How do you defend settlements?

[Shau]

I was playing norsca, but the question applies to almost every faction. The game was completely weird. I conquered scandinavia withing the first 15 turns. 8 provinces, can afford max 3 bad to average armies.

This happens when ai decides to attack:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111909162

Fully upgraded settlement with fully upgraded garrison building doesn't stand a chance against a stack of 14...

Is there any point in building garrisons?

I need like 7 turns to move from east to west. Attrition of garrison starts after 6 turns. But usually cities simply get steamrolled.

[zacharyb]

Norscan settlement defenses suck and don't include walls, other factions can have pretty decent defense forces but it's really the wall being added that helps out.

[Goatmanpig]

With Norsca it's best to accept the fact you will lose battles and you will lose units, bleed your enemy however you can and then attack and never let up until something not worth the risk comes along.
Even on Very hard/Legendary Marauder spam has saved my butt so many times.

[Shau]

I mean, the dwarfen player had 2 settlements. I autoresolved a battle vs a minor settlement + commander and 3 units with 2 armies and took more casulties than the slayers did.I wanted to siege the last major settlement next. I wasn't even sure if my 2 stacks can beat it. Meanwhile a minor stack teleports near my protected settlement+garrison. I wasn't paying too much attention. But even if i would have paid more attention. An extra commander + 3 babarians won't win me such balltes.

[Goatmanpig]

Originally posted by Shau:

I mean, the dwarfen player had 2 settlements. I autoresolved a battle vs a minor settlement + commander and 3 units with 2 armies and took more casulties than the slayers did.I wanted to siege the last major settlement next. I wasn't even sure if my 2 stacks can beat it. Meanwhile a minor stack teleports near my protected settlement+garrison. I wasn't paying too much attention. But even if i would have paid more attention. An extra commander + 3 babarians won't win me such balltes.

The dwarves are a bit tricky getting rid of tbh early on especially, try to draw them out of the settlements if you can and remember to raise chaos corruption to reduce their effectiveness.

[Greldinart]

how defend settlement?
1/visible army is bad, because IA wont attack if they dont have chance to win.
2/put an army in ambush stance near the city red radius...they will attack a weak garnison, and you will kill them with your army+garnison.
3/crush ennemies before they come.

[Father Ribs]

All those settlements up north? They're in the frozen tundra. There are no trees or stones to build walls. It's the edge of the world and it's a garbage place to live...which is why Norscans are always raiding south. Also, Norscans Attac; they don't Protec.

[Shau]

Yeah, the ambush stance is the most important stance vs everything. It just sucks if ambush fails and ai uses lightning strike or is a skaven,
Yet you cannot recruit in ambush stance. So you have to know where the ai will attack you at least 3 turns in advance. And if you conquered a decent amount of settlements, it's 3-5 settlements where ai might attack you. It's impossible to have that many armies in early game. Supply-Lines increase army cost by 15% per army. And if you simply turtle defensively, you won't win a war.

[Shau]

... thinking of the great ice wall in the north...=)