How Do You Defend Against Sieges?

[Lunos]

Ever since CA inexplicitly decided to make siege maps MOBA mazes, I have yet to figure out a good way to defend a settlement against invading armies. Especially since the attackers usually vastly outnumber the defenders and CA seems to have designed the maps to give attackers at least three or more angles to attack any given position.

Where do you set up your troops? How do you deal with having 3-4 different groups of enemies on opposite sides of the map? I feel like the field battles give more options to funnel enemies into kill zones than a defensive siege map. It's quite baffling. Some examples of defensive strategies would be much appreciated.

[KoboldUtopian]

Mostly just ignore the walls and set up all your forces in the most defendable capture point. Build up defences there. Usually the enemy will end up coming at you in little waves. If you have a fast unit you can use it to run around and recapture lost points.

[Lunos]

Hmm, atm I'm playing Dwarfs so the fast unit is out lol. Won't the enemy just go for the two main capture points though?

[KoboldUtopian]

Originally posted by Lunos:

Hmm, atm I'm playing Dwarfs so the fast unit is out lol. Won't the enemy just go for the two main capture points though?

If you're in a major settlement then yeah. In that case you'll have to defend one or the other. Whichever is better.

[chaosbringer42]

I post most of my forces defending the main defense point, use my siege points to wall and tower up there, use a few less useful/faster infantry to be on the wall to use the towers for a bit.

When the fight starts I use the wall towers to kill a couple siege towers (with either high tier melee or ranged that were in it) then have my infantry run back to the defense point (if they die to a flying lord or something it doesnt matter too much, the damage the towers did far outweighs their worth). From that point its just a "defend against piecemeal attacks" as enemies slog into the city.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Depends on what I'm playing as. If I'm a melee heavy race like chaos warriors, I'll leave a low quality unit on the walls to keep the towers firing and charge out to face them outside the walls to use those powerful tower projectiles (if they've been upgraded by a building).

If I'm playing as a race with good ranged units (like dwarfs), then I'll focus them in the most defensible capture point. My usual strategy is to take out as many heroes, lords and valuable units as I can to slow down their invasion into my territory, especially if it's the good units they start with that they can't replace for a while.

And then there are niches like Vampire Counts, where they can build shrines in wall defense building spots that give all surrounding allied units regeneration. I just find a good chokepoint or two and blob up my garrison on those. It can win a surprising number of defensive sieges that way.

That said, garrisons are going to really struggle against legendary lord armies and high level generic lord armies. All of their skill bonuses vs your garrison with no skill bonuses, not to mention late game when their army is going to be higher quality too, is going to make it a massive uphill battle to win any defensive siege battles with just the garrison in the late game.

[Frenker]

well i roleplay my combat so i use walls and everything as it was intended..

Meaning we defend with homeland army and we garrison the walls, brace the gates and counter attack when enemy thinks they got through.

Makes for a great combat visually but it does mean that Sieges are a lot harder cos i don't cheeze Ai... That's why i use defense army and scouts.. and not just cheese it like most players.

As a bonus it makes for some of the best replays, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ epic.

Just wish the walls were wider/better made so more combat options were possible...and they had proper exist points. Not like now where you can leave walls wherever huge problem...

Towers, gates and walls could do with more options as well and the ladder system is way to basic... Top of that i want walls - defense layers cos the rest of the city is immersion breaking, like no one at CA ever seen a real castles.

Not the mention other building and parts of the city in the Siege maps are useless and all could be improved...

[badger vortex]

defend the wall with the most dangerous units to your army, if you can wipe those out even if you lose, your next fight should be easier. not much point to spread your forces thin, especially with defensive sieges where you're very likely to be outnumbered and outgunned

the usefulness of fighting it will vary a lot depending on the strength of your garrisons too, and there are a lot of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ garrisons overall

[Lunos]

Thanks for all the feedback. The map I was fighting on (Dwarf siege maps) is a really bad one. The secondary capture point is right in the middle and has like 5 or 6 paths that lead directly into it making it impossible to defend with the main capture point directly behind it. Sounds like my best option is to just try to snipe off as many units as I can. Maybe I'll just try stacking one side to kill off that portion of their split army before rushing back to the center.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Depending on your race's speed, it can be effective to put your ranged units on the wall and then pull them back once the butt ladders start going up. Then you can shoot the enemy when some of their forces have climbed onto the wall. There are plenty of ways to wear the opponent down if you can stay ahead of them before making a last stand at a strategic location. But I'm usually not a fan of that level of micro-management when trying to keep track of 3-4 different walls.

And if it's the map I'm thinking of, you can put all of your forces at the victory point and build the more durable barricades to block off most of the paths. The new AI will attack those walls...even with their ranged units while your units are in range. It's really, really dumb but very useful when their ranged units are shooting 12k hp barricades instead of your units.

[Lunos]

That's interesting. I don't usually pay much attention to the blockers since they die so quickly. Might be a little more worth it if I can snipe off some units while they are busy.

[BIG E.]

AI most of the time will not siege you unless they extremely outnumber you.

If they do siege you and it feels like winable even tho you don't get a AR victory, then you just try to hold either the victory point or the secondary point depending on which one is actually defendable.

There are some maps that has 10 different paths leading to the main and secondary point those are completely undefendable with small garrison forces.

So yeah basicly, if you want to actually defend with just a garrison you need a map that doesn't completely gimp your 8-11ish units.

Forget the walls, walls are trash, useless, they don't exist, they serve the attacker and not the defender.

[Frenker]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Forget the walls, walls are trash, useless, they don't exist, they serve the attacker and not the defender.

well i guess you never seen Fatigue - vigour stats lol

[Froz7y]

get the enemy into a choke point and then use your most powerful spells.

[BIG E.]

Originally posted by Frenker:

well i guess you never seen Fatigue - vigour stats lol

Doesn't matter.

Walls are detriment when you are outnumbered because every unit can climb them.

You are outnumbered in sieges. There is no other instance you will ever be sieged.

This will mean you do not have enough units to actually even attempt holding the walls, AI will just split up and rush your victory point even if your units can somehow win melee on the walls, which i doubt your trash 0 experiance garrison will.

On top of that, it takes 10 years to move your ranged units down from the walls and dock a melee unit there actively, so by holding the walls, you are getting less value from your ranged units because you need to pull them back without getting full value from your ammo.

And no ranged units will not hold melee on the walls, enemy can be exhausted and have enfeeble foe on them permanently and they will still kill archers. TWWH trilogy has the most irrelevant fatigue mechanic in TW history, i can confirm this as someone who has been playing legendary difficulty since shogun 2. Its something you can entirely ignore vs AI most times. Fatigue is nowhere near as crippling as other total war games.

Let me put it this way, by holding the walls you are essentially allowing AI to fully utilize its numbers because every unit can climb. If you hold a chokepoint you are essentially denying the AI numbers advantage because they will have to fight every dwarf warrior or longbeard one by one even tho they have superior numbers, while getting constantly shot by pop-up bs towers and your other ranged units which they cannot reach because you are utilizing a chokepoint.

If infantry couldn't just pull out ladders from their anus walls would be actually walls. But as long as every infantry carry 10 ft ladders in their anus walls are not walls.

[Farsha]

Honestly there are very few defensive sieges I fight in a campaign, and usually when they happen I take autoresolve results.
But from 100 battles in a campaign, defensive sieges are like 3-5 of them?
And most are unwinable minor settlement battles.
Defensive Major settlement sieges are super rare.