Tips for single player siege battles?

[cberry]

Is it even possible to win siege assaults? Every time, my entire army bunches up on the ladder and gets slaughtered, and I am forced to use cheats to get inside of the castle and kill everyone on the walls from behind.

It's probably the most annoying thing.

So what do I do? Create a mass army of archers to kill them from outside the walls? Seems like the only logical strategy, as CQC has proven itself useless in this type of fight.

 

[RAD_X]

In original I just used to amass an army of high tier troops and win that way. For example to storm a castle with ladder (not siege tower- those are much harder) I would use something like 50 knights or huscarls and loose about 15 of them dead. Cities would be about 80 - 20-25 dead. That was the case in original with battles capped at 100, full party damage and average AI.

In warband I've tried capturing a castle with a siege tower with 42 knights, good AI, 150 size cap and... got completely annihilated. Garrison consisted of 140 troops, including about 40 sharpshooters. I think my knights killed 1 or 2 defenders before all of them fell dead.

My tip would be to have a ginormous army of high tier troops and cap the battle size at 100.

 

[Yodarkore]

I found that sieges are harder now in M&B Warband than in original M&B. I'm not a siege expert either, i often got pwned too. I cant imagine yet how to take a city without praying that other lords wont leave the siege until the siege equipement is built, because i noticed they tend to let you alone just before the siege equipement is ready :s

But troop quality is VERY important (improved armors and weapons), especially when they are queuing on the ladder (btw we have multiple ladders on MP and only one in SP).

I do use Nord Huskarls now (strongest armor, mostly fighting with axes so bonus against shields), and i was used to Swadian Knights in the original M&B. It takes a long time to have enough of those skilled soldiers, but it really make the difference. Or should i say, using troops below "veteran" is pure and utter suicide.

Edit: Archers outside the walls are killed at a faster rate than they kill soldiers on the wall (wich is logical. Also, be sure of your party battle order before engaging. Dont send too much weak troops at first, or they only get slaughtered, better keep them for the latest part of the fight.
But i have to admit (with merely 600 renown, so approx 70 troops) taking a castle alone (100-120 garnison) is really hard and if you manage to win, you will have lost many of your best troops and you are very vulnerable to counter attacks. Better siege a castle with nearby friendly lords, it also help to improve their relations with us.

 

[cberry]

Well, I just had almost 50 Sarranid Guards and 20 Sarranid Master Archers + 150 of the Sultan's men get slaughtered by a Rhodok castle that was about 90-strong with mostly recruits and crossbow men.

I seriously don't think it's possible to capture a castle owned by the Rhodoks in this game anymore.

 

[Yodarkore]

Well, I just had almost 50 Sarranid Guards and 20 Sarranid Master Archers + 150 of the Sultan's men get slaughtered by a Rhodok castle that was about 90-strong with mostly recruits and crossbow men.

I seriously don't think it's possible to capture a castle owned by the Rhodoks in this game anymore.

Well, the Sarranid AI managed to take Veluca from Rodock (im Nord on this game), but Rodock managed to take it back, and it is now under siege again (funny part is that they just took a border castle, then went straight to Veluca).

I only assaulted Swadian castles yet, and the sharpshooter + knights are very tough foes too... We took 3 castles to Swadia (2 were assaulted by the AI and i came in reinforcment, and i took one by myself all alone after a few save game reloads, needless to mention i had to rebuild 2/3 of my army from scratch on that one... Now we are at peace with every kingdoms, so i have another siege army pretty ready for the next war... But i really wonder how will i ever take a city without having massive AI support...

 

[RAD_X]

Well, I just had almost 50 Sarranid Guards and 20 Sarranid Master Archers + 150 of the Sultan's men get slaughtered by a Rhodok castle that was about 90-strong with mostly recruits and crossbow men.

I seriously don't think it's possible to capture a castle owned by the Rhodoks in this game anymore.

To be completely frank, siege mechanics is absolutely ridiculous.

Consider this: my faction had about 500 men + a castle with another 100 when enemy force of 900 showed up. Theoretically, the enemy just should've easily dispersed our force of 500 and then captured the castle. Didn't happen. All 500 people, including my party, just got inside the besieged (!) castle and won siege defence by a landslide. If that is not ridiculous then I don't know what is.

I think TW should really cap the amount of garrison allowed in the castle to about 100, and make all the lords that come into castle leave their troops camped outside. I could also suggest an all time favourite multiple ladders, reduced food supplies, sneaking-in and poisoning the wells and etc...

 

[cberry]

I think it should be similar to Medieval 2 Total War, in a sense that you can build multiple types of different siege works such as rams, ladders, siege towers, .ect
Pipe dream, but the battering ram idea should've been implemented long ago.

Also to add onto your story, I had 91 men vs. about 1200 in siege defense, and only lost 23 men, only 16 of them were killed.

 

[Yodarkore]

I think TW should really cap the amount of garrison allowed in the castle to about 100, and make all the lords that come into castle leave their troops camped outside. I could also suggest an all time favourite multiple ladders, reduced food supplies, sneaking-in and poisoning the wells and etc...

Yeah i'm curious to know if anyone has taken a city in single player since Warband release...

As for siege equipement, we DO miss trebuchets and such catapults... Whats the point of having a skilled engineer just to build a SINGLE ladder? At least in MP, as stated above, there is several ladders/siege towers. Adding one or two more ladders/siege towers could be great (for a cost in money?)

I guess a lot of my Huskarl gonna bravely die against those swadian recruits... And taking out Rodock empire gonna turn in an attrition war the AI will obviously win... Doh... Its hard to become the King of Kings :p

 

[HHUK]

I've taken Veluca and numerous castles. Although I suppose the Rhodok's are easy to siege, their spears are almost useless up close.

My army is completely footmen, sword and board style. No cavalry, no archers, sometimes I keep a few crossbowmen. Any low armour troops drop like flies, armour seems to be the key to easily winning in the bottleneck situation. As soon as your guys break through it turns into a pretty even battle, it's just getting off that ramp and onto the stone wall that's the hard bit.

My tactic is to run as close as possible and whip my crossbow out, kill every ranged attacker ASAP. These are quick at killing your boys from the sides.

Then I pull my army back to the bottom and pick off any ranged attackers drawn out by this. I go up and kill as many close attackers as I can with time lunges and overhead swings. When I make a decent gap I set my army to charge. (Hopefully I time this for just before the opponent gets reinforcements, by the time my guys are up and broken through they'll be in charge at the top of a set of stairs and the tables are turned).

I've got no particular tactic besides that, someties I've suicide ran up the ladder and snuck around to where the crossbow men were, then picked off any chasers, picked up some bolts and started pelting the enemy from the back/side as my guys stormed the bottleneck.

 

[cberry]

Okay then, for normal people, besieging castles is impossible.

 

[Evilfish]

Best advice I can offer is to use the custom troop tagging and send them in groups instead of having them bunch up at the end of the ladder where the archers have a real low chance to miss em. It's still doable, it's just a ***** to do. You need a lot of troops and hard ass ones since the newly recruited are absolutely useless there as infantry. Also split your archers and find them a good position to shoot at their own archers, usually there isn't one and you'll lose many of them but at least you reduce the fire on the ones going up the ladder.

 

[JohnTheFisherman]

I have 25 knights and the rest or slightly less trained, i can take normal castles pretty easy. (around 75 total)

What i usually do is tell my troops to follow me and i go in first swinging wildly and blocking apropriatly.

 

[cberry]

It should be possible to take castles on ANY setting, but it's literally impossible on when you've got it on "Normal damage"

Guess I'll have to drop it back to 1/4 just for sieging so I can Rambo my way into the castle, as there's no strategical or realistic way to take a castle.

 

[Vigil80]

The only real problem I've had when it comes to sieges are the bugs, much as I hate to say it. Whether it's my boys getting stuck halfway up the ramp, or guys falling off the wall/getting stuck under the tower ramp since they don't know how to just stand still. Annoys the crap out of me. I spam "infantry, hold position" but they just have to spaz out doing the truffle shuffle on the wall until someone falls off and gets swarmed by the enemy.

At least enemy troops do it too, but then they get stuck under the tower ramp, and noone can reach them to kill them. Had a siege go on for something like 10 extra minutes because noone could hit the troops lodged under the ramp. Finally I was able to find some javelins to chuck at them from underneath.

 

[Reaven]

The only issue with me is that my guys are insistent on knocking me off the ladder. Then somehow they never kill anyone on the wall.

 

[Drekor]

Here are some tips:

1) Bring a shield, whether you plan to fight with it or not you'll need to going up the ladder.

2) Be the FIRST up the ladder - Yes it's dangerous but it's likely the only way I find you can win without horrible losses.

3) Once your in don't stand around in the melee blob, jump up and run along the walls or jump over people and get behind them and head to their archers/xbows; kill them then come back into their melee and shred them from behind.

I prefer to go with Bow + Arrow + Shield + 2H Great Axe, the axe will one shot infantry and typically will shatter shields in one hit to. The shield is for getting me up the ladder and the bow+arrow is if I take too much damage it lets me play a little more conservative and pick people off(use the arrows enemy archers drop when you get low). Using this method I took Dhirim with myself, 60 mamlukes, 3 companions and about 100 cannon fodder(random sarronid lord decided to follow me) against around 300 enemies.

I had 91 men vs. about 1200 in siege defense, and only lost 23 men, only 16 of them were killed.

Yea would be much better if they had more ladders to come up and had proper support from their own archers...

 

[L-J-F]

I tried taking one of the cities just before with a force of 58 Swads and did extremely well .... unfortuneately that was because the enemy sallied out. I easily dispatched the 100 that came at us, but then we had to assault and my knights just got annihilated. Haven't tried a castle yet, not sure if I should try to go solo kingdom yet.

 

[Cyrus]

Consider this: my faction had about 500 men + a castle with another 100 when enemy force of 900 showed up. Theoretically, the enemy just should've easily dispersed our force of 500 and then captured the castle. Didn't happen. All 500 people, including my party, just got inside the besieged (!) castle and won siege defence by a landslide. If that is not ridiculous then I don't know what is.

I made the mistake of accepting Uhhun Castle as a Swadian lord. We were at war with the Khergits, Sarranid, and the Rhodoks, meaning I was getting pounded by the Khergits and Sarranid armies while the Rhodoks kept most of the Swadians busy up in the Swadian territory.

I ended up having to singlehandedly defend Uhhun Castle from a Sarranid army. I had around 130 troops (including garrison) vs ~480. I had to defeat them I think 4 times before the siege finally ended and they left. I can't remember if it was this way in native M&B or not, but I never got any loot for defending.

Perhaps there should be battle to break through the siege lines so you can get in to the castle to defend?

 

[Griffinhawk]

Cyrus I've played Many battle in M&B Like that There was a time when i ticked off the Rhodoks and their whole army would attack me while our me (vaegirs) were at peace...can't tell you how many times I had to defend Vyncord castle and the Village

 

[Stargazer]

Sieges are my biggest gripe with this game.

It got really insane really quickly as soon as I managed to take my first castle. I quickly discovered that owning a recently acquired castle while at war with the Vaegirs, Khergits, and Nords all at once is not a good thing. I literally fought off about 10 different attempts by all three factions to take it, usually with a force upward of 400+ soldiers.

The other Swadian lords were too busy going to farkin' feasts to help me. 

Nevertheless, I managed to defeat each attempt with only a few losses here and there. Defense is easy. Offense, however, is another story altogether. I really, really, really wish there was more than that Single Ladder of Death. Their troops attempt to climb down the thing while mine try to climb up. It's a massacre. I've found that the only way I manage to take a castle is by being the first up onto the walls and try to create a gap that my troops can pile into. Once they're actually ON the walls, things become a bit better.

The better, simpler option is to find a nearby friendly Lord and suggest he attack the same castle you are. Once he sieges the castle, talk to him again and get him to attack, then join him. I don't believe you get any loot this way, though.