Sieging the DKs

[AvatarJTC]

I have had poor luck sieging the DKs, all I do now is go on a massive process of shooting their archers, retreating, sniping some more out till I lose my arrows, retreat, rinse and repeat.  I would let my archers have some fun but they can't hit anything, not even my arbelists!  Sometimes I have fun and kill some with my morning star, but only occasionally, my infantry ALWAYS gets cut up.  My tactic has been working, but it feels really dumb and slow.
P.S.  Fine, sometimes I use my archers to destroy their shields

 

[Josef_the_Pretender]

Yeah, you'd have to be a real masochist to enjoy this process. Using this method, and having a high surgery skill does make it seem like a bit of a swindle.

However, it's the only thing that really has worked for me so far. I do eventually send in my elite infantry when they are down to 20 or so defenders left, to finish them off and make it a little more enjoyable. Losses ensue.

EDIT: oops, I just now realise that you are going in alone with your bow. No, you have to take your archers, though it is still tedious. END OF EDIT

Last night I took back Almerra from the DKs and it was brutal. I may have had to make 15 separate attempts (enlivened by a battle with Tantius halfway through when my first 80 slots were occupied by archers. Carnage). As you say, most archers seem rubbish, but I think most castles only have a few spots where your archers have a decent line of sight on the defending archers, and to get them to that spot takes a bit of trial and error. Otherwise they are hitting nothing. So much so that you're almost glad to see them leave when the morale hit kicks in. ( Yeah, good riddance, Mercenary Longbow. What'd you ever do for me? etc. )

But hey, sieges should be attritional, no?    In fact by rights you should go in there with a low surgery and see what happens.

However, my experience has been that there is always a way....so if anyone wants to tell how their infantry stormed the gates of Castle Xyz, please do.

 

[Pellagus]

Archers seem to work best. Arbalestiers are well armoured and fairly easy to train so I would take lots of them.

If you have good armour, I would suggest you head up the infantry into the castle, carve a path through the crush at the top to make space for your troops and try and take down the black-armoured DKs first. It's easy to get surrounded this way though and you are a sitting duck for any archers that have a line of sight on you. Once you're in, get your archers in as well and position them on the ramparts. They'll be able to hit more enemies from there.

 

[The Mercenary]

I took Tihr from the Dark Knights in one successful siege. I basically swarmed them with 2,000 troops or so, calling on every companion in the game and their armies, and all my lords. Killed them at a 1/3 ratio - but they were all down in the end. Always aim for the troops in full black armour, then the ones in half-black armour. They're the ones that will carve your army into tiny bits.

 

[AvatarJTC]

Muahahahahaha, yesterday as they rained down from their ladders, defending their last stronghold, they were met by a hail of arrows.  They scattered as they charged, making them easy work of archers and spear/pikemen.

AND I was outnumbered.

Edit: Even on 101% difficulty it worked out pretty well.  I lost few due to a ridiculous surgery skill.
Edit2: it was epic.

 

[Josef_the_Pretender]

Damn you all with your successful elimination of the Dark Knights! 

This was to be the weekend where I followed suit, with the complete overthrow of these imposters, but.....

Saturday: captured the three Khergit castles they had left, using a bunch of regular Rhodok spearmen with their big shields while the siege tower was rolling along, sniping their Marksmen, then following up with a second wave of Sharpshooters and Archers.

Dark Knights have been left with Jelkala and Ichamur, both garrisoned to the max.

Sunday: Unfortunately the DKs seem to be back to their original strength, where they can roll up to any castle of mine with 800 troops, meaning my entire game is spent recruiting around the provinces, then rushing to threatened castles and stuffing them with 350 troops to discourage the DKs.

Meanwhile Ragnar, the prick, has declared war and is arriving at Kelredan with 2200 men every time I turn my back, meaning I have to rush back there and kill 800 Nords every couple of days.

It is all very distracting, and it looks like I'll never finish it.

Do I spend a week (real time) garrisoning all my castles to >350 men each so that the DKs turn their ire on Ragnar instead of me?

Is it true that you can garrison 300 raw recruits in a castle and it will have the same discouraging effect as 300 Paladins? Or does the code take the level of your troops into account? It would be nice to get a definitive reply to this question - my personal experience seems to indicate that the level of your troops does count (i.e. that if you stock your garrison with raw recruits, you will draw every enemy from miles around. Even tribes from outside Calradia will migrate in order to get a piece of you).

Or should I just ignore the DKs for now and wipe out Ragnar and his merry band of Nords? I feel very vindictive towards him at this minute. That would only leave the Swads though, and I assume they would just declare war on me then, and so prolong the game....I'd have to eliminate every faction, stock every castle with >350 troops, then turn my attention to the DKs.

 

[Lord Samuel]

Yeah, I agree with Josef. A great archer line seems like the only way to defeat the DK in siege.

This is how I do it:

- I have 60 Ivory archers, 40 skalds and about 200 tarkhans garrisoned in Uxkhal (Tarkhans are sooo easily recruitable!).
I take them all, plus 50 of my top-tier infantry/cavalry.

- When siege begins, I station my infantry, dispersed, a few feet ahead of my 100 archers. (Battlesize is at 300). Main ennemy fire is concentrated on them, sparing most of my archers.
          - At the first skirmish, a lot of my men get killed, but my archers also take out a number of DKs archers. Conveniently enough, they seem to be the priority targets for my archers. Tarkhans are surprinsigly good at that!
          - When there is no more arrows, I retreat, losing 0 morale.
          - My archers take out more and more DK archers (about 40-60 each time). I lose less and less men. Once all DK Archers are eliminated, I still reconduct the same tactics,  till the DKs are just a few bunch. Then I send my Infantry to finish the job. 

 

[Uthril]

DK are tough but I have not had a big problem with them.

Two tips:

#1 Basically have very high medic skills or make sure a companion does, put them at the very end of your army stack. Have all your archers at the begining of your stack. So far the best standard archers I have found are Skalds, they are a bit of a pain to train up but they rain death when en-mass in a siege or open field. In open field usually 100 of them can eliminate the bulk of an army of 150-200 without getting touched if you position them decently and use your infantry and cav to turn the enemy so their backs are to the archers.

So medic skill 7+ with a front of 100 Skalds then anything else that can shoot behind them followed by heavy inf.

I play battlesize 400, and win most any siege in 1 go, with a lower battle size you may have to do multiples. DK can are murder in melee (to me) so you may want to let your archers fire all their ammo then break of the siege to refill their ammo and go back to soften them up more before going toe to toe for the final push.

#2 Take a small elite force (so you move fast). Go around the areas with high concentrations of DK activity. Avoid the big DK armies and instead pick off any non-DK force that has DK's as prisioners. Do this for a little and you will have your own mini-DK army

 

[Pellagus]

The Skalds I have had tended to get slaughtered against DKs in sieges, but my medical skills weren't that high until I hired Xerina, so maybe that was why. The Arbalestiers have a slower rate of fire, but are much better armoured.