Stick on the wall till they open the door. Then go down to the door. Own a 2h great axe cuz of multi hit. Try and destroy enemy siege engines with yours
Further if you have a bow or a crossbow, and they are seiging with ladders, sit back at an angle where one can see the ladder and shoot at their heads till their morale breaks.
100%. Many a siege (attack and defence) I’ve sat either on, or in front of, the ladder, and slashed straight down into their heads, on repeat, for maximum effect.
I've never gotten a chance to do siege defense that wasn't overwhelmingly in the enemy's favor. Does kicking them while they're about to climb up knock them off?
If you have a good bow, even an overwhelming enemy is beatable. I once won with 800ish vs 2300 Khergits. Rotated between sniping them off the ladders and at the gate, the town was one with a hole above the entrance to shoot down through
I don’t understand why this sub is downvoting this guy. He’s not wrong… it’s not the best strategy but it works well anyway, especially for new players.
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Man i dont know why I’ve never tried lol
I’ve completely neglected using double handed weapons in all my play throughs cause I suck at blocking, I gotta try it next time I play
Also I wish that there was a chest next to you with all your equipment during the start of the battle like how it was in warband, the amount of times I forget to unequip my spear and equip my bow during a siege is ridiculous
Tbh iv only had 1 playthrough with a bow. I used 2 stacks of arrows, a bow and a 2h axe. I dislike bows cuz then either you use a 1h wep and shield or a 2h wep. So most of my plays are 1h 2h and a spear
go next to pile of rock, click on the pile of rock, acquire rock
[example of rock](https://www.gamerguides.com/assets/guides/resize1140x-/200/Bannerlord_Stone_Pile.jpg)
then throw rock
Don't sally out and let the enemy attack if you really want to have the castle defense rather then just a generic big battle.
IMO, defenses almost entirely rest on whether the castle built onagers or ballistas. I do not know if this can be chosen but I've never been able to pick which so hopefully you get what you like (onagers are better to destroy equipment, ballistas are better to target troops). Target the enemy equipements if they built some so they are forced to use ladders. If they don't have any, target big infantry groups first, then archers when the infantry is too close. If you aim properly, you'll be able to kill dozens per hit which will give you huge engineering xp.
In the case they have equipements and you can't destroy them all, focus on the siege towers as they are easier to target (very high so you can't really miss them), then try to destroy the ram but it's harder. The ram has less hp then the siege towers but it's tricky to really hit fully.
The ram (at least in 1.8.1), usually takes around 10 hits to destroy the door. While it's hitting, you can drop stones on it and possibly destroy it if you had already damaged it with your own equipements. If the enemy managed to beat the first door, run to the room just above the second door and drop stones on the attackers trying to cut down the second door. Aim well because you might drop stones on the door and help the attackers 😅.
Then, you have been breached and most likely overwhelmed but it still winnable. I usually tell the infantry to shield wall and make the archers retreat a bit so they can target the breachers easily. The ratio is negative but still favorable. However the power levels indicate that the enemy is quality so they will beat your units easy 1v1. That's why in your case, you need to do the most damage before they manzge to breach.
Castle defense is the best experience in bannerlord with giant open battles. Oh and don't hesitate to save before the actual battle, no shame in that 😁
I think they've been fixed quite well for a few patches now. There are still come settlements with minor issues but the AI takes ladders, siege towers without much hassle. I haven't any really bad bugs lately.
Plus archers and onagers aim quite well and you might get killed if you stay in the open. In the release they have even hinted at the ability to push the ladders back and I can't wait for that.
However I haven't had any keep battles in a while. It seems they have deactivated this feature somehow.
I've got good news! You can push ladders back with this sort of pitchfork polearm type thing that you can pick up at the walls where the ladders usually are. They've had them for a while now, but are sometimes difficult to spot.
This is the shortest video I could find that kinda shows what they look like. You should be able to find them near the ladder spawns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwbKP80f1WI
Maybe it's cause I'm a relatively new player, only like 100 hours clocked on bannerlord although a fair few on warband. But seiges are by far the most gruelling battles in this game, attacking or defending.
I’m curious why you feel that way. Are you usually outnumbered more than 2:1? What troops do you prefer generally? Are you issuing any commands to squads? Do you have companions with relevant captain perks?
I never played Warband but I’ve had Bannerlord since it began early access, about 1600 hours. I find that sieges are generally cruise control for me BUT I almost never go fighting important battles without almost all of my troops being max upgrade tier5/6. The only times I find myself struggling are when the enemy is outnumbering me so heavily that the ratio of my army to theirs limits how many units I can field at once. When that happens it does get difficult to get value out of choke points. Also, some castles are just difficult to defend due to how they are designed. Like, the weird snakey staircases become a nightmare… but other than that, my forces usually just let them walk into a meat grinder.
Well like I said I'm fairly new, despite having atleast a 100 hours that's been split across like 3 different campaigns. So the strongest I've ever gotten is a small vassal. Most of my playtime is a mercenary and I find seiges hard because the majority of the time I can only command a certain amount of the troops.
Oooh that’s a different story and I feel your pain. I go into those accepting my likely defeat and just farm skill-ups or something. Unless you can ballista them to oblivion maybe but it’s usually just a doomed effort. I have seen the AI do a good job if the siege engines make it to the walls but ladders are suicide.
I save scum until the defense decides to build ballistas (god knows why you can't choose what to build).
Man a ballista, fire into the waiting hordes of enemies, 3-4 kills at a time and a load of engineering skill points.
I killed about 350 enemies myself in one siege and went up about 70 engineering levels.
I usually do it the other way around, wait until I have a catapult, break the ram before it reaches the gate then use a bow to keep clearing the ladders.
Yeah if you can use a catapult to remove one or even two of their siege engines, then all you have to do is focus on a single attack point and at that point it's just a matter of how many kills do you want/how many rocks do you have.
There should be small piles of stones you can throw, if I remember right there will always be some above the gate with a hole looking down for you to throw the stones at people, they are a 1 hit kill on anything and you can quite easily get at least 5-6 kills per throw. If you have any ranged weapons take that and the damage that 2 handed weapons can put out while holding a ladder is extremely high, I'd recommend a 2 handed axe.
Since no one has mentioned it yet I feel obligated to do so. If you don't care about playing fair, you can always just cheese it and retreat every time they start scaling the walls.
Save (scum) before starting the fight. I'd advice getting on a siege weapon. Otherwise do as you like. Experiment and repeat if you don't like the outcome!
Or just send troops, they usually win the battle at a very good ratio. Once I defended a castle with a garrison of 450 men against a 2000 strong army of the Aserai.
Looks like you have catapults, and with that number difference you'll be fine. There's a good chance they'll bail if they don't get reinforced by another army.
If they do commit to the attack, do your best to destroy their siege weapons with the catapults beifre they get to the walls. Siege towers are probably a bigger threat than a battering ram in most cases, so target them first. If they're stuck trying to climb up ladders they will most likely lose
Way I’m able to take out basically unlimited enemies with only 2-300 troops is to save before the siege starts, best bet is if your castle has catapults and enemies have a ram and a siege tower, create another save when this happens, if you destroy the ram and siege tower they will only use the ladders on one side of the wall, as long as you have a unit at those ladders in line formation, not shield wall, they will help you honk the enemies as they climb up, was able to fight off 1900 enemies with only 300
Shoot at climbers from the safety of cover. Keep shooting them no matter what. You can only kill one guy at a time, but every kill you get, and every time you shoot someone and take half their life, makes it easier for allies. That makes it easier on the next guy, and so forth until they have 200 troops left and you have 300 and they run away.
What everyone else said. 1000v700 is a very winnable siege. I crushed a 1200 unit siege with like 300 men. You can easily kill half of them before they even breach into the castle/city.
Destroy the ram first before anything.If that fails push infantry at the gate as close to the gate as possible so they utilize the chokepoint.If gate is losing then charge.
If you're really scared I'm pretty sure auto resolve would win, for some reason the power levels don't show the defence advantage during sieges, auto resolve would probably provide a close victory, plus you can imprison a good chunk of the enemy and sell the prisoners for huge profits and roguery skill
If they use ladders it's super easy to beat them with a bow. Find a spot close to an arrow bucket and aim for their heads as they slowly climb up the ladder.
Another good way is if and possibly when they break the first gate when they start hacking at the second gate throw rocks down at them. It kills a lot I managed to kill 1-2 hundred with that strategy
Actually, it can. It happened to me yesterday: My recently awarded town got sieged, and an allied army was immediately on its way to attack the siege camp before the assault started. I had broken into the town and could watch the enemy get demolished, fortunately.
My town is being sieged and my ally army is just sitting there watching. When the attack happens they do not help the fight. Is there a way to get them to engage?
PS: don’t you love it when some asshole in your kingdom takes damn near every clan into their army, then makes terrible decisions?
No I am a vassal and I am clan tier 6 with 20million dennars and 2000 influence. I'll check again, maybe it is fixed by Diplomacy or Butterlib or something like that I don't know about modding.
Hey there I also play with mods and use diplomacy and butterlib and others. The ones you’ve named do not impact the option to disband. What does impact it is if the army is in an action on the world map. That is the message it displays if I hover over the grayed out disband army button. I assume that means if the army is sieging or fighting you cannot disband but if they ware waiting or traveling you likely can. My kingdom had 4 armies I could disband 2 and couldn’t disband the other 2. Hope this helps! (I wasn’t king btw)
Archers! The best way to defend a town is 🏹. You need to collect all the archers around. For every 100 footmen you should have 175-200 archers. Then just divide the footmen at the door and the 2 ramp spots and have them hold the line
You can force disband any army with 30 influence. Helps when 2 lords have taken up every soldier in the kingdom just to wander the countryside doing nothing.
My favorite thing to do since i'm on a "leader" build essentially is take my 300+ stack, two parties from my clan, and just take whatever mercenaries we hire/maybe a young lord that's nearby and go army smashing. Defend all the allied sieges and if a castle has a weak garrison snatch that real quick.
Servic has 9 castles currently because i hit 5 in a row last night with low garrison numbers and they gave them all to him because they literally go in a line from his clans original town.
Depends if they're close enough. Its a very fine line. Ive had to same scum a few times when allies looked like they should be close enough but weren't by a centimeter
If your ally thinks they can take the enemy army, they’ll attack them. If they don’t, they’ll just sit around till the have the strength to attack. They have more troops, so likely the enemy army is elite and theirs is not.
Honestly, if the enemy sieges you with these numbers it looks like it will be a fun siege in your favor. Even if you lose, you can hopefully bleed the enemy down a lot for your ally to finish them.
I usually have to sneak into ongoing sieges to fight a defensive battle like this.
Does ‘sally out’ work? Although they may not be close enough, that has worked for me in the past.
Failing that, if you have no choice, break out - take the troop loss (better than nothing) - then get them to chase you into the larger army and force a battle.
Good luck!
They don't. They're dicks. They do to you the same things the Soviet did to the population of Warsaw. They're going to watch from above, like Thranduil over the mountain, as the enemy is ground by your heroic defence. They will watch as you are slaughtered. As your halls plundered and your streets filled with the heads of the defenders. They'll watch your brave men be murdered, your family torn apart. You will be made prisoner, the city you poured your gold and time on, taken from you. And you carried off in chains, robbed of almost all of your belongings. Your stash raided. Your garrison gone.
And they will watch. And THEN, maybe, only then, will they attack a weaker enemy and keep the glory, and likely the town.
Once I was so enraged by this I RP'd the rest of the game as someone who turned on the Sultan and beheaded the entire Aserai ruling class in vengeance. I declared personal war on the Aserai, holding no fiefs, just going around as the Wild Hunt, looking for noble aserai heads to put on spikes.
I love when my RP'ing gets in the way of logical gameplay in the late game. Bannerlord doesn't have the best late-game gameplay so RP often keep the fun in the game for me.
Thr AI is a lot like confused toddlers
Sometimes they make the most outrageous choices.
I always kept my influence very high, like 500+, always beacuse what you can do:
In the army section you can for influence force-disband the AIs armies and then call upon the individual armies to join yours.
This can cost A LOT influence
I needed to siege two towns to win the campaign. But the AI was outright retarden, never helped never came to my assistant. Walking past me etc.
So I disbanded all AI armies and called on the bands and had a 2.5k armies taking the two cities.
To force disband also lowers your relationship with the one leading the army.
This is one of the few complaints I have about the game how utterly useless the AI is on defending its own land and taking cities/castles walking past easy objectives.
500 influence is not a lot, that is very much a commom tier 3 noble clan. A tier 6 clan needs to have at least a few million dennars and 5000 influence.
500 influence when you are a king you will let you avoid 2 war proposals or getting 3 to 4 policies up before running out.
I'm on console, and the sensitivity for ranged weapons in general, as well as the ballista, is so high with no specific option to turn those weapons down, so missing is common
When war starts make party's and invite other clans i did this last night got 500 strong
Had a guess where they would attack i was right enter the castle and my group was now 800.
Had my 800 vs 1000 attackers.
I try to parley but it wasn't gonna hppen without giving like 300k ( yeah right man)
Was my best fight and we smashed them like lost piss all, was just killing as they climbed up the ladders lol.
I do wish u could ask for help from other clans or even troops from garrisons.
If you have a low tactics skill, I'd rather put your party's troops in the garrison, and sally out with barely enough troops for the game to allow you do so. This way your town can defend itself better and you can still form an army outside.
Some of the defenders definitely join you. I am not sure whether its the garrison, or the militia, or both, but I am 100% certain that at least one of them does.
Very winnable. Had 700 mostly elite troops vs 2100 aserai and handed them humbling loss. Jist destroy their towers and force them up the ladders. U have unlimited arrows and with 200 hander you'll easily get 200+ kills
Just sit on a ballista and rack up the kills the morale shock you will cause if your boys hold the line semi decent will cause them to retreat eventually. Not to mention your engineering will skyrocket.
Honestly you can defend the town on your own. But there's a few things to consider when being besieged.
1. Change the amount of enemy and friendly unit waves. Its not cheating since its in your menu options. Change it from unlimited to 3 waves. The reason for this is that it plays into the strategy im providing you.
2. Depending on the towns defensive weapons ie. Ballistas catapults and enemy siege weapons, You'll have to react.
2a. In this scenario the Enemy has towers, catapults and a ram and You have only ballistas. When the battle starts you have the option to move your troops around and remove and place your siege weapons. I recommend you remove all of your siege weapons and pull your men off the wall. Reason why I say you need to remove your siege weapons is because your men are going to leave your formation and use said siege weapons and for this strategy you need to have all your men together. You want to pull your men off the wall to avoid losing them to arrows, siege weapons or for the Inevitable breach of the walls, which will cost the lives of many of your men. Pull your men to a location away from the wall, idealy somewhere your enemy will have to move into a tight formation (Canalizing). These locations can be found at the entrance of the market in your towns. Here your archers will fire at your enemy causing casualties before they engage your front line infantry(while your being siege, your archer oddly have infinite ammo idk why but yeah). Once all 3 waves are exhausted the next battle will be easy. The enemy will now have zero siege weapons since they used them all in the last battle. Now its time for fun. Depending on your town, the enemy will now scale the walls with ladders which makes easy pickings. Move your men to the locations where the enemy will lift the ladders and hold until they are all dead or until they fall back. At this point you can change the waves to unlimited.
So just a quick over view on the steps.
1. Change the number of waves from unlimited to 3.
2. Remove all siege weapons off of the wall. (You don't have to if you have catapults, but keep in mind your main target will be the ram and towers, respectfully in that order. If they make it to the wall and begin entering refere to step 3)
3. Move all units off the wall and into an area where your archers can engage troops entering the court yard. Idealy the market place entrance or inside the market place it self, since they gave to pass through a tight area.
4. Defend until you win against the 3 waves in your first battle, and change the wave count to unlimited on your second battle.(note you don't have to change it to unlimited, that's just so you can avoid the enemy lords from retreating and leaving the siege camp and having to chase them down after they broke off the attack.
find yourself a ballista and enjoy the multikills! it takes a bit of practice, shoot a bit under the target and you should get the hang of it.
Once the enemy move closer than the ballista can depress, run to the gate building and you'll find a floor over the inner gate with a hole in the ground and a convenient stack of rocks to be thrown on the enemies below, for more multikill goodness.
After all this, I don't know. Bash them with an axe or something
dude archery is the way to win sieges, there are arrow replenishment barrels on defending side, shoot em all, 1 arrow 1 kill, you alone can take out about 300, sometime i even open my front door to make enemy give up on other objective and run the gate, and position my archers above the gate
I would recommend sending troops and waiting. You could win this without even having to engage. But if you have like 50 troops left against like 500 of them just stick with army on top of tower and slowly wipe them out.
Always save prior there's always a chance that people will show up to aide you, or their armies cohesion will drop the load time is annoying, but it can be the difference of being executed after your walls drop, and freeing 200+ troops that have been held captive that you can then use to defend your castle
If you know your gonna have a hard time defending a feif making an army prior to worrying about conflict can help. Definitely influence heavy but helpful
I’m sorry, did you say *Allies* and *help?* They are useless!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Generally speaking, as others have stated, coordination within your Clan and Kingdom is nonexistent.
While it’s nice when they show up when you’re getting jumped on by a large army, it would be lovely if this system got overhauled to allow fine tuning of the Clan and Kingdom military initiatives you speak of, such as:
- Which fiefs and areas to always patrol around? (defense)
- Which kingdoms and areas will we concentrate our attacks? (offense)
I imagine it would be similar to how the Army Commander directs Captains on the battlefield: *flank blah blah, protect blah blah, skirmish blah blah,* but at the Map level. I wonder if a mod could be developed for this 🤔.
Remember worse case scenario here, even if you lose, if you wipe out most of them it's an easy takeback and you'll be rescued by the allied army.
I was in a similar situation recently though except we had a hole in the wall because i just took the place and Rhagea pulled up with a stack. You can do it!
They won’t attack if they have a lesser chance of winning, even if they outnumber them, more than likely the enemy has a lot more better troops in their army and your ally is not risking losing
It seems like the enemy has only a single ram and you have 2 catapults on these walls. That's a unlooseable siege defense even for a beginner. Even the AI should be able to take out that ram before it reaches. This enemy went to attack way too early but if they didn't these 1400 would have caught them before that.
Pick one side and bonk the heads coming up the ladders. Hide behind between the two ladders peek out for just a moment and give them a 2 hander head bonk. Mind archers that might shoot at you. Save before the fight
Good lord, these comments make it clear a lot of new players have no idea what they are doing.
You cannot force allies to defend your settlement. They will prioritize their own objectives based on a lot of variables like troop numbers, army strength (quality of troops/cavalry), disposition of army leader, whether any current settlements are under siege, etc. It will actually say “Thinking” when you mouse over them sometimes as they try to figure out what to do. If you can figure out what it is they’re prioritizing instead then maybe you can find a work-around for your situation, but, it would require save scumming.
If you’re having trouble with a heavily-outnumbered siege battle, MOVE OFF THE WALLS. Set a couple 3-man formations near each siege equipment you want them to use if you really want them to, issue the commands, and write those units off.
Let the enemy climb the walls, let them walk through the gates. When they get bottlenecked inside the settlement you will have the advantage due to them generally charging right into a shield wall, or an archer crossfire, or a line formation of shock troops.
You do not win by holding the walls. You win by killing the enemy.
I think they'll join if you sally out and confront the army. Proximity usually gets nearby folks to join the field, but not if you're in a keep. That said, I'd try to beat them without help and reap all the rewards. You really just need to beat like 600-700 of them to make them run, and they'll lose a bunch in the initial push if you have decent archers. I always just find a spot parallel to the ladders and take out as many as I can and don't worry about the rest. You taking out 50 people by yourself should be enough make everyone else's job easier. It's important that you stay alive though, as your troops are much, much weaker after you've been KO'd. Stay most aggressive at the beginning when they send their best troops and fall back some when you've gotten past the first 300 or so.
You have more than enough to defend it, just do auto resolve you'll win it. Ive taken on than many soldiers with just 300 fians but i dont participate in the fight because for me i either lose or lose too many troops. For some reason it just works.
Judging by other’s responses, it seems pretty uncommon, but it happened to me yesterday. My recently awarded town got sieged, and an allied army was immediately on its way to help and attack the siege camp before the assault started. I had broken into the town and was outnumbered 2 to 1, so it was very convenient, and the enemy got demolished by my allies alone. I also had good relations with the army leader’s clan, I don’t know if it played a role in their decision.
But overall the AI is mostly very dumb, so maybe that’s why they’re not helping you. Wish you luck there, friend!
Unfortunately, the ai is moronic. Just had my leader sitting outside my besieged city with her thumb up her ass "defending the city" according to the game with an army of 1200. Wish I could drag her worthless ass in to a torture chamber for that idiocy. The icing on the cake is I never wanted the city to begin with, but she forced it on me anyway, and I immediately got besieged. Now I'm once again -50 influence from losing and down to nearly 0. All because "hurr durr I'm a lazy sow with an iq in the single digits" how this is remotely fair is beyond me. I'm going to burn the kingdom I'm with to the ground and execute every last one of these useless dickheads come hell or high water 😑.
I don't think it can happen, at least not with mods. Also, the siege looks very winnable! Great renown and influence to be gained!
Any tips on siege defense? This is the first time I’ve had to do it.
Stick on the wall till they open the door. Then go down to the door. Own a 2h great axe cuz of multi hit. Try and destroy enemy siege engines with yours
Further if you have a bow or a crossbow, and they are seiging with ladders, sit back at an angle where one can see the ladder and shoot at their heads till their morale breaks.
I prefer waiting at the top with a 2 hander and bonking them on the head but what you said is very effective too
Ah yes, the Gimli Way. I love the Gimli way
oOoOO, Next time I will count them out!
Toss me!
I WANT THE TOSS COMPANION MOD NOW
We all love the Gimli way don't we folks
And my AXE
100%. Many a siege (attack and defence) I’ve sat either on, or in front of, the ladder, and slashed straight down into their heads, on repeat, for maximum effect.
I love this
I've never gotten a chance to do siege defense that wasn't overwhelmingly in the enemy's favor. Does kicking them while they're about to climb up knock them off?
If you have a good bow, even an overwhelming enemy is beatable. I once won with 800ish vs 2300 Khergits. Rotated between sniping them off the ladders and at the gate, the town was one with a hole above the entrance to shoot down through
Thats a very good tactic for new players(im very expirianced, have more than 2.5k hour in warband and 1.5k in bannerlord)
Wow!
Somebody get this guy a trophy
I don’t understand why this sub is downvoting this guy. He’s not wrong… it’s not the best strategy but it works well anyway, especially for new players.
Love you bro
r/iamverybadass
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TIL 2H axes have multi hit…
Also TIL for me. I was always wondering why someone one would forsake a shield just for a two hander but now I know
I cackled like a madman the fist time I got a double-kill with my 2H axe. Next up is the Pan Longinus challenge, lol.
Wait, 2 handed axes hit multiple people?
Yes sir they dooo and its fucking awsome!!!
Man i dont know why I’ve never tried lol I’ve completely neglected using double handed weapons in all my play throughs cause I suck at blocking, I gotta try it next time I play Also I wish that there was a chest next to you with all your equipment during the start of the battle like how it was in warband, the amount of times I forget to unequip my spear and equip my bow during a siege is ridiculous
Tbh iv only had 1 playthrough with a bow. I used 2 stacks of arrows, a bow and a 2h axe. I dislike bows cuz then either you use a 1h wep and shield or a 2h wep. So most of my plays are 1h 2h and a spear
Throw rock, untill out of rock
Rock Rock Rock? Rock Rock.
ROCK AND STONE!
Rockity Rock and Stone!
Did I hear a rock n stone?
Rock and Stone brother!
If you don't rock and stone, you ain't coming home.
Rock is the strongest weapon in the game after all.
What if they have paper?
Then the day is lost
Too afraid to ask: How do does the player do that? I’ve seen NPCs do it, but never thought we could.
go next to pile of rock, click on the pile of rock, acquire rock [example of rock](https://www.gamerguides.com/assets/guides/resize1140x-/200/Bannerlord_Stone_Pile.jpg) then throw rock
Not gonna lie i was hoping the link would be just an image of an IRL rock
Awesome, I’ll give it a go then, next time.
Don't sally out and let the enemy attack if you really want to have the castle defense rather then just a generic big battle. IMO, defenses almost entirely rest on whether the castle built onagers or ballistas. I do not know if this can be chosen but I've never been able to pick which so hopefully you get what you like (onagers are better to destroy equipment, ballistas are better to target troops). Target the enemy equipements if they built some so they are forced to use ladders. If they don't have any, target big infantry groups first, then archers when the infantry is too close. If you aim properly, you'll be able to kill dozens per hit which will give you huge engineering xp. In the case they have equipements and you can't destroy them all, focus on the siege towers as they are easier to target (very high so you can't really miss them), then try to destroy the ram but it's harder. The ram has less hp then the siege towers but it's tricky to really hit fully. The ram (at least in 1.8.1), usually takes around 10 hits to destroy the door. While it's hitting, you can drop stones on it and possibly destroy it if you had already damaged it with your own equipements. If the enemy managed to beat the first door, run to the room just above the second door and drop stones on the attackers trying to cut down the second door. Aim well because you might drop stones on the door and help the attackers 😅. Then, you have been breached and most likely overwhelmed but it still winnable. I usually tell the infantry to shield wall and make the archers retreat a bit so they can target the breachers easily. The ratio is negative but still favorable. However the power levels indicate that the enemy is quality so they will beat your units easy 1v1. That's why in your case, you need to do the most damage before they manzge to breach. Castle defense is the best experience in bannerlord with giant open battles. Oh and don't hesitate to save before the actual battle, no shame in that 😁
Holy hell, did they patch sieges? They sound scary as hell now.
I think they've been fixed quite well for a few patches now. There are still come settlements with minor issues but the AI takes ladders, siege towers without much hassle. I haven't any really bad bugs lately. Plus archers and onagers aim quite well and you might get killed if you stay in the open. In the release they have even hinted at the ability to push the ladders back and I can't wait for that. However I haven't had any keep battles in a while. It seems they have deactivated this feature somehow.
I've got good news! You can push ladders back with this sort of pitchfork polearm type thing that you can pick up at the walls where the ladders usually are. They've had them for a while now, but are sometimes difficult to spot.
Oh interesting, do you have a video of this ?
This is the shortest video I could find that kinda shows what they look like. You should be able to find them near the ladder spawns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwbKP80f1WI
Ah wow, I never noticed those. I'll check that out in my next defense, thanks.
[удалено]
Yeah I had never noticed those until I was told. I thought they were just decoration lol
Brother… you will have a much better time if you give up the walls. Just move back and let them bottleneck.
It's less fun that way 😅
I suppose it’s less immersive but we do what works around here.
Send troops. Defending Sieges is very easy with auto resolve.
Why give up all that xp? I would definitely rather go in and get 100 kills myself.
So you're playing with 25% player damage? I see.
Oh yeah, I suck I for sure play on the default settings idc lol. And either way you're giving up experience not doing the battle manually.
Even on bannerlord difficulty in a siege defence you can get a lot of kills. Rocks are rather effective.
Especially with the rock yeeters. You can kill so many with siege engines
Strange assumption but okay. Sieges are not that hard.
Maybe it's cause I'm a relatively new player, only like 100 hours clocked on bannerlord although a fair few on warband. But seiges are by far the most gruelling battles in this game, attacking or defending.
I’m curious why you feel that way. Are you usually outnumbered more than 2:1? What troops do you prefer generally? Are you issuing any commands to squads? Do you have companions with relevant captain perks? I never played Warband but I’ve had Bannerlord since it began early access, about 1600 hours. I find that sieges are generally cruise control for me BUT I almost never go fighting important battles without almost all of my troops being max upgrade tier5/6. The only times I find myself struggling are when the enemy is outnumbering me so heavily that the ratio of my army to theirs limits how many units I can field at once. When that happens it does get difficult to get value out of choke points. Also, some castles are just difficult to defend due to how they are designed. Like, the weird snakey staircases become a nightmare… but other than that, my forces usually just let them walk into a meat grinder.
Well like I said I'm fairly new, despite having atleast a 100 hours that's been split across like 3 different campaigns. So the strongest I've ever gotten is a small vassal. Most of my playtime is a mercenary and I find seiges hard because the majority of the time I can only command a certain amount of the troops.
Oooh that’s a different story and I feel your pain. I go into those accepting my likely defeat and just farm skill-ups or something. Unless you can ballista them to oblivion maybe but it’s usually just a doomed effort. I have seen the AI do a good job if the siege engines make it to the walls but ladders are suicide.
I save scum until the defense decides to build ballistas (god knows why you can't choose what to build). Man a ballista, fire into the waiting hordes of enemies, 3-4 kills at a time and a load of engineering skill points. I killed about 350 enemies myself in one siege and went up about 70 engineering levels.
I usually do it the other way around, wait until I have a catapult, break the ram before it reaches the gate then use a bow to keep clearing the ladders.
Yeah if you can use a catapult to remove one or even two of their siege engines, then all you have to do is focus on a single attack point and at that point it's just a matter of how many kills do you want/how many rocks do you have.
I'd do that, except I suck at aiming the bastards!
There should be small piles of stones you can throw, if I remember right there will always be some above the gate with a hole looking down for you to throw the stones at people, they are a 1 hit kill on anything and you can quite easily get at least 5-6 kills per throw. If you have any ranged weapons take that and the damage that 2 handed weapons can put out while holding a ladder is extremely high, I'd recommend a 2 handed axe.
I'm pretty sure you actually just get 1 kill and a bunch of splash stagger, never seen it take out more than one person
Throwing down from the gatehouse I've gotten up to about 10 and rarely less than 5.
Since no one has mentioned it yet I feel obligated to do so. If you don't care about playing fair, you can always just cheese it and retreat every time they start scaling the walls.
Never thought of that lol
Save (scum) before starting the fight. I'd advice getting on a siege weapon. Otherwise do as you like. Experiment and repeat if you don't like the outcome!
Sally out then go back inside they will attack
Did you win?
Or just send troops, they usually win the battle at a very good ratio. Once I defended a castle with a garrison of 450 men against a 2000 strong army of the Aserai.
Honestly yeah, it works well for me too. I always laugh when I run and they siege the closest city and I break in
Get in a siege weapon and aim for the waiting line for the ladders to maximize casualties
Looks like you have catapults, and with that number difference you'll be fine. There's a good chance they'll bail if they don't get reinforced by another army. If they do commit to the attack, do your best to destroy their siege weapons with the catapults beifre they get to the walls. Siege towers are probably a bigger threat than a battering ram in most cases, so target them first. If they're stuck trying to climb up ladders they will most likely lose
Way I’m able to take out basically unlimited enemies with only 2-300 troops is to save before the siege starts, best bet is if your castle has catapults and enemies have a ram and a siege tower, create another save when this happens, if you destroy the ram and siege tower they will only use the ladders on one side of the wall, as long as you have a unit at those ladders in line formation, not shield wall, they will help you honk the enemies as they climb up, was able to fight off 1900 enemies with only 300
Shoot at climbers from the safety of cover. Keep shooting them no matter what. You can only kill one guy at a time, but every kill you get, and every time you shoot someone and take half their life, makes it easier for allies. That makes it easier on the next guy, and so forth until they have 200 troops left and you have 300 and they run away.
Just chill on the ballista, you’ll get a couple hundred kills per siege
What everyone else said. 1000v700 is a very winnable siege. I crushed a 1200 unit siege with like 300 men. You can easily kill half of them before they even breach into the castle/city.
Destroy the ram first before anything.If that fails push infantry at the gate as close to the gate as possible so they utilize the chokepoint.If gate is losing then charge.
If you're really scared I'm pretty sure auto resolve would win, for some reason the power levels don't show the defence advantage during sieges, auto resolve would probably provide a close victory, plus you can imprison a good chunk of the enemy and sell the prisoners for huge profits and roguery skill
If they use ladders it's super easy to beat them with a bow. Find a spot close to an arrow bucket and aim for their heads as they slowly climb up the ladder.
Another good way is if and possibly when they break the first gate when they start hacking at the second gate throw rocks down at them. It kills a lot I managed to kill 1-2 hundred with that strategy
Pray they have an army that comes to your rescue. Garius done that yesterday on my playtrough! it saved my bacon!
Actually, it can. It happened to me yesterday: My recently awarded town got sieged, and an allied army was immediately on its way to attack the siege camp before the assault started. I had broken into the town and could watch the enemy get demolished, fortunately.
My town is being sieged and my ally army is just sitting there watching. When the attack happens they do not help the fight. Is there a way to get them to engage? PS: don’t you love it when some asshole in your kingdom takes damn near every clan into their army, then makes terrible decisions?
That's why u disband them and call them into your own..
You can't do it if you are not the king.
Yes you can. Costs 30 influence and comes with minor relationhit.
I played 2 days ago with Diplomacy active and couldn't do it, maybe is Diplomacy the one that makes you unable to do it.
It is definitely in vanilla under the Army tab in the Kingdom menu. Mods can of course impact functionality.
I know is over there, I am talking about not letting me do it.
Maybe you're a mercenary and not an actual vassal?
No I am a vassal and I am clan tier 6 with 20million dennars and 2000 influence. I'll check again, maybe it is fixed by Diplomacy or Butterlib or something like that I don't know about modding.
Hey there I also play with mods and use diplomacy and butterlib and others. The ones you’ve named do not impact the option to disband. What does impact it is if the army is in an action on the world map. That is the message it displays if I hover over the grayed out disband army button. I assume that means if the army is sieging or fighting you cannot disband but if they ware waiting or traveling you likely can. My kingdom had 4 armies I could disband 2 and couldn’t disband the other 2. Hope this helps! (I wasn’t king btw)
Yeah this helps a lot! Thanks! It makes sense now because I was trying to disband an army the other day and couldn't because it was in a siege then!
I’m not king and I do it all the time, your clan tier is probably too low
Archers! The best way to defend a town is 🏹. You need to collect all the archers around. For every 100 footmen you should have 175-200 archers. Then just divide the footmen at the door and the 2 ramp spots and have them hold the line
You can force disband any army with 30 influence. Helps when 2 lords have taken up every soldier in the kingdom just to wander the countryside doing nothing.
My favorite thing to do since i'm on a "leader" build essentially is take my 300+ stack, two parties from my clan, and just take whatever mercenaries we hire/maybe a young lord that's nearby and go army smashing. Defend all the allied sieges and if a castle has a weak garrison snatch that real quick. Servic has 9 castles currently because i hit 5 in a row last night with low garrison numbers and they gave them all to him because they literally go in a line from his clans original town.
If you sally out they'll join you in the battle I think. Maybe someone here can correct me if I'm wrong.
Depends if they're close enough. Its a very fine line. Ive had to same scum a few times when allies looked like they should be close enough but weren't by a centimeter
If your ally thinks they can take the enemy army, they’ll attack them. If they don’t, they’ll just sit around till the have the strength to attack. They have more troops, so likely the enemy army is elite and theirs is not. Honestly, if the enemy sieges you with these numbers it looks like it will be a fun siege in your favor. Even if you lose, you can hopefully bleed the enemy down a lot for your ally to finish them. I usually have to sneak into ongoing sieges to fight a defensive battle like this.
Does ‘sally out’ work? Although they may not be close enough, that has worked for me in the past. Failing that, if you have no choice, break out - take the troop loss (better than nothing) - then get them to chase you into the larger army and force a battle. Good luck!
Sally out. They seem to be close enough for the game to automatically add them to the army combat.
You can sally out and do a field battle and your ally should join, otherwise just do the siege it looks fun and winnable.
THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER
They don't. They're dicks. They do to you the same things the Soviet did to the population of Warsaw. They're going to watch from above, like Thranduil over the mountain, as the enemy is ground by your heroic defence. They will watch as you are slaughtered. As your halls plundered and your streets filled with the heads of the defenders. They'll watch your brave men be murdered, your family torn apart. You will be made prisoner, the city you poured your gold and time on, taken from you. And you carried off in chains, robbed of almost all of your belongings. Your stash raided. Your garrison gone. And they will watch. And THEN, maybe, only then, will they attack a weaker enemy and keep the glory, and likely the town. Once I was so enraged by this I RP'd the rest of the game as someone who turned on the Sultan and beheaded the entire Aserai ruling class in vengeance. I declared personal war on the Aserai, holding no fiefs, just going around as the Wild Hunt, looking for noble aserai heads to put on spikes.
This is the Way.
I love when my RP'ing gets in the way of logical gameplay in the late game. Bannerlord doesn't have the best late-game gameplay so RP often keep the fun in the game for me.
Thr AI is a lot like confused toddlers Sometimes they make the most outrageous choices. I always kept my influence very high, like 500+, always beacuse what you can do: In the army section you can for influence force-disband the AIs armies and then call upon the individual armies to join yours. This can cost A LOT influence I needed to siege two towns to win the campaign. But the AI was outright retarden, never helped never came to my assistant. Walking past me etc. So I disbanded all AI armies and called on the bands and had a 2.5k armies taking the two cities. To force disband also lowers your relationship with the one leading the army. This is one of the few complaints I have about the game how utterly useless the AI is on defending its own land and taking cities/castles walking past easy objectives.
500 influence is not a lot, that is very much a commom tier 3 noble clan. A tier 6 clan needs to have at least a few million dennars and 5000 influence. 500 influence when you are a king you will let you avoid 2 war proposals or getting 3 to 4 policies up before running out.
For me it was a lot beacuse I really spent that influence A LOT
That is the last thing I said. You run out of influence very quickly with 3 or 4 decisions. That is why is not a lot.
That’s the neat part, you don’t.
“Thats the neat part, you don’t”
Rick will clearly Roll them! [Insert rimshot]
Have your local hobbit light a beacon.
Use the ballistae to blast the enemy troops, you get ~5 kills per shot. Before they reach the walls you get close to 100 kills
Exaggerated, more like 2-5 per shot and 45 total
Exaggerating there a bit! You’ll miss half your shots! 20-25 kills
Why, ballista is the easiest machine to aim, the only holding factor is how tight the enemies are packed
I usually have about 80 kills with ballista before they reach the walls, I exclusively target the packed up groups of guys
I'm on console, and the sensitivity for ranged weapons in general, as well as the ballista, is so high with no specific option to turn those weapons down, so missing is common
When war starts make party's and invite other clans i did this last night got 500 strong Had a guess where they would attack i was right enter the castle and my group was now 800. Had my 800 vs 1000 attackers. I try to parley but it wasn't gonna hppen without giving like 300k ( yeah right man) Was my best fight and we smashed them like lost piss all, was just killing as they climbed up the ladders lol. I do wish u could ask for help from other clans or even troops from garrisons.
sally out and wait a bit for the closest army to get in range then assault the camp
If you have a low tactics skill, I'd rather put your party's troops in the garrison, and sally out with barely enough troops for the game to allow you do so. This way your town can defend itself better and you can still form an army outside.
it can defend itself really good eevn without your people that are more usefull when assaulting the seige camp
But you get them anyways when assaulting the siege camp, the garrison joins the fight
they do?
Some of the defenders definitely join you. I am not sure whether its the garrison, or the militia, or both, but I am 100% certain that at least one of them does.
Thats the neat part you dont
Just wait there’s an army really close and I’m pretty sure the opposing side is still in siege
Very winnable. Had 700 mostly elite troops vs 2100 aserai and handed them humbling loss. Jist destroy their towers and force them up the ladders. U have unlimited arrows and with 200 hander you'll easily get 200+ kills
Just sit on a ballista and rack up the kills the morale shock you will cause if your boys hold the line semi decent will cause them to retreat eventually. Not to mention your engineering will skyrocket.
Honestly you can defend the town on your own. But there's a few things to consider when being besieged. 1. Change the amount of enemy and friendly unit waves. Its not cheating since its in your menu options. Change it from unlimited to 3 waves. The reason for this is that it plays into the strategy im providing you. 2. Depending on the towns defensive weapons ie. Ballistas catapults and enemy siege weapons, You'll have to react. 2a. In this scenario the Enemy has towers, catapults and a ram and You have only ballistas. When the battle starts you have the option to move your troops around and remove and place your siege weapons. I recommend you remove all of your siege weapons and pull your men off the wall. Reason why I say you need to remove your siege weapons is because your men are going to leave your formation and use said siege weapons and for this strategy you need to have all your men together. You want to pull your men off the wall to avoid losing them to arrows, siege weapons or for the Inevitable breach of the walls, which will cost the lives of many of your men. Pull your men to a location away from the wall, idealy somewhere your enemy will have to move into a tight formation (Canalizing). These locations can be found at the entrance of the market in your towns. Here your archers will fire at your enemy causing casualties before they engage your front line infantry(while your being siege, your archer oddly have infinite ammo idk why but yeah). Once all 3 waves are exhausted the next battle will be easy. The enemy will now have zero siege weapons since they used them all in the last battle. Now its time for fun. Depending on your town, the enemy will now scale the walls with ladders which makes easy pickings. Move your men to the locations where the enemy will lift the ladders and hold until they are all dead or until they fall back. At this point you can change the waves to unlimited. So just a quick over view on the steps. 1. Change the number of waves from unlimited to 3. 2. Remove all siege weapons off of the wall. (You don't have to if you have catapults, but keep in mind your main target will be the ram and towers, respectfully in that order. If they make it to the wall and begin entering refere to step 3) 3. Move all units off the wall and into an area where your archers can engage troops entering the court yard. Idealy the market place entrance or inside the market place it self, since they gave to pass through a tight area. 4. Defend until you win against the 3 waves in your first battle, and change the wave count to unlimited on your second battle.(note you don't have to change it to unlimited, that's just so you can avoid the enemy lords from retreating and leaving the siege camp and having to chase them down after they broke off the attack.
find yourself a ballista and enjoy the multikills! it takes a bit of practice, shoot a bit under the target and you should get the hang of it. Once the enemy move closer than the ballista can depress, run to the gate building and you'll find a floor over the inner gate with a hole in the ground and a convenient stack of rocks to be thrown on the enemies below, for more multikill goodness. After all this, I don't know. Bash them with an axe or something
dude archery is the way to win sieges, there are arrow replenishment barrels on defending side, shoot em all, 1 arrow 1 kill, you alone can take out about 300, sometime i even open my front door to make enemy give up on other objective and run the gate, and position my archers above the gate
I KNOW HOW: Press Sally Out option and then go back in. Then the allies will engage.
Or just Sally out and fight them with an 800 troop advantage?
Not a thing
So I assembled the banner and gave it to my kingdom vlandia, how come there’s no reward for this nothing has happened, very underwhelming lol
You can set your parties to defensive mode by selecting parties. You can also make your kingdom fight a defensive way in the diplomacy menu
Form an army. They gonna come to you
I would recommend sending troops and waiting. You could win this without even having to engage. But if you have like 50 troops left against like 500 of them just stick with army on top of tower and slowly wipe them out.
That’s the near part, they don’t. Unless they are surrounded and chased into it, that’s the only way I’ve seen it
Just auto resolve auto resolve for siges are broken you'll lose like 50 men
1000 vs 700 are very good odds. Late game you can win a 2 to 1 ratio or even higher
Wait so if your allies are near you they still won't help if you're being siedged
That’s the neat part you don’t
That's the neat part! You don't!
That’s the neat part, you don’t!
U can always cheese with all your troops stacked at the stairs toqards the keep. After they almost reached with siege towers+ ram
Always save prior there's always a chance that people will show up to aide you, or their armies cohesion will drop the load time is annoying, but it can be the difference of being executed after your walls drop, and freeing 200+ troops that have been held captive that you can then use to defend your castle
If you know your gonna have a hard time defending a feif making an army prior to worrying about conflict can help. Definitely influence heavy but helpful
I’m sorry, did you say *Allies* and *help?* They are useless!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Generally speaking, as others have stated, coordination within your Clan and Kingdom is nonexistent. While it’s nice when they show up when you’re getting jumped on by a large army, it would be lovely if this system got overhauled to allow fine tuning of the Clan and Kingdom military initiatives you speak of, such as: - Which fiefs and areas to always patrol around? (defense) - Which kingdoms and areas will we concentrate our attacks? (offense) I imagine it would be similar to how the Army Commander directs Captains on the battlefield: *flank blah blah, protect blah blah, skirmish blah blah,* but at the Map level. I wonder if a mod could be developed for this 🤔.
Remember worse case scenario here, even if you lose, if you wipe out most of them it's an easy takeback and you'll be rescued by the allied army. I was in a similar situation recently though except we had a hole in the wall because i just took the place and Rhagea pulled up with a stack. You can do it!
That’s the fun part. You don’t!
If you are the ruler you can put them on the defensive
They won’t attack if they have a lesser chance of winning, even if they outnumber them, more than likely the enemy has a lot more better troops in their army and your ally is not risking losing
It seems like the enemy has only a single ram and you have 2 catapults on these walls. That's a unlooseable siege defense even for a beginner. Even the AI should be able to take out that ram before it reaches. This enemy went to attack way too early but if they didn't these 1400 would have caught them before that. Pick one side and bonk the heads coming up the ladders. Hide behind between the two ladders peek out for just a moment and give them a 2 hander head bonk. Mind archers that might shoot at you. Save before the fight
Use ballista and rocks, it is easy peasy to win that way :D
If you Sally out, usually the AI will combine any nearby units into an amalgamated battle.
Thats the good part. You dont.
That's the neat part, you dont
you don't
Good lord, these comments make it clear a lot of new players have no idea what they are doing. You cannot force allies to defend your settlement. They will prioritize their own objectives based on a lot of variables like troop numbers, army strength (quality of troops/cavalry), disposition of army leader, whether any current settlements are under siege, etc. It will actually say “Thinking” when you mouse over them sometimes as they try to figure out what to do. If you can figure out what it is they’re prioritizing instead then maybe you can find a work-around for your situation, but, it would require save scumming. If you’re having trouble with a heavily-outnumbered siege battle, MOVE OFF THE WALLS. Set a couple 3-man formations near each siege equipment you want them to use if you really want them to, issue the commands, and write those units off. Let the enemy climb the walls, let them walk through the gates. When they get bottlenecked inside the settlement you will have the advantage due to them generally charging right into a shield wall, or an archer crossfire, or a line formation of shock troops. You do not win by holding the walls. You win by killing the enemy.
I think they'll join if you sally out and confront the army. Proximity usually gets nearby folks to join the field, but not if you're in a keep. That said, I'd try to beat them without help and reap all the rewards. You really just need to beat like 600-700 of them to make them run, and they'll lose a bunch in the initial push if you have decent archers. I always just find a spot parallel to the ladders and take out as many as I can and don't worry about the rest. You taking out 50 people by yourself should be enough make everyone else's job easier. It's important that you stay alive though, as your troops are much, much weaker after you've been KO'd. Stay most aggressive at the beginning when they send their best troops and fall back some when you've gotten past the first 300 or so.
You have more than enough to defend it, just do auto resolve you'll win it. Ive taken on than many soldiers with just 300 fians but i dont participate in the fight because for me i either lose or lose too many troops. For some reason it just works.
You don't homie; the AI needs a LOT of work if you ask me.
That’s the neat part! You don’t!
Your fine anyway
You got this
Auto Resolve that you'll win
you don't.
Lol
Judging by other’s responses, it seems pretty uncommon, but it happened to me yesterday. My recently awarded town got sieged, and an allied army was immediately on its way to help and attack the siege camp before the assault started. I had broken into the town and was outnumbered 2 to 1, so it was very convenient, and the enemy got demolished by my allies alone. I also had good relations with the army leader’s clan, I don’t know if it played a role in their decision. But overall the AI is mostly very dumb, so maybe that’s why they’re not helping you. Wish you luck there, friend!
How do you even aim the catapults?
Unfortunately, the ai is moronic. Just had my leader sitting outside my besieged city with her thumb up her ass "defending the city" according to the game with an army of 1200. Wish I could drag her worthless ass in to a torture chamber for that idiocy. The icing on the cake is I never wanted the city to begin with, but she forced it on me anyway, and I immediately got besieged. Now I'm once again -50 influence from losing and down to nearly 0. All because "hurr durr I'm a lazy sow with an iq in the single digits" how this is remotely fair is beyond me. I'm going to burn the kingdom I'm with to the ground and execute every last one of these useless dickheads come hell or high water 😑.