Castle Assault Defence Battles

[Maloncanth]

Recently, I was defending against the Pope in Tuscany as he assaulted my castle. I was backed up into my keep but all he had left were pavise troops so I was pretty sure I was okay. Then they fire a massive wave of arrows and they phase directly through my inner walls and start slaughtering all my guys inside! My walls were NO defense at all against arrows. Is this normal?!

[The Unknown Guy]

Not to my knowledge. Perhaps you should try to simulate it in a custom battle.

Anyway, I´d not use that as castle defense. I´d rather lay as many organ guns as needed for continuous fire. They´ll last longer while besieged, and likely throw back any assault attempts.

[Maloncanth]

Well sure, but organ guns wouldn't have done any better than anything else in this situation. They were firing arrows through my walls. I'll see if I can make it happen again at some point...

[Martok]

That does sound pretty odd, Maloncanth. I've seen missile troops (both mine and the AI's) get a few arrows/bolts over the wall, but never right through it. You might want to try Guy's advice and see if you can recreate the phenomenon in a custom battle.

[Vladimir]

They can't fire thru walls but you might be too close to an opening where one of two can get a shot off at you. Experiment to see what place is better to hide. I've defended against the Mongols a couple of times and know you can hide, but it's tough.

[Garnier]

They can shoot through an open gate. The best defence for a castle is pole-arm infantry in the gateway, along with swords and spears depending on the enemy army.

[caravel]

Arrows and bolts can fly over walls and descend on your forces from a distance. Also there appears to be a bug with walls in that missile units that are close enough can often shoot straight through them. This seems to be more common with wooden walls. It may be also that if your units are too close to the wall in certain positions that they also can be shot at.

[macsen rufus]

I've noticed this effect as well, and I suppose the AI has some forerunner to cruise missiles loaded on to its arbalests . It can be very difficult to find somewhere safe from missiles, especially once the gate's been forced open. It may be that once the gate has been forced the engine treats the entire "gatehouse" section of wall as open to missiles, but that's just guessing now....

[caravel]

Bolts behave much like arrows in the game, in that they are shot over an arced trajectory when at range. The main differences between arrows and bolts are the velocity, reload times and effectiveness vs armour.

[Caerfanan]

Bolts behave much like arrows in the game, in that they are shot over an arced trajectory when at range. The main differences between arrows and bolts are the velocity, reload times and effectiveness vs armour.

Uuhh? I was figuring that bolts had quite a straight trajectory therefore making arbalests dangerous if placed right behiond your own troops, while bows are OK...

[The Unknown Guy]

Their trajectory is more straight than that of arrows. The projectile lethality is also higher, an important point to have in mind if what you intend is to kill a general.
(In my PocketMod experience: even long-range archers such as Psiloi enjoy support from an arbalest to do just that. Annihilating a general would reçuire wasting many arrows that could go to decimate lesser units while your arbalesters snipe the leader)

[cosminus]

Recently, I was defending against the Pope in Tuscany as he assaulted my castle. I was backed up into my keep but all he had left were pavise troops so I was pretty sure I was okay. Then they fire a massive wave of arrows and they phase directly through my inner walls and start slaughtering all my guys inside! My walls were NO defense at all against arrows. Is this normal?!

When as Italians I was assaulting a keep (wooden walls, no mottle,etc) my mounted crossbowmens were able to shot at enemy king inside the walls (The Danes King in Denmark). Also his archers were shooting at my assaulting troops. I has observed that Danes King has pulled back to the center fort after my MC starts firing.
Because the King was only as 2 mens and because he died from assaulting troops that breached the walls I can't say for sure how efficient were MC shooting at royal bodyguards. But because RK unit start pulling to the center before walls were breached I think that they were sniped by bolts.
No assault arty used on that siege.

[caravel]

Uuhh? I was figuring that bolts had quite a straight trajectory therefore making arbalests dangerous if placed right behiond your own troops, while bows are OK...

Nope, start up a custom battle, position your men on a hill and fire at the enemy from range. They will shoot the bolts upward, not straight at the target.

Their trajectory is more straight than that of arrows. The projectile lethality is also higher, an important point to have in mind if what you intend is to kill a general.

It's straighter because of the higher velocity, but still arced. AFAIK MTW uses the same ballistics model for all projectiles. That is a cannon ball is essentially the same as an arrow. Yes you can create a very high velocity projectile that will not arc at all, but bows, longbows, arbalests and crossbows used in vanilla all follow an arced trajectory that isn't so obvious when fired at close range.

There is a parameter in the projectile stats file called "try high" I have always wondered about this, but I believe it may be related to archers aiming high to shoot over walls(?). This is set to yes for archers and no for crossbows/arbalests IIRC. Despite this, even when not aiming high the crossbows may still rise over walls and fall down on the enemy depending on their range from the walls and the position of the enemy inside.

[macsen rufus]

What Cambyses says is true, the "bolt" weapons DO have an arc, but it is not extreme enough for units hiding at the foot of walls to be reached, which would require an almost vertical descent to hit their targets. Their behaviour around walls is still a bit nerfed, IMHO. In real life you know that hiding at the foot of the wall makes you safer from missiles flying over the top. In MTW sieges it doesn't.

Units standing on the motte, though, do stick their heads above the walls and should expect to get shot at, with bows or crossbows.

The "try high" setting is useful. Generally there are two arcs from shooter to target that will generate a hit, and if the more direct lower arc is blocked (eg by landscape, walls, or friendly spearmen ) the archers will aim over the blockage for the "high" arc. As Cambyses, pointed out, this isn't an option for crossbows, which always have to use the "direct" arc. The downside is that probability of a hit is reduced when aiming high.

[caravel]

Just checked the projectile stats, and unusually only the Longbow, Mounted Longbow, Catapult, Trebuchet, Mangonel and Mortar have the "try high" option enabled and not the Shortbow? The Shortbow is the regular bow wielded by all foot archers except the Longbowmen. The Mounted Longbow (ignore the unusual "Longbow" naming, it is not a longbow) is exactly the same as the Shortbow but less accurate and used only by Horse/Camel Archers. I have no idea why "try high" was omitted from the foot archer Shortbow and added to the horse archers' Mounted Longbow.

[Caerfanan]

In real life you know that hiding at the foot of the wall makes you safer from missiles flying over the top. In MTW sieges it doesn't.

Now I wonder what you do for a living to have experienced this....

[macsen rufus]

@Caerfanon: I was married

[Caerfanan]

@Caerfanon: I was married

On one hand, I feel the pain, on the other hand, you have now very precious knowledge!!!

[Don Esteban]

Clearly your wife hadn't mastered the art of fragmentation china plates which get you almost wherever you hide