Need advice on siege engines and castle assaults

[econ21]

I played Shogun a lot but am a little lost with all the artillery and siege engine type stuff in MTW. Can anyone give me some tips on how to assault castles etc in the game? I'm playing English on early and haven't fought much. The only time I assaulted a castle, it was the smallest kind (fort?) and I noticed, there were invisible archers shooting from the tower and I used Viking mercs to chop down the door. After that it was just like the assaults in Shogun.
How do things change as the buildings get stronger (eg keeps, castles, fortresses etc)?
Can you target the invisible archers in the towers? Can you shoot the troops behind the walls?
What kind of artillery do people use?
Sorry for the very basic questions, but I like to assault rather than siege (the Pope being a factor here) and so would really appreciate any tips people have and stories about assaults they have pulled off.
Thanks
Simon

[pdoan8]

Since, the troops inside the castle have the protection of the walls, you can hardly kill any one. Some will die but not a whole lot. I prefer to bring shock troops if I have cannon/siege engine to brake down the wall. If I don't have much siege weapon to rely on, I will bring some spear/pike troops (even peasants) along with some good attack troops. Take advantage of the 100 men size and use those spear/pike units to open the gate and absorb most of the missile. Then attack with stronger offensive troops.

Mangonel, Trebuchet, Catapult can be used to assault fort and keep (without curtain wall). When deploy, place it far away from it target (remember that Mangonel and Trebuchet can't turn). Then place the cursor over the target. If the cursor is red, move it a little closer then check again until it is at its max range. Fort, just need to knock down the tower then the wall and you can storm the fort. Keep without curtain wall, knock down the wall as much as you can the storm it. The keep is hard to knock down using early siege weapons.

For concrete stone castle that have catapult and ballista towers, you will need to have cannon to be sure. If you use cannon, you just need to deploy it out of the range of the towers. Siege cannon and bombard are very powerful but they can't turn so deploy it facing its primary target. Assaulting larger castle, even with 15 cannon, it hard to knock down all towers and the keep in the center and some big hole on the wall, so I usually knock down all towers and wall on one side of the castle then storm it with fast troops.

Fortress with cannon tower, it's a pain. In my last campaign, I had to assault a fortress with cannon towers which is held by 3 Royal Knight (the King and 2 soldiers). In the end, I lost nearly 300 just to kill 3.

[econ21]

Ouch! Thanks for that reply - just what I was hoping for. Now I can see why people like to starve out garrisons. Sounds like I'm going to have to get some serious firepower to takeover the French provinces.

[Rnold]

in my english campaign - normal setting i usually used a newly trained unit of spearmen to open the gate, so that it wouldnt cost me my better units. especially when there are less than 10 soldiers in the fort i also use them for killing those. only when there is a real garrison inside i use better troops.

[hrvojej]

The walls will stop firing when you damage them sufficiently so that that the parts start tumbling down (at least I think). The outer rim of walls and towers will stop firing once you've killed all the defenders in the outer courtyard (if there are any left in the inner courtyard, the inner rim will still fire). Note that you can use your troops to bring down only wooden walls and gatehouses, for stone walls you need artillery. I usually use mercenaries, basic spearmen, or cheap assault troops like ghazi (high morale, high attack, shield, fast). It is possible to take down big castles without artillery, but very painfull. Also, with artillery, I find that it's better to knock down the walls than to target the gatehouse. You get the bigger hole for your troops to pour inside, they stop firing at you, may even kill somebody as they tumble down, and you can always destroy the gatehouse with your other troops if you need to.

[ravenking]

You can target the "invisible archers". They are labeled as "archer towers" on the bigger castles, and can be destroyed like a wall (and I suggest you take care of these quickly, as many men may die from thier fire). Watch out for upgraded castles. catapult towers or worse, cannon towers have a bad habit of killing lots of your men.

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"You there, knight!" "Yes, sir?" "We just lost that battle. Why did you order your men to charge that unit of enemy sergeants?" "Uh, I was impetuous, sir" "'IMPETUOUS!? Impetuous!? Men! Kill him, I want his head!"

[hrvojej]

Yes, there are arrow towers, but the walls fire as well. Try it with a wooden stockade.

edit:
ravenking, great sig http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif


[This message has been edited by hrvojej (edited 10-04-2002).]