garnisson is all the time still close to full);
- in the mean time I build churches/townhalls(everything useful that the ai never builds);
- stack is back to full, some militias are trained, go for the next city; or stay there, whatever...

When I don't want to attack the faction and it's obvious that he prepares to attack me:

- 6-7 spear militia; ok, prolly I'd use more if it'd be very late in the game, however, very late ingame you have so many troops that it hardly matters(and he has so few:p) plus probably you can field 2/3rds of a stack in any desired city in 1 turn when you feel he's about to attack(each city/castle produces 3 units, and you should have at least 2 cities near enough).
- 1-2 pessie archers(highly optional);
- 1-2 cav. units(to chase the routers). Mailed knights or whatever should do just fine.

This should hold perfectly against anything bar mongol/timurids, but those are another story anyway. When he sieges, I just drop all the imagination I might have and just blob my militias to repel his attack. He does 2 holes on the left wall section near the gate, 2 on the right, so I can put my schildoms there in the deploy fase as he always does them in exactly the same place. Make sure the units are close enough to the wall where I know he'll make the holes in order to allow only few soldiers in at a time. Abit on the left/right too, so he can't charge at all, because he'll have to go around the wall abit.
If he has a general, lucky me, because you'll kill him very fast(general being mounted and the ai charging like the french at crecy, needless to say the general reaches the hole 1st and insists in fighting your spearmen till he dies - I know that a bg unit can mop a spear militia like no tommorow on open field with charge, however he can't charge here).
If he doesn't have siege machines... you fight on the walls, which already gives a huge bonus... I put 4 or so militias on the walls, and the other 2-3 are sent where it seems to be hotter. If I want to be nasty, I pull my cav. out through the gate and charge in his back(main gate is just fine, he'll ignore you anyway - that suppossing he didn't use the ram, if he did... side gate). Charge in the back, his units already worn out abit, morale penality due to them being in a big blob... they break on charge like no tommorow...

[kublikhan3]

Unless I am defending against a crusade or Jihad, I keep just enough troops to maintain order. Everything else gets dumped into my field armies. This lets you take the fight to them, instead of sitting around with an expensive garrison waiting to get attacked.

[JCoyote]

If you have access to them, sword militia are great for defending walls, and inexpensive.

[mountain goat]

playing as denmark , norse swordsmen mixed with merc spear and any heav cav works fine.

norse swordsmen hold the line and cut through most units. spears hold up the gates or blocks in the walls , while cav charges the flanks .

[TevashSzat]

I say, if you can defend your city by just creating a killing zone at where ever the enemy breaks a hole in your wall, just mass at the city square. No matter what your enemy has, having a decent sized garrison right next to the city square fighting at bottlenecks will be extremely effective. Having 3 or 4 units of cavalry helps out too since the city streets are ideal for a charge because once a mass rout starts, your cavalry can just run down the streat and capture everyone

[gingergenius]

1. Try to have a general in each city. unfortunately for me, I have thousands of yoots in my family tree but none are of age and my other generals are dropping like flies. Not enough adoptions.

2. All you need is archers (preferably fire) and spearmen. Put all your archers on the walls facing the enemy, form your spearmen blocking off the gate and the main road through to the main square - enemy AI isn't able to work out another route to the centre square so make sure the main throughway is blocked off.

3. When the enemy begins to advance with its men, it might be worth moving your archers back behind the spearmen. Or you could keep them on the walls, where they will kill more enemy but suffer more losses.

[caius britannicus]

I find swordsmen miltia highly effective at defending cities. My garrisons are normally 50% sword militia (they man the walls, even on VH they can defend the walls against knights) 25% crossbow miltia (they are on the walls also firing on ladders and towers) and 25% spears who guard against cavalry that will eventually try to get into the city via the main gate. If the enemy has seige equipement I get all my men off the walls and defend the main square. The formation is normally spears defend the front of the choke point against cavalry charges while the swords wait behind. My crossbows are dispersed around the city (keep them moving) to fire into the flanks of enemies.

Cavalry is only so usefull. Inside the city they are just dead men riding horses slowly through the streets. Sometimes I send them out to try and get the siege equipment or attack the seige towers. I generally leave ladders alone because they are dead when they try and attack the sword militia on the walls and are whittled down by crossbows.

[socks]

A good thread. I thought Id post this query on the end of it as it's relevant - when one is garrisoning a castle, does the 'free' allowance pay for troops that cannt be trained there, such as militia?

[sapi]

Nope - in unmodded M2TW, castles cannot have free garrisons

[SadCat]

A good thread. I thought Id post this query on the end of it as it's relevant - when one is garrisoning a castle, does the 'free' allowance pay for troops that cannt be trained there, such as militia?

With out a Mod there is no Free in castles that I can find. With some Mods only some of the men that can be recruited there will be free. Not Militia. SadCat

[socks]

thanks guys

[Frederick_I_Barbarossa]

Generally speaking, my standard city garrison is the following:

-However many militia infantry can have free upkeep
-that many and half again of archers
-1-2 heavy infantry units

As for castles, my field armies generally live in castles.

[Per Ole]

I always use militia, and in all but the most devestating sieges I can hold them off.
In a large town, I have 3 spear militia. In small city, 2 spears 2 archers. In large, 2 spears 2 archers 1 merchant cavalry. Huge city I have 3 spears 3 archers and 1 merch cavalry. In addition to his I *always* have family members in bordering provinces.

Of course, if I play a faction that gets better then spear militia for melee (Like urban militia or voulge militia) I use those instead

[Askthepizzaguy]

I have found it easy to defend a settlement with cheapo town militia. Archers are fine additions, but they can't really hold their weight in melee and they are useless if the enemy brings artillery. They also aren't very good at lighting the enemy seige equipment on fire, so I see them as largely pointless unless you have LONG RANGE archers with a high missile attack and a decent melee rating. Then they are worth more than infantry.

That's if you decide to build a garrison to begin with. I generally just stick with the cheapest and most volumous unit of peasants/militia I can find. Then I have a giant pile of well trained and armored militia units as a roving defensive force to repel invaders. Lots of my heaviest militia infantry, armored completely (costs nothing more in upkeep, and you have stronger units for your buck) plus archers and perhaps a unit of heavy cavalry as a captain, or a crappy general's unit.

This is the most cost-effective defensive force. Nothing too difficult to recruit, not too expensive to maintain, perfect for defending settlements or reclaiming them at home, but not so great on a long offensive mission.

Good for maintaining your borders. No sense in putting a good garrison inside a city deep within your territory. So I have them within a day's march of anything near my border cities. I use watchtowers and spies to tell me what is coming.

I use all my GOOD troops to attack other nations. But this is a good mixture of what you need on the home front.

Remember, one large stack of defensive troops is better organized and better prepared than several small ones scattered throughout your territory. You can defend yourself against real invasions with a big stack, a small garrison is just too inadequate, and a medium sided garrison is too expensive. You need relief forces.

So just use relief forces and your FREE milita inside the city. The free militia delays the seiging forces and the relief forces smash them by overwhelming numbers of defensive troops. Just keep your troops organized, use them defensively, and keep your captain alive. At the very least you should completely cripple the invaders, allowing you to repel them on the next wave, and send them home limping even if you dont beat them on the first assault.

12 units of spearmen, the rest mostly militia archers, swordsmen, or horse archers. Whatever you have that is cheap and can compliment a giant army of infantry. Plus one well-armored captain or general unit.