RTW: Gatehouses attack?

[dlewis7444]

In RTW, do gatehouses on stonewalls fire at you or just the towers?

[Antagonist]

Yes, Gatehouses fire through slits to either side of the gate. Some kinds of gates can fire behind the walls into the settlement as well (something to bear in mind if you've just broken the gates down)

Antagonist

[Kickius Buttius]

Yes, and keep in mind that with stone walls, even if you have opened the gate, the gatehouse defenders can still drop boiling oil on your troops as you go through.

[dlewis7444]

That's what I thought. Darned good reason to capture the gates. I'm thinking of trying out a strategy. Send 2 of my best legions in siege towers to either side of the gates and clear the walls. Capture the tower away from the gatehouse with one while the other captures the gatehouse and, behind them, a light legion captures the tower in the other direction.

Meanwhile, my archers scale the seige towers and form up on the walls. So missle fire rains down on the enemy inside the city from my archers and their own towers while I sit up there and bottleneck any units coming up. Could be devasting, with little loss of life. On my side, that is...

[PseRamesses]

That's what I thought. Darned good reason to capture the gates. I'm thinking of trying out a strategy. Send 2 of my best legions in siege towers to either side of the gates and clear the walls. Capture the tower away from the gatehouse with one while the other captures the gatehouse and, behind them, a light legion captures the tower in the other direction.

Meanwhile, my archers scale the seige towers and form up on the walls. So missle fire rains down on the enemy inside the city from my archers and their own towers while I sit up there and bottleneck any units coming up. Could be devasting, with little loss of life. On my side, that is...

Watch closely how the AI respond to your manouvering and exactly when they do. I´ve found that this is a neat trap-solution:
Two towers and two good infantry units are all you need. Left tower will move first an aim for the wall between the 1st and 2nd tower to the left of the gate. When tower 1 has moved half its distance towards the wall deploy the 2nd tower and aim for the wall between the 1st and 2nd tower to the right of the gate.
Remember that the AI always has troops 1. to the right of the gate (from your view) since missiles then hit the unshielded side of the offenders, 2. on the gate itself and lastly 3. to the left of the gate (very rare).

Now when the units in tower one hits the wall the defenders doesn´t go and meet them so you can run and take the 2nd right tower, hurry back and when all your troops are on the wall take right tower 1 - Now the AI will move on you. Repeat with the units in tower 2. The defenders will move to retake right tower 1 (the first they responded to) so your right unit (tower 2) will stalk them through the gates and hitting them in the rear on the wall to the right of the gate. Now you hold the gate and the 4 towers closest to it.
No need for archers on the wall. Put them in column formation outside the gate and they will volley a high arch over tha walls´n´gates and rain death on the defenders just inside the walls.

Varning! I found that this "double-sequence-trap method" backfired once on the new huge/ epic walls in BI and the second defending unit did respond on my first entry but then turned to respond to my second one thus creating a two face single unit to unit combat instead of the leathal trap I had in mind. On this occasion though I suspect my timing was a bit off but I recon you´ll get the hang of it. The key is to draw all defending units to one side of the gate and trap him there.