Siege Assault Choices

My initial matrix of preferences:

Palisade = Ram Gates (jav troops to either side and archer behind to clear zone of entry)

Wood Wall = Onagers (since I'll replace it with stone, I don't care about multiple holes + this can zero the towers issue quickly.

Stone Wall = Ladders (faster than siege towers, though I'll use a tower or two for firepower and a ram to distract the gate guns a while).

Large Stone Wall = ???? Really not sure here. Only large wall assaults have been slaughtered by what should have been weak defense forces.

Epic Stone Wall = Multiple sap points, with some towers for firepower (Massive shooting through gaps required to clear the "hole" of its pointy-stick obstacles).


On the whole, I prefer wall crossing to trying to slug through a gap in the wall or a gate -- I simply get vexed that my "forlorn hope" will muddle about like a group of close packed peasants while the enemy cav circles in from half a town away to STILL catch them without formation and slaughter them like expensive sheep.

I'll Onager a lot if I intend to raid, plunder, and leave a city -- that way the walls aren't their anymore if I am ordered to retake it from the rebellious, multiple gold-stripe, "S" on their tunics, Quirites Magnae super-peasants.

Thoughts?

Where possible, it's siege towers all the way with me. Other methods seem to take very high casualties from the shooting of defending towers. The best part is taking over the defending towers on the walls and having them automatically rain missiles into any defenders down below. With large stone walls, the firing from siege towers is a final great bonus.

But I do tend to play Romans, whose infantry excel in fighting on the walls.

I hope MTW2 refines all this, as I think siege towers are currently too much of a no-brainer.

The intent of the thread is obvious, but spies should at least be mentioned.

Attack once. 32 percent chance of the epic stone wall's having it's gate left open. And that's on the first turn. No need for siege equipment.

If the gate is closed, keep besieging and attack again. There's another 32 percent chance. That means there's almost a 54 percent chance that the gate's going to be open in one of the first two turns of the siege.

Well, there's still a need for siege equipment because my game since the 1.5 patch won't let me put men on the walls to seize towers and gateways without it. That leads to a lot of unnecessary deaths by pincushion, especially if there are path-finding problems in getting to the square.

I've found contesting the walls and the towers from the inside to be a royal pain - infantry actually *do* eventually sort themselves out and climb up the towers, but that's a hideously slow and inefficient way to feed men into the struggle all the more so as they'll be under fire from the tower in question all the time they mill around the street in confusion.

And in any case traversing the streets while under fire from the towers still in defender's hands until you've gotten far enough in is a pain in the arse, especially if the enemy contests the attempt.

Ergo, I start out by taking the walls. Just build some spare siege towers in the case a few get burned.

Palisade/Wood - Rams and onagers.
Stonewall -
- ladders only if enemy has no archers and/or very few on walls. I almost never use it.
- Rams are useless and always get burnt by firearrows and boiling oil.
-I always use at least 1 tower, the autofire is great for causing a few casualties.
-Sap if there are many archers on the streets so onagers can clear them out a little.
- Onagers can break up the wall a liitle to give towers a better shot

Questions.
- Are onagers still useful for taking out towers? I notice that my onagers didn't or couldn't fire on the towers at all?! Then at another time it manage to do so.
- I saw a bug where a whole unit archers leapt down from the wall and died (not fell down between tower+wall) when ordered to engage enemy below.
- I took massive casualties sieging Carthage when the combination of wall defense and archers in streets took their toll. I don't know if sapping would've been better.
- Is the max ammo for towers limited to 1 unit. I couldn't get towers to fire after swapping units.

It entirely depends on the circumstances. With wooden walls it's just a question of how many rams. Usually 3, though sometimes more and sometimes less. The larger the armies on both sides, the more rams I use; regardless though I like to assault ASAP so usually I go with as many as I can make in one season.

For regular stone walls, the choice between towers and ladders also depends on the armies. If I have weak troops or am unsure whether my men can beat the defenders on the top, I go with the towers. This allows the archers on top to take out some plus my men get the initial rush to put more people onto the top. If I know my units are better than the enemies, I go with ladders. They get units to the top MUCH faster. I'm particularly fond of sending a unit up ladders into the midst of enemy archers. I also like sending towers against the strong defenders and ladders to put up units onto the empty walls on their flanks.

Large and Epic walls don't give you much of a choice. I hate sapping because I doesn't take care of the lethal towers. As such, I'll often besiege until I've got a boatload of towers. Usually one sap point just as an emergency or if I've got an unusually large amount of cavalry. Regardless, it's a very rare battle where I will move into the city without controlling the gates and towers between my chosen entrance and the route to the town square.

There's no question about it, Onagers offer the biggest bang for my buck. Any other method allows far too much opportunity for the enemy to kill my troops. Also, it allows me to immediately assault any city I am attacking. After a a few sieges the Onagers start getting higher into the experience bars and they become truly devastating weapons.

Here is my modus operandi...

Push the Onagers within range of the wall. I take out the towers in the vicinity of the assault. After I have taken out the towers, I start pounding the wall with the onagers to create the necessary number of gaps in the wall. (Usually one or two)

Then I move missile troops (preferably archers and slingers) within firing range of any troops on or near the wall. Then I start decimating those troops with the missile troops.

After sufficient gaps have been created with the Onagers, I use any remaining Onager ammo to target the best enemy troops they can reach. I also allow my missile troops to target enemies through the gaps if they can get a good shot at them.

Then I move my infantry and cavalry to the wall. If I have any infantry capable of missile fire, I move those infantry toward the wall or the gaps in it and allow them hit any enemy retarded enough to linger longer.

After that I have generally caused significant casualties to the enemy and am easily able to destroy them. :balloon2:

I would use onagers only to whack the corner towers since they only shoot outwards, the gatehouse towers are useful for clearing out enemy in the streets once they are captured.

for stone walls and higher as greeks or romans- Siege towers

for stone walls and higher as Barbarians, Laddars only.