How to get Fian Champions to act as archers in siege defense?

[Molay]

Hello,

I'm currently defending a city I took against a big enemy army. My army consists mostly of Fians and Fian Champions, though there's some of the battanian melee units mixed in (all having throwing weapons too). Very solid troop lineup for siege defense in my mind.

Anyway, once the siege starts, NOBODY mans the walls and starts firing on the enemies. My Fians mix with the other melee troops in huge blobs of units and just wait for the enemy to climb the walls. It's driving me crazy.

I tried making more archer groups before battle start, but as soon as it begins the battle AI just decides to undo my groupings and maxes big blobs of mixed troops once again.

I can't hold the city like this. My archers aren't acting as archers and I'm outnumbered 3:1. The AI just craps itself for some reason with my setup.

I played an empire campaign recently with a more balanced mix of melee and ranged troops, and the siege AI acted just as I would expect; archers to the walls and firing, melee by the gate and at the wall climb spots. With Battania though, just huge blobs of mixed units standing close-ish to the gate, nobody ready at the walls, nobody shooting at enemies. It's a disaster.

What am I doing wroing, any advice please? Thank you!

 

[TengriBless]

What am I doing wroing

No, that's just the game. I don't know if changing unit formation actually impacts their behaviour but you might wanna try that.

any advice please?

Play a game worth playing.

 

[Molay]

Much as I like hearing that it's not my fault, I'd still appreciate any advice on how to manage the situation^^ I'm quite enjoying 1.7 so far, although this could just break this campaign :S

 

[TengriBless]

You could always try manually setting up formations but in sieges that just makes everything worse more often than not. Other than that, enjoy life and contribute to human civilization.

 

[ldgarrett]

My gentle suggestion is that, given all the issues yet to be resolved in Siege Defence in single player, that you "always autocalc siege defences; never autocalc siege assaults". At least you will get the best possible result for the quantity and tier of defending troops that way, and can play the rest of the game as you will.

That your Empire campaign did not have the issues, I can not explain. The issues are more normal than that success.

I -know- it's not the fun of getting to play live battles of the defence. But I hope it helps.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

sally out

 

[Madijeis]

I think your problem is that you have too few melee units and too many archers to do what the AI is programmed to do. You have to Auto-Calc it

 

[Urbanski]

It does sound like your imbalanced army (mainly archers) is causing issues with the game.

Normally it would send your infantry / cav to the gate and to defend against siege towers, it can't do that if you have no infantry / cav. Unfortunately Early Access means you can still stumble across issues like this.

They fixed siege towers, sounds like they need to fix siege defense / pathing and AI when given an unorthodox army composition.

 

[Shaxx]

Unfortunately Early Access means you can still stumble across issues like this.

Yea we are just 12 years into development, I think by year 15 things will really be shaping up, probably.