Plz help: how do I defend my settlements when my army is elsewhere/spreading out?

[gumby517]

I've about 34 hours in, and i've watched a handful of guides, but my campaigns always fall apart around the time I take my second province. Basically if a fully stocked army attacks any of my settlements, and my army isn't near/ is not in the fight, my settlement garrison units are not enough and the enemy takes my settlement. every time. As I see it, if i spread out and conquer/conquest, I can't defend my settlements, and if i'm on the other side of the map when a fully stocked army attacks a settlement of mine, the garrison forces might as well not exist and there's nothing stopping the enemy from steamrolling every single one of my settlements until my lord and army can get into attack range,

How do i defend my settlements when my lord/army is too far to help with the attack/siege?

[Reaver79]

You gotta leave some sort of defence on all your fronts/backline, especially since those rogue armies pop up different places.
Some times that means you gotta roll with less than a full main army to afford as much, but that's a balance you got to learn/find out as the more skilled you are the less will suffice.
Sometimes i means you got to expand slower, build your towns a bit more first to afford building some defence.
Also barracks for some armies are a very good idea.
A small force in ambush stance can do a lot in some cases.

[Salty Nobody]

Put fortification buildings everywhere for bigger garrisons and better wall towers in capitals. If you do this, at the very least your minor garrisons should be able to deal enough damage that the enemy can't immediately attack another settlement and weaker enemy armies will outright lose. The AI likes to split up when attacking, so even when you are going to lose for sure an upgraded minor garrison should be able to sally out and destroy a few isolated enemy units in detail. Province capitals are much easier to defend and have larger garrisons, and so should be capable of taking on most single enemy stacks themselves.

If you know you can't defend your territory only upgrade the capitals and leave the minors at level 1. You can get to level 4 settlements and your better units and defenses much quicker this way anyway. If you are expecting heavy attacks, use province capitals as strong points and put a second army in there to boost the garrison. It doesn't have to be a full army or even contain your best units, The towers and missile units are doing most of the work and you just need to make attackers hold still under the fire long enough to win. Don't be afraid to sally units out your gates to hold enemy blobs under wall tower fire or take out some isolated ranged units. Every faction fights differently and more mobile factions or factions that rely on charge bonuses often do better fighting outside the walls than in them.

If you get a settlement map with good choke points even a minor settlement garrison can pull an upset, like this one here.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3070141313

[Imperium]

Originally posted by gumby517:

I've about 34 hours in, and i've watched a handful of guides, but my campaigns always fall apart around the time I take my second province. Basically if a fully stocked army attacks any of my settlements, and my army isn't near/ is not in the fight, my settlement garrison units are not enough and the enemy takes my settlement. every time. As I see it, if i spread out and conquer/conquest, I can't defend my settlements, and if i'm on the other side of the map when a fully stocked army attacks a settlement of mine, the garrison forces might as well not exist and there's nothing stopping the enemy from steamrolling every single one of my settlements until my lord and army can get into attack range,

How do i defend my settlements when my lord/army is too far to help with the attack/siege?

There is a bit of a difference depending on which factions and difficulty you play. I am sure others have suggested all the obvious things. So I will discuss some of the less obvious I suppose.

1) Recruit Lord + regiments or renown. In case of emergency, if your capital is soon to be attacked or valuable city you can always recruit one lord to that city, have him recruit all your saved up regiments of renown and fight off the enemy. AI tries to match players forces in 2 to 1 ratio so attacking army may retreat or if they attack you will have a way better chance of defending.

2)Direction and enemy run distance. When you are at war you should always try to make sure the enemy cant flank you so usually the AI shouldnt be able to attack your cities because your main lord should be in their way, plan your attacks in a way the enemy cant flank. You can click on enemy lords to see how far they can run, often enough that will let you predict where they might go or to see if the enemy will reach your city or not.

3) Defending as a blob. If your enemy does not have artilery or AOE spells which is often with AI bs scout armies, you can defend the city by putting every unit you have on top of each other on the primary defence point, it will force AI to surround you giving you huge advantage, your routing units wont really run off while surrounded, you can use defence towers with aoe and walls that have -to stats. I won some pretty insane battles this way, but its much much harder on higher difficulties since AI gets unfair buffs to leadership, attack and defnece making even basic tier one units rather deadly to nonspecialised army.

Feel free to add me to friends if u have specific questions, played this for thousands of hours I can probly help.

[Chief Minister of Gaming]

dont go far away in the first place..