Garisson your cities and castles?

[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