stuck

[edbzoso]

I haven't played since around .751 I think it was, lots of fun improvements, but certainly still a long way to go.  The combat is fun.  I enjoy the beginning game of building a party, gearing up, and tackling the sea raiders, did that.  Got myself a town, would like to help build it up, but after like 160 days, the elder still won't give me any tasks.  Got myself strong enough to take on mountain bandits, then caravans, that was fun and challenging for a while, but now they are no challenge at all.

I have tried several times to take a castle with my 50 troops in a couple of different configurations but always get my butt kicked.  I have tried starving out a castle but a giant army always comes in and wipes me out.  I tried bringing the King along, and that worked for a few days keeping the hordes away, but then he got bored and left and I got wiped out again.  Very occasionally I will find a noble party that is roughly the same size as mine and have a good fight but otherwise everything is either too easy or too hard.

Any suggestions (not into mods)?  Or do I just need to quit whining and keep grinding caravans?  I think it would probably be more fun if my elder would give me something to do, I guess I'm bugged there but I hate to start over after putting so much time in already.

/vent off

 

[Alastwr]

Taking a castle...hmmm.

I got my castle in the latest version by training up Veghir (or whatever they are called) guards and Marksmen. I also had a heap load of Hired Blades. I then used a bow myself and let my men die for a bit as they ran stupidly at up a tiny ladder. The only ladder, which was kinda silleh but its only beta so not surprising. Anyway, I then managed to get up there with a bunch of guys and killed off heaps, got pushed back. Sat back again, pushed once more and broke through.

What I figured out was that your amount of men assualting the castle is in ratio to the amount of men defending it. So if theres like 180 men defending a castle and you attack with 50, you will only have about 3 or 4 men with you acually visably attacking the castle. When about 3 quarters of them die, you get reinforcements. If you cull them down by about ten, you will get more men on the field at once.

When attacking the castle, don't forget your archers. Don't use to many, but use some. They make good targets for the archers on the walls, taking the heat off your infantary.

Another good method is to stick behind a couple of soliders and use a spear to stab the enemy from a reasonable distance.

As for the elder. I only got the grain quest myself and since then haven't done much with the town. I heard in other threads that you need to escort the farmers and such, make sure the trade goes well. Try not to recruit from your fief, lowers there population base I guess. Also I don't collect taxes myself, I think they get richer that way. Make sure they don't get raided (obviously). Mostly its waiting.

Oh and on last hint for the castle thing. Take more then the king with you. Notice the npcs attack the castles with around 4 or 5 armies. Do this. You should get a combined amount of around 200 men all up. Make a huge difference.

 

[bigbri]

A few things i've found useful when sieging castles.  Equip a shield and run ahead of your army dodging side to side.  I tend to find that most of the enemy archers aim at the person closest to the walls, but because of your raised shield and strafing they will have a hard time hitting you.

Secondly, if you don't fancy being an archery target try taking a missle weapon yourself and sniping at the enemies waiting for your soldiers at the top of the ladder. If you can take out a few before your soldiers start close combat it will give you a slight advantage.

A third option i like is to put on heavy armour(preferably full plate armour), grab a balanced sword of war and be the first one to charge the enemy,  while you distract them your troops can atch up and slaughter them.  Just watch out for the archers further along the castle wall who have a nasty hapit of shooting you in the back.

Finally once you've driven the enemy off the wall try to keep your soldiers there instead of them charging into the courtyard one at a time to be killed by the enemies reinforcements, force the enemy to climb up the stairs single file and be slaughtered by your waiting soldiers.

 

[Llew2]

My suggestion for getting a castle? Go around to all the taverns and hire everyone you can get your hands on, then put them through the meat grinder. You won't take a castle without losing guys, so you're going to have to decide who you don't mind losing.

If you have a bunch of good troops that you don't want to throw away, just drop one of your heros on the map, talk to them, and then give them all the troops you want saved. Then go hire the Mercs and Hired blades and take the castle.

It will take more than 50 troops, so be prepared for that. I sometimes have to do the tavern runs twice in order to get enough guys, after the first batch is killed.

 

[Wandersoul]

I've gotten away with lower troop numbers (30-35), by making certain to amble into nord territory and recruiting every nord I could lay my hands on. Nords are natural foot soldiers and their spears are effective for thinning enemy numbers when scaling the walls. A key way to get a castle is to look around a bit first. The ideal castle doesn't have any Heros near it and a garrison preferably no more than 3 times your numbers...look for castles that are constantly being raided by NPC allies. The NPCs rarely take a castle over, but I've seem them grind one down to a mere 20 troops and leave it ripe for pickings. I usually prefer sniping at the walls while a few troops head up the ladder and joining them once about 5 have made it. This way, my two-handed weapon can reach past them into the breach and I can then exploit the breach to go pick off the wall snipers while my troops fight around the keep. The wall snipers are the deadliest and most-overlooked part of the castle defense.

Sometimes (especially I swear the Vaegirs) the enemy has their heros spread out covering everything - or it looks that way. A close examination often reveals that one or two of these guys are actually garrisoning with 20 or so troops because that lost a major battle earlier in the week. I usually start sacking the local village to draw them out, whomp on them and then proceed to march on the garrison.

There's a lot of different strategies to taking castles, but I hope this gives you some ideas.

Oh another strategy I probably should'nt mention. I had an archer character with a good number of archers and nords. I would use the 'follow me' command to prevent them from scaling the walls and then snipe 5-10 archers off the wall. I would then retreat. Of course I would immediately attack again and snip another 5-10 off the walls. The AI is such awful archers that I think I managed to lose 4 troops while eating  a couple dozen of theirs. I then simply charged up the ramp and let me troops finish them off. I have'nt decided if this counts as an exploit or realistically shows the attrition an extended siege would have.

 

[Manu]

Sieging a castle is a situation where high medical skills gets really handy (especially surgery and wound treatment) - attack, lettigng your archers thin the ranks before you charge. You you get knocked out, no sweat - wait one or two days to get your troops back in shape (high surgery means you won't lose many), rince and repeat until the castle is finally yours.

complment : make sure you've got enough food to do it - I'd say a minimum of 3 of the same 50-rations packs, 4 fif if the place is crowded.

 

[SharpFish]

It looks to me to be a good idea to separate the infantry and archers.  Tell your infantry to hold position and let the archers advance alone.  They soak up the enemy ammo as well as inflicting losses.  When you run out of ammo tell the infantry to charge and bring the archers in as backup if necessary.  Watch out for enemies sallying from the gate or falling off the wall as little melees can break out at the foot of the ladder.  This is a good opportunity to cause casualties yourself rather trying to get up the ladder.  Your job is much more to control the action and stay alive while your troops inflict kills.

You will probably have to do this more than once and you may consider not charging home with the infantry at all in the first few attempts.  Hide them behind cover if you can and do as much damage with bows as possible; watch out for the enemy rushing down the ladder at your archers and call for your infantry as backup if that happens.  Your objective in each case is to inflict as many fatalities as possible while suffering as few as possible yourself.  You may even leave come back again although it seems noble parties will come to defend a castle that has been recently attacked.  But it is possible to conduct "attritional assaults" until you can finally deliver an actual rush at the walls.

It's worth noting that attackers take damage falling off the walls and this means that they can be knocked unconscious.  Because this happens in sieges and not in field battles your proportion of wounded soldiers is higher than it would otherwise be, and consequently even failed assaults are not as costly as they might first appear.  The fact that the AI reinforces rather than replaces losses suggests it will not be easy for them to replace permanent losses, especially so if you have been raiding and burning this villages and killing or enslaving their peasants.

 

[SacredDutchman]

Play as Kerghit, train up an army of about 21 to 30 Veteran Horse Archers and go after nord castles...easy as pie...Archers own nord axe throwers due to range..the few archers they have soon fall due to the number of arrows raining down and those fools who trie and rush you meet the same fate as they are cut down before they can get within melee range.
I won 2 castles from the nords..I had only 40 guys..about half where Veteran Horse Archers, the Nord had 94 in first and 86 in second castle..I killed or knocked out all of their guys and only lost 1 or 2 myself.

 

[Manu]

If you have the cash, invest in the heviest crossbow you can afford (and use) and practice you sniping skills - every defendedr you manage to nail is one less for your you men to tangle with.

 

[Merentha]

Sieging a castle is a situation where high medical skills gets really handy (especially surgery and wound treatment) - attack, lettigng your archers thin the ranks before you charge. You you get knocked out, no sweat - wait one or two days to get your troops back in shape (high surgery means you won't lose many), rince and repeat until the castle is finally yours.

This was really the only way to take the cities, since the wave of spawning crossbowmen would wipe out the one or two men that managed to get through the terrible city pathing and there's only so many bolts your shield can take. 

I have high surgery and wound treatment for this reason.  Send troops into the grinder and they'll come back wounded, while the enemy comes out dead.  A fair trade, in my opinion. 

In castle battles, your troops will do fairly well in the assault, even at tier 3 or 4.  At the highest troop levels, its possible to take castles without actually losing a man or using exploits. 

I won 2 castles from the nords..I had only 40 guys..about half where Veteran Horse Archers, the Nord had 94 in first and 86 in second castle..I killed or knocked out all of their guys and only lost 1 or 2 myself.

Eh.  I'm currently playing as the Nords and am posting similar results.  Castles are no problem to take, even against the Vaegir and their devilish archers.