Range of Siege Units

[Al Shama'ar]

I have never seen this posted, so here goes:

Is there a in-game feature that allows you to know the closest point where you can drop ur siege units without beeing attacked by the castle defenses?

This is why I don't usually assault castles and when I do I just use cheaper troops (peasants mostly) to break those gates.

Al

[rafiki]

I don't think there is such a feature, but I would think that the stats for castle defenders are comparable to normal unit stats?

Anyway; on the battlefield, when you have selected a ranged unit (siege, missile), the cursor indicates its' range by being green or red depending on whether it currently is within or outside that unit's range. You can use it to get a feel for how far arrows/ballistas/catapults can shoot.

This doesn't answer your question too well, but hope it's of some help http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Regards,
Rafiki

[Red Harvest]

I don't know of a way to determine the defender's range, just your own ranged units. Whether or not you can hit your target and stay our of range depends primarily on castle type, engine type, and terrain. Some maps make it very difficult for catapults to hit anything without getting shot up.

My rule of thumb is to set up on the highest ground I can find and at the end of my range. This usually allows me to hit inner and outer walls, but avoid fire from keeps. Castle mounted ballista and catapults might still reach me, because they are at a high elevation.

[Hamburglar]

Like other posters said - You're best off being high up and staying at the end of your range. Your accuracy is going to suffer but if you don't want men dying thats the way to do it. Make sure you're close enough to hit the inner walls too though.


I usually mass all my siege weapons on one side of the castle and pound one wall section with all of them at once. It knocks it down rather fast and while its getting hit I'll have my assaulters marching in Loose formation towards the wall. Peasants or urban militia in the front to soak up arrows and then a good unit behind them like Feudal Men at Arms or the like.


There really is no way to completely avoid getting shot by the defenders so your best bet is to just knock down the walls and kill the defenders as fast as you can.

Shooting the enemy towers is really a waste of time since they take a lot of hits and they're often times hard to hit. You'll probably end up losing even MORE men. Its better just to knock down walls and kill the men inside.

[Red Harvest]

Hamburglar is exactly right. Those are my tactics as well. The only way to avoid getting siege weaons hit at all is if you have longer range weapons and high ground. In those cases you can set up to pummel the walls.

Typical siege battle for me (and I fight MANY):

1. Mass siege artillery in an area with best balance of height, maximum range from target, perpendicular angle to the target walls (accuracy), and able to hit inner walls.
2. Place general nearby but out of any enemy arty/arrow range. This lets his morale effect boost my firing accuracy (I think).
3. Place all other units out of range and/or in cover in the order that I will want to storm the castle.
4. Select all siege units (control key), begin battle, immediately target the outer large stone wall so that I get off an unanswered volley. Also I want to knock the tough walls first because if the defender knocks out my siege engines I might have to storm a gate or knock down some light wooden wall.
5. Knock outer wall down, then inner wall, then turn to any front courtyard area and knock it's wall down.
6. If I'm out of range, destroy other walls or catapult towers or keeps (if I have cannons) to make storming easier.
7. Send in the infantry to engage defenders using traditional rock-paper-scissors rules. I will send in light cav units in a charge in some situations (extreme example being a few peasants, archers, or urban militia trying to hide in a huge fortress where I might lose several hundred infantry to reach a few exceedingly weak scattered remnants.)
8. Killing any outer courtyard units first has the advantage of stopping all fire from the outer wall. However, usually it will take as long to kill them as the inner courtyard, so rarely can you send fast units in to take the outer guys out first and thereby reduce casualties.

[Oaty]

Out of curiousity does destroying the keep itself stop all other towers from firing as this would represent your men making it to the indoors of the castle and taking out all wall archers.

Although this is unlikely, I made a custom battle where I defended the castle and gave 4 A.I. factions muku florins and selected the A.I. to have 3 of the 4 factions to be 50 percent siege weapons and the 4th one all footmen.

When the siege was over I had barely won and my inner keep was almost completely destroyed, a few more hits and it would have fallen. 3 out of the 4 walls had been smashed, it was a nice looking scene seeing 3/4th's of the castle smashed to the ground

When it comes to forts they are very easy to storm as regular archers can burn down the walls and regular units can knock through them. I have never taken more than about a dozen casualties from the tower alone when storming a fort So the question I have about this wich is quicker for melee units on a fort. Stroming the gate or knocking down the walls? I'm only guessing its about the same but knocking down the wall gives you a wider entrance than the gate and the A.I always chooses to knock over the walls over storming the gate with no siege weapons.

[Miltiades]

I think it really depends on the individual circumstances of the battle as to which method is better. I tend to prefer knocking down as much of the wall as possible, as this forces the AI to spread his defenders far thinner to cover all the gaps.