I'd like to see a series of threads about what the best formations are, depending on a given situation.
For this thread, I'd like to assume that the enemy is using fortification defense mode, and has fortifications. The rest of the variables are up to you.
But what is the best formation to use to conquer the fortifications? Infantry charge, archer opening, other? Would it depend on what level the fortifications are, the number of defenders, and force makeups on both sides?
Throw out some numbers and what you would do in a given situation.
If you have enough of an advantage in archers to make up the difference in the damage reduced by the fortifications (call it ten percent per level of fortifications, though I don't really know how accurate that number is), then I'd say archer opening. Otherwise, infantry charge!
Use catapults to shoot your cav over the wall, gg ;)
Wait, wait, wait, guys, this is the War Islands forum, right?
Quote from: Foundation on March 13, 2011, 11:49:59 AM
Wait, wait, wait, guys, this is the War Islands forum, right?
Ah, regular BM needs its own Strategies forum.
This might have been moved, but this is the BM subsection, not the WI one.
yes, I moved it.
If all the melee troops have enough siege engines put them into one line otherwise the guys with SE one line infront those without.
If the attacking army has a greater force in archers even when taking reduced damage due to walls into account, best way to attack is to put archers front (actually all ranged units), and everyone else in the rear (or those with SE back those without rear). This provides the best damage a superior archer force can score, as they have much more time to fire on the besieged army.
If archer force of the attacker is not great, have everyone in front, or again two lines of infantry.
I am not sure what unit settings (line, box or wedge) are best for the melee units. I would go for line. Archers I would keep in skirmish unless You expect a really close battle in which case line.
Unless they have a level 7 stronghold. Then you should just build up a bunch of large suicidal infantry units with SE and do as much damage to the walls as possible. If you win (which you won't if they have even a paltry amount of militia inside the walls), raze fortifications until it gets to lvl 6, then rinse and repeat. What we did to Thulsoma, seems to work (save we didn't use sacrificial units the first time, it would have helped though).
Nonsense, walls are only as strong as the people manning them. If you have an adequate enough army, not even a level 9 wall is going to stop you.
QuoteNonsense, walls are only as strong as the people manning them. If you have an adequate enough army, not even a level 9 wall is going to stop you.
I agree. I was under the assumption that walls count for almost nothing if you take enough Siege Engines with you? (and enough men to at least equal the defenders).
Quote from: Munro on March 19, 2011, 02:48:35 PM
I agree. I was under the assumption that walls count for almost nothing if you take enough Siege Engines with you? (and enough men to at least equal the defenders).
Walls still count for a lot. They greatly reduce the damage the defenders take. You'll need a substantially larger force than the defenders, unless the force mix is way unbalanced (defender has 75% archers or something) or the defender lines up in some stupid formation like Delay and Wound. (Yes, I saw this once...)
More SEs does help, though. The more you have, the better off you'll be.
As your enemy's walls become stronger, archers become more useless in the attacking army. What you need is infantry, as heavy as you can get it, stocked with siege engines and banners. The more siege engines you have, the easier they will manage to get onto the ramparts. Once you're on them, the quality of your troops' equipment and their training and cohesion can be the difference between victory and defeat.
People tend to think that it comes down to raw CS, but in a siege battle I would much rather fight with a 40 man unit at 600 CS than an 80 man unit of the same strength. Some people still believe that as long as your enemy doesn't have at least 2:1 odds in CS, they will not be able to win a siege of a fortress (level 5 wall), which is a bunch of crock. About a month ago, Darka, Eston and BoM besieged a city of Coria which had a level 5 wall. The total CS values were 19,000 for the attackers vs 11,000 CS for the defenders. A lot of people would think that Coria should have won a close victory, but when the battle was over the attackers had won, with over 14,000 CS still standing (excluding wounded troops that healed later on), whereas the defenders were almost completely wiped out. The reasons: The attackers had about 4 times as much infantry as the defenders, of much better quality. The attacking infantry was well-trained, well-equipped and well-organized, whereas the defenders were mostly mediocre, poorly trained, unorganized militia.
Taking a lot of banners with you will also help a great deal, as your men will keep their morale high, and as a result they will be able to put in a bit of extra 'oomph', as they say. They will be able to take a lot more punishment before being forced off the walls or off the battlefield. In the siege I mentioned, the attackers had a whopping 20 siege engines and 51 banners in the first round of battle on the walls. As a result of this, and the superior quality of their troops, not a single unit of attackers was repelled from the walls in the first round, which proved to be crucial. The defenders managed to hold their ground for another turn, but after that, it was more a slaughter than a battle.
Quote from: Sacha on March 19, 2011, 10:38:57 PMIn the siege I mentioned, the attackers had a whopping 20 siege engines and 51 banners in the first round of battle on the walls.
If I had known it would only be 20, I would have been nervous. :\ I would have wanted at least twice that. 20 SE in that battle wasn't anywhere near the typical "1 per 20 men", which I think isn't enough anyway.
But still, like you said, we wiped them out because of the completely lopsided, archer-heavy defending force.
QuoteBut still, like you said, we wiped them out because of the completely lopsided, archer-heavy defending force.
Nah you won because the Duke of the City was not there to recruit a decent amount of Infantry militia at the time of the assault :P Some nifty politics were to blame for that, but it was a decent strategy by the enemy nonetheless. ;)
Merlin had constantly been in the city so that he was able to do so in that eventuality, however, having been asked to travel to Anost, that was why he was not there.
But yeah, it just goes to show, CS matters little in such circumstances.
Quote from: Munro on March 20, 2011, 03:07:01 AM
Nah you won because the Duke of the City was not there to recruit a decent amount of Infantry militia at the time of the assault :P Some nifty politics were to blame for that, but it was a decent strategy by the enemy nonetheless. ;)
And if pigs had wings, they could fly.
That's a discussion for a different thread. (Which we've already had.) We're discussing generic tactics here, using a recent example for illustrating a point. We won the battle easily because we had an overwhelming advantage in infantry, even though we didn't have such an overwhelming advantage in CS.
How we gt that advantage is irrelevant.
The example I am talking about in Dwilight with the level 7 walls deals with an all infantry defending force. With very competent infantry centers with which to get infantry from.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 20, 2011, 06:06:23 AM
The example I am talking about in Dwilight with the level 7 walls deals with an all infantry defending force. With very competent infantry centers with which to get infantry from.
General rule of thumb that I got from a guy who spent a fair bit of time studying this stuff was that your force is 10% less effective per level of walls
without taking siege engines into account and all troops being equal. So, level 7 walls defended by good sturdy infantry you'd need over three times the defending force in good infantry, or somewhat less with better infantry, and proportionally less as your SE/man ratio goes up. From a few experiences I've had, if you can get your SE/man ratio high enough (and we're talking 10 men or less per SE) then there are no overcrowding messages. If you can manage that, the walls appear to be almost ineffective at defending against infantry. But, of course, that's bloody expensive especially if you're using anything other than elite infantry.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 20, 2011, 06:06:23 AM
The example I am talking about in Dwilight with the level 7 walls deals with an all infantry defending force. With very competent infantry centers with which to get infantry from.
If they have an all infantry defending force, then I recommend placing your archers forward, infantry to rearguard, and just rake them repeatedly with arrows while your infantry move forward.
Quote from: egamma on March 22, 2011, 04:43:18 AM
If they have an all infantry defending force, then I recommend placing your archers forward, infantry to rearguard, and just rake them repeatedly with arrows while your infantry move forward.
Definitely. If you aren't going to be facing significant archer forces, delaying the melee and making the most of your own archers makes sense. Even with the reduced effect due to fortification, every dead defender is one less that will be swinging a sword later.
That's what we did. I don't know if you realize just how well lvl 7 walls protect against archers. They only lost 4 men per turn at the most, which when spread out among all the defenders doesn't amount to much of anything at all.
Also, with siege engines, they only make it so that your men get their full amount hits in that they normally would. They do nothing to reduce the effects fortifications then have on reducing the number of hits that take effect. Also, I believe siege engines do damage to the walls for every round of combat they are there. That may just be a side effect of the melee on the walls though.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 23, 2011, 01:47:02 PM
That's what we did. I don't know if you realize just how well lvl 7 walls protect against archers. They only lost 4 men per turn at the most, which when spread out among all the defenders doesn't amount to much of anything at all.
Also, with siege engines, they only make it so that your men get their full amount hits in that they normally would. They do nothing to reduce the effects fortifications then have on reducing the number of hits that take effect. Also, I believe siege engines do damage to the walls for every round of combat they are there. That may just be a side effect of the melee on the walls though.
I don't think it's the siege engines, it's the infantry that damage the walls. I don't think archers, cavalry, or siege engines do any damage to walls.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 23, 2011, 01:47:02 PM
Also, with siege engines, they only make it so that your men get their full amount hits in that they normally would. They do nothing to reduce the effects fortifications then have on reducing the number of hits that take effect. Also, I believe siege engines do damage to the walls for every round of combat they are there. That may just be a side effect of the melee on the walls though.
I think siege engines effect the chance a unit has to be thrown back from the walls too, something that depends heavily on the lvl of the walls. And that is more or less the main feature that gives defenders the main advantage.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 23, 2011, 01:47:02 PM
That's what we did. I don't know if you realize just how well lvl 7 walls protect against archers. They only lost 4 men per turn at the most, which when spread out among all the defenders doesn't amount to much of anything at all.
Also, with siege engines, they only make it so that your men get their full amount hits in that they normally would. They do nothing to reduce the effects fortifications then have on reducing the number of hits that take effect. Also, I believe siege engines do damage to the walls for every round of combat they are there. That may just be a side effect of the melee on the walls though.
Yep, level 7 walls are AWESOME, and very, very expensive. 8)
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 23, 2011, 01:47:02 PM
That's what we did. I don't know if you realize just how well lvl 7 walls protect against archers. They only lost 4 men per turn at the most, which when spread out among all the defenders doesn't amount to much of anything at all.
Also, with siege engines, they only make it so that your men get their full amount hits in that they normally would. They do nothing to reduce the effects fortifications then have on reducing the number of hits that take effect. Also, I believe siege engines do damage to the walls for every round of combat they are there. That may just be a side effect of the melee on the walls though.
Yup they are level 7 walls. No matter which option you pick (archer attack or infantry) you are going to need to outnumber the defenders significantly. As you noticed archers are only slightly effective, but then infantry have the same problem until they get a foot hold on the wall.
Which was my whole point about using large cheap units in the first attack. By increasing the number of men attacking, you increase the amount of time spent attacking the walls, doing more damage to the walls (the main point of the first attack). Its only point is to reduce the walls to the point where your quality infantry can face theirs on more level terms (fighting an enemy on level 4 walls is much, much easier than fighting one on level 7 walls) and thus win the battle.
The best way would be to have two armies, one that whittled the enemy defences with large, cheap units, while the other goes in once the walls have been reduced. This, of course, is not always feasable (especially if your realms are equal in strength). Thus, you would have to hit with large, cheap units, then refit and follow up with quality units.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 25, 2011, 11:57:14 PM
Which was my whole point about using large cheap units in the first attack. By increasing the number of men attacking, you increase the amount of time spent attacking the walls, doing more damage to the walls (the main point of the first attack). Its only point is to reduce the walls to the point where your quality infantry can face theirs on more level terms (fighting an enemy on level 4 walls is much, much easier than fighting one on level 7 walls) and thus win the battle.
The best way would be to have two armies, one that whittled the enemy defences with large, cheap units, while the other goes in once the walls have been reduced. This, of course, is not always feasable (especially if your realms are equal in strength). Thus, you would have to hit with large, cheap units, then refit and follow up with quality units.
(winces) Trying to wear down the walls of a
stronghold? You might be able to, but stronghold walls are pretty cheap (though level seven might be nasty, not sure), and it'll take a lot more than one or two attacks, no matter how big, to drop them to level four. With the amount of gold you'd spend, I still think you'd be better off getting a full army of elite infantry with plenty of banners and siege engines.
Or give up and take everything else. They can't sustain any kind of real defensive force with just the income of one stronghold. Let them wither on the vine.
Actually, they can sustain a substantial defensive force, as anyone in Morek can tell you (albeit through means that were probably exploitive). I have personal experience of this happening, so I am not speaking ignorantly. Also, I may have been exagerrating on the number of levels you would need to batter down. One or two levels at most. Then pound them with a quality army and tear down the walls with your victorious army to keep them from using those high walls again.
We've been attacking level 5 walls using an army of some of the best infantry in the game. I can tell you it is still REALLY tough going even with masses of siege. A lot of the time your best option to take out a good defensive stronghold or city is to avoid it. Plunder the rurals, starve the realm of gold and food and hope that reduced their defensive forces, or forces them out from behind their walls.
Quote from: Gustav Kuriga on March 26, 2011, 01:58:44 AM
Actually, they can sustain a substantial defensive force, as anyone in Morek can tell you (albeit through means that were probably exploitive). I have personal experience of this happening, so I am not speaking ignorantly. Also, I may have been exagerrating on the number of levels you would need to batter down. One or two levels at most. Then pound them with a quality army and tear down the walls with your victorious army to keep them from using those high walls again.
The loophole that gave Thulsoma excess gold has been closed, and those involved are being watched.
Thank god.
Thank instead the people who closed that hole.
Thank you people who closed that hole.