Vilianese suck at taking castles

[dumblor]

It's just me or do Vilianese suck at taking castles? From my experience, they suck in melee (elite infantry getting trashed by vaegir archers in melee! (that was 1 on 1 with full health by both sides)), and the only good thing they can do is shot the **** out of stuff in a safe spot (open battles and castle defence). Are there any tips for taking castles with Vilianese apart from having mercenaries? I love vilianese and I'm ain't going to choose any other civ .

 

[sgtalex86]

hold ur ground in front of walls shields in front... shoot all ur arrows retreat & repeat ull have to kill something every third or so attack to gain back morale but thats only way to take castle without mercs or captured melee units.. villanies melee units carry big shields thats all they are for to block arrows so they wouldnt hit ur precious sharpshooters
(btw for some reason sharpshooters seem to do better in melee than elites ^^)

 

[dumblor]

Thanks for the tip, I was thinking for this kind of tactic . I guess this is the tactic i'll be using every-plucking-where.

 

[Warcat92]

Or you can lay siege for a looong time and fight all you battles outside.
It helps to be a good archer yourself, then you can get right behind your shield wall and pick off all the ranged defenders.

 

[Oskatat]

i use black army ironsides and hired blades to help out in the siege. Almost no faction can easily take castles without mercs

 

[Cyclohexane]

i use black army ironsides and hired blades to help out in the siege. Almost no faction can easily take castles without mercs

As it should be. 

I have not heard to much about the Jotnar clan.  They have large round shields and thier infantry is deadly in a siege with 1 and 2 handed axes and nice armor.  The elephant guard will also be getting boosts to thier shield and althletics skill (as well as a minor boost to armor) and will be much better at taking castles.  It saddens me to see that only the black army is being used (I spent a ton of time on all the guilds). 

Anyhow, Vilianese can easily take a castle if you have them stand ground and fire until empty (they carry 2 quivers of arrows), retreat, and repeat.  May be a little cheap, but very effective.  You can also sprinkle in some Vill infantry so there will be some shields soaking up enemy arrow fire.  Make sure the units you want on the battlefield are on the top of your party list first. 

 

[Vlydya]

... retreat, and repeat.  ...

I hate having to retreat! But sometimes you just have to

I know you lose morale upon retreating (even though it may be a strategically sound retreat). I always assumed my troops and I lose (ie, do not get) the after-battle experience also. Anyone know this for sure?
I am also assuming my troops and I get to keep their in-battle experience (from kills)

 

[UnboundZero]

A thing about sieges, could you put it so you won't lose morale if you don't, say, go over the ladder?

 

[dumblor]

Well it seems pretty easy to attack-retreat, so I attack every time my guys' and mine arrows are gone, until reinforcements arive, then i shoot the damn out of them again. Nothing says Vilianese were here like a bilion of arrows stuck in castle's walls.

 

[UnboundZero]

I know... I was besieging a Nord castle, and after I had killed all the archers in the towers, I went up the ladder with a pike and a polehammer... I made some 52 kills, what was funny was the villainese had to shoot around me, and there was like billions of arrows around where i was standing.

 

[Oskatat]

i usually start out in the area between swadia and vaegir, so i usually am able to recruit, capture/recruit or free more black army than other mercs. I have fought only once against the EG, and my casualty rate was enormous. Too bad they are based inside enemy territory...

so maybe its not about how great the BA is, but they are centrally located and near an area where most people hunt bandits and/or capture their first castle. If you had put the conquistadors there, we'd be hearing about those a lot more, for example (they are also on the furs for oil/spice/velvet route from vaegir to rhodok lands)

 

[mouthnhoof]

I know... I was besieging a Nord castle, and after I had killed all the archers in the towers, I went up the ladder with a pike and a polehammer... I made some 52 kills, what was funny was the villainese had to shoot around me, and there was like billions of arrows around where i was standing.

That is a cheap tactic I resort to sometimes. I order the archers to hold position on one side of the ladder, then go up with a polearm - step up, whack, step down. Beyond killing quite a few of the defenders myself this way, every one that lowers his shield to try and hit me back get 10 arrows to the face...

 

[HTAPAWASO]

When I play, I roam around killing lords with an all-faction-troops army, and keep all rescued soldiers in my town.

When I want to besiege something, I take out all the huscarls, sergeants, knights, mercs, etc. from my castle and just set them loose. Easy.

Villianese, Zerrikanians and Antarians are all fairly rubbish at sieges by themselves (haven't played the other factions yet). (Antarians are good if you have the battle-sizer set low, and vills are good if you retreat a few times, but I have 250 battle size and never retreat if I can avoid it so they both suck for me. Zerriks aren't too bad, the axemen are surprisingly good, but the reapers are annoying only knocking people out. If you're forced to retreat, all their soldiers heal and you have to fight them again).

So basically I just find native troops much more effective for taking castles. If you really need some, though it's sorta cheating, set recruitment to native and build up an army of huscarls. Certainly a lot cheaper than black army guys.


Also, Cyclohexans, I've been using Conquistadors in my current game. They're not too bad at all in the field, but it seems people only use mercs for sieges, and in that respect the black army is definitely the best.

 

[UnboundZero]

The reason reapers don't make a lot of kills is because they use gigantic lances that suck a lot without a horse... And I have no idea why you say they are bad at sieges. I have taken castles at max difficulty with armies the same size as the garrison. ( I use elites)

 

[HTAPAWASO]

The reason reapers don't make a lot of kills is because they use gigantic lances that suck a lot without a horse... And I have no idea why you say they are bad at sieges. I have taken castles at max difficulty with armies the same size as the garrison. ( I use elites)

The only reason I said they're not great is that the Reapers only knock people unconscious instead of killing them, so if you run out of troops and need to retreat, all the enemies heal, whereas normally you could wait for your troops to heal (due to high surgery) and attack again against a much smaller force.

But other than that they are fairly good at sieges. Just don't use reapers unless you intend to win in a single attack.

 

[IfJawsCouldWalk]

Like people have said, have your troops hold ground and spread out, not only that get a siege pack.

 

[wadedidit!]

I am using Antarians and their Javlins are ****e so I recruited a whole heap of prisoner Vaegar Marksman and I tell you what Marksman and Antarian Melee units = kick arse in siege!

 

[joblow]

How are you guys controlling your units so well? IIRC, you can simply tell your infantry, cavalry, archers to either hold or charge. Not very much granularity in those options...

 

[HTAPAWASO]

How are you guys controlling your units so well? IIRC, you can simply tell your infantry, cavalry, archers to either hold or charge. Not very much granularity in those options...

1,2,3,4 selects units

F1 = stand ground
F2 = Follow me
F3 = charge
F4 = mount/dismount
F5 = hold fire/fire at will
F6 = advance 10 paces
F7 = retreat 10 paces
F8 = Stand closer together
F9 = Stand further apart

Also you can press backspace, select a type of unit and click on the mini-map to tell them to hold ground there.

 

[Uhtred of Bebbanburg]

Castles are best won if you stay alive.  That's job one but not necessarily an easy one if you want to be a force in castle battles. And by "force" I mean a demon archer cutting down then enemy on the walls.

That said I have a tested and proven method of taking castles WITHOUT retreating repeatedly.

First you get a lot of archers and put them at the top of the queu in your party list.  Put your most expendable archers at the top of the list because they will have to overcome all enemy archers and their casualties will be higher.  Then put in any crossbow troops you have.  I don't use x-bows but occasionally I forget to give them away.

Why archers first instead of your heavy x-bow troops?  Three words--Rate of Fire!  Even the smaller bows will do more damage than the biggest x-bows.  In fact if an x-bow gets hit or bumped during the loading process they have to start over.  This means that an archer can fire at least 3 arrows for your one bolt and 6, 9, or 12 if they hit you before you've got the bolt on the bow.

So then archers up top and then x-bows and at the bottom your lords and faith troops (villianese)  although I don't ususally waste those troops in seige battles.  Then at the bottom of your list you put infantry and then your companions at bottom.

Let your archers fire all arrows and then order them to charge.  When reinforcements come order archers to hold position out front and fire all arrows again.  Any infantry that spawn I deply to the left of the ladder and right up agaisnt the wall so they get less enemy fire.

It won't take long before you've killed all the enemy or enough to send in your infantry for the kill. If there is a secondary battle in the streeets or Hall then hit P and move your best infantry tot he top of the list.  This increases the chance they will deploy.

If that doesn't work then be the first up the ladder with the infantry and jump over the defenders and move off to the side and attack them from the side or move wayover to where archers are and use their arrows to kill the defenders.