Anyone Else Hate Assaulting Settlements?

**Eng** · 04-24-2007, 10:35

Originally Posted by Quickening

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** · 04-24-2007, 15:44

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** · 04-24-2007, 22:05

Originally Posted by TeutonicKnight

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** · 04-24-2007, 23:23

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** · 04-25-2007, 04:10

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** · 04-25-2007, 08:34

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** · 04-25-2007, 15:48

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.