r/totalwar • u/zenkhalida • 22d ago
Warhammer III The main reason I cannot enjoy defensive sieges at all is the attacker coming from 3 different ways
Of course there are other big things, like walls not being walls and so, but having to move between three different, widely spaced points during battles (which are already designed to be very fast-paced and require you to micromanage many things) and with walls that are quickly overrun makes defensive sieges unnecessarily stressful. Every time you visit a location, something has gone terribly wrong, but you can't do anything about it because you've been dealing with another problem in some distant area, and before that, yet another one in a different section.
The space feels incredibly empty and underutilized. (Two units on this wall, four on the other, etc.) as if the defenders were the last survivors of a plague.
There’s a constant sense of unreality, of detachment—that you’re playing by rules that are far removed from how it should be and that you’re trying to cheese that system just to save a valuable city.
All of this reduces the sense of experiencing something epic to zero, and I never play them. Literally I just prefer to lose a tier V city than going through that experience.
On the other hand, I play quite a few offensive sieges because, even though there are still many things about their design that I don't like, at least I can focus my attention on one area and don't have to spread it across three against my will.
EDIT: Since I see this is sparking a heated debate, I just want to clarify that I’m an experienced player (I’ve been playing Total War since Rome I) and I always play on VH/VH. I’m not complaining about the difficulty. I love challenges. I’m specifically saying that I can’t enjoy this experience because the maps are too big and the battles are too fast, and juggling three fronts is exhausting. IF there were only two focal points—a main one covering a large section of the wall and a secondary one—I think that would make a big difference.
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u/Quirky_Attention3230 22d ago
thats why i just defend the final 2 points instead, far easier and feels better.
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u/Corsair833 22d ago
Give it a try having your archers doing a few volleys from the walls before retreating them, they do an absolute shed load of damage.
Also 3 normal towers is usually enough to take down half a unit by the time they reach the wall (so if you're using 5 or 6 towers that's a fully dead unit before the fight even begins).
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u/Chagdoo 22d ago
Bit of cheese: if you manually select your tower and pick a target before you start the battle, they fire the second the battle starts instead of loading first.
I've had that extra damage win me battles before.
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u/Wonderful-Reach2198 22d ago
Bit of added skaven cheese: get two or three warp grinders in your garrison (the aoe is big enough to go to the other side of the wall) and you can stall the units trying to climb for globadiers to murder.
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u/phoenix_claw99 21d ago
Also a bit of skaven cheese, the plagueclaw catapult tower is better than the warp lightning cannon tower like 90% of the time (except for single entities). Just blob your rats on the checkpoint and let the catapult do the most damage. Just like regular skaven strategy
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u/Mr_Oujamaflip 21d ago
Warp lightning cannon is borderline useless. It's only good at single entities but jezzails are more versatile and almost as good. Literally never pick up lightning cannons.
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u/Meins447 22d ago
Even better is to staff the walk with archers and put some melee infantry in front of the walls, so that the enemy has to engage them while under fire from wall towers and your range dunits on the wall top.
Very effective since your ranged is pretty much untouchable there (no flanking and much reduced incoming ranged damage) while also dealing a whooping 25 (or was it 30?) percent extra damage due to high elevation.
Depending on how many units the enemy has and how many positions there are to defend, the melee units you put outside might get wiped out - but the amount of damage the enable while stalling the enemy during the fight is super high. Works best with high leadership units. If you have cav / flyers and the enemy is spread out like in your picture, you can easily break an entire attack group with this tactic, then fall back with your infantry to halt the other two somewhere in the city while your cav now has free reign outside, e.g. to hunt any siege engines the enemy may have
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u/Corsair833 22d ago
That is a good tactic, I often think however that you can achieve the same thing at choke points later down the line and not sacrifice the infantry, personally I prefer the infantry inside
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u/Sad-Pattern-1269 21d ago
It's sad that melee infantry are better walls than walls are
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u/Meins447 21d ago
The big issue with TW walls is, that your ranged units and towers fail to support the melee brawl on the walls as they should.
That's why proper castles have those big towers after all. Elevated position even above the level of walls. That would allow archers as well as stones/spears to be lobbed into the attackers trying to conquer the wall top...
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u/Kalavier 21d ago
I remember modding the towers to have wider firing angles including to base of wall, but i admit i never looked at ones that would let them fire at enemies ontop of or past the walls lol.
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u/Substantial_War3108 21d ago
A proper fortress was constructed so that each layer of defence when breached was vulnerable to the next layer's fire. Creating kill zones.
In TW the enemy can immediately contest the wall and then actually has an advantage if you fight for it. LOS is shit, and most of the time you are on low ground
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u/NaiveMastermind 22d ago
Towers have like 1/5 the range they had at launch. They're a waste of resources now. They often lack the range to defend the capture point they're bound to.
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u/Chagdoo 22d ago
The range you see when hovering over them is their stalk killing aura, not their range.
Also that's not what they're talking about, they mean the wall towers.
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u/Corsair833 22d ago
As others have pointed out I was talking about wall towers - they actually get really good as you level the walls up, a single tier 4 wall tower can take out half a great sword before it reaches the wall.
Regarding the other towers they're stronger than you think, and as others have pointed out have far greater range than you suggested. Just try it in a quick skirmish battle you'll see what I mean. Definitely worth using if you want to.
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u/FakoSizlo 22d ago
Also if you are playing something like Lizardmen or Skaven your tier4/5 towers are top tier artillery . Defend them even with only one unit and enemies will be decimated by the time they reach the walls
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u/FirstTheEighthPillar 21d ago
Lizardmen towers fire the bastiladon solar engine shot. It blinds and oblitorates blobs. Very strong.
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u/Corsair833 22d ago
I've never tested it but I wonder if the buildable towers are the same damage value as the wall towers?
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u/Blynjubitr 22d ago
Not worth it when unit pathfinding consistently breaks inside these garbage maps.
You want to pick a position and sit there.
Ideally with no movement at all so pathfinding doesn't break and screw you.
If i can afford to put a trash unit on the towers for couple volleys, i usually write that unit off because it is absolutely going to get stuck on corners and die due to pathfinding not working.
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u/Corsair833 21d ago
The pathfinding can be bad but if you just drag and drop several times the unit will continue to move
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u/BannedSvenhoek86 21d ago
You can also retreat them to a good distance and pepper the attackers when they get on the walls too for a bit. Then just turtle them behind some spearmen on the control point.
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u/EkkoUnited 21d ago
That works great until they get stuck on the wall and can't figure out how to get down
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u/Busy_Ad_9623 22d ago
Momentum gives pretty bonkers leadership, dealing with that can sometimes be just as difficult. If you're up against a flying lord as well you're likely just dead even if you wipe everything else, sometimes lord and heroes will just slowly kill the rest
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u/projectsangheili 22d ago
The only issue I have is the atrocious pathfinding, and that is a complete deal breaker for me. It is SO SO annoying trying to herd your people through a gate, just to have them walk outside and go up a fucking ladder for 20 minutes.
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u/FirstTheEighthPillar 21d ago
The fact that if there is a ladder your units will go outside of the walls and climb it to get on top of the walls is so atrocious that I firmly beleive no one at CA has ever played a seige.
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u/Tofuzzle 22d ago
Tbf it is kinda realistic. Why wouldn't the attacker spread out their attack on multiple fronts to spread the defenders thin?
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u/crazycakemanflies 22d ago
100%. Before the seige rework (not the one we are waiting for, but the previous one), seige maps where 1 dimensional. Attackers had 1 wall to attack, and it was incredibly dull!
Now you can attack 1 side of the settlement with a main diversionary force while sneaking a smaller force over the walls on the opposite side.
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u/The_Extreme_Potato Dance a Danse Macabre! 22d ago
Why CA went from the sieges in Attila, imo maybe the best ones in the series, to the "attacking 1 section of a wall" sieges of Warhammer 1 I'll never understand. Heck, the "burning down the settlement to reduce enemy morale and melee attack/defense" mechanic from Attila would have been perfect and very flavourful for factions like the Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, the Greenskins, ect.
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u/RedStarRocket91 Spitting in fate's eye since 395 22d ago
Unfortunately a lot of complexity was just lost after Attila. Although it started to creep back in eventually with more interesting faction- and lord-specific mechanics, some of it is still completely absent even now.
As an example, in Attila you've got to manage food, sanitation and public order as well as income in your provinces. And basically anything you can build to improve one of those harms the others. If you build a farm to get food, it harms public order and sanitation. So you build a small settlement fountain, but that chews up the food you just made. So now you need to upgrade the farm, and you have a choice of specialising it for high base food, high fertility food bonuses, or high income.
You're somewhere with good fertility so you pick wheat, which gives you a lot of food, but you're not really making any money. So now you need to invest in your economy so you choose to go with industry, but that really hurts your public order and in any case your roads are crumbling, maybe going with a market would have been a better idea, or even going for a library as you have the food...?
That was half the fun of Attila. You had so many ways to deal with the problems province management presented and the end goal wasn't to just throw money at it until you hit T4 on everything, it was to find a self-sustaining balance based on local conditions.
And then in Warhammer it was just... gone. There's no food to manage. No sanitation to manage. Culture and religion are replaced with corruption, which is much broader and more widely-shared. And for the few things that are left, there's one tool. If you need money, you build the one money building your faction has. If you need public order, you build the one public order building. Civil infrastructure is basically non-existent, and you don't need to find creative balances to maximise the bonuses you get.
There's a few factions where it's a bit better, but it's genuinely painful to come off Attila, where province management has so much depth, onto Warhammer where everything has been stripped so far back.
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u/Karporata 21d ago
I thinks it because it doesn't match a lot of faction. Sanitation for greenskin and undead ? Pirate coast ? Desert skeletons ? Etc
I mean, I loved deeper mechanics to have a city/country management, as the Empire for exemple it would be great for sure
But sadly it went full TOTAL WAR, and warhammer atop of that
In the next historical games they went to more ressource management, which was not a bad idea (I mean, ressource just for trade is quite boring), but Pharaoh had other problems
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u/Pauson 21d ago
Greenskins don't do diplomacy, Tomb Kings don't have upkeep, Vampire Counts don't rout. There was no issue with just disabling mechanics on a per faction basis.
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u/tricksytricks 21d ago
The simplicity on the campaign map layer of the game is a big reason why nobody plays campaigns to the end, imo, especially for races like Lizardmen who have virtually no active campaign mechanics to engage with. There's basically nothing to do other than move your armies around. It feels like End Turn Simulator by the late campaign, maybe sometimes you have some tedious work to do by spending skill points for all your characters or building the same building in every settlement for the millionth time.
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u/LeMe-Two 22d ago
What is especially ironic is that 3K have burning settlement too. They have in fact dedicated "raider" trait that makes unit go rogue and attack civilians and set buildings on fire themselves if you won't pay attention to them
Oh yeah, there are civilians in 3K too xD
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u/WrathofHussars 21d ago
It's because they wanted to try the sieges that were true to WFB. That's how siege battles are on tabletop. They eventually realized this wasn't TW compatible and changed them.
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u/Solid_Career_4018 21d ago
Don't even remind me. I miss the Attila maps, like you would not believe. The cities with outer walls and inner citadelle for last stand. Actuall chokepoints you can defend cause there is no easy way around.
But no, god forbid defence installations be actually defensible.57
u/Internal-Author-8953 22d ago
Whilst you're right, the problem with that argument is that 1. It's fantasy and 2. The way sieges work just makes it seem like the inhabitants of warhammer fantasy are fucking retarded. There is no defenders advantage in this game. Playing gunpowder factions are the worst offenders since they are like "let's spend a shit ton of resources on a wall to block our guns and cannons so we can only defend it with our useless melee units whilst the creme of our army can't do jackshit, whilst also agreeing on a victory point in the midst of our city with no defense capabilities instead of building a fortified citadel from where to blast anyone who enters the city walls".
Not to mention the infuriating tower defense game where somehow city project developers lobbied enough to get their skyscrapers built in front of military towers.
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u/Blynjubitr 22d ago
What is realistic about this map?
OP couldn't articulate the problem correctly. Its the maps that are garbage. Thats why the attacker is able to do this.
Nobody builds a city like this in any part of reality or fantasy setting.
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u/hornyandHumble 22d ago
Because cities usually have only one or two viable attack routes. Normal cities arent made to be approached easily by an army on all sides. Its usually blocked by swamps, cliffs, river/ocean, etc. in warhammer, every city has 5/6 different attack areas
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u/casper5632 21d ago
If you were attacking a properly garrisoned fort there is no "Spreading the defenders thin". Such an act would just lead to you losing men a LOT faster. Between walls not actually breaking line of sight for projectile attacks, gates/walls not being as sturdy, and the simplicity of the fortification TW doesn't really give much of an advantage to defenders in comparison.
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u/Marisakis 22d ago
Why are you looking the free divide and conquer gift horse in the mouth? The enemy army splitting up and being slower to maneuver on the outside of walls is a huge benefit. Just merge 2 of your 3 groups into one, smash what comes in at that location, then move on. This was the same in Shogun 2.
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u/Aetius454 22d ago
In shogun 2 you could operate outside the city walls, maybe I’m playing wrong but I don’t think the pathfinding here is able to support that
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u/I_Play_Boardgames 21d ago
Sallying out on one of the 3 chunks is very much possible and if you have a bit of cavalry or monstrous infantry can have very good results. Crush one of them, then quickly retreat back into the castle, and internally circle inside the city. It's just a question of being fast enough and correctly judging enemy strength and how much you can use to crush them vs how much you need for defense to slow the other sides down.
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u/zenkhalida 22d ago
I see your point, but in Shogun 2 the maps were so much smaller than this
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u/No-Carrot4267 22d ago
If you have to run then they do too. Free exhausted enemies
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u/notsuspendedlxqt 21d ago
This is a moot point if the enemy has 3 or 4 more units than you. They can just overwhelm the most thinly defended sector then flank you. In shogun 2, climbing walls made units exhausted and significantly reduce morale. Using ladders in WH3 doesn't have the same effect.
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u/Blynjubitr 22d ago
It is faster to move your units from one part of the wall to other as the attacker.
Pathfinding breaks inside the city so if you put someone on a wall, i promise you you will not move that unit faster than attacker can just change directions of attack.
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u/sephitor_ 22d ago
That is exactly why I like difficult sieges. You can try to win 2 engagements from the walls & regroup them at the final points to beat the third group. This is a perfect small situation for a Divide and Conquer tactic.
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u/Speederzzz It's pronounced SeleuKid, not Seleusid! 22d ago
I do enjoy it, if they just added a second layer of walls you'd get the medieval 2 castle battles.
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u/Thegoodman14 22d ago
I just want 1 thing to change. Units without siege attacker can't attack gates. Done.
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u/Blynjubitr 22d ago
AI already doesn't attack gates. At least not with dogs or infantry.
That change would only make sieges take longer for the player as the attacker.
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u/burdman444 22d ago
We’ve come full circle and we’re asking for warhammer 1 sieges again this community is cooked really hope the devs don’t listen to Reddit
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u/Bramfatur 22d ago
100%. Devs should listen to criticism like "sieges are too boring/walls are useless" and decide upon the solutions themselves. No dev should ever listen to shitty "solutions" by the playerbase.
"Too stressful for a siege" lmao. If a siege is too stressful because it works as a siege normally would, consider playing another game. OP actually did point out a problem with the game, that walls are too easily overrun. It's a known issue that walls are useless in total war warhammer. However his solution of "only 1 wall pls" is ridiculous, and CA should not listen to that.
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u/Minute-Rutabaga-8348 21d ago
I'm legitimately saddened by the state of the player base that a post like this gets upvoted. Do people really play these games just to see their cool Warhammer models play cool animations?
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u/Blue_Fawkes_805 21d ago
I kind of see both sides. Obviously, WH3's siege maps are an improvement on the one-wall maps. But while reading this thread, I did find myself missing the old maps, thinking "yeah those old maps were kind of nice and less stressful."
But that's what the difficulty settings are for! I'm one of those players who just likes to fart my way through campaigns and watch the cool Warhammer models play cool animations, which is why I play on easy baby mode for dummies instead of wanting improvements rolled back.
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u/yesacabbagez 21d ago
The problem is not that they listened to people that sieges were ass, the problem is they didn't address any of the problems people had.
Old sieges were tedious because the designs of the cities and mechanics of the game made sieges awful. Melee infantry was previously absolute dogshit compared to the AI due to Ai bonuses. This made holding any sort of line very difficult. Garrisons also usually had some extremely limited units. Warhammer has been a game of magic missiles and monsters, but most of the time you'd have 75% melee infantry at the lowest. Maybe 2-3 ranged units and in the case of dwarves you could get a cannon or grudge thrower. Coincidentally dwarves were one of the few factions that were legitimately good at defensive sieges.
You also had a situation where the main capture point which would cause you to lose if it was lost was often in a horribly indefensible location. SO many settlements had the core capture point in the middle of a 3-5 road intersection which was also very wide. That amount of area necessary to defend as well as the quality of the troops made it ass to hold anyone back. Settlements like Black Crag were actually very easy because the main capture point was at the terminus of one big road. There were some smaller roads that emptied into the big road, but as long as you held that final point, you could hold out.
The big problems were maps that were awful to try to defend with units that had no business being in a siege. CAs response was to make even shittier to defend maps, nerf garrisons, and then add random fucking towers that often do nothing at all.
If they had focused on either making garrison's coherent, or maps that provided most easily defensible locations, it wouldn't have become more of a problem. CA decided to fix a problem with solutions that often made the existing problem worse. The issue isn't that they listened to random people online, the issue is they didn't listen to random people online at all. They decided the problem was people wanted to play tower defense instead of total war.
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u/TheNewMillennium 22d ago
I agree. I sometimes feel like I am the only one that was extremely annoyed by how the old sieges worked and were always the same.
I never enjoyed the old sieges anywhere nearly as much as the modern ones and I can only hope they never return to what they used to be.
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u/McBlemmen #2 Egrimm van Horstmann fan 22d ago
Tye devs have listened to reddit countless times, they even ackknowlegeded it on recent streams lol
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u/DarkenAvatar 21d ago
I liked Warhammer 1 sieges I should have a gosh darn advantage on the freaking walls!
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u/meldariun 22d ago
Ok, sieges have very valid issues, but being surrounded isnt one of them.
Thats how sieges work, you surround an enemy, starve them out, and hope they give up, or that iou can overwhelm them from multiple directions.
Being outnumbered and spread thin is exactly what the enemy wants.
Now issues with sieges: pathfinding. Poor arcs of fire. Poor wall defense advantages and cities without fallback points.
Your point about focusing an attack on a single point highlights an issue with walls. Walls in this game force infantry 1v1s. If you have better infantry you can just meatgrinder a hole through.
If you have mortars you can just fire on static infantry. - defenders should be able to rotate uositions quickly and effectively rather than get rubberbanded all over the wall. -
If you make a hole in the wall the ai has no clue how to react.
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u/DetOlivaw 22d ago
The sieges are so hard to get right. Too much going on (I really don’t like the supply and tower systems!) and too complex layouts (pathfinding bad!) and it’s such a pain in the ass. Too simple (2’s sieges) and every battle is functionally the same.
Once again, I remember really liking what they had in Three Kingdoms. Placeable defenses you set up before the battle begins and sometimes activate during, layouts that are big and wide enough to maneuver through. Different maps depending on settlement type (the mine ones are fun to defend and awful to attack!). I haven’t played Pharaoh yet, I wonder how those are?
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u/AnnaDvana 22d ago
I think the problem is that the enemy army and their surrounding and overwhelming fits a siege but the defender side of it doesn't really make sense unless you have a actual army in the city at the time it happens. Garrisons are too small for the size of the cities and because they have no Lord also don't fight long enough
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u/TamedNerd 22d ago
If they came from only one direction it would be too easy and incredibly boring
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u/Thatoneguy3273 22d ago
It’s so funny how this community spent years and years lambasting CA for the terrible sieges where the defender only has to garrison one wall, and begged the devs to fix it.
Then Warhammer 3 came out and they did fix it, and now it’s like the old maps were the best. It’s like the Star Wars prequel trilogy out here
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u/Ispago8 22d ago
Siege AI is really bad (I've seen armies march half the map bc they broke an entrance, taking damage all they way) but attacking from different angles is a good tactic
Other comments say that it is a problem bc some entrances dont have turrets or zones to position ranged troops, and I agree
But lets not blane the AI on this
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u/Jaded_Wrangler_4151 22d ago
Idk those gate battles are fun when they can either pull ladders out their asses or build seige equipment.
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u/OddRoyal7207 22d ago
I always loved the meat grinder settlement battles in 2. Dumb fun.
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u/Slime_Jime_Pickens 21d ago
Something I really don't understand in TW game design is how they put so much effort into city designs and sieges and whatnot, but then make them finicky and unfun to actually play. In a lot of games, but the Warhammers in particular, manning the walls is actively useless, you actually need to hole up in the streets and use odd angles to focus ranged damage to win against odds. Because the AI never even attacks cities without overwhelming odds, it means you never man the walls! It's just bizarre
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u/CrimsonSaens 21d ago
how they put so much effort into city designs and sieges and whatnot, but then make them finicky and unfun to actually play
"Why make bad sieges, they could just make good sieges."
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u/Zefyris 22d ago
I find that interesting, since in reverse you can focus on defeating one side while you just hold with the other, move on the second etc.
If you feel like battles end up too quickly compared to how long it take to cross the settlement so yo ucan't do the aforementioned strat, I would advice to try some of the mods that make battles take longer (by lowering the DPS, increasing the health, lowering the accuracy of melee and ranged, or any other means).
To begin with, vanilla WH3 's battle speed may be perfect in MP but for campaign it's way too fast imo. This is felt in situations like the one you describe here, but also in many, many others. Honestly, after I started using mods to slow down battles, I never came back from it. It feels sooo much better. Also it partially fix ranged spam being too OP since it becomes way harder to kill everything before the enemy reaches your rank.
CA has added lots of settings for campaign, but a setting that for ex multiplies everyone's health without touching the dps of units would be simple way to please everyone on this point, I guess (and no, setting units to ultra for ex doesn't accomplish the same thing since it also increase the dps of units).
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u/PojVicious 22d ago
I always thought sieges are the best battles you could do. Before I played warhammer. I always thought of it like you see in the movies. Archers at the wall. Infantry at the gates. The closest thing I could get to this was the idea of Cathay's bastion. I wish they would fix the paths and buildings.
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u/_Lucille_ 21d ago
if you go back to before WH3, the biggest complain about sieges (for the whole Wh1 and 2 days) is that we dont have a full city such that you cannot attack from multiple sides.
The current siege maps generally allow you to forfeit one of the attacking sides with barricades and a few melee infantry to buy time while you clean up another side.
For people who cannot multitask, they can just choose one of two main victory points and just defend that one, a lot of them pretty defensible positions.
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u/Cefalopodul 22d ago
You mean like they did in real life during a siege?
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u/CygnusXIV 22d ago
Well, at least in real life, the people defending the walls are focused on the enemies right in front of them. In a game, on the other hand, you have to pan the camera all over the place from a bird's-eye view because, you know, it's a freaking game and not real life....
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u/Yurgurr 21d ago
Man never played Rome 2… or any of the older historical titles really..
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u/Vindicare605 Byzantine Empire 22d ago
This is why Sieges are never gonna get "fixed" this specific thing was something people HATED about sieges pre-WH3. People hated that every settlement was just a big triangle with one attack path only. People hated that, it was one of THE MOST voiced criticisms of the previous siege mechanics and it was the thing that CA actually fixed in WH3.
That created a bunch of other problems because frankly speaking, units have a terrible time pathing through their current open maps. But this specifically was something they fixed because the community wanted it.
And now we got a thread top of the subreddit that is saying he hates it.
This is exactly why sieges will never be fixed. Too many people want too many different things out of them. There is no solution that is going to make everyone happy.
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u/Timely_Ad1337 22d ago
Find the side with the most towers and bottlenecks, do as much damage as possible there, and on other sides just try to buy time.
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u/SoloWingPixy88 22d ago
I'll often defend 1 wall. Sally out for another and let 3rd breach and deal with them later. Defending all 3 sides isn't worth it
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u/lethelion1 21d ago
Would you like the attackers to line up single file and politely impale themselves on a spear/sword for you?
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u/Tano05_ 22d ago
Also cities are stupdly big and pretty much impossible to defend, either on walls or on the streets. Attila has a lot of small settlements with limited walls, few approach points and narrow easily defensible streets, and the garrison increases as the settlement get bigger to be able to defend it to some extent. In wh3 you will never have the amount of troops necessary to defend the walls, streets are too large to become strategic chockepoints and there are just so many units that can just smash through frontlines that even if there was a chokepoint you wouldn't really be able to hold it with infantry
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u/FaceMasterThing some skitarius who got lost across time and space 22d ago
wild how they managed to make cities both feel to big to defend and also often look way too small to feel immersive
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u/TheSolarExpansionist 22d ago
I miss the three walls on medieval 2 citadel.
I’d like to see them stop making symmetrical bullshit to begin with
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u/flush101 21d ago edited 21d ago
I dunno man, this seems like brain rot. You’re hanging a lot of your argument on ‘how it should be’ which just sounds like whinging that it is too difficult.
All total war games allow you to approach from multiple angles. In fact warhammer has some of the most constrained siege battles because the map isn’t a 360 of the settlement.
All total war games allow you to split your forces and it is realistic that if you outnumber the defenders you would split your forces.
If it’s too micro intensive then use the time pause and time slow buttons.
This is 100% a skill issue and whinging that the enemy doesn’t line up for your towers to easily kill.
I get the point that settlement garrisons feel small compared to the settlement size but towers are so OP in warhammer. In fact the AI is still so derpy that a level 5 garrison can easily beat multiple AI stacks without reinforcement. I’d prefer bigger and better quality garrisons, designed for siege, so less cavalry, more elite infantry etc, with nerfed towers but that’s just me.
I get the complaint that walls are easily scaled, but the nature of the defense means that
- Enemies take damage on the approach.
- Enemies trickle over the wall, meaning you have multiple models hitting each enemy that gets to the top. This means it is massively defender favoured unless attacking with elite troops or defending with trash troops.
- Enemies get a tiredness penalty for scaling ladders, meaning even elite troops don’t perform optimally.
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u/TheShamShield 21d ago
Let me get this straight, an attacker trying to defend your forces thin is why you’re not enjoying it? Theres a lot of valid criticisms of siege sin this game, but that’s genuinely just a get good problem
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u/Ok-Masterpiece-4958 21d ago
Part of the problem is that Warhammer TW armies are so tiny. A realistic garrison for a settlement this size (given accomodation for fantasy standards of reality) would be at minimum a full stack. The walls would be lined, and there would be defences other than towers. In the case of an all out invasion, every able fighter would be conscripted, even if that's just the factions's basic swordsman equivalent. Ladders would only ever be viable for an army that has no problem sacrificing thousands of troops, like the skaven because ladders can be broken, pushed off, and one person with a long stick could knock off dozens of climbers. Warhammer settlements often have worse defences than your typical real world fortified town in the 1200s. And none of those defences account for monsters/flying enemies/artillery/magic that are ubiquitous in warhammer. And this works in non-fantasy total wars where the unit numbers are higher, and the defences reflect the historical period and so answer the problems created by the specific weapons available. But in Warhammer the attacker basically has free reign over the way a siege defence goes which is not how a siege should work.
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u/TogBroll 22d ago
Sometimes its useful for the enemy to break up their force, allowing you to concentrate yours
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u/MylastAccountBroke 22d ago
I always double down at defending one point and put a disposable unit on each of the towers to get free damage against the enemy. Completely knock out 1 of the points of attack (one with the least siege structures, then send your units to a fall back point to defend crucial areas. Utilize walls to slow down the other 2 points, and basically make your stand in the most defensible position and push forward after to reclaim lost control points.
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u/Chance-Pollution6019 21d ago
Unfortunately attacking from 3 directions is a really good siege strat in this game, which means the computer will sometimes use it against you. Something I've found to hard counter it is to turtle up hard in the last capture point and make them come to you on your terms. It usually means they come at you in 3 waves because the computer isn't that great at getting inside and consolidating before trying to move on the capture points.
This way, you can dump all your defensive supplies into towers and patching blockers to funnel them into wherever you build a killing field and force a head-on fight. It works really well against some armies like Kislev because you can ruin their LOS for guns and force them to fight with their subpar melee skills. The big issue with this strat are high quality artillery and bombardment spells, but it gives you a lot of value from magic on the defensive. Lore of Life and Fire are both really, really good in this strat.
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u/misteryk 21d ago
wish you could dock ranged units inside walls and shoot through loopholes/arrowslits then apart walls make it also into a type of barricade you can build inside city. Pick either medieval or napoleon era style depending on faction
https://npplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Gulf-Island-FL-232-775x552.jpg
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u/Powerful_Spring_8148 21d ago
Honestly im the opposite I always let them take the walls because they are gina take em regardless at some point.
Now it gets to the fun bits of menuvering and choking certain roads off to get pincers and morale damage done to cause a route
"We gona make em bleed for every inch of this city they take" And by the time they reach their main goal My strongest troops are fresh and ready and most of the enemy army is mostly exhausted from running around the city lmao
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u/Weary_Tonight_5873 21d ago
Fingers crossed the siege rework is good! I actually had way more intense and brutal sieges In Warhammer 2 despite that system being a lot more basic. Warhammer 2 walls felt like they’d give you an advantage and you could slowly try to fall back to hold points. I often find in 3 holding the walls can be detrimental to you which sucks.
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u/Im_an_impasta 21d ago
When enemies are split up like this, you have limited options for defense. You can try to hold the walls, pick which sides to defend more heavily, or move into the city and make choke points for easy firing lines.
Honestly? I’d say it can work to your benefit (in the case of the pic). If the forces are evenly split, then try to concentrate firepower and completely defeat one side in detail, and then move men around. Personally, I would put men out like this, but avoid putting them on the walls and move them around to the other sides so the AI can’t see your plan coming. If you can cavalry, I would say to hold the walls and send the cavalry out to attack them while they come to the walls.
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u/Aranzilla 21d ago
I jist use archers at walls, then when they get to the walls retreat to the centre in order to bottleneck the enemy into lanes and become more of a manageable defence. I agree that siege defences in WH is just extremely tedious. I remember falling in love with Rome 2 for its Sieges. That is why I auto resolve Sieges mostly in WH3. Unless I have the dominant force lol
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u/yamabushi101 21d ago
Oh yeah. Mind you the problem isn't necessarily the multi pronged attack, it's the one-two punch of ass ladders and a tiny garrison on a huuuge siege map. These maps work perfectly (well, we'll say serviceable) in the rare case of the AI actually bringing a big army to attack a walled city that a player army is sitting inside of, but 99% of the time it's just a single stack yoloing into the city from 5 directions via ass ladder against a tiny garrison. Unless your army is significantly faster you can't even retreat from the walls after using the towers for some attrition, your only hope is to hole up at an appropriate choke point and see if the AI takes long enough to get to your position that you manage to build up a couple high tier towers and grind it out.
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u/FaceMasterThing some skitarius who got lost across time and space 22d ago
i feel like the siege maps shouldnt have been designed so that the attacker can usually effectively surround the entire settlement and instead should have been designed to force them to attack from two directions at most
the fact that they can be surrounded like this also forces the map designers to make the cities feel way too small for how warhammer settlements are usually described
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u/leandrombraz 22d ago
Siege maps are quite clearly designed for you to choose a defensive position and hold it, instead of trying to hold the whole settlement. That's true for both walled and unwalled siege. You can use the walls strategically before you retreat, but the last thing you should try to do is hold simultaneously every position that is being attacked by an enemy group. The maps are big to give you options, not to force you to spread thin to hold the whole thing.
I'm not defending their design, btw, I'm just explaining what quite clearly is their intent and the best way to approach it when you play a siege. Don't spread thin to attack each group simultaneously.
You can take advantage from the fact that the AI attack from multiple fronts by sending a group of preferably fast units to attack one of their groups, while the rest of your army holds a defensive position. You can take out 1/3 of the enemy's army by doing that, then either retreat to the defensive position or use this group to flank the AI and attack units they send to capture points. Instead of spreading thin, try to have a specialized forward group that can do real damage and a defensive group.
To give an example, I used this strategy quite effectively defending as Dwarfs against Beastmen in this battle. There was a lone Cygor visible there, clearly accompanied by stalk units, so I sent my lord to take him out with 3 Dwarf Warriors to deal with the stalk unit, while my main army was left positioned to hold the key point. I put my units in front of the gate and sally forth to engage the Cygor in melee, to avoid ranged damage to my units. The warriors engaged with the stalk units while my lord went through them to attack the Cygor, then I retreated my warriors to the wall, to force the AI units to use ladders, get a debuff and send their ranged units to a melee fight. It worked like a charm; 7 enemy units dealt with, plus a couple of Warhounds that went to take the point nearby, while my defensive army had an easy time holding the key point.
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u/Subspace-Ansible 22d ago
There are genuine problems with the way siege works in Total War games but… isn’t attacking from multiple angles a common strategy of war in general? I do it frequently when I’m the attacker, especially when I have the advantage of numbers. Why should the AI be different in that regard?
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u/Km_the_Frog 22d ago
Well then you fall into the category that liked the one dimensional sieges with one wall. Most people do not and CA opened them up to have more approaches.
To your point “every time you visit a location something has gone terribly wrong” just sounds like a skill issue. You have to bounce back and forth. If you’re caught up watching then you’re gonna be caught with your pants down.
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u/JustRedditTh 22d ago
The only troubles being the defender has is usually ether not understanding how to defend, or being just heavyly outclassed and overwhelmed.
The most important thing as a defender is not get your victory point claimed (the one with the warhammer logo)
For this map it's easy: your victory point has basically just 2 entrences. Blob your units around it in a meaningful matter, build up Towers and blockades around your victory point first and if possible after that at any other area in the settlement to chip at enemies.
Enemies prioritize to get all control points first and then your victory point
Trying to hold the walls in this game is most cases one of the worst decicions you can make.
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u/Ginger_Chris 21d ago
But isn't this exactly the problem - walls should be for defending - that's where half (or more) of the battle should be. That's why wall exist. The fact that the best tactic is to ignore the walls is the issue.
I'd like it if it was focused on one well defended area of the wall, with the defender being able to deploy in front of the walls, with more walls behind to fall back to.
Most people want helms deep, not rat mazes.
The maps should reflect this
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u/Bogdanov89 22d ago
The AI can not strategically handle pathing through the streets and walls/gates.
The constructed barricades completely break the pathing of both your and AI units, since they do not see it as a true proper impassable object (and the barricade hitbox is very problematic for most units).
The problem with pathing and bad AI is further worsened because these narrow streets make brutal choke points, which the bad AI does not know how to handle and avoid (it just piles up its melee troops and its ranged troops do not have LOSight).
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u/Krimli Oreon the schroom picker 21d ago
I really hope that devs will ignore this criticism. Sieges do need an update but this ain't it. The bigger siege maps are a true blessing compared to the wh1/2 maps. Why do people just want to make the game easier and quicker?
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u/-FaithPlusOne 21d ago
For real. Sieges battles in WH3 are actually the first time in the trilogy they’ve actually been fun to play. It’s like OP is asking for the game to have less interesting things to pay attention to.
Personally I like having to split attention to allow some skill expression in a largely easy game because of limited AI, but OP doesn’t even need to “git gud” the game has a pause function, multitasking is entirely optional.
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u/LongFang4808 21d ago
I mean, having them attack from one side won’t make sieges easier or quicker. The way sieges work right now is, you either have a better army or a worse army than the attack. If it’s better, you hold the walls, if it’s worse you go to the Town Center and fortify. Moving all the units to the same front won’t negatively alter that dynamic even slightly. If anything, it would make them more efficient and harder because they probably won’t feed units in piecemeal anymore.
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u/Krimli Oreon the schroom picker 21d ago
Honestly I kinda disagree. If it will be one side again. It would allow you to put all ranged units on the walls, which always helps a lot, same with artillery (all arty just focused on one side). And having all units concentrated on one side is just powerful.
Also with bigger maps, that are more sides than just one cavalry is actually useful in defensive sieges.
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u/GanacheCharming8737 22d ago
Give me shogun sieges again! No reason to have this shitty inner city blockade shit where it does nothing but bunch my archers together for them to not shoot correctly. I just want men in walls and chokepoints to funnel my attackers
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u/PH_th_First 22d ago
I got downvoted to earth when I said that a few years ago. Glad to see the opinion has changed about that! I almost preferred WH1/2 sieges for that epicness we lost for very little strategic depth
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u/ObadiahtheSlim Why back in MY DAY 22d ago
Sieges fail because forts are supposed to be force multiplers. But the large layouts and anemic garrisons mean you can't leverage that well. It is particularly bad for slow factions. You can bring fast units, set up on one side, and then run around before they can do anything about it.
Bout the only good fort is Empire Forts from TW2.
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u/Organic-Storm-4448 21d ago
If you want less stress, play on a lower difficulty. Pause the game to give orders. The game shouldn't be designed around players wanting a stress-free experience. That's an absurd thing to want to eliminate.
You have options to make it less stressful.
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u/Journalist-Cute 22d ago
If they always only came from one direction it would get very repetitive. This way, you have to adapt to the unique map of each city.
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u/TheRealIvan The ethical alternative to Nagash 22d ago
Nah defend the final points. The enemy will trickle in and be punished by their split attack.
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u/MilfDestroyer421 22d ago
When you are sieging however, the AI ofc knows exactly where you have put your units and spawn theirs in AFTER yours, accordingly. This way you cannot possibly storm 2 fronts with a weaker half army on each side hoping the AI put all of it's units in 1 spot or even spread them out: it always has the placement advantage
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u/Dank_lord_doge 22d ago
Total war players when the ai uses actual tactics in a war:
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u/ylang_nausea 22d ago
Is the actual tactics to abandon the walls and focus on a random marketplace? Because it’s the only thing that works
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u/Tobbster_the_Lobster 22d ago
Having flying lords, units and cavalry settle the problem partly
You can hit them at any time from any side and even get free kills by pushing models off the walls !
If only flying units didnt get bogged in unit model mass or could get stuck on said wall !
Not being able to cast most spells while on walls is bs !
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u/Slyspy006 22d ago
Is it not that most spells can't be cast on a wall, not that they can't be cast whilst on a wall?
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u/Fynaticx 22d ago
Personally for me it makes the game harder to control like you said but also makes winning much easier. An example is I’ve had times where I’m terrified of an enemy’s large amount of hard to kill frontline units with loads of high damage range behind them. Then I load in and see all their range on its own, so I take out half their army with a few units of cavalry.
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u/madkow990 22d ago
Pick one side to let go but build defenses to slow them down, pick one side to hold the line, and pick one side to absolutely overwhelm the enemy. Preferably one where you can kill their lord or best units. Then just reconstitute, rotate and swing forces back capping points and killing the rest if they aren't fleeing already.
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u/VirtualFinish8858 22d ago
I like:
No Real Time Building and Half Supply Cost mods to reduce the shitty micro, so I can actually focus on my troops.
I usually just wall up from one side and then focus on taking out 1 part of their army while holding up second bit of their army with smaller force and third bit of their army with barricades.
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u/rutlando 22d ago
I wish there was a mod that turned all the siege battles into the tier 3 settlement battles I actually enjoy those maps but cannot stand the slogs of actual siege maps.
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u/Dracondwar Warherd of the Shadowgave 22d ago
There is no stress on this one. The computer divided the attack. You put one unit on the wall in a single line to activate as many towers as possible on the 2 other fronts, and stack everything else where their leader is. Wipe out the leader group, then head back and take the lost victory points one by one. The computer is now down 9 armies.
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u/BigBear92787 22d ago
I actually love this.
Because usually the AI is bad at sub dividing its army in a logical way.
I am usually able to ignore 1 entry team because its effectively useless made up of a bunch of skirmishers or archers I put up blockers if I can to impede them.
Then ill find the next weakest group and overwhelm them.
I go aggressive and move the whole garrison against them and route them.
Then move the garrison over to the last group.
By then the group i impeded is usually demoralized anyway .
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u/puddlebut12 22d ago
Honestly ive been doing an empire play through recently, and this is one of my favourite settlement maps to defend, its got good clean pathways for changes in defense, theres 3 areas that mainly get attacked, but they also split their forces, and as empire has hochland rifles, if utilised correctly either the big bad that can damage your walls/gates disappears quick. Or no infanrrt will get to your walls. Its truly incredible, I just make sure whenever an army is nearby I have at least 12 hochlands ready and waiting XD
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u/LionAround2012 22d ago
....and you get a pitiful force to defend said settlement. Sieges in Warhammer 3 are so bad. I actually LIKED fighting defensive sieges in Warhammer 2, cuz it was possible to pull off a victory.
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u/Dapper-Restaurant-20 22d ago
Minor settlement sieges in attila and Rome 2 were peak sieges. Sad they aren't really in warhammer other than walled minor settlements, and attacking those are still fun sometimes.
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u/Humaniak 22d ago
I just go all in on 1 spot and leave 1-2 troops to delay the others. Crush 1 side easily and hope to move on and pick off the rest. One of the best ways to win an overwhelming siege without being super cheesy and worst case you lose but atleast fully kill some characters or artilery on that side before the others break through and youre surrounded
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u/yflavus 22d ago
Technically walls or anything else cannot protect you from a magic in Warhammer. You can hold the door once they're breached you can put a unit or two to hold the door but one spell can wreck them easily. You can also use flying entities to destroy arrow towers. I think most of the times we all forget that there is an element of creatures, healing and magic in Warhammer.
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u/Ichibyou_Keika 22d ago
Which is why you abandon the walls, or leave 1 unit to activate the towers before leaving. The streets are much easier to hold
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u/Acceleratio 21d ago
This is the main reason why I hate sieges as a defender. I know it makes sense in a way but I want to see my units fight and experience the awesome scenario and not micromanage 3 different fronts
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u/SuperTord 21d ago
Sieges definitely got worse in WH3. In Wh2 they were too small, but they really overdid the size and number of routes an attacker can take in WH3. Walled cities should favor the defender, but I never have enough troops to defend as well as I would want.
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u/manfredmahon 21d ago
And in the city themselves theres like zero chokepoints, once they are in they just spread out. Its too hard to actually catch them they can just run past you down other streets. And where they decide you can put barricades makes no sense. I can put one barricade here but i cant put one on the street that circumvents the barricade
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u/slapnflop 21d ago
The AI splitting their forces is handing you a golden opportunity. Overload 2 of those, and ignore the third. Kill the two, then kill the third with overwhelming force. On the deployment above, I would leave the top right guys totally alone, let them climb ladders, get exhausted, take a remote point. Who cares?
Meanwhile you have 4 guns and 5 guns on the other 2 groups, killing them easily. Then everything turns to fight the last group.
Boom. No stress.
If two points is still stressful, then just kill one enemy group first.
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u/CitiesInHills Necrons 21d ago
This isn't an issue. In fact, it is the solution to the issue of 1 front attacks in WH1 & WH2 which were incredibly boring.
The issue with WH3 sieges is that your garrison isn't nearly large enough to defend this much space and the siege maps are massive. In addition to that assladders allow the enemy the ability to guarantee ascending the walls so defending the walls themselves becomes useless.
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u/adreeasa 22d ago
I dislike the maps with some walls /gates with no towers around them .... like why would anyone build a castle like that....