Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia – Battles

by Falagar / Articles, Total War / 06 May 2018

In ToB, there are 4 types of battles:

Field Battle: This is the most common type of battle and will play out on an open field. Depending on the region you are in (and the benevolence of our Lord and Saviour RNGesus) you can have a slight (dis)advantage due to (not) having the high ground at the start of a battle (It’s over Anakin!) or having to play in a forest (which is really bad for the speed of cavalry).

Minor Settlement Battle: Different from other TW games, minor settlements don’t have a garrison in ToB. This means that unless you put an army inside them, they’ll instantly be taken. When you do put an army inside and get attacked, your battlefield will be a big open field, and on your side of the map, there’ll be a cozy little village with a couple of houses. The houses are a great way to make choke points or to funnel the enemy. It might not seem like much, but it’s better than an open field most of the time.

Siege Battle: Major settlements all have walls and will need to be besieged. You have the choice of recruiting artillery from the ‘recruit units’ tab or just besieging a settlement and making some siege engines (ram and tower) while besieging it. Making siege engines takes ‘manpower’, which is represented by 2 circular arrows. You have X manpower per turn (depending on the size and composition of your army) and each siege engine takes X manpower to make. You could surround a settlement and wait for it to surrender (the AI never does that, they’ll always sally forth just before they surrender at the very least), or you could attack after having made some siege engines. Beware, though: the defender always has the advantage in a siege, and if we look at it from a ‘player vs. AI’ perspective, then the player should be able to hold off an enemy force at least twice his defending army’s size. The AI has it a bit harder, but going 1:1 against a siege is sometimes risky. An important thing to point out is that siege battles always have towers on the defending side. These towers might just seem like annoyances at first, but they can kill a lot of your men if you just let them keep shooting you. Every capturable point during a siege is indicated by a flag and a circle, which can be captured by sending a unit in the circle and waiting.

Amphibious Battle: A different take on the siege battle. When the major settlement you’re besieging is a port, you can bypass the walls and most of the towers by attacking from the sea. This will mean that you’ll have to land your units with ships on the nearby beach, but bypassing the walls might be worth it.

(Sea Battles: there are none if 2 seafaring armies attack each other you’ll have to auto-resolve it)

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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