Medieval 2 Total War Simple Town Defense Strategy!

Thanks to my Chat I was able to learn a very simple but effective way to defend cities in Medieval 2 Total War and I just wanted to share it with others! I hope you learn something new and if there are any other strategies that you know, let me Know! I love learning new tactics and strategies! I hope you enjoy!
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[@ardypangihutan3653]

England be like "The enemies are bringing in reinforcement! They try to make up in number what their lack in wooden stake".

[@KyTheCrusader]

"No matter how many bodies you throw at us, we will always have more wooden Stakes!" lol

[@gavinsepicgaming9835]

I've done a similar strategy defending a city, 2 units of crossbows and 2 units of spears, any ranged or infantry should work though, putting the spears in a v at the gate, and the crossbows on the walls, and you shoot at their siege weapons, but the ladders or siege towers first, and once they reach the walls just move back your crossbowmen so they can get off then volley at them, and once they get through the gate you fire back at them with the crossbows, I also got lucky with killing their general and eventually they all rout.

[@KyTheCrusader]

That's a very good strategy as well! Plus if the walls have towers on them, those can fire at the enemy and help kill them off, even if your archers/crossbowmen don't have any ammo left!

[@adammac4960]

Easy. Couple of units of pikemen and a shit ton of archers. The AI will always attack the main gate and rush its troops in. Have a sneaky cav unit round the back do some hit and run tactics on there rear and flanks. It’s exactly the same as bridge battles.

[@oo6127]

Amazing video as always Ky!

[@KyTheCrusader]

Thank You! You where the one that gave me the idea to do it!

[@oo6127]

@@KyTheCrusader Glad to see that my advice helped 😁

[@P4GYY]

decent non cheese strat tbh, i like it. i might start leaving catapults in my settlements, damn ty

[@KyTheCrusader]

No Problem! I hope your campaign goes well!

[@TEUTONSHIK]

By the way. The English do not have the ability to recruit armored sergeants in campaign. Because if it were possible, it would be too unbalanced.

[@KyTheCrusader]

True! I forgot to mention that about the British! 😅 However any unit of spearmen can work with this tactic, or any infantry for that matter. As long as they are able to hold the line for long periods of time, most infantry can do it!

[@askthepizzaguy]

@@KyTheCrusader There's also plentiful mercenary spearmen or crusader spearmen you can pick up while on crusade. Those are decent mid-tier spearmen with mid morale and mid defense and offense for a spear unit, their only downside is a lack of good stamina, but that just means any tactic that involves them standing still is very viable. Also, regular spear militia, when upgraded with armor and if they join a bunch of crusades and auto resolved battles to gain experience, end up with boosted defense and more importantly morale and attack, which allows them to function equally as well as mid tier spearmen. I just join a crusade every 10 turns, end the crusade as soon as possible, and always allow my militia units and infantry units to join those crusades en masse before the crusade target is captured, so all those units gain experience. They are cheap units, and often have free upkeep, so it's easy to maintain them as a permanent army in the long term, whereas mercenary spearmen and crusader spearmen are much more expensive and are never free upkeep units.

[@logandaley1544]

I’ve never seen that high of a prisoner count. I will be keeping it in mind for when I play next

[@KyTheCrusader]

Its definitely helpful in getting rid of some of the larger armies!

[@nc6379]

I once ambushed and flanked a huge Milan army with my cavalry and got over 1000 prisoners, one of the most satisfying battles ever.

[@KyTheCrusader]

Its ridiculous at how useful cavalry can be in battles, especially when it comes to capturing prisoners! @@nc6379

[@napoleoncomplex2712]

This was impressive. I know this kind of strategy can be conducted, but I didn't think it would work with such a small force against such severe odds. The catapults really do make this strategy; I don't think you could pull this off with just the archers? Rivers are great fun for these kinds of choke point defence scenarios. Set up three units of spearmen and then ring the ford with archers on higher ground. You'll end up with a higher concentration of arrow in the air than nitrogen over the ford. I melted two Mongol armies that way with armoured sergeants protecting Venetian archers, with a small corps of knights behind for counterattacking routers. I'm sure if you could get catapults up as well they'd spread even more havoc as they firebomb the tightly packed ranks, but I can never be bothered getting the darn things into position. I wonder how many soldiers would be the minimum to see off the strongest of the Mongol waves without reinforcements between each battle. Unfortunately the one remaining Mongol army saw off a full army of knights when they counterattacked (I had by far the worse general and the dread broke my army's morale) but at least I managed to dispatch their one remaining general and their army evaporated... plus my two generals survived. So that's one Mongol wave down (not counting their weak scouting armies!) Interesting thing about fighting the Mongols is you almost have to adopt a divisional strategy with your armies. You have armies for defending choke points, armies for contesting the Mongols in the field once they're weakened, and armies for defending cities.

[@KyTheCrusader]

You can do it with just Archers! Its just takes longer and you are going to suffer more casualties. The Catapults, and artillery in general really, are what really makes this work. You're right on the rivers as well! Its super fun to watch your archers and artillery units just completely melt away enemy armies as they are just sitting ducks on the bridges. I've come into that issue with the Mongols before as well and turned into a more diverse and specialize army similar to what you had to do. One for choke points, one for fields, and one for sieges. Even then I still had to do a divide and conquer style of war against the mas they tend to just swarm me with lots of armies and units all at once. Luckily if you can choke point them, it takes their numbers advantage away!

[@leonrobinson2053]

It works because your men get a morale bonus for being on the town square and the AI takes the shortest route (as long as all your units are on the square or immediately outside the walls). The question is, would it work against the Mongols, who also have high morale.

[@KyTheCrusader]

Thats true! The town square is a huge morale boost. From all of my testing it does seem to work pretty well against the Mongols. The biggest threat from them is their archers. However I found that a few well placed catapult shots or archer fire is usually enough to keep them at bay. Usually that is.

[@leonrobinson2053]

@@KyTheCrusader Nice, i've subbed

[@KyTheCrusader]

@@leonrobinson2053 Thank you so much! I appreciate it!

[@amadour2549]

i like your avatar, he's very expressive !

[@KyTheCrusader]

Thank you for the compliment! I much appreciate it! 🙏 The artist who worked on it did an amazing job!

[@sperrygeo]

Very cost effective strategy! I imagine this works exceptionally well in frontier towns in slow-developing regions. How well does it work on Mongol forces, with their heavy cav compliment? Do you have an equally effective strategy for taking settlements with minimal casualties?

[@KyTheCrusader]

It still works fairly well against the Mongols. Their heavy cav is forced to attack the front of a spear wall which does pretty fell against them. The main concern when fighting them would be their horse archers. However those could be delt with by using crossbow men or units with longer range than their archers. Now I dont have anything for assaulting walls yet. That Im still testing out and trying to find a nice system to do. One Idea that I had was to simply wait out the defenders forcing them to sally out to fight you where you can then just swarm them with cav and archers. However I wanted to try and find a better way to do it. If you have an idea though, let me know! I love testing out new ideas and tactics!

[@sperrygeo]

I tried your defense strategy in a few different Quick Battles - you're right on about the Mongols, especially if you use England or another faction with stakes. They have really high odds to take out their general(s). I was surprised to find the Aztecs quite difficult to rout with this strategy, with their high morale infantry,. But there are probably other tricks for dealing with them that I haven't learned yet. For taking cities, the most cost effective method I've heard of is the exploit where you can trick the AI defenders into sallying out of the walls: lay siege with a single unit of cavalry, then join the siege with the main army positioned with at least one empty space between the army and the cav unit. The defenders will attack the cavalry and the main army will enter the battlefield as reinforcements. Then just lead the defenders on a wild chase around the city with tour lone cav unit while you set the reinforcing army up on favorable ground. Then bait the defenders with your cav unit into your orderly lines. Your cav unit will be exhausted, but so will the defenders (who will be running during the whole pursuit) and they'll be strung out in disorderly clumps and easy pickings for well positioned crossbowmen and/or flanking strikes by fresh cav. Just makre sure to get into the city before the last retreating defenders units or wipe them all out outside the walls. Even Constantinople can be taken fairly easily this way and it allows for fast campaigns, as no siege weapons are needed! I haven't figured out a good "legit" means of breaking into a city without taking at least some casualties. I usually bust down a couple sections of wall and try to bomb the town square with the leftover catapult ammo, then use up all arrow/bolt ammo to weaken the defenders as much as possible before sending in the infantry (and maybe cav, but that's usually a recipe to lose a ton of horses.) I'm certain there's a better way, but haven't heard of a different method yet.

[@KyTheCrusader]

@@sperrygeo Thats good to know! I was having trouble with trying to do siege as well. Same as you, I wanted to find a way other than the cav exploit but looks like that will have to work for now. I usually do the same with the archers and catapult as well, just let them pick off the enemies while my infantry takes the rest of the city. But looks like Ill keep trying out new ideas in the custom game mode. Thanks for letting me know!

[@sperrygeo]

​@KyTheCrusader The closest I've gotten to clean victories in sieges is using my general to bait defenders out into arrow/bolt fire. It works great for towns without walls and okay on towns with short walls, but I haven't tested it on towns with large walls. I suspect it won't work as well for those, as the pathing AI gets a screwy and the defenders' wall defenses will be chipping away at your cav unit. Still, might have potential with the right set up - almost like a reverse of your video here.

[@KyTheCrusader]

@@sperrygeo That does sound like it would work. Ill have to give it a try next time I play! You are right, it might chip away at your cav units, however they are faster than infantry so hopefully they can out run some of the arrow fire

[@-----Alcatraz------]

So i have recently gotten back into Medieval 2 after about a decade and one thing that i have noticed when playing the campaign is that the enemy always waits about 2-3 turns before launching an assault on my settlement. So you decide to attack them first while they are still waiting for all of their siege engines to be built and all you have to do is bait them with one unit Infront of the gate so that your balista/cannon towers to kill 90% of their forces. Some times the AI is not the greatest in these games :)

[@KyTheCrusader]

lol, thats a really good idea! I should give that a try. It funny at how dumb the AI can be at times 😆

[@-----Alcatraz------]

​@@KyTheCrusader Even funnier when they already have some of the things like battering ram or ladders but they just go "Nope, now is not the time" they just leave them and walk back so that the towers don't hit them. And thats why you need at least one unit to do a false attack and retreat before they get them.

[@KyTheCrusader]

thats when cav units come in handy! Just send them out to harass the hell out of your enemies! @@-----Alcatraz------

[@sld1776]

Yeah, once you get Ballista towers it's over for sieges.

[@P4GYY]

@@KyTheCrusader Damn, do you not watch legend of total war? baiting attackers into your walls tower fire is his #1 strat

[@arturilloza]

nice!

[@KyTheCrusader]

Thanks! Im glade you enjoyed the video!

[@murqouttt8188]

idk if this is the smartest strategy but i tend to sally out a single unit right outside of the gates and use archers and towers to do most of the work by the time their army gets inside i usually have enough to clean them up

[@KyTheCrusader]

Thats not a dumb strategy at all! Especially when you get free ammo with the towers on the gates! Having a unit sally to screw with them is a really good idea, you can go straight for their siege equipment and screw the mover before they even hit your walls like you where saying!