Raids

[Grimm Spector]

Not sure what I may be doing wrong, but I'm getting wrecked by early raids in the spring and summer ... like straight up murdered. Any advice?

[Seneca]

tower with archers (as much as possible), everybody in, figter(s) kills everybody who touches the door (enemy often hits door instead your fighter, u have to stay in door and never go outside)

[Fido]

What difficulty do you play on?

[Drakedge]

Melee is very risky, as Senca said, a tower will help a lot in the early game. Doesn't have to be a mega structure either. It could be as simple as a a tower large enough to have two sets of stairs in it.

Merlons will help you guard your archers against enemy archer shots.

[Mr. Molecule]

Create a tower or 2 and, give them something to whack at outside. A stool, a butchering table, whatever. Melee enemies seem to prioritize objects outside before they beat on doors.

[helpful comrade]

Clever use of terrain and defensive buildings designed to bottleneck/slow down the invaders are your best defense. Be careful of completely walling off your settlement, as the AI will just send trebuchets to knock them down - followed by decimating your buildings. I'd recommend ganging up and taking out invaders one at a time, starting with the ones wearing the least amount of armor. Also, you can kite them by letting them target one of your settlers and having that one run around while the others pick off their pursuers, or even lead them into ambushes/traps. You can buy yourself time by setting up cheap, sacrificial 'workbenches' like pyres on the outskirts of your settlement and around defensive buildings, so that the invaders will attack those first before targeting doors or settlers that're outside.

[EroticOnion23]

I just have half of the enemy army chase my fastest guy while I kill the other half, then finish the rest lol

[Grimm Spector]

Originally posted by Seneca:

tower with archers (as much as possible), everybody in, figter(s) kills everybody who touches the door (enemy often hits door instead your fighter, u have to stay in door and never go outside)

I don't really have the resources early on for a tower, plus they'll ignore it to wreck all the other stuff in my village if they don't happen to come from the direction that works for the tower.

Originally posted by DANGER ☠ POSSUM:

What difficulty do you play on?

Default.

Originally posted by Drakedge:

Melee is very risky, as Senca said, a tower will help a lot in the early game. Doesn't have to be a mega structure either. It could be as simple as a a tower large enough to have two sets of stairs in it.

Merlons will help you guard your archers against enemy archer shots.

Melee isn't the only issue, I get wrecked by archers too unfortunately. That's a good suggestion though, to make the tower really small. Any reason not to just use ladders instead of stairs though?

Originally posted by helpful comrade:

Clever use of terrain and defensive buildings designed to bottleneck/slow down the invaders are your best defense. Be careful of completely walling off your settlement, as the AI will just send trebuchets to knock them down - followed by decimating your buildings. I'd recommend ganging up and taking out invaders one at a time, starting with the ones wearing the least amount of armor. Also, you can kite them by letting them target one of your settlers and having that one run around while the others pick off their pursuers, or even lead them into ambushes/traps. You can buy yourself time by setting up cheap, sacrificial 'workbenches' like pyres on the outskirts of your settlement and around defensive buildings, so that the invaders will attack those first before targeting doors or settlers that're outside.

I have been trying Valley starts because they appear easier in theory, so the terrain isn't very helpful to me. Enemies swim through water easily, and climb cliffs with ease.

I haven't really figured out effective traps yet. I suppose I should rush military tech though and try to make them work.

Originally posted by EroticOnion23:

I just have half of the enemy army chase my fastest guy while I kill the other half, then finish the rest lol

I didn't realize some folks were faster, interesting though not so much use against archers.

[Fido]

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

Originally posted by DANGER ☠ POSSUM:

What difficulty do you play on?

Default.

Melee isn't non-viable at that difficulty, though armouring your melee combatants is a definite priority, and "mobbing" enemies one at a time is a must. People generally prefer archers because it's pretty much no micromanaging beyond clicking which target to attack while paused, while in melee you might have to pull a wounded guy back from the fight now and then.

I recommend heavy armour and kettle helmets for your lower skill melee guys, and great heavy armour and great helms for your more experienced infantry. You want to minimalize the odds of getting concussions most of all, since they really take a long time to heal and impose a myriad of deficits for the entire duration.

Going archery is just, easier.

[Grimm Spector]

Originally posted by DANGER ☠ POSSUM:

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

Default.

Melee isn't non-viable at that difficulty, though armouring your melee combatants is a definite priority, and "mobbing" enemies one at a time is a must. People generally prefer archers because it's pretty much no micromanaging beyond clicking which target to attack while paused, while in melee you might have to pull a wounded guy back from the fight now and then.

I recommend heavy armour and kettle helmets for your lower skill melee guys, and great heavy armour and great helms for your more experienced infantry. You want to minimalize the odds of getting concussions most of all, since they really take a long time to heal and impose a myriad of deficits for the entire duration.

Going archery is just, easier.

Well I don't have access to make heavy armour, nor have traders brought me any, so that's not happening this early in the game. But good to aim for.

I rarely have good marksmen in the group, usually like 1 only, so I imagine I'm going to struggle with archery.

[Fido]

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

Well I don't have access to make heavy armour, nor have traders brought me any, so that's not happening this early in the game. But good to aim for.

I rarely have good marksmen in the group, usually like 1 only, so I imagine I'm going to struggle with archery.

Bad archers still have a chance to hit from far away. But short bows frankly are only useful against animals and unarmoured opponents. But for an early raid, it's almost always better to equip both the longbow and the short bow to a villager, until better weapons are available in my opinion..

Two-handed weapons and their slow refire rate are only really worth using on villagers with 30+ melee skill in my opinion. A miss is so much wasted potential. So early on, 2 archers and 1 short sword is the best first-raid setup.

[Grimm Spector]

Originally posted by DANGER ☠ POSSUM:

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

Well I don't have access to make heavy armour, nor have traders brought me any, so that's not happening this early in the game. But good to aim for.

I rarely have good marksmen in the group, usually like 1 only, so I imagine I'm going to struggle with archery.

Bad archers still have a chance to hit from far away. But short bows frankly are only useful against animals and unarmoured opponents. But for an early raid, it's almost always better to equip both the longbow and the short bow to a villager, until better weapons are available in my opinion..

Two-handed weapons and their slow refire rate are only really worth using on villagers with 30+ melee skill in my opinion. A miss is so much wasted potential. So early on, 2 archers and 1 short sword is the best first-raid setup.

I CAN'T equip the longbow ... my marksmen skills are too low, and as far as I can tell there's no way to train the skill up to be useful.

[Fido]

Originally posted by Grimm Spector:

Originally posted by DANGER ☠ POSSUM:

Bad archers still have a chance to hit from far away. But short bows frankly are only useful against animals and unarmoured opponents. But for an early raid, it's almost always better to equip both the longbow and the short bow to a villager, until better weapons are available in my opinion..

Two-handed weapons and their slow refire rate are only really worth using on villagers with 30+ melee skill in my opinion. A miss is so much wasted potential. So early on, 2 archers and 1 short sword is the best first-raid setup.

I CAN'T equip the longbow ... my marksmen skills are too low, and as far as I can tell there's no way to train the skill up to be useful.

Hunting, requiring a bow, is the main way to raise it. And raids aside from that. You can draft a bowman-, and ideally also a melee fighter-, to go out and kill some animals to level it up to 10. But sadly, small self-defence weapons aren't a thing, and a low archery hunter will often get beat up by wolves and boar.

If you just want to let them hunt by themselves, I recommend only assigning them to hunt rats, hares, polecats, foxes, and deer (or water voles and male mallards if you're on swamp. But I'd at least tame one male mallard and all the female mallards that enter the map for delicious eggs)

[garethxloh]

the AI will always go towards the gate, you just have to build 2 towers with machicolations and merlons between a corridor between your main gates to your dwellings with murder holes over seeing the corridor.

and if you want to make the killing faster you can make the main entrance 2 unit wide to station 2 pole arms user behind it

[Grimm Spector]

I can't bring myself to hunt the polecats :(

Originally posted by garethxloh:

the AI will always go towards the gate, you just have to build 2 towers with machicolations and merlons between a corridor between your main gates to your dwellings with murder holes over seeing the corridor.

and if you want to make the killing faster you can make the main entrance 2 unit wide to station 2 pole arms user behind it

Interesting, ok thanks.