Seige: share your tips/strategy/experience

This is a thread dedicated to fighting seige, both as attacker and defender, share ur thoughts and strategies on the various things concerning seige.

My thoughts. a seige is basically 3 stages, outside the walls, the fight for the walls, and the fight inside the city.
Initial stages:
Onagers/Heavy Onagers: a no brainer, but most close siege are decided by if you have enough of these mad machines or not, from my experience, if ur facing basic stone walls 1-2 basic onagers is enough, if you are facing large stone walls you will need at least 4 onager or 3 heavy onagers. if you face the highest lvl stone wall you better have at least 4-5 heavy onagers. when using onagers on defense it's a bit tricky but definately worth while.

If your attacking, always take out the gate first, unless you dont' have the number of onager you think you will need, then you take out the walls and it's surronding towers first.


If your defending with Onagers, try to aim for their onager or siege engine/general, it's tricky because it's possible that you hit ur wall and tower. but taking out their onager and/or seige engine is priceless.

Secondary stage:
There are 2 basic different approach to this, fight on the wall or fight through the breach, it highly depend on what you have to work with.

If you have enough good melee infantry then try to fight on the wall, if you have more calvary and OR phalanx units than don't fight on the walls. go through gates and breachs in the wall.

ON the wall: basically I think you should use ladders if ur facing basic stone walls and use seige towers if ur facing bigger walls, mostly because the basic seige tower don't have a machine gun mounted on them and ladders tend to be more effective in getting the troops acturally on the wall. though i'm sure others would have better seige tower strategy than myself. the key on the wall itself is to make suer u can get as many people on the wall as soon as possible. use troops that can fight well individually.. things like gladiators/arcani are very good in this situation, the Roman infantries are also great due to pilas, other good once are chosen swordsmen/desert axeman.

Through the breach: either make a breach with onagers or sap, this best thing to use in this situation would be phalanx, (both sides) if you are using mass calvary you MUST make multiple breach, at least 3 is preferred. obviously this always apply to fighting wooden walls. most strong heavy infantry are also good in this situation though heavy phalanx is always the best choice.

Final stage, Inside the city: much like the through the breach approach, phalanx is your friend no matter which side you are on, if you don't have phalanx than again use heavy infantry in possible, if you are defending you have the advantage in that it's a lot harder for the attacker to deploy ranged unit effectively, so if you are heavily out gunned in terms of seige equipment, you might seriously consider just defending the street right off the bat.

If you are using calvary, the key is NEVER get into extensive melee engagement, try to go around the other paths, but in general... calvary are not good for siege either way.

Some conclusion and generalizations:
1. Onagers is always the single most important thing to have if ur seiging stone walls.

2.Phalanx are the best thing to use inside the town.

3.If you are on the assult side don't bring many calvary/ranged units, use mass heavy infantry, preferablly phalanx infantry.

:) more inputs is appreciated!!!!

I never use onagers, except to disable the gateway and burn down as much of a city as possible. I just use the siege towers, because they have their insane machineballistas, capable of destroying whole units within seconds. Also, send your best units in first. They should be capable of killing most enemies, clearing the way for the rest of your amy, although the downside is you'll end up losing plenty of men from your best units.

I never quiet figure out how to use siege tower most effectively... against basic stone wall the ballista don't seem that impressive... also they start with fire at will off which is strange... took me quiet a while to realize that was why they weren't firing ......

And from my limited experience you MUST take out the towers close to where you want to land ur seige tower... espically if you want to let ur ballista fire for a bit...

You don't really have to take out nearby towers. They don't pose much of a threat, and will prolly kill at the most, 3 of your men who are pushing the siege tower. And yes, against the basic stone wall the ballista aint very cool, but against medium and large, wow, it is one hell of a weapon!!! I've seen entire units fly off the wall thank to the insane machineballista!!

yesterday i besiged Alesia with my Germans (4 units spear warband, plus a few units cavalry)

Alesia had reinforcements on the opposite side of the field, so i sent my phalanxes in, and parked them at the end of the ramps that lead to the 2 gates i controlled, flanked by cavalry, and left them there with phalanx pointed inwards. soon enough, the Alesia forces and reinforcements joined together and came at my phalanxes, and repeatedly charged and killed themselves. then run away back to the town centre and try again
eventually they wouldn't even charge, but would simply run away when they saw me, so i sent a unit of cavalry to wipe them out and then return behind by phalanxes before another wave came at me...

something like 1200 enemy units died when charging my phalanxes, and i hardly had to do anything in the end.
i didn't even have any screaching women with me to make them run off

When attacking I mostly concentrate on a single side of the city. Ideally, I build siege towers if going up against stone walls (as opposed to sapping, or using ballistics), that way the walls are intact against counter-attack(s). Time/speed is the key. Typically I'll build three or four towers. The AI tends to cluster around the gate house, so I direct the attack at that point. What I try to do though is guess at which point the AI will position units on the walls. I then try to time things so that seige towers which flank the AI's wall defenders hit the walls slightly earlier than the towers attacking those units head on. With luck, the flank attack causes the AI to move its units off to counter, and then I hit it with the main assault. From that I position I then secure all towers along the wall which I'm attacking (they'll the fire upon ground units within the city), and also the gatehouse so that the cavalry and supporting infantry can enter.

Funnily enough, I just played (what I consider) to be a text-book example of this strategy. As the Brutii, the Senate has just ordered me to take Corinth. I have a legion (1 general, 3 velites, 4 each of hastati, principes and triarii and 2 equites) in Sparta which, because of existing war commitments against Thrace and Egypt, are the only troops available for the task. I duly besiege Corinth (which contains a full Greek stack of hoplites, cavalry and peltasts) and build 4 siege towers and I'm ready to go, at which point two more Greek stacks of similar composition arrive. Fortunately they can't reach me to support a sally. Unfortunately, they are available to reinforce against my assault. What I ended up fighting was the ultimate race against the clock. That is, get my assault force over the walls. Capture the gatehouse from side I'm attacking so that the rest of the army can enter on the ground and then move against the city centre. At the same dispatch units in desparate race around the walls to capture the other gatehouses before the reinforcing Greeks can enter the city! I just about made it!

In order to defend a city with stone walls or better, all you need is archers.
Mostly the AI will attack on two points, either with ladders or with siege towers.
Siege towers seem to light up a lot easier after the patch. Two units of archers fireing at one will destroy it.
Don`t worry about the ram, you want them to break the gate. Unfortunately your towers will take them out most of the time.
Ladders are a little uneasy, it`s difficult to kill the whole unit before it reaches the walls. However, it will have suffered so many casualities that even archers are able to repell them. But put one or two decent melee units on the wall, just in case.
Only in one of 20 battles the AI uses sapping points. I recommend destroying these asap, if your archers can reach them. I have seen a full cav charge breaking through like six phalanges that were blocking the breach. The cav broke after all, but it was a close call. You don`t want breaches in your wall (unless you are extraordinary confident with your phalanx).
What gives me really trouble are ballistas. I have modded them to have 8 ballistas per unit, and they can break a wall quite fast now. Luckily, the are mostly within the range of the archers, so I can shoot them. The have highest priority.
In like 100 sieges, I have never seen the AI using onagers.
If it does, however, there is no other option than to leave the targeted area of the wall and try to hold the breach. Place your archers so that they have a good firing field to the breach and try to hold your ground.

If defending wooden walls, slingers are your friends.

Position your defensive infantry unit on guard about 5 or 6 ranks back from the gate or breach. Use a phalanx if you have one. Then position units of slingers tight against the wall on either side. Turn off fire at will to stop them wasting stones trying to knock holes in the wall. Turn off skirmish to stop them running away.

When attackers pour through the breach they will rush straight forward to engage your infantry, leaving your slingers free to mow them down merrily from the side. For a slight variation, if you have the room use missiles on one side and repeated cavalry charges from the other.

I developed this strategy to get maximum missile defence in a confined space when friendly fire was a problem. It means you can use low value infantry to absorb intial rushes and save better troops to repel cavalry charges later on.

I play barbarian factions - Brit slingers work a treat. I'm sure archers would be fine and would still be useful as seige engine repellent when you upgrade your walls.

A counter to this ploy when attacking is to send dogs through wall. It's a bit of an exploit: missile troops sometimes try to target the handlers instead of the pooches. You may have enough time / space to get some infantry through behind to chase off the skirmishers.

I prefer to attack from one side, as others have stated, but with a mix of both siege ladders and siege towers. The Siege towers are sent to the two wall sections directly along side the gate house I'm facing. This way, all the enemy gets clustered in one point making it easier for my siege tower's ballistas to get hits. Once they are about three quarters of the way there I'll have my two additional siege ladders move forward and get the two wall sections which are along side each siege tower. Now when my ladders arrive, they will have far less immediate resistance allowing them to get a decent group on the wall and secure the wall around the ladders, this way they dont always end up climbing directly into a mass of awaiting enemy infantry and get cut down one man at a time. After the fighting has broken out along the siege ladder points, the enemy infantry near the siege towers normally scrambles the majority of their forces towards the ladders. Soon after my siege towers open forth and my infantry surge onto a now far less well defended wall, and effectively cutting the enemy forces into two, sometimes even three pieces.

Now if there are any enemy armies outside the walls that are also threatening to enter the fight, I will construct another pair of siege ladders, who will be manned by a missile unit that is fast moving, preferable archers. They will approach their wall sections once the first pair of ladders has moved a quarter of the way up, and as soon as they make it up, they are immediately run around the perimter of the walls, taking every tower and gate house there is, effectively locking the enemy reinforcements out and where I may deal with them at my leisure.

The reason that I for one don't go for using onagers and consturcting sap points is that by collapsing the wall, I really only hurt myself. The enemy forces on the wall now have a flank secure because I probably can't get forces on the walls to that side now, and any towers on that side can become an immense pain if any fighting is near them. While one COULD use onagers to disable them, it is much more preferable in my eyes to take them and allow the tower to fire on enemy forces below and force them closer to the inner city areas. This effectively corrals their forces so to speak, allowing me greater manueverability in which I can now move my forces around so that I can now surround the remaining resistance and smother it from multiple fronts.

By and large, this has yet to fail me. Plus not only do I capture the city with a relatively low cost of life, ( on my side at least ~D ) I also am now in posession of a fully fortified city, with all walls intact and undamaged, prepared for any counter-attack that might be foolishly attempted upon my newly acquired metropolis.

Here is a different approach, especially for those players that like to take their time to play the game:

Siege a city and never attack it. Just let them die over time. One of three things happens:

1. The city surrenders after the number of turns has run out.
2. On the last turn, the AI will sally forth and fight you - easy battle.
3. The AI brings up another army and attacks you. You get to fight an open field battle vs two AI armies. Kill all the re-inforcing army (the army from the city) and win the battle = city surrenders.

At least half the time, scenario 3 is played out. Call it the lazy man's way to play RTW.

For defense, I normally sally right away and break the siege. Sometimes I will let the AI attack me in a city just to have fun with a city battle. If I dont think I will win, I will bring up a relief force.

My normal play style is never to attack first (unless as Romans the Senate gives a mission that starts a war). I only go after factions that come after me. For Senate wars, I do the mission and back off/defend. Ask for ceasefire after some time of no fighting has passed. I try for alliances with my neighbors. I want to build up my cities to get the good troops. Seems like the game is won about the time the end troops arrive on the field. They dont get used much.