Memorable Siege Moments

[Didz]

I've noticed a lot of postings from people who find the seige battles too frustrating to play. I guess its a matter of taste but to me it is the very frutrations of seige warfare that makes it so memorable. Its like trying to manage chaos which is what I imagine a seige would probably be like anyway.

One of my most memorable moments was in one of the first seiges I had against a stone walled town.

Up until then I had been buying two battering rams (one to use and a spare) and battering in the gate before rushing the hapless defenders. But this tactic went serious wrong when I encountered my first walled town.

My battering ram never even made it to the gate being left in a blazing heap halfway there and my second one quickly went the same way.

All I had left was one cohort carrying ladders which I had constructed really just to see what they looked like never really intending to use them.

With nothing to lose I sent them in against the wall near the gate. Losses were awful as the archers on the walls rained arrows onto them but they bravely raised their ladders and began climbing, shields over their heads. :charge: love it!

The first legionnaires clambered over the wall and began pushing the archers over the edge. Just loved watching those hapless Greeks falling to their doom after all the trouble they had caused.

Having cleared the wall my herioc unit then marched along it taking the gatehouse and pushing another bunch of archers to their doom before grabbing their bows and starting to fire on the greek units below them from the gate towers.

Then charging out of the gatehouse they drove off the Greeks defending the gate and opened it to let the rest of my army in. Yey! who needs a Trojan Horse.

Only 23 survived but they saved the day. If only we could award medals to our men.

[The_Emperor]

Yeah i had a great moment taking Sparta from the greeks, those blasted Spartan hoplites were on the walls and I didn't notice them until my siege tower got into positon and the troops started climbing...

The problem was the troops climbing up to face the Spartans were Hastati!! As the siege tower got ready I had my ballistae open fire on the waiting Spartans... It was a very reassuring sight seeng enemies struck by the bolts and hurtling off onto the ground below.

Suddenly without warning the enemy Captain (who I didn't notice was in that Spartan Unit) got impaled and I was treated to a close up cutscene of him getting struck by a bolt and flying off the wall backwards...

The Hastati attacked but the SPartans still held their ground and began to cut through them all. By this time I had an experienced unit of Principes capture the gateway and attack the spartans on the other side.

The fighting was brutal but slowly they killed the spartans and then went on to massacre more enemies before capturing the walls, those men did very well.

[Bob the Insane]

Great story man but I think you started hallucinating about here:


before grabbing their bows and starting to fire on the greek units below them from the gate towers.


~D


One of my favourities was a desperate defense of a recently taken Numidian town (with only wooden walls) which I had "liberated" from the Egyptains as the Scipii... It was the first time I ever heard the "defending against a siege" speech (very inspirational) and the battle was a blood soaked nightmare of desperately blocking the town roads, charges, routs and counter charges...

The egyptains (the attackers) had three battering rams and knock though the gate and the wall to either side... Then the charge through each breach was led by chariots... We only have legionaries (including one unit or Praetorians, Velites, a unit of merc hoplites (life savers) and a young inexperienced general...

Dispite early losses to the chariot charges and the crumbling of the flanks we pinned the bulk of the enemy in a narrow street with the Hoplites and then showered the with pilums and got stuck in hand to hand...

Almost went pear shaped when the last of the egytians (leader's chariots and the archers) charged into the melee.. But then the brave young general rapidly manuvoured through the streets ot fal on the rear of the enemy , routing the last of them! Unfortunately he and all his men fell doing this...

There where only a few hoplites and Praetorians left in the end... A bitter sweet victory but the town was safe....

God, I am getting emotional just remembering it... :help:

[qmark]

Yep, totally agree. Assaulting a city is tremendous fun.

Last night I was attacking Cordoba in Southern Spain. I had an army roughly equal to that of the Spanairds but of mixed quality. Some Legionary Cohorts as the main assault force with some Gladiators for the other wall. These guys were backed up by mostly mercs, but most importantly a group of Elephants (the Senate had awarded them to me a few turns before).

I built 3 seige towers and advanced. 1 group of Legionaries landed with almost no resistance and advanced on the gate house. The second dropped into a densly packed group of Spanish troops, outnumbered. The third, the Gladiators, found themselves up against Naked fanatics and a group of heavy infantry. Nasty.

Losses where heavy but the archers following the unopposed troops gained the walls and rained death upon the city's garrison. The middle cohort forced their way through and releaved a decimated Gladiator unit, only 13 men. The walls were ours! (Why does that guy sound like Shaggy from Scooby doo?)

With the gates open my Elephants charged...cue lot's of flying bodies and carnage. Within about 5 mins my heavy cavalry had stormed the main throughfare and taken the square. unfortunately my Elephants decided to go bonkers at that point and killed a few mercs, but hey..who cares? The city was mine.

Shame I had to order the Elephants spiked. Siege's are excellent, one of the most enjoyable aspect of the game. Unlike MTW where auto-resolving normally left you with less casualties.

[R'as al Ghul]

I found out that as as soon as the defender has at least one archer unit, it's better to bring ladders instead of towers.
The defending archer unit can use its fire arrows to set the slow moving towers on fire with only a few volleys, disabling the tower completely. The same is true for rams. I would guess that a single unit can destroy at least two towers.
If you build ladders instead, two or three units of yours can quite quickly approach the walls. They will of course take losses but in the end they will be able to get up the wall which is impossible once your towers are burning.
Sapping is nice too but since your sapping unit basically stands at one point, they can be easily decimated.
Btw, I haven't seen a single bug in a dozen sieges. No falling between siege tower and wall and such.

R'as

[Jeanne d'arc]

The towers of the stone wall cities set my towers als oon fire, whats the point in using towers anyhow???
Sap points are much better, theres nothing they can do about that or is there??
Anyone seen the AI use sap points???

[R'as al Ghul]

The towers of the stone wall cities set my towers als oon fire, whats the point in using towers anyhow???
Sap points are much better, theres nothing they can do about that or is there??
The sap points are always in shooting range of the towers or archers on walls. You will take heavy losses, spreading out into loose formation helps though.

R'as

[chunkynut]

Never seen the AI use anything but rams to siege a town/city. Siege towers are great if you have a couple or distract the defenders with a ram, then they focus on the ram and the siege towers nip in. My problem with siege towers is the length of time it takes to get up the thing into the attacking platform, thats frustrating.

Units wasting ammo in sieges hacks me off too, endlessly firing at will into the wall because a unit is beyond it.

But i do enjoy sieges both defending and attacking - especially sallies as it is often quite challenging to succeed in getting out of the city to form up before they attack ~:)

[Slyspy]

I love siege towers. My favourite moment has to be when one collapsed while my second cohort was assaulting the walls. All of a sudden there are twenty very lonely Romans on the walls of Corinth!

[Sinner]

I enjoy the sieges now that I've disabled the timer in my campaigns, although I must admit to a somewhat methodical and tedious approach, destroying the gate/gatehouse with Onagers, then my Archer Auxilia step forward to eliminate any troops on the walls near the gates while my Onagers move on to destroying neighboring towers. Once any wall defenders have suffered about 50% losses, I send in my mercenaries to break through the initial unit(s) standing guard behind the gate, while my legionaires stand outside and wince if they hear a particularly nasty sounding scream of agony. Once I have a foothold inside the walls I then send in my legionaries to finish the fight, heading straight for the central plaza. I used to stand-off and kill the remaining defenders with arrows, but that's too much of an exploit, so I just launch straight into melee.

The only variation I normally play is substituting obsolete troops for Mercenaries, my favorite memory of that being when I bribed the Senate's initial high experience units and saved them to take Rome some 20 or so years later.

[Vanya]

GAH!

A funny one for Vanya was when Vanya was besieging Hatra. Defeners sally forth to try to break siege -- this is with 5 turns left in the siege, and their 3rd attempt to break it. Vanya's Scipii army had only ONE principes unit in it -- and it was the ONLY roman unit in the army! The rest were all mercenaries of various types, including camels, barbarian spears, cilician pirates (whoop-tee-doo!), some cav, etc. The Egyptians inside the walls had a lot of axemen, archers, and chariots.

So, Vanya send in some barbarian spearmen -- 120 man units of pure fodder -- to batter down the gate, which they do without any fanfare.

Vanya then send in His 3 units of Hoplites to gut the chariots and horse that come a-knockin'. They rout 1 chariot, but then get swamped by axemen and promptly turn and run for their mamas.

So, Vanya then tries to split in some peltasts and spearmen along with a unit of barbarian cav. The pirates were their backup. Vanya did manage to get the cav behind the axemen, but they didn't last long, despite Vanya having the axemen from front and rear. Cav routed, the pirates had second thoughts, and the spears ran with little incentive. GAH! The slaughter was pretty one-sided.

So, Vanya is looking over His army, which has just been cut in half. He doesn't want to send His principes in to die for nothing. Then, He notices the elephants! Vanya had just hired a unit of 36 elephants. Vanya remembers how easy they panic, so He sends them through the gate unaided.

GAH!

:duel: ~:cheers: :charge: ~:eek:

Those pachyderms totally ANNIHILATED those pesky axemen without any loss to themselves! Confined by the narrow streets, the Egyptians had nowhere to hide except beneath the foot of Vanya's beasts! The elephants smashed their way all the way to the central plaza without suffering losses. Bodies were flying and flattenned much to Vanya's delight. And once in the plaza, they trampled all over what little was left!

To Vanya's surprise, though, the silly beasts routed and left two friggin' archers on the square! The arrow-hurlers managed to cut down 18 'phants during the stampede in the square! Bastids!

Anyway, Vanya then send in the rest of His army. Killing 2 archer MEN (not units) was not that hard. Of course, the elephants then panicked when they approached the gate and trampled some of Vanya's mercenary spearmen and camels on their way out...

Vanya sez... Charging elephants in street... ~:cheers:

GAH!

[Maedhros]

I caught the AI trying to use a pair of saps on one of my cities. Don't remember who now. I sent an army to lift the siege, ordered my men out of the walls and saw them.

Never had time to be employed. Considering the size of my garrison it was a waste. All they needed was a battering ram. the town guard and velites inside were no match.

With the aid of the newly arrived force I won. Sparta is the best for attacking cities. Spartan hoplites are bad asses.

I got lucky and caught them in the town square, not the city walls.

[Brutal DLX]

GAH!

Vanya sez... Charging elephants in street... ~:cheers:

GAH!

Indeed. I used a similar tactic when I besieged Rome (with epic stonewall) as the Carthaginians. I laid siege with two armies, one of them being an all-elephant army under AI control. Once I had secured the walls and breached them on the sides, the elephants rushed in and trampled any resistance into oblivion, even the mighty urban cohorts. Too bad one cannot save campaign replays, that would haven been one of few I'd ever consider saving.

[The_Emperor]

Man I had a great siege battle at the weekend.

My Greek cities campaign really took off when I decided to invade the italian mainland. After fun capturing Rome and wiping out the Scipii and Brutii A massive army assaulted the Julii capital in an attempt to severely weaken them.

It was an awesome fight, my Ornagers breached the pathetic wooden walls and there were loads of Romans running around inside (loads of them). Hastati, Principes some Velites and a lot of cavalry.

Now I was in a real Evil mood because the Julii had sent three massive armies against me to try to retake Rome... So I ordered my Ornagers to load up the fire projectiles and target the enemy infantry. It was an awesome sight, flaming projectiles went in all directions, the Roman infantry suffered badly and a massive number of buildings were set on fire.

Then the Spartans entered the city backed up by armoured hoplites... The streetfighting was intense as they advanced cutting down the Romans, blending in as a sea of red. The sight of them marching through the Roman streets littered with Roman dead under the Triumphal Arch as buildings burned was awesome. (Roman Architecture is certainly the best).

Finally we reached the Plaza with very little to spare on the timer, as one Phalanx engaged the Spartans went into "standard formation" and charged the enemy from the rear with their swords drawn. Finally the city was captured with only 5 seconds to go on the timer!! ~:eek:

Man that was one tough but worthwhile assault... it was a brutal payback and the first time I used bombardment in an assault. Those Romans had it comming!!

[SpencerH]

While there is lots of room for improvement (better AI, different city street designs), I love the seiges. Hows about some hills inside the city to improve the variation?

I've had some great moments, but my most memorable seige moment happened this morning. I found that my defending onagers could fire over stone walls! Every other time it seems like I've tried it they must have been attempting to fire over large stone walls and couldnt do it.

Large and epic stone walls should come with seige engines built in if that city can build seige weapons.

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

I had a wonderful seige battle this weekend. I was assaulting a Greek city (I forget the name--Arx****something, in the far east of the map) where the Greek faction leader had an army of three armored hoplite units and a unit of archers. My force was a bit underpowered by comparison, consisting of my general, one velites, one hastati, one archer, one onager. So I hired three units of eastern infantry & a unit of heavy cavalry. I built two ladders to assault the large stone walls. Though I had more troops by a handsome margin, troop quality meant the odds given were only 5:4 in my favor.

When the city came into view, I could see that the Greeks had a unit of armored hoplites & the unit of archers on one side of the gatehouse, but nothing on the other side. I decided to not breach the wall with the onagers, but to try scaling on either side of the wall with eastern infantry. Both units made it to the wall & up to the top. While the hoplites fought one unit of eastern infantry, the other rushed over & captured the gate. I sent a unit of hastati to scale that side, intending to rush around & capture some towers, & then began to move my forces forward through the gate. Just as I was approaching the gate, the Greeks recaptured the gatehouse. I rushed the eastern infantry on top of it down to join the fight against the archers & hoplites, & recalled the hastati to back them up. The effort recaptured the gatehouse, but in no time, the eastern infantry on both sides were fighting to the death.

My force made it inside the city without having oil dumped on it. I could see that the tower to the left of the gatehouse was firing on my troops, but my velites refused to capture it from the bottom (or can you only capture a tower from on the wall), so I destroyed the tower with my onager, & used the velites to harrass a unit of hoplites below it. The rest of my troops raced down the streets toward the tower center. I tried to bring the archers along the side of the square, but they became spread out in the mass of other units & ended up being hit by the enemy faction leader. This gave me a chance to catch him without the hoplites nearby, however. My general & mercenary cavalry fell upon him, & before the hoplites could come to the rescue, he fell in battle.

All this time, the gatehouse changed hands constantly. My hastati stood bravely & did not panic, but they were fighting desparately on the very edge of defeat upon the wall.

In the town center, the armored hoplites were pursuing my cavalry as my archers shot them down, until finally there were few enough that I could rush in & finish them. That left only the hoplites on the wall, who had pushed far enough into the gate to come down & march to the center. I placed my archers at the head of the street, & several fell as they approached. They reached my archers however, so all my cavalry charged into their disordered ranks & slew them to a man. Thus was Julianus Naso victorious over the leader of the Greeks.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Well I love the idea that lead to siege battles in RTW... too bad the AI isn't better... or is it? Here's the story that happened last night, while assaulting, as the Julii, an Epic Stone Wall Scipii town. Their garrison was pitiful (one unit of archer auxilia and one principes), leftovers from many previous lost battles. I, on the other hand, was loaded with troops. There was a spy in the city, he opened up the gates so I decided to attack immediately.

Hoping to take as few casualties as possible when crossing the gate, I sent forward just 3 depleted units of velites, planning to use them to capture the towers and then run on the walls for the rest of the defences.

Scipii AI deployed the archers on the wall, on the right side of the gate. They minced quite a lot my velites and the waves of boiling oil did the rest for one unit. The other 2 managed to climb in the towers, exiting upstairs... and here comes the most interesting move I've ever seen in RTW from the AI:

I ordered one unit of velites to run on the walls. The second one engaged the archers, after capturing the towers. Meanwhile, my whole army started to march towards the gate. Pretty soon, it was obvious that the badly shaken and depleted velites will lose the wall battle, so I ordered the rest of the army to run, hoping to slip the units inside the city before all the velites will get killed. I also sent back in emergency the other unit of skirmishers. The Scipii archers finished off the velites and rushed to the towers, recapturing them. After that, they simply went downstairs to meet my army. I was bouche-bee, but it went on: because my velites recaptured the gate, they rushed again upstairs, starting a new battle. Finally, one desperate Julii legionary cohort endured a deep fry through the (still Scipii) gates, climbed and finished off those resilient enemy archers. The AI was absolutely unbelievable... Smart at the gates, but dumb in rest: the remaining Scipii Principes stayed cool, waiting for their doom, right in the middle of the central plaza...

[Zatoichi]

Well, I'm glad to report I lost a couple of siege battles as the defender (playing as Carthage) last night, which makes them memorable in their own right. Both involved wooden walled towns.
The first was against the Spanish, and was the second attack in as many turns on Cordoba(?). I'd lined up my defences with a best guess to where their 4 rams would hit, carefully ensuring the correct mix of blockers and flankers. So when I was happy with all my fiddling, I pressed the 'Start Battle' button and waited. I was surprised to see the Spanish abandon their rams and start to run - 'Funny' I thought, 'Surely they're not that scared of me?'. But no, they were running around my walls, not away from them. That's when I scrolled left and saw the hole in my wall from the previous battle which I'd somehow forgotten to repair... So, it was a massacre after that, their cavalry streamed in and made mincemeat of my unprepared and out of formation light infantry who were sent running at them piecemeal, cutting down the routers and holding the undefended town centre from any counter attacks I could muster...
My second defeat was entirely the fault of elephants. My elephants. Again, a painstaking pre battle arrangement of units at potential ram points, but this time preceeded by a careful check that there were no holes anywhere. Anyway, to cut a long story a bit shorter, I had a unit of 4 elephants near the gate to inflict maximum carnage as this was where the enemy had most of its units. Unfortunately, before a blow had been struck in anger by the besieging Numidians, my elephants must have seen a mouse and panicked, sending my tightly packed defenders flying (I was too busy setting up the perfect 90 degree flanking angle where one of the rams was approaching to notice). By the time I did see what all the screaming was about, I'd lost most of my gate defenders - I staked the elephants, but did so as they were running out of the gate, blocking it open. Yes, what followed was another massacre, as the Numidians pored through the open gates and into my badly damaged and out of formation gate defenders, and then on to outflank my other defenders.
Still, these were truly fun experiences, even if they prove that I'm not all that as a defender... Now give me stone walls and a decent cavalry reserve for counter charging the enemy, and it's a different story. But I'll spare you from that one...

[Mayfield The Conqueror]

Playing as the Brutii I was finishing off the Greeks at their last city in Nicademia. After sending in a diplomat with the final offer of surrender as a protectorate under our rule, the Greeks rebuffed it and sent my General into a fury. Instead of offering mercy the General offered fire.. With 8 Onagers and a few Ballistae he sent fireballs over the walls.. letting the city burn and burn taking as many of its helpless defenders with them. Then waiting a day he attacked from the opposite side.. tossing fireball after fireball into the enemy ranks. After four days of this there was not a greek standing, nor will any other enemy *dare* oppose the will of my general again.

As a side note: Stupid computer.. it *knew* it had no chance and yet did not surrender. I had about 1000 troops and the enemy had 400. The diplomacy part of this game really needs to be tweaked as they should have surrendered and saved their culture.

[Colovion]

My best moment is as follows from my Germany Campaign:

I was fending off a fort against 900 Gauls with my 640 Man Garrison. They came up with 2 rams and battered two holes in my walls. I set my German Spearmen on the holes and waited, two units per breach. Once they had gathered themselves they charged headlong into the gaps in my walls, and the subsequent speartips that awaited them. The carnage was horrific as dozens of soldiers ran into the meat grinder - the mass of Gaulish warriors halted pushing forwards and began a panicked retreat from one of the breaches. THe other breach had many more men plus the enemy General. Many times the Enemy General charged, trying to break through my spear wall to no avail, and to many casualties sustained by his troops. The enemy General gathered for another charge.

My General, who had been out of the fight until this point, finally had his chore - I sent him to meet the charge of the enemy general amidst the chaos of the battling Soldiers. THe enemy General went down on first contact and a unit nearby fled as well as his bodygaurds. Two more full units were pouring through the gap as those soldiers were fleeing - followed by my General whose unit single handedly stemmed the tide of Gaulish warriors and drove them back - routing the rest of the army.

Needless to say my General gained 5 Stars that day, two to his troupe and numerous traits as the result.

[Gith]

My favorite seige was actually defending. I had about 700 of my Seleucids against some 1100 Macedonians. My army was mostly militia phalanx with a few cretan archers. In a nutshell, they made three holes in the walls, ran in, started killing...my militia fought to the bitter end. But the best part was putting a phalanx in a road, another dead behind it, and the last units of cretans behind that, and then watching wave after wave after wave of Macedonians charge under arrow fire, break, reform, charge. Eventually a lone cavalry unit snuck in from behind and the fighting went to hand to hand on all fronts. Cretan archers were the last to be killed as they went to melee against a unit of levy pikemen. It was just awesome to see street fighting work out so well.

[Quillan]

I had a really memorable one Sunday, where the Gauls sallied out of Patavium (I was playing the Julii). I had laid siege to it with a small force I had brought back from Halicarnassus. I had a general, two units of hastati, 1 roman archer , 1 cretan archer, and 1 equites. All were near full strength. I was intending to move over 5 more hastati units and a wardog unit that had just retrained after taking Mediolanum, but they ran out of movement points and weren't able to merge, though they did get just into the red zone around Patavium. When the Gauls decided to sally, I was expecting the usual "mill around inside the walls while arrows rain down" behavior, but the AI came charging straight out at me. The archer units caused tremendous casualties before I had to pull them back, and those two hastati units made like the rock of gibraltar. 9 gallic units broke on those two before the reinforcements made it over. In the end, I was able to pursue the broken remnants of the gallic horde back inside the gates and take the city. And yes, I really do wish we could award medals to our soldiers in this. Those two units of hastati deserved something. I don't think they even got any experience from that battle.

[Murmandamus]

Carthage, garrisoned entirely by peasants was attacked by a reasonable looking Numidian army. Having no ranged units and not wanting to go down without a fight I decided to sally and attack zerg rush style. The ai stupidly seperated it's general from it's main force and I was able to swarm, and overcome him despite heavy losses. Once that happened, the other units fled. Next turn I was able to get a proper army in to do the job properly :)

Was funny because the peasants would attack, get scared and run back into the city. Regroup and get sent out again. At any one time there was more men running away from, and being sent back to the front lines than there were actually fighting. :duel:

Needless to say, I don't garrison border towns with peasants anymore despite the heroic victory ~:)

[Didz]

Great story man but I think you started hallucinating about here:

No. As soon as they captured the gate the enemy began dropping to arrow fire from the gatehouse towers.

I had no provided any archers, so it must have been some of the Legionnaires who grabbed the bows and manned to arrow slits. ~;)

[Didz]

I found out that as as soon as the defender has at least one archer unit, it's better to bring ladders instead of towers.

Personally, I never use towers or rams on stone walls.

My standard build is two saps plus two ladders. The ladders being mere backups just in case something goes wrong with the saps.

I love watching a wall collapse with an archer units on it. Half an enemy cohort fall to their death in an instant.

I had an interesting seige/sally battle last night. My former City Garrison was besieging its home city of Halicarnassus. It consisted of nothing but Archers and Town Watch plus the former governor and so although over a 1,000 had no chance of taking the city which had risen in a Gladiatorial revolt. I've seen Town Watch slaughtered by Gladiators before and so had determined to starve the city into submission until I could bring up the extermination squad.

I had built saps but had no intention of using them, however, the defenders were clearly anxious and decided to sally forth and drive my besieging army off. I figured I stood no chance and so deployed my army back and to the right of the gate with its left flank resting on the city wall and its front covered by archers.

The gladiators emerged from the city gate and launched a mass charge driving in my archers and then routing the two right hand cohorts of the watch near the wall. However, the left of my line held and my archers poured flaming arrows into the struggling gladiators breaking some of their units that fled back towards the wall. My generals cavalry units attack those enemy chasing my right flank units in the rear completing the rout and allowing me to rebuild my line. This time with the archers at lined up at right angles to the watch so that they could keep firing even into the melee.

When the second charge came the archers showered it with flaming arrows and my Town Watch (now on Guard mode) held their ground as the Gladiators got deep fried and finally broke and fled back inside the walls.

I thought that was the end of the battle. Then I realised that it wasn't being timed for some reason and that I had my saps built. So, I used my saps to break down the city walls and fought my way into the city, lining the walls with archers to drive off the gladiators and my Town Watch to bait them forward into attacking, wearing them down and finishing them off with my Generals Cavalry.

It was a long battle and the enemy leader still put up a brave fight in the City Square but amazingly I recaptured the city with its own garrison and put the entire revolting population to the sword.

[Quillan]

I use a mix of ladders and towers. The towers go to the wall section that holds the defenders. The ladders go to undefended wall sections. The tower provides the pushing unit some cover from the arrow fire, and if it happens to make it to the wall without igniting, it will take a bit for the unit to climb up and be ready to jump out. The ladder guys get on top of the wall faster, and a lot of the time the wall defenders near the gate turn and start marching off to face the ladder guys. Then the guys from the siege tower jump out and catch them from behind.

[andrewt]

I was assaulting Sardis last night as Pontus. I did my usual strategy against wooden walls. I stayed out of reach of the towers and shot the defenders inside using Cretan archers and cavalry archers. I also used my general, a unit of peltasts and Pontic light cavalry to use their javelins. The Seleucids retreated back to the town square after a lot of casualties. That allowed me to move my phalanx pikemen unmolested through the gate.

I had them advance through two big streets to the town square, 2 units for each street. They're really slow so I removed phalanx formation, ran them then used it again when near the enemy. I was concentrating on one side when I saw the 2 phalanx units on the other side do their "let's go back out the gates before going back in" pathfinding. I had to rush them back in. Ultimately, I had to have my general help them because I was pressed for time.

I won easily with only so few casualties. The final Seleucid soldier fell with 1 second on the battle timer. I had my general charge them in the back in the nick of time.

[Quietus]

I had a really hilarious siege!

I attacked a german town. I killed their General early in the siege. They had 2 Spearbands left in the town square that I was hitting with archers. The pila units, I tried to use too. However, the Spearband attacked, so I just attacked with the rest of the units. Stopped the archers and flanked behind with my general. My general was reduced to about 7 or so units so I retreated him while the others duked it out. I noticed I'm losing, so I charged my general again in the back, but he DIED!!!

My army remnants routed with the exception of 1 (50+) archer unit. I emptied the arrows on the last 40 Spearbands and reduced it to 10. I charged with them but they routed too before they even hit the square!! ~:eek: However, I had two scorpion reinforcements limping along toward the gate (they move really slow). I shot the warbands in the townsquare until they are reduced to 6. The archers rallied and I tried to charge with them again, but they routed!! This time, they never came back. The Spearbands however stayed in the square. I had an ammo-less ballista unit that I used to enter the gates and the Spearbands attacked! I shot them with scorpions until they have 4 left and they retreated to the town square again.

Time is running out! So I charged the last 4 with the ballista unit while I shoot with the scorpions from outside (they can't enter the gates). I finally killed the last 4 Spearband!!! :dizzy2: ~:eek: ~D I was afraid they will rout like the archers.

There's about 5 minutes left in the clock when I checked. So basically, I won the siege using ballista melee and two scorpions outside the settlement. The rest of my armies routed!! ~:)

[Mori Gabriel Syme]

I fought a wonderful battle last night--twice.

The Greeks had moved an army composed entirely of militia & armored hoplites next to my city on the east. My allies the Egyptians were next to my city on the west. My army in the city, commanded by Julianus Naso, contained these units: one archer, one triarii, two eastern infantry, one numidian cavalry, one barbarian heavy cavalry, two onagers, & Naso's bodyguard. I attacked the Greeks from my city, & to my relief, the Egyptians were included, bringing the battle just barely in my favor.

Having initiated battle, I did a bad job of deploying my troops, which is that I didn't move them at all. I had to get the onagers to back up before they could fire over the walls. After a few minutes of raining death upon the enemy, their general was crushed beneath a flying stone. At about this time, I had the archers climb the gatehouse & fire from the walls whenever any came in range, which wasn't very often.

Seeing the Egyptians move their chariots to the south of my city, I also sent my cavalry to the north gate to come around on the other flank of the enemy. Before they could arrive, the Egyptians had already begun to harrass the Greeks & sent many running for safety. Sensing the moment was imminent, I rushed my cavalry around the wall & ran to engage, unleashing my infantry from the east gate to rush the enemy from the front. I had almost no casualties, while in rapid succession, the Greek units routed, until just as the flag of the last unit flashed white, when I saw...

olive ridley sea turtles emerging from the sea to lay their eggs on the beach in Mexico. :freak: I was staring at my desktop wallpaper!

So I did the whole battle again (I'm glad I saved right before it). I positioned my troops better the second time, but the onagers were less effective & the Greeks stayed further back from the walls & resisted routing for longer. I lost more men, but I did get to see a close-up of the Greek general flambe-ed by a my onagers. That was fun!

PS--In keeping with this theme, Internet Explorer crashed when I clicked "Send reply." It's not my week, is it?

[V'ger]

Ave,

As a good general I loathe city assaults when there are stone walls. More than one fine army has been ground to tatters.

While taking wooden walls is normally predictable I have found that taking any stone-walled city is a prickly proposition. From reading here I intend to revise my tactics.

After having indifferent success with the various seige engines you build onsite, I have come to rely on Onagers, which I realize I must supplement with ladders and other such.

In any event, on with the show:

Playing Scipii on Hard/Med I was engaged in a war of opportunity versus several provinces that had rebelled from Egyptian occupation. I would send in diplomats to bribe any beseiging armies until my troops could be brought up.

Masarak (sp?) was the last of these provinces and I had bribed one large Egyptian army, bringing up two of my armies.

Expecting to deal with stone walls each of my armies had 3 Onagers, 4 archers, 4 cav of divers types, my general a couple of spear auxillia and the rest legionary cohorts and Praetorians.

Since I was assaulting a city with large stone walls I dropped the archers from one army, taking on an extra Praetorian and 3 Onagers. This gave me 6, total (4 heavy and 2 normal).

When I saw the city layout I found I could set up with two clear paths to the city square that were on adjoining walls, so I split my Onagers, putting three on each.

I was facing roughly equal numbers, though most of the rebel Egyptians were infantry. They had only one unit of archers (which I did not see until late in the assault) and two of cavalry.

I battered two wholes in each wall (one of which caused a rebel unit to fall and die). I sent two cav units into each left-hand breach and half my infantry into the right hand breaches.

My cav in each breach was devastated, routing with only a handful of survivors. Meanwhile, the usual log jam was occurring at the other breaches as my incoming infantry met their defenders. The only thing I had achieved so far was to reduce the rebel's two cav units to around a dozen troops each.

However, on the main wall this did leave the left-hand breach undefended as that cav unit had routed to the city square. So, I sent in my general.

I should say that I was hopping back and forth from one wall to the other, so I was not always aware of events as they unfolded at the other breaches.

My general attacked the back of the troops blocking the right-hand breach on the primary wall and DIED! AUGH! Calamity! Ruin!

No. Though by now several of my infantry (the auxillia and some of the cohorts) had been evicerated and routed once my general died, I still had my Praetorians, which were at the primary wall and a few cohorts which were at the other right-hand breach.

Two cohorts managed to break through the right-hand breach on the secondary wall. They began to march on the city square while my Praetorians were still chewing (and being chewed on) the bulk of the remaining defenders, now just past the breach and into the city proper.

These legionary cohorts met stiff resistance as they went. First killing off the enemy general and his cav, then breaking the remains of two or three rebel infantry on the way. Eventually, they reached the center and were faced with three rebel units, the one unit of archers and two spears.

The spears were intact units that had apparently sat out the battle for the walls and they hit my cohorts with crushing force. Though the fighting was intense my poor cohorts finally routed, having suffered greatly from the arrow fire as well as the spear units charge.

Now my 3 remaining Praetorians (out of 5) trudged into the square. They had been chewed down to just over half their original number. Though I was lothe to do it, I sent one of them at the archers, while the other two dealt with the certified previously owned spears.

The spears had 60 or more troops left, but my Praetorians had one charge left in them and seemed to be holding their own. I was most anxious for my third Praetorian to finish the archers so they could turn and strike the two spears from the rear.

It seemed to take forever to route the archers, but at last there were only 2 left and they ran. Starting to grin, I ordered my third Praetorian to charge into the rear of the rebels.

That broke their back and the rebels were slaughtered where they stood. Few managing to flee. My hopes sprang up as the Scipii flag flashed on the screen, counting down the seconds.

It was down to 54 seconds when another rebel spear (a FULL unit, must have come off the walls) appears and charged my Praetorians.

Again 2 of my units engaged them while the third Praetorian slowly marched to the rear. I could see both Praetorians engaging the front were begining to shake, their banners starting to flash. My third Praetorian charged home, crushing the spears, who immediately routed. Again, the slaughter was nearly complete.

Once again the Scipii timer started. When it reached 1:20 it stopped again, switching over to the REBEL timer. Looking about, I saw no units, just the line of flags ringing the town center.

Then I noticed that one of my Praetorians was taking MISSILE fire! I looked around again, much more thoroughly and saw one archer (figure, NOT unit) and his standard bearer, standing along the row of flags and firing.

I took my 2 largest Praetorians and charged the archers, finally killing them and starting my clock once more.

Subtracting my 6 Onagers I started the fight with something over 900 men. At the end I had just the 3 Praetorian Cohorts with 32, 20 and 12 men. I would have dearly liked to give each of them a medal.

I felt tremendous relief. It was a proud day to be a Roman.

[R'as al Ghul]

My last siege battle was a real annoyance. I'm seriously :furious3: .
I play the Greek city states. My army had taken Damaskus from the Seleucids which are quite weak at the moment. They had a two-front war going until they decided to ally with the egyptians against me. So Damaskus was mine when the Egyptians started a siege.
I was courteous enough to let them assemble a big army + family member and did not crush their initial puny siege force of perhaps 10 units. I had a full stack in this town. 6 Archers, 2 Cav, rest Hoplites and ArmHoplites. So I waited three turns for the Egyptians to assemble 1 1/2 stacks including a 3 star general before I sallied out. Initially I wanted to wait for them to attack. I wanted a big battle.
To my amazement, they hadn't build any siege equipment in three turns and parts of their army were out of reinforcement range. I had positioned my archers on the walls and pressed "start battle" when the Pharaohs entire army charged the stone walls as if they were invisible. They executed not one attack wave but recharged the walls again and again until their units were so depleted that they routed. I didn't even move until this point?
WTF? The only thing left for me was to send out those two cav units to collect the remeaining heads. BORING!!!!
This is on VH/H. Not a challenge at all. This is only one episode in a very boring greek campaign. I'll open a new thread to tell you how everybody runs from the battlefield when they hear my name.

R'as

[Maltz]

In my first castle siege with a siege tower:

I had my hastati climbing all the way to the top. While they go around to take over arrow towers, they were greeted by a group of whatever poor militia on the wall. They suffered a great deal of losses probably due to the VHard setting, and became shaken. Then I rushed my general close to the wall to cheer for them. Finally them won the duel with only 28 men left. ~:)