Best 2nd tier archer for siege defense (besides Rhodok)

[estevesbk]

Greetings!

Lords, even the upstanding and goodnatured ones are just a bunch of crybabies. I don't like them and don't want them on my future new Kingdom. I may list a number of reasons but even with Diplomacy Mod it's more enjoyable for me to spend more time garrisoning towns/castles than pleasing lords that get a rep hit just because they were not able to win a battle.

Tax inefficiency will obviously be a problem even with enterprises on every town. So for going solo, I need to think at a good cost/benefit siege defense. 2nd tier archers (lvl 14/15) seem to be very good for a garrison for shooting the attackers while maybe lower tier infantry tries to hold the enemy.

Some may disagree, but I think Rhodok Trained Crossbowman are the best. But I need another kingdom's troops because even with Diplomacy's Constable it will take a lot of time to manually occupy every castle/town with just one kind of archer.

- The problem about Vaegirs in this case is that their equal in cost are the Skirmishers. They seem to catch up with Rhodoks just later on.

- Swadians same thing, but probably they are much worse than the Vaegir.

- Khergits seems an interesting option, but I don't know if all the Horseman carry bows or some just "throwing stuff" and how good they are.

- Nords have the Nord Archer which seems a good choice. Problem is that I will already use them as my main melee defense which leads to the same issue as the Rhodoks.

- Sarranids are also Skirmishers at the same level.


Bonus Question: Between 100 Nord Trained Footman and 200 Nord Footman, which would you prefer? Does the low level footman already throws some good axes at the heads of the invaders?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Autoresolve siege battles, and battles in general, aren't very complicated, based largely on numbers rather than skill or levels. You could put 100 looters in a settlement and as long as you dont actually take part in the battle, they'll quite easily beat 100 swadian knights, because the game just adds a 30% bonus to defenders in a siege, and that's it.

Instead of garrisoning tons of your best men, stick rescued prisoners and wounded men in there. A campaigning enemy army is gonna beat your castles no matter what you put in there, so getting iverly concerned with composition is a waste of time.

 

[estevesbk]

Autoresolve siege battles, and battles in general, aren't very complicated, based largely on numbers rather than skill or levels. You could put 100 looters in a settlement and as long as you dont actually take part in the battle, they'll quite easily beat 100 swadian knights, because the game just adds a 30% bonus to defenders in a siege, and that's it.

Instead of garrisoning tons of your best men, stick rescued prisoners and wounded men in there. A campaigning enemy army is gonna beat your castles no matter what you put in there, so getting iverly concerned with composition is a waste of time.

Oh but I do like to grab my poleaxe and from a safe distance hit the enemies and see they fall while they try to climb...

 

[Ivan Khan]

Khergits will not work. They cost more because of the horses. If you want to try use horseman, they all have bows in native, the archers have throwing weapons for about 1/4.

I think the best defense is a few elites backed up by loads of recruits. I like Rhodoks best too. I find it is best to mix them though. I do not know why but mixed archer groups do better.

You could always mod your troops to give you what you want.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Mixed archer groups do better because you can combine fast shooting bows with the damage bonuses of crossbows. Killing power + stopping power = ded enemy
As ivan said, numbers matter more than skill, especially for siege battles, and especially especially for the auto resolved ones that you don't take part in. Field battles are different but during a siege, if youre the defender, you want to pile as many arrows onto the enemy as possible in a short amount of time.

 

[estevesbk]

Mixed archer groups do better because you can combine fast shooting bows with the damage bonuses of crossbows. Killing power + stopping power = ded enemy
As ivan said, numbers matter more than skill, especially for siege battles, and especially especially for the auto resolved ones that you don't take part in. Field battles are different but during a siege, if youre the defender, you want to pile as many arrows onto the enemy as possible in a short amount of time.

So for garrison:

200 Rhodok Crossbowmen is better than 100 Rhodok Trained Crossbowmen;

and

200 Nord Footmen is better than 100 Nord Trained Footmen?

Of course I know about the strategy of piling up 1000 of recruits and no one would attack, but I don't feel much comfortable with it, I'd like to pile up some troops at least one training level above

I thought about 2nd tier archers instead of 1st tier because it seems that if you have 100 archers and 400 infantry or 50 archers and 450 infantry, the same number of archers would spawn. At least when I lay siege is like that... I suppose when defending too? Then the lower tier infantry would hold much of the battle advantage.

So, with 100 Rhodok Crossbowmen and 400 Nord Footmen, I would have, let's say, 30 Rhodok Crossbowmen spawning depending on the battle (dis)advantage. And with 50 Rhodok Trained Crossbowmen and 450 Nord Footmen, I would have the same number, 30 Rhodok Trained Crossbowmen. Am I wrong? *

* Edit: Which means, if the Trained Crossbowmen would cost exactly the double (maybe it's a little more but you got the idea), with 50 trained crossbowmen and 450 footmen I would have much more firepower than with 100 crossbowmen and 400 footmen with ALMOST exactly the same cost, assuming I would not need reinforcements of course.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I wouldn't bother with garrisons above 30 at all to be honest. Much better to put those soldiers in your own army if you're expecting to get attacked, because an extra 1000 men in a garrison is only going to slow a campaigning army down by a few hours.

As in real medieval warfare garrisons themselves were quite small compared to the field army. Better to defeat that entire army by yourself than rely on the under developed autoresolve to whittle an enemy down - unless you cripple yourself economically by recruiting tens of thousands of men, there's no way to decisively defeat the enemy without being in the battle yourself. Otherwise the enemy will just take town after town off you, swallowing up hundreds of your men in one go with spreadsheey efficiency.
Oh, and the autoresolve also has the tendency to go "oh whatever" and end a battle without all the men actually having fought.

Tl;dr garrisons are almost useless, defeat them in the field or coax them into besieging you.

Also just to clarify, by auto resolve i dont mean the menu option, i mean the mechanic thay kicks in on thw campaign map when two npc armies meet and their numbers go down.

 

[Ivan Khan]

So for garrison:

200 Rhodok Crossbowmen is better than 100 Rhodok Trained Crossbowmen;

and

200 Nord Footmen is better than 100 Nord Trained Footmen

Sort of. But more like 5 Sharpshooters, 10 vet xbow, 15 trained xbow, 20 crossbow, & 150 recruits are better. Depending on what your max participants number is only the top of your stack will spawn. Since the AI will not siege bigger numbers you can figure about 1/3 of the total allowed will spawn. I play native at 150. Therefore if I have 50 elite/veteran troops they will spawn and be the first defenders. Maybe allow a few more med range troops for your second wave.

So, my garrison would be 50 high end, 50 midrange, and 300 recruits. And, mostly I take what is given, except for 20 elite archers. Various bandits can make good midrange troops.

You can also stick a few troops in there meant to replenish yet field army. I like all cavalry field armies. So, I may include a few cavalry in there, or troops one step away easy to train up (Swad Footman or Sarr Vet Footman). 

The field army replacements are often critical. As Jacob says defeat them in the field. A fast field army can pick off stragglers, making the siege force abandon the siege. Or, rush to a town of the besieging faction and siege it first, making the AI marshal turn back to defend.

You also should not be too afraid of losing a town or castle now and then. What really matters is winning the war. I will often leave a town lightly defended. Then, small parties of the enemy try to siege it. I show up with my fast cavalry field army and destroy each lord or group that tries piecemeal. If the odds get too much, well I lose the town, and go take it back once they are gone.

Once you destroy a factions field armies, your towns and castles are now all well protected.