Anyone Else Hate Assaulting Settlements?

[dismal]

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.

For me, RTW was pretty much mostly sieges too.

[jepva]

Some of my best battles are seige assaults. The trick is to take your time and let the enemy come to you. Knock two or three openings into the city/fortress with seige equipment/artillery (Note: you can create more than one breach with a single artillery piece). If you can wait a turn, have a third group at one of the gates with a ram. The idea is to spread out the defenders. Usually, one of your three ports will be undefended. Enter the undefended port first - block off the streets with spearmen in guard mode to create an interior "beachhead." At the same time, put archers/crossbowmen on the walls to cover the spearmen. The AI will usually attack one of the spearmen units with its bodyguard cavalry. While the stationary spearmen hold them, attack the body guard with a second spear unit - preferably by right-clicking behind the bodyguard so that spear #2 runs through the holding unit and through the bodyguard - then click to attack it. So, in the first few minutes of the battle, using one of the cheapest units, you can kill the enemy's general and most of his best troops. But then my experience in general has been that, to beat the AI in any field battle, you can pretty much get by with spear militia/sergeant spearmen, militia crossbow, and a couple of heavy cavalry units (Exception: My Mongol Mashers - 1 CC, 3 HC, 8 Reiters, 8 Mounted Crossbow - afterall, you need to fight fire with fire). But I digress. Once you've established one beachhead and have drawn the enemy troops away from the other portals, you enter the other portals using the same process. Eventually, the AI will continual to impale those troops who survive the archery fire onto the spears of your spearmen. Then you gradually move your spearmen towards the town square - stopping when the enemy looks like it will charge - then moving on, until all three of your contingents reach the square. With fortresses and citadels, I usually get into the inner sanctums through the side entrance along the top of the wall and head for its gate tower to let the rest of the troops in - or just bring the artillery in and repeat the same process outlined above.

[Budwise]

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

Not to sound rude and all but then what do you want. Autoresolve is a solution to your dull problem and it works in your favor. If you don't like assaulting, then seige, you don't like that either then you can autoresolve. But, you don't like that either. What the hell do you want to fix this problem?

[Ciaran]

I think siege battles in M2TW are a vast improvement over RTW.
The cities are no longer the dreaded labyrinths, wall towers only fire when defending units are close and they don´t unduly support the attacker once they´re captured.

[Sentinel]

I love to use mortars when sieging castles. Once you have put a hole in the wall the AI usually moves most of its garrison into a big huddle inside the second wall. If you don’t send anyone in through the breach this group hug just stays there.

There is usually a point down the side of the castle (where they are just in range), that you can position your mortars to fire over the walls.

The ideal target.

Two or three mortars can take out halve a stack of defenders in this position.

[Quickening]

Not to sound rude and all but then what do you want. Autoresolve is a solution to your dull problem and it works in your favor. If you don't like assaulting, then seige, you don't like that either then you can autoresolve. But, you don't like that either. What the hell do you want to fix this problem?

Well I say that because lets face it, Total War is all about the battles. And when the city assaults are marred with such infuriating pathfinding it is a little bit annoying.
And yes I can't understand anyone who buys the Total War series and then autoresolves the battles because the campaign side of things has been done a million times better elsewhere. Civilization 4, Europa Universalis 3 and Galactic Civilizations 2 to name a few.
Total War is about the battles. If you aren't going to play them then there is little point buying the Total War series in my opinion. It's like buying a pizza and scraping all the topping off it. Just buy bread.

[Dave1984]

I don't autoresolve my siege assault battles but I don't "assault", either, I siege until the enemy sallies or surrenders. It's one of them, or nothing, as the assualts are so dull and every single one is almost the same- there's no grand sweeping movements, no manouever, no room for strategy beyond "make another hole behind them". And there are way too many of them, that's why I still play with the big map mod, simply so I can play open field battles more often.

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

I get brilliant tactical monents in sieges. Try assaulting one with catapults positioned in city square: you'll see your elites running like little girls...Besides in real life if the opposing general knew you sucked at siege warfare then guess he would choose to fight

[Forward Observer]

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!

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

After reading this I fired up a quick Egyptian campaign just to see how hard it could be. By only turn 8, I had an army of about 3 militia archers, 2 militia spearmen, 1 Saracen spear unit, two Arab cav, one mamluk missile cav along with two 2x ballistae units on the way to Jedda. I think it took about 4 or 5 more turns just to get there, and in the mean time I had been assigned to take Jerusalem by the council.

Jedda was a dinky little town with only two crossed streets. Their crossing formed the town square. If the place had been any smaller both city limit signs would have been on the same post, but the square was packed with over 330 troops--militia infantry, Arab cav, camel missile cav, and those Turkish archers that have such a long range.

There is no way one could take the town only 5 or 6 units, but I could have beaten it with half of my 600 man force simply because I had brought along the ballista units. I lined a ballista unit up on each of two crossed streets and let em have at it.

Those ballistae accounted for 276 kills between the two units. When I could no longer get a good angle on the remaining 60 or so enemy troops i sent my men in to mop up. Final score--I lost 10 and they lost 332

By turn 14 I had assaulted and taken Jerusalem with a full stack including two 2X catapult units and two 2X ballistae units.

Now I was playing normal difficulty, and one might not get results this good at a higher difficulty, but I did not do this to brag about my abilities as an armchair general. I'm no better than the next military genius. My real point is that artillery made all the difference in these battles and it just does not take that long to obtain them

In every campaign I tackle, I start a ballista maker on the first turn. It takes 3 turns to complete at 1600 florins, and one turn to pop out a 370 florin ballista.

This means that you can put an army in the field equipped with a high powered deadly accurate Medieval RPG in only 4 turns. This is a weapon that will take out up to 10 troops at a time in full enfilade, and can take down any wooden fort or any gate of any size citadel, while your troops can set back and have a few cups of expresso.

Check my sig and you'll know where I am coming from.

Cheers

[Dead Knight of the Living]

Early game I hate assaulting cities. But once I get cannon I love it. I love assaulting when I have mortars. I click on the mortar unit, hit the delete button and ride the cannon ball over the wall to watch my enemy get splattered. Of course, I eventually get bored with that too though.

It really depends how long I've been playing. A lot of times I save and quit right before an assault. When I come back to the game later I'm ready to C2 the whole thing rather than autoresolve.

[John_Longarrow]

13F,

In general I try to avoid lugging arty around due to its slow speed. I'll have to try that out though to see just how effective it is. I wonder if I'd get similar results when I'm defending in a siege if I roll out a balista to deal with the attacking army?

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

I decides to do turtle Venetian campaign on VH/VH taking only rebel settlements or crusade targets and releasing prisoners AND not sallying with missile troops exploit... I start every turn with all my cities besieged ... even tho i haven't attacked anyone...no money ... send help
I hate being on the receiving end of siege. It's 10 times worse.

[Jasper The Builder]

Well i enjoy attacking and defending seige assaults.

They are not as good as an open battle but they add a great element to the game. I would be very disappointed if they didnt have seige's where you can play.

Im really looking forward to seeing these new moated castles, Which is expected on the expansion.

[Forward Observer]

13F,

In general I try to avoid lugging arty around due to its slow speed. I'll have to try that out though to see just how effective it is. I wonder if I'd get similar results when I'm defending in a siege if I roll out a balista to deal with the attacking army?

I have found that a ballista can really make a difference in defending a walled settlement. Generally if you are assaulted by a large force with several pieces of siege artillery, they are not going to charge in after only taking out a section of wall, but are going to continue using their catapults,cannons, etc. to take out defensive towers and maybe knock a couple of more holes in the walls at different locations.

They will not commit troops until they have either finished doing this or run out of ammo. Instead of plugging that first hole with troops, I have had very good luck with running a ballista unit into the opening. So far when I have done this the enemy army has totally ignored it while it fired salvo after salvo of deadly ballistae bolts into their ranks. In a couple of instances this one unit has been able to take out all the enemy siege equipment before they could do any real further damage to the walls and towers.

At that point the ememy is forced to attack through that single opening, which of course I plug with my best ground troops while my archers on the walls continue to rain missiles on them. This has turned a potential loss into a victory every time I have been able to use it.

My other tactic when besieged has also won every time I have used it, but it is sort of an exploit and from what I have read it may not work as well after the next patch.

I always sally on the first turn. In the past this has meant that the besieging army would have no rams or towers--only the artillery that they brought with them. It also means that they will become generally passive, and do not try to assault in earnest, so all I do is run my ballista units out the side gates and whittle the besieging army down from their flanks. I always sent troops along to protect the ballista units, but the enemy rarely breaks off any troops in earnest to counter this cheap trick.

Here is a rather long thread where I had two posts praising the ballista and decribing some of these tactics in detail.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=76167


Like I said, some of these tactics or at least the more exploitive ones may not work after the upcoming patch, but part of the fun for me will be devising new ways to skin the proverbial cat with my beloved balista


Cheers