Defences are useless.

[Kvltist]

In my opinion defences, walls towers keeps etc are pointless in this game. Where as castles in real life could allow 8 guys to hold of hundreds of enemies. In this game they give no real advantage. The arrow towers tends to get around 10-20 total kills before the enemies are inside (in stone castles)

And the advantage seems to be given to the one who atacks the walls rather then the ones who defends it. Everytime I put a unit on the walls to defend they just get pushed away and mass slaughtered when they get atacked by the same enemy.

Usually most of the walls facing where the eneimes atack are to small sections to place any units on allowing the enemy to get them for free.

Trying to defend the gate is hopeles since all the enemies units will cram their way in at the same time utterly obliterating your men. Realisticly you wouldnt be able to squeze hudnreds of people trough a gateway at the same time but in the game it seems to push them forward giving them a great advantage to anyone trying to meet them.

And to add on top of this you cant place your units in the setup stage where you want them other then in the main square and on the wall sections that are large enough.


I can win battles far easier in the field then when defending a settlement (with the same armies) Its such a shame since castles were really effective in real life and you could leave a few guys to defend your castle and if a large enemy army is on the way you might have had 50-100 guys to defend. I find myself avoiding siege battles alltogether and it sucks :(

[Inardesco]

Really? You can't kill a full stack attacking army with just a handful of units while defending? Geez....Someone needs to learn how to defend.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Really? You can't kill a full stack attacking army with just a handful of units while defending? Geez....Someone needs to learn how to defend.

Im great at it in othe TW games. But here I see no tactical advantae in defending a settlement. I have won battles with like 5 units against 24 enemy ones on hardest difficulty. But if I play a siege battle I loose consistently with similiar strenght armies. Everyone defending walls gets like 3 kills each and the enemy cavalry just push their way in with no penalties. It just sucks defending places. 98% of the space within the castle/town is impossible to place units on aswell

[Compo]

Are you playing a modded version?
Cos ive always played stainless steel..and found some parts really enoying. Ive recently came back to this and started playing vanilla on kingdoms....and wow! Archers actually kill people!
Defending is much more believable too, and the AI is better.
On the downside, reinforcements are pretty sh@t (the way it works in SS is great).

[Gekkibi]

Towers don't cause many casualties, boiling oil can cause some if you create a bottle neck, but the true strength of being the defender during a siege is the magical tiles of infinite courage +5 used in construction of the market square...

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Compo:

Are you playing a modded version?
Cos ive always played stainless steel..and found some parts really enoying. Ive recently came back to this and started playing vanilla on kingdoms....and wow! Archers actually kill people!
Defending is much more believable too, and the AI is better.
On the downside, reinforcements are pretty sh@t (the way it works in SS is great).

Yes I am playing satinless steel. But defences really suck in vanilla aswell

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Loka<:

Im great at it in othe TW games.

You mean those crappy TW games utilising the Warscape engine where units glue to each other? Yeah, that explains alot since that engine is just rubbish in terms of combat and focusses more on flashy, but overal useless, kill animations.

It's no wonder you can't properly defend in Med2 if you take your lessons from those games.

If you're playing SS then it means you have boiling Oil. Which means that you can kill 2-3 stacks attacking your settlement simply because of boiling oil and I'm talking about a city here, so militia, not professional troops.

As for fortresses/citadels, you should easily kill 2-3 stacks because you have professional troops.

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Towers don't cause many casualties, boiling oil can cause some if you create a bottle neck, but the true strength of being the defender during a siege is the magical tiles of infinite courage +5 used in construction of the market square...

Obviously you've never attacked a small town (first walled settlement). Those arrow towers rek your early tier troops because they are close together.

Even Vanilla, it's easy to defend;

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=751732435

That was against 2 Mongol armies (vanilla) and I didn't even have a full stack. They lost like, half their forces before even getting to the 2nd level and there they just got slaughtered.

Defending settlements is the easiest there is. You create a bottleneck using spears/pikes/halberds. You then shoot every arrow/bolt at the enemy while they're otherwise occupied and reinforce where needed. If you think you can't do that, try some bridgebattles and practice there. Overtime, you'll get the hang of it.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Originally posted by Loka<:

Im great at it in othe TW games.

You mean those crappy TW games utilising the Warscape engine where units glue to each other? Yeah, that explains alot since that engine is just rubbish in terms of combat and focusses more on flashy, but overal useless, kill animations.

It's no wonder you can't properly defend in Med2 if you take your lessons from those games.

If you're playing SS then it means you have boiling Oil. Which means that you can kill 2-3 stacks attacking your settlement simply because of boiling oil and I'm talking about a city here, so militia, not professional troops.

As for fortresses/citadels, you should easily kill 2-3 stacks because you have professional troops.

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Towers don't cause many casualties, boiling oil can cause some if you create a bottle neck, but the true strength of being the defender during a siege is the magical tiles of infinite courage +5 used in construction of the market square...

Obviously you've never attacked a small town (first walled settlement). Those arrow towers rek your early tier troops because they are close together.

Even Vanilla, it's easy to defend;

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=751732435

That was against 2 Mongol armies (vanilla) and I didn't even have a full stack. They lost like, half their forces before even getting to the 2nd level and there they just got slaughtered.

Defending settlements is the easiest there is. You create a bottleneck using spears/pikes/halberds. You then shoot every arrow/bolt at the enemy while they're otherwise occupied and reinforce where needed. If you think you can't do that, try some bridgebattles and practice there. Overtime, you'll get the hang of it.

What kind of arrowtowers have you seen? The ones I have encountered shoots rubber arrows from toy plastic bows.

Its almost impossible to create bottlenecks in Medieval2 Atleast with huge unit size. They just wont fit anywhere! You can expect there to be maybe one location in the settlement outside of the square where you can place a unit.

I like the unit colition in this game unlike in warscape games but it doesnt work for at all in sieges. Enemies atacking trough gates or on walls just push anything out of the way with no effort. Some cav atacking a solid spear or heck even pike wall just push right trough. I saw one single induvidual mail knight guy kill around 50 peasants with padded armour in about 1,5 seconds. Beacuse he went straight trough a large formation killing everything in his way.

[Gekkibi]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Towers don't cause many casualties, boiling oil can cause some if you create a bottle neck, but the true strength of being the defender during a siege is the magical tiles of infinite courage +5 used in construction of the market square...

Obviously you've never attacked a small town (first walled settlement). Those arrow towers rek your early tier troops because they are close together.

Enough with your toxic fanboism. First starters, yes I have. "Many" means that it's not having the same effect OP is expecting.

[Gekkibi]

Originally posted by Loka<:

Its almost impossible to create bottlenecks in Medieval2 Atleast with huge unit size. They just wont fit anywhere! You can expect there to be maybe one location in the settlement outside of the square where you can place a unit.

You can place units that are in tight formation, even when using the biggest unit size. You just have to drag & widdle around. Don't start dragging too close to a building, leave some space so that the game realizes that it's a legit place for a unit.

Yes, I know, it's pretty horrible. Newer Total War games have managed to improve some aspects (while ruining others...).

[Gamer Supreme]

Defending settlements is the easiest part of Med 2 which is already easy. Unless of course you are completely outmatched.

Arrow towers are stupidly powerful, they are the reason early game assualts are so costly. They burn towers and rams quickly and annihilate the militia spam that the AI is so fond of.

Also, the game's natural unit size is not huge, so of course the maps aren't made for huge units. If you can't fit your troops use smaller unit sizes.

If you do not have boiling oil to win the battle for you, set a catapult right in front of the blob of units as they come into the gates and hit them with flaming shot. Its a sight of beauty, it is.

[Khorps]

defending settlements is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy af, you're retarded

[Valder]

Still better than Attilas wooden watch towers which fire arrows at amazing speed. One or two units at the front of tower to hold the line and thats it.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Lowly Noob:

Defending settlements is the easiest part of Med 2 which is already easy. Unless of course you are completely outmatched.

Arrow towers are stupidly powerful, they are the reason early game assualts are so costly. They burn towers and rams quickly and annihilate the militia spam that the AI is so fond of.

Also, the game's natural unit size is not huge, so of course the maps aren't made for huge units. If you can't fit your troops use smaller unit sizes.

If you do not have boiling oil to win the battle for you, set a catapult right in front of the blob of units as they come into the gates and hit them with flaming shot. Its a sight of beauty, it is.

I paly SS.6 on hardest difficulty. It's alot harder then vanilla wich I basicly just plowed trough. I don't think im a bad strategist in TW but defending a settlement just doesnt give you an advantage. What kind of arrow towers are you talking about? I usually try to keep count and the towers in a Castle tends to get around 10 kills vs unarmored militia. I want to play on huge unit size cus it makes the battles more interesting.

I can win outnumbered 5 to 1 battles but cant win 1 to 2 siege defences. I just cant place my units where I want to and is just forced to put them in the middle or just tell them to charge disorganized. And they will atack like 3 guys at a time while the rest hang back.

[Kvltist]

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Originally posted by Loka<:

Its almost impossible to create bottlenecks in Medieval2 Atleast with huge unit size. They just wont fit anywhere! You can expect there to be maybe one location in the settlement outside of the square where you can place a unit.

You can place units that are in tight formation, even when using the biggest unit size. You just have to drag & widdle around. Don't start dragging too close to a building, leave some space so that the game realizes that it's a legit place for a unit.

Yes, I know, it's pretty horrible. Newer Total War games have managed to improve some aspects (while ruining others...).

Yeah I usualy sit and despretaly try to place the units in every nook and cranny of the settlement until I find a half-decent alley where they will fit. (alltough facing sideways)

The worst part though is that you have to do it after having started the battle beacuse in the deployment phase even if you find a place where they fit nothing happens when you release Mouse 1.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Loka<:

I saw one single induvidual mail knight guy kill around 50 peasants with padded armour in about 1,5 seconds. Beacuse he went straight trough a large formation killing everything in his way.

You expect peasants to stand against Mailed Knights? Are you serious? They're the worst unit in the game. Mailed Knights win even against Spear Militia head on so what do you expect those peasants to do other than die? I've seen a healthy 120 man ELITE unit evaporate in a SINGLE charge from cavalry in SS.

Cavalry is seriously overpowered in Stainless Steel. You want to kill cavalry in stainless steel? Don't use bloody peasants. Any unit that doesn't have schiltform, shieldwall or a pike formation WILL get annihilated by ANY cavalry charging it.

Originally posted by Loka<:

What kind of arrowtowers have you seen? The ones I have encountered shoots rubber arrows from toy plastic bows.

Early era units (so everything prior to Dismounted Feudal Knights) will get rekt by arrow towers from the small town due to the towers being in close proximity to each other. It's not that those arrows deal more damage, it's merely due to the fact that you can have 4-6 towers in close proximity to each other all raining death on your units. Add to that the enemy defensive units and you can see why those arrow towers, when the attackers get bogged down, are a tremendous asset to the defenders.

Originally posted by Loka<:

Its almost impossible to create bottlenecks in Medieval2 Atleast with huge unit size. They just wont fit anywhere! You can expect there to be maybe one location in the settlement outside of the square where you can place a unit.

It's not. Medieval 2 is all about mass. Every unit has a mass stat. Obviously, cavalry has a higher mass than infantry. Thus, in order to hold down cavalry you'll need either a very solid pike line, a shieldwall or a schiltform (though these can be penetrated easily) or you'll need several units of infantry.

Should this prove to be ineffective, cuz the AI charges everything through the gate at once, simply place your units further away from the gate, creating a killbox. Usually they AI sends their units with a move command into the settlement, but not further than the gate itself. So whislt the gate might prove difficulty in defensive situations that are mass related (cq AI has a lot of cav and you don't). Simply box yourself slightly away from the gate and set your pike/spear/halberd formations a little further. That way you also have the additional flanking opportunity + allowing your archers/crossbows to rain death upon the attackers whilst being safely on the walls.

As for units defending the walls. All your units should easily be able to take out an enemy unit of +1 tier higher. Spear militia can severely diminish Dismounted Feudal Knights whereas anything like DFK should easily defeat enemy DFK attacking.

As for huge unit size, you can place them anywhere within the settlement, just not during the deployment phase. Simply deploy them as close to the location that you want, then simply move them into formation when the battle starts. You usually have plenty of time to put them in place.

That said, the larger the settlement is, the easier it is to place your units in the streets.

Originally posted by Gekkibi:

Enough with your toxic fanboism..

Nope.

Originally posted by Lowly Noob:

If you do not have boiling oil to win the battle for you, set a catapult right in front of the blob of units as they come into the gates and hit them with flaming shot. Its a sight of beauty, it is.

Except that catapults are prone to not firing due to friendly units and if they're to close to the front line they can easily be "disrupted" when a single soldier manages his way through and gets into melee with them.