Town guards protect the city during a siege, and police the streets in times of peace.
Expand Military
Attaining the rank of Councillor or higher gives you the right to petition for an increase in total number of town guards in your home town, while an Alderman can make such offers in all towns.
The Town Council (including you) will vote on your proposal, either approving or rejecting it. There are a few factors that influence Council member's votes:
- Town population greatly affects this subject, allowing 10 units per 2000 population units.
- Threats to the town's well being, a town threatened by a siege is more likely to approve additional military units.
- Bribing certain Council members can help as well.
- There are rumors that taxes, wall defenses and possibly other issues also have an impact.
Tip: "Expand Military" offer will be greyed out until you fill the garrison with units. If a siege has started and there are not enough beggars to fill the garrison, lower the number of workers in one of your businesses to create beggars. This tactic can be used to make two Council Meetings during a single siege.
Tip: It is possible to insult the Prince so that he will attack a town, which will improve the odds if the Council meeting occurs during the siege. Giving the emissary a single gold piece a few times, and not fulfilling a delivery order will provoke an attack.
Tip: Training a smaller amount of ranged units can sometimes increase the duration of a siege, allowing more than one meeting of the Council to take place. This tactic will often result in defeat.
Unit Types
There are four unit types in Patrician 3: Town Watch, Archers, Cross bowers and Musketeers.
Town Watch consists of swordsmen. During peaceful times they patrol the streets, lowering chances of successful burglaries and fires.
Archers, Cross bowers and Musketeers are ranged units that man the town walls.
Training new units
To influence the training of military units in your town, you must have the rank of Lord Mayor. Training occurs at the Arsenal building, while each unit requires a week to be trained.
In order to train a unit there must be enough beggars in town, who will be converted into a new unit (20 beggars per unit).
Additionally, you must purchase weapons from the Weapon Smith or Weapons Dealer (5 weapons of one type are required for a single unit of that type).
Town Wall level limits the possible number of guards to maximum 10, 20 and 40 units of any type for first, second and third wall level respectively. (for example, you can't train more than 20 archers after building the second Town Wall, even if the Town Council has authorized a total of 30 units)
Thus the maximum possible number of town guards is 160, 40 of each type.
Training Musketeers vs other ranged units
Musketeers are slightly more effective than other ranged units, inflicting more casualties during a siege (around 15% more than archers for example, in the same testing conditions). Additionally, carbine has a longer range, so musketeers start firing earlier without receiving retaliation fire (that might be part of the reason of their effectiveness).
However, training a single unit type is very time-consuming. A garrison of 30 units (of the same type) requires 7 months to assemble. A force of 10 Archers, 10 Cross bowers and 10 Musketeers requires only 2 months. Training all ranged unit types simultaneously allows much faster recovery after a siege, and having a full garrison of mixed unit types is better than having half garrison of musketeers when the next siege starts.
Training Town Watch vs ranged units
In a siege, ranged units are more important, as a general rule. They will either destroy the opposing army, or lower the number of opposing swordsmen so that defenders can successfully eliminate them.
It should be noted that a portion of Town Watch will not fight the enemy in most cases. When some of the defending swordsmen get killed, the rest will flee (the numbers depend on the size of opposing/defending forces and morale). Thus, the ranged units are the ones that have the most influence on the outcome of a siege.
Having enough ranged units to man the walls is also a significant morale factor.
In the end, it all depends on what game stage you are at. Check out how the guards work in a siege.