Why are city garrisons so weak?

[Ol' Knife Ears <3]

This has been a problem since CA removed the option of having custom garrisons in a city. Fully upgraded with walls and some useless battle skill (I'm looking at you, Asur), they can't even defend against an army of equal size. We're giving up an entire slot in a minor settlement, shouldn't a fully upgraded garrison be better than this?

And what's with the abominable unit loadout? So many junk units that aren't suited to city battles. This needs to be addressed before WH3 comes out. Even the modders for 1212AD have acknowledged it and set up a hotfix until they address it later.

Even scumming it up and tryharding my little heart out, I can barely scrape a win against an attacking force. I thought the defenders were supposed to have an advantage here.

[jonemirant]

yeah, i don't get why HE garrison only gets tier 3 trash like White Lions, while DE gets black Guards, imho, a T5 HE garrison should give a couple of Phoenix Guards or even Swordmasters of Hoeth at least.

[archmag]

Originally posted by Ol' Knife Ears <3:

Originally posted by Hieronymus:

If you have a Garrison you can win almost any battle on the field. High Elves have among the most amazing ones if you ask me.

I'm going to have to ask how, especially as HE.
2 white lions- good.
2 spears- good.
2 seaguard- good.
2 archers- decent, not enough firepower though.
1 silver helm- junk.
2 cav archers- situational.
1 noble as general- junk.
1 eagle- turbo junk.

13 units of very lackluster quality, I'm struggling to see how this is at all possible against a quality stack, and enemies always attack in 20s. Mind you, I have won with this army, but only rarely.

Wait, are you talking about t3 settlements? Why do you think they are supposed to defeat enemy fullstack alone? They are there to slow down the enemy by using walls so that enemy has to spend turns sieging or to protect you from with weak armies (or rogue armies) that bypassed your frontline and started harrassing or to help your active armies to deal with those enemies. And they are doing their job just fine if you use them for what they are supposed to do.

You need to use active defense against enemies. If passive defense (garrisons) was enough the game would be rather boring - you just go into any direction and leave all other directions for garrisons to defend. Now you have to try to limit the war to a single front so that you don't have to spread your armies to defend on several directions, so diplomacy as well as strategical placement of your forces is important. Also leaving few RoR unrecruited so that you can raise an instant army in case of danger is useful.

In one of my last campaigns as Avelorn (HE, vh/vh) I fought 30 defensive siege battles out of 360 total battles. Lost only 6 of them. There were 105 offensive sieges so if all garrisons were harder it would mostly affect those offensive sieges negatively without helping in defense as defense is already stong enough. I don't want to fight two full enemy stacks when trying to capture any settlement (garrisoned enemy army+full updated garrison that you want).

Plus if you make garrisons stronger that just means that enemies will bring more forces to fight it. They use some calculations to estimate if they have a chance of capturing your settlement and attack only when they have enough army strength to actually win (based on their estimations). Do you want to fight defensive sieges with 1 stronger garrison vs 2 enemy stacks instead of how it happens now?

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by Ol' Knife Ears <3:

I'm going to have to ask how, especially as HE.
2 white lions- good.
2 spears- good.
2 seaguard- good.
2 archers- decent, not enough firepower though.
1 silver helm- junk.
2 cav archers- situational.
1 noble as general- junk.
1 eagle- turbo junk.

13 units of very lackluster quality, I'm struggling to see how this is at all possible against a quality stack, and enemies always attack in 20s. Mind you, I have won with this army, but only rarely.

Wait, are you talking about t3 settlements? Why do you think they are supposed to defeat enemy fullstack alone? They are there to slow down the enemy by using walls so that enemy has to spend turns sieging or to protect you from with weak armies (or rogue armies) that bypassed your frontline and started harrassing or to help your active armies to deal with those enemies. And they are doing their job just fine if you use them for what they are supposed to do.

You need to use active defense against enemies. If passive defense (garrisons) was enough the game would be rather boring - you just go into any direction and leave all other directions for garrisons to defend. Now you have to try to limit the war to a single front so that you don't have to spread your armies to defend on several directions, so diplomacy as well as strategical placement of your forces is important. Also leaving few RoR unrecruited so that you can raise an instant army in case of danger is useful.

In one of my last campaigns as Avelorn (HE, vh/vh) I fought 30 defensive siege battles out of 360 total battles. Lost only 6 of them. There were 105 offensive sieges so if all garrisons were harder it would mostly affect those offensive sieges negatively without helping in defense as defense is already stong enough. I don't want to fight two full enemy stacks when trying to capture any settlement (garrisoned enemy army+full updated garrison that you want).

Plus if you make garrisons stronger that just means that enemies will bring more forces to fight it. They use some calculations to estimate if they have a chance of capturing your settlement and attack only when they have enough army strength to actually win (based on their estimations). Do you want to fight defensive sieges with 1 stronger garrison vs 2 enemy stacks instead of how it happens now?

In case OP isn't aware of it yet; AI has map hack, they can see the whole map and everything that happens on it. Thus if you upgrade your garrison, they'll never march a 5-man army to your walled minor settlement only to find out they're outmatched. No, they'll just bring a superior force right away. The stronger your garrison, the more ♥♥♥♥♥♥ you are.

Eagles aren't worth the money in your army most of the time. But in a siege battle, you use them to destroy enemy artillery. It's just that once their job is done, you likely won't bother trying to save them, and will just kamikaze them into some enemy backline if you're lucky, since my Eagles tend to rout really quick. (The AI is smart to guard their artillery units now.)

Skaven siege is pitifully easy, as long as you have walls. You can destroy enemy artillery with just one summon, and then summon another rat unit somewhere, blob up, warp bomb them. And you have 3 warp bombs to use in total. I've yet lost a single Skaven defensive siege so far, unless 2x 20 stack vs the garrison alone.

[RCMidas]

I've yet to see the AI march small armies anywhere either, unless that's all they had. So despite their omniscience, they act much like they do whether or not you have major garrisons somewhere. No mods in my games regarding that.

[Fendelphi]

The defenses are fine. They discourage the easily discouraged and assist in greater battles. Making them stronger across the board would simply bog down the game.

High Elf garrisons are probably the way they are because they also have several gates that helps them stop massive invasions. That said, they are still quite powerful.
The Rite of Vaul can even help you blow up enemy siege equipment, if I remember correctly.
And eagles are very powerful in sieges, able to wreck archers and assist on the walls with ease.

I have won most of my heroic victories in sieges. Making the garrisons stronger would simply move the goal posts, as the AI wont attack until they think they can take it.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

I've yet to see the AI march small armies anywhere either, unless that's all they had. So despite their omniscience, they act much like they do whether or not you have major garrisons somewhere. No mods in my games regarding that.

I had an 5-man army garrisoned in the walled city, along with the garrison army itself. When the AI attacked, he brought 2 stacks, one 20 stack and another something like 8 stack - basically everything he's got. I immediately brought over my nearby 20-stack and set that one on ambush on every turn so the AI won't know my doomstack was on its way.

So I put my garrisoned army in ambush, trashed his weaker stack which he sent to reinforce his later stronger stack, except that one walked straight into my ambush. And his stronger stack came closer and encamped, but my doomstack in ambush broke cover and slaughtered it. All done in one turn, and on this turn, the AI's power ranking drop to the 50's and he sued for peace.

So yea, the AI can see through the fog of war, they'll attack whichever weak front you have, it's really annoying to be honest. And thus if you level up your garrison, then your garrison will just fight more powerful foes in defensive sieges.

My point is that if I didn't have that 5-man army there, the AI may not even bring his 8-man army out. There's no real conclusion here since I couldn't possibly roll back several turns and try it out but this is a good guess of AI behavior.

The good news is if your units in defensive siege are comprised of ranged and artillery (not so much) and a decent frontline, you can hold down chokepoints and just make it a nightmare for enemies to try to take them.

Sometimes if I know the minor settlement is done for (like if it's not walled and facing down a 20-stack in 2 turns), I'd destroy all the buildings for quick cash, and just not bother repairing them for a good long time.

[RCMidas]

But that's my point. The AI always seems to send everything it has at me regardless of whether or not I've set up extra garrisons. Therefore, if my garrisons are decent enough to withstand or make a significant dent in their forces, I put them in place. If not and I have a turn or two, I will get rid of them just as you do.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

But that's my point. The AI always seems to send everything it has at me regardless of whether or not I've set up extra garrisons. Therefore, if my garrisons are decent enough to withstand or make a significant dent in their forces, I put them in place. If not and I have a turn or two, I will get rid of them just as you do.

Ah, now I understand.

[RCMidas]

It did bite them in the behind once though. Khazrak and Ghorros decided to attack one of my minor settlements. Khazrak, being Khazrak, chose to use Lightning Strike against the garrison in order to apply the Leadership penalty. The autoresolve killed off his entire horde because he didn't have Ghorros reinforcing him!

[Lenny]

Some garrisons are weak, other are very strong. Is'nt this all part of the asymetrical balance though?

A full sized dwarf garrison can defeat 2 full stacks of attackers by turtling in the town center, because that is their strength, their main strength I would argue.

Meanwhile I can't do anything at all with just a Brettonian garrison. On the other hand, their flat unit upkeep enables you to always have a small army within reach. If that lord has done some of their quests, they can have just a few elite units prepared and then stack up a complete and powerful army in single turn.

[archmag]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

But that's my point. The AI always seems to send everything it has at me regardless of whether or not I've set up extra garrisons. Therefore, if my garrisons are decent enough to withstand or make a significant dent in their forces, I put them in place. If not and I have a turn or two, I will get rid of them just as you do.

It does not send weak armies at you because it recruits until a certain strength of the army before that point it does treat it as an army which is "ready for action". After it recruits full stack it checks if it is enough to capture your settlement. If it is enough it will send the army if it is not it will start a second army and check again after it is ready. If the army is already enroute and becomes weaker (due to agent actions or for some other reasons) it rarely takes it back, most often it will just continue its initial plan.

So if garrisons were much stronger then you would be attacked less. AI will just keep recruiting several stacks until it feels it can take you. So total amount of defensive sieges will be less but when they happen they would be more risky. And AI will have more active armies because less of them die on your sieges. This will make sieges even more rare (in my campaign there were only 30/360 battles as defensive sieges, just 8% of total amount) and more annoying as on the map with a lot of obstacles you will need to place your increased garrison which won't have enough space on walls and then you will need to defend all gates equally as enemy will have enough troops in its two stacks for whole front assault. That is how I think it works, maybe it is not exactly like that, but it seems so. Some traits which are shown in diplomacy also affect AI behavior, some AIs are too careful and won't even send a full stack at unwalled settlement.

But still, the most important problem which will happen is offensive sieges. If enemy garrison is much stronger then one army won't be enough to deal with most settlements and you will have to travel in pairs. And offensive sieges happen more often than defensive ones.

[Kyso4ek]

To fix this use the Trebor's garrison mod and a mod which upgrades and increases tower weapon damage. You ll be quite amazed with results. At least you ll have to use full stack+ and powerful heroes with artillery to take large cities with armies inside.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1170038123&searchtext=trebor
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1572963883

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by RCMidas:

But that's my point. The AI always seems to send everything it has at me regardless of whether or not I've set up extra garrisons. Therefore, if my garrisons are decent enough to withstand or make a significant dent in their forces, I put them in place. If not and I have a turn or two, I will get rid of them just as you do.

It does not send weak armies at you because it recruits until a certain strength of the army before that point it does treat it as an army which is "ready for action". After it recruits full stack it checks if it is enough to capture your settlement. If it is enough it will send the army if it is not it will start a second army and check again after it is ready. If the army is already enroute and becomes weaker (due to agent actions or for some other reasons) it rarely takes it back, most often it will just continue its initial plan.

So if garrisons were much stronger then you would be attacked less. AI will just keep recruiting several stacks until it feels it can take you. So total amount of defensive sieges will be less but when they happen they would be more risky. And AI will have more active armies because less of them die on your sieges. This will make sieges even more rare (in my campaign there were only 30/360 battles as defensive sieges, just 8% of total amount) and more annoying as on the map with a lot of obstacles you will need to place your increased garrison which won't have enough space on walls and then you will need to defend all gates equally as enemy will have enough troops in its two stacks for whole front assault. That is how I think it works, maybe it is not exactly like that, but it seems so. Some traits which are shown in diplomacy also affect AI behavior, some AIs are too careful and won't even send a full stack at unwalled settlement.

But still, the most important problem which will happen is offensive sieges. If enemy garrison is much stronger then one army won't be enough to deal with most settlements and you will have to travel in pairs. And offensive sieges happen more often than defensive ones.

Great explanation.

[Kyso4ek]

Originally posted by archmag:

Originally posted by RCMidas:

But that's my point. The AI always seems to send everything it has at me regardless of whether or not I've set up extra garrisons. Therefore, if my garrisons are decent enough to withstand or make a significant dent in their forces, I put them in place. If not and I have a turn or two, I will get rid of them just as you do.

It does not send weak armies at you because it recruits until a certain strength of the army before that point it does treat it as an army which is "ready for action". After it recruits full stack it checks if it is enough to capture your settlement. If it is enough it will send the army if it is not it will start a second army and check again after it is ready. If the army is already enroute and becomes weaker (due to agent actions or for some other reasons) it rarely takes it back, most often it will just continue its initial plan.

So if garrisons were much stronger then you would be attacked less. AI will just keep recruiting several stacks until it feels it can take you. So total amount of defensive sieges will be less but when they happen they would be more risky. And AI will have more active armies because less of them die on your sieges. This will make sieges even more rare (in my campaign there were only 30/360 battles as defensive sieges, just 8% of total amount) and more annoying as on the map with a lot of obstacles you will need to place your increased garrison which won't have enough space on walls and then you will need to defend all gates equally as enemy will have enough troops in its two stacks for whole front assault. That is how I think it works, maybe it is not exactly like that, but it seems so. Some traits which are shown in diplomacy also affect AI behavior, some AIs are too careful and won't even send a full stack at unwalled settlement.

But still, the most important problem which will happen is offensive sieges. If enemy garrison is much stronger then one army won't be enough to deal with most settlements and you will have to travel in pairs. And offensive sieges happen more often than defensive ones.

Yes basically travelling in pairs is standart practice especially if you play a weaker faction like skaven or greenskins. Totally fine when you need two full stacks to take a level5 city with a garrison + army inside.

Im sure you ll find it easy if you have developed characters with regeneration, mortis effects and strong magic even if you have only 1 army.

We all forget that magic and some artillery makes sieges rather TRIVIAL even with improved defences. units such as skaven mortars or plague furnace priests completely wipe enemy garrisons because the latter tend to bunch up in one spot.

[zefyris]

Outside of the fact that some garrisons walls have units choice that feel like a downgrade compaed to the previous version which would be cool to fix, most garrisons are ok. They're not supposed to deal with doomstack alone.
I certainly DON'T want to have to fight even bigger garrisons in my campaigns, hell no.