Good Garrison Amount?

[Cxbo]

Hi, have around 250 hours played in Warband. I know my stuff, siege battles, land battles, etc. The one thing I've never known for sure is the proper amount of men to put into castles/towns. Believe it or not, I've had 900+ in a town at one point. I generally try to get like 200 guys into a castle, and as many possible into a town. That's good, I suppose, but it takes forever, and it's just unnecessary at a certain point when you've got amazing gear and good stats. Realistically, your character alone can defend a castle/town with 10 other soldiers, but that's pretty risky. I want a reasonable garrison to help me defend it.

So, what is the number that you guys generally put into castles and towns?
I'm thinking of putting 50 into towns and 30 into castles. Is that a good amount, or should I aim for higher numbers, or even lower?

[lionhart]

It depends how many towns and castles you have. If you only have one or two then obviously they need to be heavily defended. However once my kingdom grows to the point where I've got ten towns and thirty castles, I tend to leave them sparsely defended, maybe 20-40 per castle and 50-100 per city. By that point in the game I am on the offensive almost constantly, and the enemies never even get the opportunity to besiege my fortresses because I've got them on the run with little or no chance to recover.

[Cxbo]

That sounnds pretty smart. Yeah, once you've got a few towns and castles in your own kingdom, you're almost always attacking them. They never have too much time to attack.

I think my new strategy will be to cram as many soldiers AS POSSIBLE into Ismirala Castle (I currently own that for my current character, went Nords this time). Once I take more castles and or towns I'll be able to pull from Ismirala and put soldiers into the new castles/towns. That'll save me from wasting soldiers from my personal force into the garrisson.

[Hurkaleez]

I stack up low end base troops in a town or castle which is near the zone I plan to conquer next. So before I lead my troops in, I try to have 800-1k guys ready to man the new towns i grab. While garrisoned they do not drain much money since they are the base line. Also if you have a lot of high approval villages it goes quickly. Any upgraded troops you recruit can be passed off to a nearby vassal if you are tight on funds.

[Asphe]

Originally posted by Waffle Guy:

Hi, have around 250 hours played in Warband. I know my stuff, siege battles, land battles, etc. The one thing I've never known for sure is the proper amount of men to put into castles/towns. Believe it or not, I've had 900+ in a town at one point. I generally try to get like 200 guys into a castle, and as many possible into a town. That's good, I suppose, but it takes forever, and it's just unnecessary at a certain point when you've got amazing gear and good stats. Realistically, your character alone can defend a castle/town with 10 other soldiers, but that's pretty risky. I want a reasonable garrison to help me defend it.

So, what is the number that you guys generally put into castles and towns?
I'm thinking of putting 50 into towns and 30 into castles. Is that a good amount, or should I aim for higher numbers, or even lower?

Native? So there's no automatic troop training and upgrades?

I'd look around at the other factions' campaign armies (add up all the troops that are following the marshal) and put 'peasant troops' garrisons equal to that number in places you don't ever want to get attacked. In places where you'd want to be attacked, I'd put 25% ~ 33% of that 'max enemy campaign army size' in peasant troops AND about 30 ~ 50 'shooters' or troops like the Rhodok/Swadian Crossbowmen. Make sure the shooters are at the top of the garrison order of battle so they spawn earlier during the battle.

Typically, matching the enemy campaign army in size, even with peasant troops (cost 1 denar/week) is 'just' enough to deter attack. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than using troops like knights. In addition, given the way the Tactics skill and 'Battle Size works, you can gain an advantage by using cheap troops to inflate the size of your 'side' for a particular battle so the elite troops that you bring to battle will spawn earlier (you might consider transferring these troops to the garrison before the battle starts).

[EnemaBandit]

Originally posted by Waffle Guy:

Realistically, your character alone can defend a castle/town with 10 other soldiers, but that's pretty risky. I want a reasonable garrison to help me defend it.

FFS what difficulty do you play on?

[Lithesse Aziran]

if it is native, about 150 can keep a keep from being sieged, maybe its 180?

town... 250 is the maybe it will maybe it wont, be sieged... its been a while... but unless they rally 1000-2000 enemy troops to go on a war path for you, they tend not to sniff at those #s.

dont forget troop order in the garrison... and whether it is ladder or siege tower.
also you really only need the dependable first wave of men in case you are sieged, the rest of the troops can be recruits, to keep your costs down, and castle safe.
-40 Knighjts
-50 Archers
-20 crossbow
-misc cheap
-misc cheap
-misc cheap
-misc cheap
-tough troops (in case it comes down to it, as a finisher)

[Cxbo]

Originally posted by Santoka:

Originally posted by Waffle Guy:

Realistically, your character alone can defend a castle/town with 10 other soldiers, but that's pretty risky. I want a reasonable garrison to help me defend it.

FFS what difficulty do you play on?

Max difficulty. Not difficult at all.

[Sohei]

300 troops provides about the maximum reinforcements you are likely to get. More than that just tips the ratio for the battle advantage calculation. Mulitple sieges by a large determined force could also wear down troops so having some extra doesn't hurt.

I will however keep training troops and filling garrisons well beyond 300. The reason for this is that they will get split off to become the garrisons for my next fiefs as I expand. In mods that allow it I will also use some for large patrols around my towns to protect my tariff income.

I don't like filling garrisons with a thousand recruits as some do. I prefer to have them trained up at least a rank or two and rarely get near a thousand. I spend some time quickly training large groups of recruits up to mid ranks with the stacked training skills of my companions. If my fief get besieged despite having a large garrison (which happens) I would rather have a large number of mediocre troops than a huge number of worthless troops.

[EnemaBandit]

Originally posted by Waffle Guy:

Originally posted by Santoka:

FFS what difficulty do you play on?

Max difficulty. Not difficult at all.

I don't believe you, because I ain't no progamer but don't suck, and I never get sieged by anything other than the enemy King and his many vassals: defending the entrance will usually earn you and your troops more than a handful of jarids, axes, bolts or arrows, and 10+1 can't cut it, can't absorb that many missiles, let alone survive getting surrounded by rushing lords and sergeants... Unless I'm doing it all wrong, in which case, give me your secrets! :D

[Cxbo]

Originally posted by Santoka:

Originally posted by Waffle Guy:

Max difficulty. Not difficult at all.

I don't believe you, because I ain't no progamer but don't suck, and I never get sieged by anything other than the enemy King and his many vassals: defending the entrance will usually earn you and your troops more than a handful of jarids, axes, bolts or arrows, and 10+1 can't cut it, can't absorb that many missiles, let alone survive getting surrounded by rushing lords and sergeants... Unless I'm doing it all wrong, in which case, give me your secrets! :D

Well, whether you're defending against ladders or the siege tower, simply have your guys stand smack in the middle of it while you have a small opening in the side. Then with preferably a long two handed weapon, just hit the enemies as they attack your guys. Your guys will absorb everything while you do all the work. If it's a ladder, there will be one guy coming up at a time, making it extremely easy. However, siege towers can be somewhat more difficult. Same concept for those too, though.

[EnemaBandit]

That's exactly what I do. I have hours of game, and that doesn't work, simply doesnt, with numbers such as 11 VS 1100, the ladder is nice for the 1 enemy at a time, but it's much more open to missile fire and even Huscarl shields get blasted ultimately. I dunno, especially at 100% damage and max speed...

[Cxbo]

Originally posted by Santoka:

That's exactly what I do. I have hours of game, and that doesn't work, simply doesnt, with numbers such as 11 VS 1100, the ladder is nice for the 1 enemy at a time, but it's much more open to missile fire and even Huscarl shields get blasted ultimately. I dunno, especially at 100% damage and max speed...

11 VS 1100 is a bit much there, to be honest. Not going to lie, I was exaggerating when I said I can defend with just 10 troops. Even if they were all Swadian knights or rhodoks with their big shields, that's a tough job. Realistically, I'd never go into a siege without at least 25 guys with me. If you can get enough soldiers with shields crammed at the front of the ladder/siege tower, and you can get an opening in the side, that's when this method is effective.

An even better method I just thought up would be to have all of the companions and have them beefed up with Strength. Increase their ironflesh and shield. Have them all equip 3 shields and a small one handed weapon. If they've got the proper shields and sword, and aren't in rags, rather a nice plate armor set, then you COULD possibly beat 1,000+ with just around 10 companions and yourself. That's all speculation though, lol. Quite a crazy idea. I might make a new character and try that myself.

[EnemaBandit]

haha I wanna see that, record it! :D

[Cxbo]

Originally posted by Santoka:

haha I wanna see that, record it! :D

Sure! I'll post some screenshots later and try to do this right.

[Sohei]

For an epic siege defense attempt give them heavy board shields instead of huscarl shields. They will last longer and cover the legs. I would still give them siege crossbows instead of extra shields though. You can take care of the first couple of waves with everybody sniping from cover then move them to the choke point and switch to melee.

I defended Dhirim against a force of about 1600 Nords using a similar tactic and it worked for me. I had several hundred recruits to back them up so that helped my battle advantage from becoming too terrible.