When under siege, you can't train new units in that city. You also can't move units in or out the city. The only ways to defend your city:

- Sally and fight the battle without any help (attack the attacking army)

- Send helpforces and attack the attacking army with more armies

- Bribe the enemy army (this don't work with an enemy faction heir/leader, or without enough credits)

OK, so that leaves my last question:

"If no, what do you need to do to defend cities from inside?"

There's some way to defend cities from inside. Haven't you ever put archers on the walls? You need to be inside to do that.

Okay, here are my tactics for defending your town/city. There are different tactics because of the wall size. I will explain:


Town/Large Town
A town and a large town both have a wooden wall. These walls cannot kill your own men inside (there are no towers with holes into the town.

My strategy for a town/large town is the following:



1. I watch where the enemy rams are. Then I place 2 units at each side from the place where the ram is going to be.

2. I do this for each place.

3. When I have archers and/or peltasts, I place them not directly to the wall, but a little behind it. That, because then the archers can fire over the walls.

4. I keep the rest of the infantry as a 2nd line of defence

Now just let the enemy come and let them ram the walls/gate. Your missiles will do a lot of damage to their units.



As you can see above, my units are standing to each other, ready for flanking the enemies.



When they are through the walls, wait for the first enemies to come into the city. Then strike with both sides. The enemy will be panicked and might rout.

This way doesn't count always: when their units are stronger or you don't have enough infantry, they will break to the 1st line of defence. Now your 2nd line can be very usefull. (move your missiles behind the 2nd line ofc.)

If the 2nd line breaks, you can use your cavalry as the last help.

Minor City
For a normal city with a stone wall, I have a different setup. Your stone towers can fire both sides (out and into the city).



Their wooden towers are firing arrows, but they are not very effective. Use all of your infantry and missiles at the wall. Defend the wall with your live



If you have spearman/pikeman you can make a V-shape at the gate. If a spy infiltrated your gates, or their ram does it work, you can use this shape to take down every enemy. I won a lot of battles using this system, because the enemy hardly can pass your wall of pikes/spears.

Large city / Huge city
This is a very easy tactic. Just camp at the base. Your towers are very strong against the enemy, but also to yourself when the enemy captured it. Their siegetowers also have good/epic missiles, so you just don't want to defend your city from the walls.



Just place your troops at the base. Your towers will do a lot of damage to the enemy, and when they reach your base, you can easily take the rest down.


I hope you can do something with this tactics, at least they work for me.

[This message has been edited by Dagovax (edited 04-24-2017 @ 05:05 AM).]

Alos, you can set 'ambushes'. Dagovax goes a bit into that, but you can expand on that. Set a pike or phalanx unit, or spears to block a road the enemy MUST take. You can figure that out from where he will knock a hole in the wall. He will proceed directly by the shortest route from there to the city center.

Block his advance, and have excess units waiting to pounce from the flank or rear. Cavalry is good for this as it is fast and hits hard.

Missile units, once away from the wall, use fire arrows (in groups) against high-value targets (elephants, Bull warriors, Poeni infantry, phalangites, Chosen Axemen, Generals). Fire will help to panic them, the charging cavalkry the rest.

If you can't create roadblocks and armored fists to strike from side or rear, then fort up in the city center. Your troops cannot break when in the city center- it is hardcoded to prevent routing. Any routing unit will run for the city center where it will reform.

Sallies can be worth it to wear down a foe. I sometimes sally even if outnumbered four to one. I exit, they move to a corner, I empty my quivers into them, then return to city. If they give chase, they have to storm my walls first, losing more men to the arrows of the towers. The timer runs down, then I get to do it again.

Pooches are great for this. Like a fire-and.forget missile of teeth. Sally, cut them loose, retreat. Next round, you have more dogs.

Thanks for all that strategy but that still does not answer my question. I'm not asking about strategy - where to put archers and where to put spearmen, etc. I'm asking HOW do I end up inside a city so I can defend it? If I'm on the world map and a city is under siege, I can't enter it, which means I can't put archers on the walls or do any of the stuff you talked about. So how do I get inside a city so I can defend it from inside? All that info was interesting but not necessary. I just want to know how/when can I get inside a city to defend it from inside. Does the city need a certain type of governor? Does it need a certain type of soldier? Does the city need to have a certain type of building? Is it random? Does it happen automatically? Something must trigger it so what is that?

[This message has been edited by locutus1 (edited 04-25-2017 @ 02:38 AM).]

As I said, you can't move armies in or out the city while under siege. This mean you have to defend your city with the present army.

The enemy will start the battle in one of their turns (they need to build rams etc first. But they might wait for your people to surrender. Don't let that happen.

If you see that your city will surrender in 1 turn, don't wait another turn, but attack the enemy. Only advice I have left is to have enough men inside before you are besieged.

You sally forth from your city in basically the same way that you move troops out of a city on the campaign map normally. First, select the city, then select any unit card and right click on the enemy army besieging your city. This will bring up the standard battle scroll; select the option to fight the battle on the battle map, and it will load up the city as your map, with your troops inside it.

Alternately, the enemy will build siege equipment and attempt to take your city during their turn. If that happens, when you end your turn, the battle scroll will come up during their turn, and you'll be able to select the option to fight the battle on the battle map then.

You sally forth from your city in basically the same way that you move troops out of a city on the campaign map normally. First, select the city, then select any unit card and right click on the enemy army besieging your city. This will bring up the standard battle scroll; select the option to fight the battle on the battle map, and it will load up the city as your map, with your troops inside it.

Alternately, the enemy will build siege equipment and attempt to take your city during their turn. If that happens, when you end your turn, the battle scroll will come up during their turn, and you'll be able to select the option to fight the battle on the battle map then

Now, we're getting somewhere.
What determines whether or not I can build siege equipment and how many turns it will take?

[This message has been edited by locutus1 (edited 04-27-2017 @ 08:47 AM).]

If you're on the world map and a city is being attacked, can you defend it from inside? If yes, how do you get in?

If the city is yours, you are already defending it, and the garrison is yours to command.

If the city is not yours, then you have to siege or storm it. The other guy is defending. You cannot command his forces.

If you can lure out the garrison (by either attacking with a weak army or attacking a relieving army nearby) then you could probably sneak a unit inside, capture the gates the enemy used to lock them out, move your army inside while locking out theirs out, and then take out those left behind in the city's central square. This works seldom, but on occasion, if the unit is fast enough, it can.

If the city is yours, you are already defending it, and the garrison is yours to command.

If the city is not yours, then you have to siege or storm it. The other guy is defending. You cannot command his forces.

Like most people you totally misunderstood the question even though I think it's straight forward. General Sajaru nailed it so never mind.

[This message has been edited by locutus1 (edited 04-27-2017 @ 08:51 AM).]

Attacking armies build siege equipment.

It comes up on a little screen when you select your army and click on the city you want to attack. The little numbers mean how many turns it will take to complete that order.

Defenders cannot build siege equipment. They cannot retrain units, and they take a few men in losses every turn.

It sucks to be the defender.

And ofc the unfair AI who can spy your city while attacking. We as the player can't spy a city when we are attacking

Yes you can defend from inside by clicking the two cross swords forget the name I think its ATTACK, YOU 3 OPTIONS 1st is you will fight it and command your army on that attack, 2nd is auto resolve , 3rd is retreat. I rarely use auto resolve if your army and enemy army is equal. I only auto resolve it if my army is 90% then enemy is 10%. My campaign difficulty is always
no adivice/Very Hard/Very hard

I too never use auto-resolve unless I have overwhelming power, or am in a rush and don't want to fight it out.

Fighting self usually causes less casualties on your end, kills more of the enemy, and gives a far greater chance of victory.

I have had full armies lose on auto-resolve to half-flag bastards at a quarter strength. Idiots. Never trust the Lord AI to wield your forces if you can help it.