Any tips for M&B Siege Warfare ?

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ShieldGuard

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Hi there everybody, as the title points out, I'm a beginner (I've been playing for about 6 days now) looking for pointers about sieges.
I've only just recently begun to assault enemy castles with no help from fellow lords.  I'd rather say that I'm no longer trailing behind them hoping for my lord to give me the castle my men just paid for in blood.
The problem is, sieges can get very bloody, I have seen allied AI troops being cut down and turned into pincushions fairly easily while helping out Swadian troops against the Khergits.

At some point I got lucky and rushed a Nord wooden fort which only had a token garrison, and I finally got a base of operations.
I have read that Huscarls are pretty good for siege operations, so I trained about 10 and I have about 10-15 more at several stages of leveling. I have also read that Vaegir Archers are very good, so I leveled about 25 marksmen. My army is a hodgepodge of different troops, so in my 90-strong siege army
I also have some Vaegir guards, a few Swadian and Rhodok sergeants, and some Nord and Swadian ranged troops, still being leveled (I'm trying to figure out their strengths and weaknesses).

I attacked Curin Castle (garrisoned by 108 Nords, 25-30 archers, lots of warriors), and I noticed a few things - I was unable to order my troops before the siege tower was in position, so most of my army just stood into the hail of arrows. Perhaps if I try to keep a 1 on 1 ratio of infantry and archers, my huscarls and nord veterans will be able to shield the marksmen from enemy arrows in this phase. I was able to snipe a few archers, even with my modest crossbow skill of 120 or so (I am currently lvl 26) but I couldn't hit the enemy Nord Warriors, I was aiming at their feet (and I took my fair share of arrows and javelins in my own feet) but my bolts just hit their shields, no matter what. My marksmen expended their arrows fairly quickly - by the time the siege tower was in place, most of them were out of ammo, at least they were able to take out most of the enemy ranged troops during the three assaults that I launched. The enemy Nord Warriors were at the breach, and absorbed a good share of arrows with very little losses, while I lost several huscarls.
At the end of the 3rd assault, I finally ordered my infantry to charge up the tower into the mass of warriors. My own meleers (all high-lvl) did an impressive job, carving a bloody path into the Nord Warriors. I believe many of them might've been weakened by the arrows. Lucky for me, Jeremus' healing skills are all at 6 now, AND, the castle was holding many high-lvl Rhodoks. All in all, about 25 of my 90 men died, many more were wounded.

By the way, King Graveth isn't going to give me the castle :???: he's instead going to hand it over to a noble who didn't break a nail to get his prize... (do I need more favour with the king, perhaps?)

What can I do to improve? Tips and suggestions are welcome, thank you in advance  :smile:

 
Both Rhodok and Nord infantry are good in a Siege as both are trained in athletics allowing them to move faster.
Rhodok have the advantage of the bigger shields while Nord use better weapons. So Rhodok are better at withstanding enemy fire while Nord (especially Huscarls) prevail in the direct confrontation.
You could also use troops like dismounted Swadian knights but their only advantage is their armor.

For archers it depends. As you noticed bow archers expend their arrows rather fast, for defense I prefer crossbows as these get cover from the walls while reloading. Also Rhodok crossbowmen are not that bad as support infantry because of their equipment.

The siege tower is wider than the ladder so it is easier for your infantry to attack together, as you noticed the problem is that it needs some time to reach the wall and your troops don't listen to you that well during that time. Some fortifications are really difficult to attack, these include Thir and Grunwalder Castle

There is a thread with many small tips, this here tells you how the king decides to distribute the conquered holdings.
 
Thank you for your response, also, that thread about the king's reward criteria was quite informative. I wonder how many castles & cities I might have to conquer before being graciously granted another one... :???:

Meanwhile I did some experimenting on my own, feeling somewhat insulted by the king's decision, I renounced my oath to him (made a separate savegame), and held onto my castles (both conquered by myself). I lost the far-off formerly Khergit town that Graveth had given me as my first fief, and became an unaligned warlord.
I wanted to see if I could swear allegiance to another king, so I rushed off to king Yarolek of the Vaegirs and he accepted me as his vassal. My castles joined the Vaegir kingdom and of course I get to keep them both as fiefs!  :wink: I wonder if I should really go this way.
 
Allow me to expand on what Berpol has said.

The easiest castles to siege, and defend, are the ones with ladders, and are far away, on the edge of a kingdom.

As for the sieges themselves, you need a shield, a melee weapon, and a ranged weapon. I suggest a Sword Shield and Crossbow. Your troops should be top tier Nords/Rhodoks/Vaegirs, and tell your archers and infantry to hold position in the same spot. The shields will cover the archers, and then when they run out of ammo, tell the infantry to charge, and the archers to hold position next to the wall.
 
As for the "Why don't he give me the castle I've paid in blood for?"

Because there might be a Lord in your faction that has no Fiefs. So, your King thinks two things, 1: Lets be fair, all shall have pretty much the same. 2: I have a Lord without a Fief, why don't I give that castle to him, he can defend it since he don't have anything else to defend.

You know, you can be offered a castle that OTHERS have paid in blood for... The King cares not who bleed, he just want his Lords to make the enemy bleed more then them.

What you really want to keep are the real cities! Those are hard to get, oh so hard.. Lots and lots of nasty defenders (tip, if you are at war with a faction that are also at war with a faction that your faction are not at war with (ergo, you are faction A, A is at war with B, B is at war with C, A and C are not at war) you can hope that B takes a city from C, that way it will have few defenders and you can take it yourself). So if you really want a city, and are able to take one, you should take other castles first, lots of them, and ask no reward. Then, when your King ask you if you want one of the new castles, say NO and wipe out that city you want. If you take it, and ask to keep it you will most likely get it  : )

Taking a city is a lot easier as a Marshall, then you can command your allied Lords to follow you. When you then siege the city they will help you, but you get all the credit for it : )

If you are superfriends with a Lord I think you can ask him to follow you without being Marshall. (Can anyone confirm this?)
 
stygN said:
If you are superfriends with a Lord I think you can ask him to follow you without being Marshall. (Can anyone confirm this?)

Yup even got useless Yaroglek to follow me and go after farmers...
 
In my recent game, I used a huscarl, swadian knigth and rhodok seregants combo, which is extremely powerful. I was able to break defense of Sargoth while over 500 nordic troops defending. Swadian seregants are also great for assulting walls. I have an archer character but I think in sieges archers are not effective as top tier melee troops so I never included them into my army.

Also,try not to die in first assult. If you die you need to wait to build up siege equipment again, your army will loose morale and your food may not enough for another turn. Even worse, other lords may come to aid of castle of city. Note that cities requires three consecutive fights; assulting wall, fight in streets and fight in hall. So be carefull about yourself and make sure you have enough health for those three fights.

In case of owning castles and cities, I think relation ship with king or khan is important.  Currently my relation with khan is 63 and I have 2 cities, 2 castles while there is still some lords with no fiefs are exist in my faction.

Good luck :smile:
 
Thank you for your responses, everyone  :smile:
I currently hold Tehlrog Castle+Ambean and Curin Castle+Haen and was thinking about attacking Sargoth, the Nord garrison is about 300 strong though, and I can bring a maximum of 90 soldiers with me. 
I am trying to recruit more Huscarls and sergeants for siege operations, but the maintenance costs of my army are starting to mount. I did a few Suno(buy oil)-Rivacheg(sell oil)-Khudan(buy furs)-Suno(sell furs) trade runs to raise some funds. Hunting Sea Raiders is still a nice source of xp, but the loot is not getting any better - using a smaller army gives me a bigger share. Conversely, I have crushed an armada of about 300 Nords who gave very good xp but insultingly bad loot. It appears that bandits drop better loot than organized armies.  :???:
While I'd like to try and besiege Sargoth, I am pretty sure that the king would hand it over to some lazy noble who only holds a wretched town on the other side of the nation or something like that. Since most Vaegir nobles are cooperative to me, I think I'll try to curry some extra favor with them and hopefully get some help with siege operations.
 
The AI isnt very clever during a siege ive noticed. As being a highly trained archer i can mow through their whole defense, standing at areas where the enemy cant hit me but i can hit them. Just clear the path by killing all enemy archers then. Tho honestly i dont see the problem being the enemy archers but rather the horrible choke point up at the ladder/siege tower. Basically the npc need you to help them clear out a path or they will stand there beating class vs class, which isnt always favored depending on what troops you got.

However you alone can make up for that being the player, and of course depending on what skills you have on your character. Ive always liked being a mounted archer, very, very powerful vs npcs. At 400+ skill i can easily hit the pupil of their eyeball from range :p
 
If you want to take Sargoth then I'd like to know what siege structure you have to build to take it, it is ladders or tower?

Cause, if you have Jeremus (or another character with high surgeryskill) and you need ladders, not tower, you can

1: Assult and watch how most your men get wounded instead of killed.
2: Withdraw when you have about 30% of your army still standing (so you will not get a very bloody retreat)
3: Rest for a bit and time it so that you also rest and heal troops while you build the ladders
4: Assult again and repeat until you win.

The reason this is best to do if you only need ladders is that other enemy Lords have less time to come and help the city.

If you need to wait 2-3 days (I need 42 hours with 7 (I think) in engineering) to build a tower for each assult you will most probably have to deal with more enemy Lords.

Also, the idea for this to work is to have really good troops.. Like Huskarls.. Vaegir Knights/Guards.. Top tier guys.. Not a bunch of Footmen..

And it helps to have difficulty on 26% like I have : P
 
To assault Sargoth, I need a siege tower (extra waiting time). I'd like to attempt the assault just to see how it works, but I'll probably lose Huscarls and Sergeants (and also some Marksmen) just to conquer it for some lazy noble. I'd rather do that with support from other lords, so that their own freebie troops do the meatshield work.
I am training more Huscarls and Rhodok Sergeants, and I must say, they really rock, even in the open...  :grin: Yesterday they mashed about 40 caravan cavalry with 0 losses.  :lol:

With my current set of weapon skills (lvl27), one-handed 227, two-handed 74, polearms 263, archery 58, crossbows 127, throwing 19, I can help out my meleers, but I can't do that much to snipe enemy troops. I also tend to get mobbed down when I try to help out my people. As I pointed out, I have tried to shoot the waiting enemy Nords in the feet, but their shields, even the small ones, just block everything coming from that direction.

Besides, I'd like to ask a noob question...  :wink: How many points shall I put in Weapon Master? I have 4 right now. I have also read that you can't develop 3 weapon skills, just 2.
 
That last part do not count for companions at least.. I have one who have always used a polearm, so he have high in that, and he used to use sword and shield so he have high in 1 hand, then I gave him a two handed axe, and now he has high in that too.. So you can get good with all weapons, it just takes time : )

As for weapon mastery. I wouldn't bother to put that many points in it, I mean once you pass 200-250 you are pretty good with the weapon, so instead of upping weaponmaster even more and spend points on that weapon I'd rather put the weapon points into other weapons.

And, as said, If you really want that city you should make sure that the king is willing to give it to you. So, first take out castless and ask for No Reward, then when the king says "You've been a good boy, here, have a crappy castle or village" just say "No thanks!". Then, when you take the city and ask to keep it you'll probably get it : ) (Just make sure your faction has not lost several places in the meantime)
 
One tactic I like to use is to attack with a group with inferior size but superior training.
If your troops number less than 20% of the enemy regardless of training they rally out of the gate and engage you in front of the gate. If your troops consist of elites like Huscarls and if you get enough on the field with the tactics skill your men can clobber the defenders without these pesky walls in the way.

This tactics works best if you attack by ladder (takes less time) and if you have a place nearby to stash troops. That way you can withdraw from the siege, either reduce or stock your troops and attack again that way.
 
i have a problem..when besieging Dhirim, the last town standing in my complete control of Calradia, there is no siege tower..what should i do??any sugestions??salute to all MB lovers
 
The problem with siege warfare is that at the wall entrance its a horrible bottleneck, ill refer to it as the meat grinder! The problem with the meat grinder is that if you're among the first to enter the bottleneck, prepare to die. However the most important thing is to try get rid of all the bloody archers, they make it far worse and they wont have a problem hitting the guys at that close range.

Personally i prefer having archery as a skill, it usually keeps you safe and its impact is huge in a siege fight. You can lay waste to more enemies than any other of your troops. You alone can keep the walls clear of archers. For this to work you'll need to have pretty high archery skills, to fire fast and with minimal impact on your aim.

Still, wont help that much if you have low tier troops storming the meat grinder. They need to be solid, like the above posters have already said. Huscarls are among the best you can have for that. Then again its such a mess up on the walls, troops dying to left and right.. its very zergy!
 
Well, it's sort of like cheating, but if you go to settings and reduce the battle size, sieges are incredibly easy.  it basically reduces the amount of people in the battle, so instead of there being 50 archers sitting on the walls mowin down your men, there are maybe 5-10, and once you kill those, 5-10 more appear.  the number of men you have is reduced as well.  However, it doesn't last forever, so if a garrison has 300 people in it, chances are you'll only have to fight about 50-100 of them.  With the settings set on minimum (just as a test, I don't like to keep it that low), I once stormed a keep and captured it single handedly.  It's easy if you're a skilled archer to pick off the first few soldiers, then keep picking off the others as they appear.
 
Tyris said:
Well, it's sort of like cheating, but if you go to settings and reduce the battle size, sieges are incredibly easy.  it basically reduces the amount of people in the battle, so instead of there being 50 archers sitting on the walls mowin down your men, there are maybe 5-10, and once you kill those, 5-10 more appear.  the number of men you have is reduced as well.  However, it doesn't last forever, so if a garrison has 300 people in it, chances are you'll only have to fight about 50-100 of them.  With the settings set on minimum (just as a test, I don't like to keep it that low), I once stormed a keep and captured it single handedly.  It's easy if you're a skilled archer to pick off the first few soldiers, then keep picking off the others as they appear.

thats not really fun
 
Hi there, thanks for the replies. I made good use of your advice and conquered Chelbek Castle in a drawn-out siege, my 100 men taking on 350+ defenders and winning with limited casualties.
However, I attempted an assault on Wercheg next and had to reload an ad-hoc save I made just before starting, because it was a total massacre for my men!  :sad:
They have about 400 men in the city, about 45 Nord Archers and 26 Huntsmen, AND 37 Veteran Archers. Chelbek Castle had even more actually, that's why Wercheg was a tempting target.
The huge problem with Wercheg is that the AI could deploy 15, maybe even more archers (90% Veteran Archers) with excellent sight lines. I'm playing with a battle size of 100.
The creepy thing about them was that most of my men just died when hit, as if Jeremus (all healing skills at 7) wasn't even there at all! The setup area was a perfect killzone, even with their big shields, Rhodok Sergeants just got sniped one after the other, it was appalling.
Even a head-on rush up the ladder wouldn't work, my men were extremely vulnerable while ascending, and Veteran Archers come with 2-h axes, which they happily used to finish off any attacker who got close enough.

My army is not ready for such an obstacle, I am thinking about training more and more Huscarls, looks like the only possible solution.  :shock:
 
Tyris said:
Well, it's sort of like cheating, but if you go to settings and reduce the battle size, sieges are incredibly easy.  it basically reduces the amount of people in the battle, so instead of there being 50 archers sitting on the walls mowin down your men, there are maybe 5-10, and once you kill those, 5-10 more appear.  the number of men you have is reduced as well.  However, it doesn't last forever, so if a garrison has 300 people in it, chances are you'll only have to fight about 50-100 of them.  With the settings set on minimum (just as a test, I don't like to keep it that low), I once stormed a keep and captured it single handedly.  It's easy if you're a skilled archer to pick off the first few soldiers, then keep picking off the others as they appear.

I dont see where comes the cheating. I hate sieges with 100 people, it just gets completely confusing, and you cant see who's ally and who's foe in the middle of the confusion. You know, those castle sizes there are in the game shouldnt really allow 100 men in there. It's just SO small. And there are just 1 ladder/bellfry in there. Normal siges would have many of them, and castles would be way bigger, too. How it is, you'd think the guards in there would sleep in the ground, since it doesnt seem to have even space for a resting room. So I normally put around the minimum so that it's a bit less confusing. The battle advantage usually makes up for it anyway. so it's proportional. In the inner walls, for example, I usually have like me and 2 people vs 6 or 7 of them. As Im still not lvled enough to take 3 by myself easily on foot, even with good armor, I consider it as a good challenge. Im actually way better in cavalry...

Well, perhaps when Im lv100 or something, I might want to have higher battle sizes in sieges... I normally dont mind them on normal ground, since there's "space"... but I just plainly hate "confusion". I mean, people standing so awesomely close each other that you cant see anything AT ALL >.<

First order on battle: hold this point! / Spread out, Spread out, Spread out!

 
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