Castle Battles

[Darkwolf7]

Hi...I'm sure someone has posted something on this already, but when I tried the search function, I got a lot of hits pertaining to Mount & Blade, but I'm looking for some specific feedback on Warband.

In Mount and Blade, I'll admit I found the castle battles too easy.  My 90-100 person troop was more than sufficient to take cities and castles with much more men defending them than I had attacking.

Warband seems to have gone too far the other direction though.  I'm currently Marshal, I have assembled an army of ~650 troops, and I can't take a castle being defended by 180-190 troops (Rhodoks).  The castle requires a siege tower (which is taking me 4 days to build---Lost Artimer and can't find him...been looking for months of game time...).  I'm losing troops (to injuries) at a rate of 6 to 8 times the amount of losses I'm inflicting on the enemy castle.  I've spent a large chunk of the last weekend and no dice. 

What gives?

I'm at day 490 in the game. In M*B I'd probably have won by now.  Instead I hold 1 city, 2 villages, and the Rhodoks have me completely stymied.

Suggestions/Help anyone?

Thanks,

 

[phantom67]

I think if you get a lot of archers (Vaegir Marksmen) and order them to old outside the walls, with your infantry behind/in front of them, and wait a bit for them to fire a few volleys at the enemy, you should be able to subdue them somewhat, before charging in with your infantry.

 

[gnawid]

Whereas in M&B you could charge a castle with a retinue of knights, Warband requires more strategy on the player's part.

I suggest bringing a health amount of top tier archers/crossbows, and tell them to hold position at a reasonable distance. Depleting the enemies' crossbowmen is a must, so bring a bow of your choice and 3 quivers of arrows, or a siege crossbow if you do not have the power draw for a bow.

 

[Luddepop]

With 650 against 200, ordering your troops to attack without you might be worth a try. Or would it? I never use that option myself but it seems reasonable that it should balance the casualties better than 8 to 1.

(By the way, shouldn't the siege tower be filled with troops who ride it safely to the castle walls?)

 

[Tancred_de_Houdan]

Castles are force multipliers, it's not meant to be easy.

 

[Felonious]

I think if you get a lot of archers (Vaegir Marksmen) and order them to old outside the walls, with your infantry behind/in front of them, and wait a bit for them to fire a few volleys at the enemy, you should be able to subdue them somewhat, before charging in with your infantry.

Considering he's attacking Rhodoks that's a terrible idea, his archers will all run out of ammo before they break a single shield and Rhodok Sharpshooters will destroy the majority of his troops before five minutes have passed, without even needing to worry about them running out of ammo because their bolts are replenished every two minutes.

A siege against a large group of Rhodoks is hardly ideal, I'd definitely put them as the hardest faction to besiege, their Sharpshooters are the most accurate ranged troops in the game, and the highest damage per shot (second highest damage per second after the Vaegir Marksman), on top of that they can easily defeat low-to-mid tier infantry in melee by themselves and their Sergeants are almost as strong as Huscarls (at least in a siege situtation, as their shields are superior and their hammers are great meatgrinders). Your best bet would be to get a bunch of Huscarls and heavily equipped companions/lords and try to carry the walls within the first few minutes, and maybe you should bring along your own Rhodok sharpshooters.

In my mind an army of 2:3 Huscarls:R-Sharpshooters would be the best siege force in the game.

 

[Pahosee]

best way to beat the siege,

get your jeremus and level up all int on him

get the 3 medical skill and engineering, make them all 10 , so 40 in total

and set ur jeremus on 1 hot key for him , NEVER LET HIM DIE

always pull him out of battle

say, on the edge of map , that how i do it

and, i finally conquered everyone on game day 2460

 

[killer-blead]

best way to beat the siege,

get your jeremus and level up all int on him

get the 3 medical skill and engineering, make them all 10 , so 40 in total

and set ur jeremus on 1 hot key for him , NEVER LET HIM DIE

always pull him out of battle

say, on the edge of map , that how i do it

and, i finally conquered everyone on game day 2460

I think he wants something that doesn't take at least 6 ingame years.

 

[Darkwolf7]

Thanks for the replies.  Particularly, thanks to Felonius about the relative strengths of the Rhodoks. 

Being Marshal, I only have so much influence over the force composition.  I have 90 troops out of the ~600-650 available.  I've been using 3 large quivers of arrows (Khergit arrows +2, +3 in damage).  I have a archery skill thats over 200, so yes, I do manage to clear the walls of the Rhodok crossbowmen, but the initial group does take some damage from the crossbows.

What's been driving me nuts is watching the reports of the Rhodok Sergeants taking out ~7 to 8 of my men for each one they lose.

I'm thinking I should just switch strategies at this point and lay waste to every fief in Rhodok land...might not help win the game, but would be a good way to 'get some payback..."

Anyways, yes, castles should be force multipliers...but 3.5 to 1 odds should have some chance of winning I think.

btw, I have both Jeremus and Ymira with their healing skills worked up.

Again,
Thanks for the comments and I'll check back to see what other comments come in.

 

[Jagged]

I tend to try to clear the ranged defenders first by telling my men to hold position too.  However, I stumbled on a way to help clear the melée defenders before giving the charge order.

I'd cleared the ranged guys and was running around gathering up loose arrows on the ground while my attackers waited. But there weren't many left on the ground, and none of my archers had conveniently sacrificed themselves for my quiver. But apparently they still had some arrows, because every once in a while a melée defender would poke his head out to see what was taking me so long to start the attack...and get a flurry of arrows from my archers. I noticed that my guys seemed to have the same archery accuracy as Stevie Wonder--there were a lot of arrows sticking out of the walls. So I crept up the ladder to collect what I could.

While I was up there, I found a bit of a sweet spot, where I could get nice close-range headshots in over their shields while they waited for me to get to the top of the ladder. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.  They do notice eventually and may try to attack you...watch out for spearmen!  They also have gotten so riled up at me sometimes so much so that they jumped onto the ladder to get a swing at me.  This is a nice way to harvest more arrows if they make themselves visible to my waiting archers too.  I've even had the defenders rush at me down the ladder and run straight into my men once or twice. I have cleaned out at least one entire garrison this way, thanks to a steady supply of arrows from my men.

You do have to be careful, I had one siege where I wad the one who got headshotted by a crossbowman I'd missed. My men then charged and won (thanks for the battle continuation, Diplomacy!) and won, but took some stiff casualties.

 

[gnawid]

Also, you may try an unbalanced weapon such as a Morningstar or any weapon that can crush through blocks. Stand at the top the of the ladder, between the two ridges, and spam up attack. It should crush through the shields of the soldiers camped at the top. I've done this multiple times, telling my ranged units to hold position while camping the ladder myself.  Whenever I'm at low HP, I jump off the wall, tabbing out of the battle before I hit the ground.

Of course, one time I jumped and missed the tab, and I watched my character collapse onto the ground below...