Anyone Else Hate Assaulting Settlements?

[Quickening]

Finished my English campaign earlier today and it reminded me how frustrating and dull assaulting and defending cities is. The pathfinding is infuriating beyond belief very often.

But that was nothing compared to when I tried an Egyptian campaign for the first time.
The rebel settlements of Dongola and Jedda are a bloody nightmare. Especially Jedda. After getting slaughtered attempting to take these places the first time I started my campaign again and got the same results. I don't want to waste precious turns at the start besieging them and it seems like such a waste to ignore them.

God dammit!

[TevashSzat]

Always autosolve when besieging someone since you tend to get less casualties than what is possible since the game doesn't take into account of the wall and defender advantages when autoresolving.

[Quickening]

Always autosolve when besieging someone since you tend to get less casualties than what is possible since the game doesn't take into account of the wall and defender advantages when autoresolving.

Yeah but then I may as well play Europa Universalis 3.

[HoreTore]

I do not recommend auto-calcing at all, actually... The only times I do, is when I have a full stack army vs a unit or two...Just can't stand my horrible framerate to whack a few stragglers...

But I do believe you need to reconsider your siege tactics. Simply running a ram through the gate and then pour all your troops inside aint the best way to do it.

[Quickening]

I do not recommend auto-calcing at all, actually... The only times I do, is when I have a full stack army vs a unit or two...Just can't stand my horrible framerate to whack a few stragglers...

But I do believe you need to reconsider your siege tactics. Simply running a ram through the gate and then pour all your troops inside aint the best way to do it.

What is then when, for much of the game you only have access to battering rams?

[econ21]

I dislike assaulting settlements - I tend to starve the cities out to avoid the chore. Often it is either too easy (the garrison is pitiful) or too hard (try storming Caernarvon early on as England in VH/VH - it can be a laugh, with three defending longbows on the walls playing merry hell with your militia's morale).

However, if you force yourself to do it - as I had to in our HRE PBM in the throne room - it can be fun working out some tactics to minimise casualties even when all you have are a ram or two (or none), some militia and a general. Here's what I came up with:

The "he's behind you" tactic:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...46&postcount=3

The "ladder feints" tactic:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...4&postcount=12

The "how to take a settlement with no siege engines" tactic:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...9&postcount=21

Cambyses II said the above were exploiting the AI rather than genuine tactics and he had a point, but still it was interesting discovering them. But an underlying principle is to overload the defence with multiple threats and so be able to work a force into the settlement without having to simply hack through a breach. It's harder to pull off with castles (only one gate).

[HoreTore]

Hm, dongola and jedda only have the first level of walls? Then they should be incredibly easy to take... First off, don't assault the gate. Instead, take your army to one side of the city, and batter down a wall section. shoot the defenders through the hole, then charge. Always seek out ways to hit the enemy from two directions, and keep them away from the center as long as possible.

[Quickening]

Hm, dongola and jedda only have the first level of walls? Then they should be incredibly easy to take... First off, don't assault the gate. Instead, take your army to one side of the city, and batter down a wall section. shoot the defenders through the hole, then charge. Always seek out ways to hit the enemy from two directions, and keep them away from the center as long as possible.

Actually Jedda doesn't have any walls whatsoever but it has such a damned big garrison to begin with. I can only spare about two regiments of spear militia and two regiments of peasant archers and a general to send there but they get annihilated. The AI keeps its forces clusterred in the centre of the town so they are unbreakable basically. Sending a larger army hardly seems worth it. Jedda itself is way out of the way and just seems like one big hassle.

[HoreTore]

The obvious answer is to wait it out. That only takes 2 turns, and you can then use your archers to pepper them, the general to charge and the spear militia as reserves.

It doesn't take any more time than what would have been used to construct siege equipment anyway.

[Miracle]

You aren't suppose to assault Jedda and Dongola that early.

It's better to take Acre first then Jihad towards Antioch with nearly all of your early game forces.

You can take care of Jedda and Dongola later on when you can send down some Mamluk Archers to starve them out.

Once you've teched up you can use Trebuchets and Tabardariyya (post-1.2) to smash down the walls and chop up the defenders. If possible use ships to transport them so you can avoid any HA armies along the way.

[dismal]

The problem is it's hard to take a city with 4 weak units?

[Quickening]

The problem is it's hard to take a city with 4 weak units?

A rebel city right at the start of the game yes.

Anyway I restarted my game and ignored those two rebel towns. Not that any of the other rebel places around Jerusalem are any easier!
My faction leader just died assaulting one of them. Tough game.

[Empirate]

It should actually be quite easily manageable to take the settlement with your units. Try advancing one unit of archers so they are just in range of the town center. About half a bowshot back, deploy your second unit of archers. Keep your general near to this second unit. When your first archer unit fires at the defenders in the square (keep them in loose formation if the defender has missile troops, too), some melee unit usually charges out to see them off. Run your first archers away once the enemy meleers get close, while the second archer unit shoots them up. The enemy won't usually run after your skirmishing archers for long, they daren't leave the settlement proper. Instead, they return to the town square... which means you can rinse and repeat until you feel ready to assault the town square. Your general might even find himself in position to charge at the enemy meleers once in a while. You'll probably lose most of one unit of archers if the enemy has missiles, but apart from that you should be able to severely cut your losses if the enemy doesn't have many more troops than you.

[Razor1952]

Certainly assaulting settlements can be hard, particularly if you do frontal assaults.

Strategically I think they are quite good as it forces you to not be lazy and blast the opposition. I always try a multiple sided attack and try and out flank the defenders.

Climbing ladders into a well defended city will almost always fail unless you have used seige equipment or flanking strategy.

Obviously attacking armies will suffer more than defenders so look on them as more challenging strategically.

[Furious Mental]

Well yeah if you try to take a settlement with a seriously inferior army you will probably get beaten. I would have thought it would go without saying.

[Foz]

The obvious answer is to wait it out. That only takes 2 turns, and you can then use your archers to pepper them, the general to charge and the spear militia as reserves.

It doesn't take any more time than what would have been used to construct siege equipment anyway.

I tend to agree here, the waiting is not too awful at the beginning of the game, especially since you get to fight an easier sally where you're likely to have substantially more survivors which means you can decisively attack somewhere else much sooner (more men survive to be used in other endeavors).

Be careful though: with a force that small, you can still lose the sally.

[Didz]

Assuming you have the battle timer off I would recommend a systematic approach to any seige or assault.

Breach the walls (Not the gate) preferrably opposite one of the main raods to the settlement centre. If you have any artillery take out any dangerous looking towers first.

Having made the breach move forward your missile troops and place them as close to the breach as possible so that they fire through it into the defenders on the other side. (You will probably need to limit firing to one unit at a time, otherwise you are wasting missiles.)

If the enemy bunch on the approaches to the city centre as they sometimes do then then use massed fire arrows to thin their ranks and panic them.

If the enemy fall back from the breach and approachs to the town centre then move your best heavy infantry through the breach and order them to block the approach roads, remembering to cover the approaches from right and left not just the main route to the centre (especially if the enemy has cavalry). Choose this location with care preferably just behind a point where the street narrows and never with a side road just behind one of your flanks (unless you have a spare unit to block that too).

Having established a foothold inside the walls move selected units of missile troops through and deploy them just ahead of your blocking force on the road to the town centre. (Don't let them fire at will, they will just waste arrows in house walls, choose deliberate targets and use fire arrows if the fire is parabollic)

Move the blocking force and missile screen forward slowly preferably using the overwatch system where one group stands firm and the other moves.

Let the missile unit trigger counter attacks by the defenders along the street and then kite the attackers onto the heavy infantry or spearmen and let them deal with the attack. (Remember to switch 'Skirmish mode off' on the missile unit otherwise it will do really weird things, and don't leave your withdrawal too late as missile troops tend to dither before running.)

Rinse and repeat, until your assault group reaches the town centre or the enemy runs out of troops, or both. Upon reaching the town centre don't move anything inside the flagged objective area. Move forward and deploy your heavy infantry around the edge and then march any remaining missile units forward and empty the rest of your missiles into the defenders clustered around the objective.

If you run out of arrows before killing them all bring up your cavalry to deliver the 'coupe de gras' or merely have your infantry finish them.

I find this minimises my casualties during an assault and the only real threat is usually the General's Personal Bodyguard who can normally chew up the blocking force if its formation isn't solid enough to prevent penetration.

The AI seems to do best when the human player rushes the breach and then attempts to rush on to the town centre. Units get very distended in the narrow streets and if not allowed to reform regularly become easy meat for defending cavalry. Its much better to force the defenders to come to you and suffer this disorganisation themselves instead.

[Daveybaby]

I find myself autocalcing sieges more and more lately. Not in order to reduce losses (i actually find the way it applies losses equally among your troops to be fairly annoying) but because i find them to be a bit of a chore.

Camera control is really tricky around the walls, it's really hard to get units deployed where you want them inside the city, and, at the end of the day, its just not difficult enough (archers on the walls should be cutting you to pieces but theyre not - as discussed in that recent thread).

Also they tend to take ages - after the initial breakthrough there's often that long dragged out bit where the two bunched up armies slog it out along one road. In theory i should send units around the back to flank them but it takes so long to do that i can never be bothered.

[Didz]

I tend to keep myself amused by reading the gravestones in the churchyard and just enjoying the scenery. I find I can spend more time watching the action during seiges because there is less tactical movement going on that has to be monitored. So, you can enjoy watching your favorite spearman kick an enemy archer in the crotch before stomping on his head. Getting the camera down and dirty at street level really makes you appreciate the graphic's, but its difficult to do on the battlefield because there is too much going on.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

I tried a RTW 1.5 siege and must say it has improved immensely in EB. The units in RTW did't care if you moved the siege tower around, they never manned walls to repell new threats after initial placement and basically never responded to any changes.

[_Tristan_]

If you run out of arrows before killing them all bring up your cavalry to deliver the 'coupe de gras' or merely have your infantry finish them..

Actually, it's the "coup de grâce" but you've narrowed it to essentials...

I concur with your strategy on sieges, with a few variations here and there.

[Empirate]

I totally agree with Didz: In a siege, you are finally able to get a closer look at the awesome graphics of this game. I really like to do that - although there are probably a few too many siege battles in the game. The graphics are really nice, of course, but in a field battle you don't get much out of them. It's best to stay zoomed out to the max in order to keep everything under control. It's not as bad as in Supreme Commander, but still... so the tactically less challenging siege battles provide nice breathing room to actually see those finishing moves we all got so worked up about before the game was out.
(The one I like the most is when a polearm wielder draws the feet out from an enemy soldier, causing him to fall down. Then he delivers a punishing two-handed stroke from on high. Ouch!)

[Eng]

Actually Jedda doesn't have any walls whatsoever but it has such a damned big garrison to begin with. I can only spare about two regiments of spear militia and two regiments of peasant archers and a general to send there but they get annihilated. The AI keeps its forces clusterred in the centre of the town so they are unbreakable basically. Sending a larger army hardly seems worth it. Jedda itself is way out of the way and just seems like one big hassle.

When i took jeeda I sent 2 ballista units with flaming shots they shot every oen in the plaza taking no cassulties they were only a little amout of people left inside jedda

[TeutonicKnight]

I love attacking cities. I enjoy those battles the most, esp when the enemy has a good stack defending.

I absolutely despise attacking a fortress or a citadel, but I'll take on a castle at most. If it's bigger than a castle, I'll starve it out, or autocalc if I'm pressed for time for some reason.

Fortress and citadel seiges are absolute meatgrinders, esp before gunpowder. I've lost seiges where I had a 2 to 1 advantage because of all the towers. If I have to go through more than one gate, it's a starvation situation. :)

[Foz]

Fortress and citadel seiges are absolute meatgrinders, esp before gunpowder. I've lost seiges where I had a 2 to 1 advantage because of all the towers. If I have to go through more than one gate, it's a starvation situation. :)

I call it an "artillery situation."

Seriously some good catapults, trebs, or gunpowder artillery make short work of the walls, and can easily be used to clear multiple levels after eliminating towers from the breached area of the first level. Also note that you can target gates with artillery, and they probably have less HP than chunks of wall, so you'd get through faster.

A pair of artillery units can do wonders for an otherwise tough assault...

[John_Longarrow]

Normally I prefere to avoid arty in a siege. My preference is to get a spy in and then use cav to overrun anyone defending the gate. Basic shock tactics with heavy cav.

As soon as those holding the gate run, my follow up heavy infantry and archers can get in pretty quickly. Then I can generally bait someone to sally from the centeral fort (if needed) and overrun the gait again. If its a city I can normally keep the AI disorganized enough that they come to the center rather piecemeal to face my cav waiting for them. This can be great fun if you've got javelin cav that can sit in the center and tear up anything closing in while your infantry moves to box the defenders out of their own town center.

I've noticed this does take a bit of planning, especially in the order you send your troops to the gate. If you try to mob your way through your cav gets bogged down and you run into major problems. I normally have either three heavy cav lead the assault or a generals body guard and what ever heavy cav I've got. This is followed by the lighter cav then the infantry and archers. This way I can start funneling the AI quickly and push them around, thus keeping them from concentrating. It also greatly reduces the impact of towers.

NOTE: This is in single player as I have to pause a LOT to keep troops going where I need them and NOT doing something dumb.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Hmm I like choking a street with a unit of spears then bringing in a monster bombard and firing through your troops into the densely packed mass behind.

[Philbert]

I think sieging is an elementary part of this game, and I like it.
What I usually do is have at least 2 artillery units (pref. trebuchets or cannons), to take out the 2 gate-towers and the 2 towers next to it, and to produce 1 breach left and 1 breach right of the gate, in that order.
Then I send in the heavy infantry (playing the Danes right now so I have good heavy inf.) As soon as they have created a pocket of air, I rush my crossbows to take position on the walls, which starts a period of steadily building up a foothold, where every unit approaching my troops is peppered from high up. Note that facing inwards archers are more effective than facing outward as they don't have to arch over the merlons.

Then I start to inch my way into the settlement, taking every precaution to be as well defended as possible at all times. I have time, theirs is running out.

In a citadel it is a good trick to run a group of 2 crossbows together with with 2 heavy inf units to the far wall, as from there they can walk over the wall onto the wall defending the inner square.

[gardibolt]

It seems to me pretty clear from the design of the game that it's really all about assaulting settlements. Unlike RTW, where you had plenty of bridge and open country battles, it's fairly rare to actually fight outside of a settlement other than against rebels. Storming fortifications, all that, is what is the centerpiece of the game. If you don't like that, I'm not sure what interest the game can hold for you.

[Moah]

It seems to me pretty clear from the design of the game that it's really all about assaulting settlements. Unlike RTW, where you had plenty of bridge and open country battles, it's fairly rare to actually fight outside of a settlement other than against rebels. Storming fortifications, all that, is what is the centerpiece of the game. If you don't like that, I'm not sure what interest the game can hold for you.

I dunno. There's lots of sieges, sure, but a fair few field battles even not counting the open attrition warfare against Mongols and Timurids.

If there's nothing but sieges that's probably becuase you're blitzing too fast. Turtle and they'll attack you! Sally or ambush and it's in the open.