The futility of upgrading stone walls

If I ever Upgrade my Stone Walls, or face a siege in a city that started with Large or Epic, or in a computer city my Garrisson gets Mauled to death before enemy siege towers even get to the city.

The Siege Towers destroy my units before any engagements which is really stupid.

I personally suggest that if Epic and Large Stone Walls are only built for the public order benefit they should be destroyable incase the enemy is getting to your borders and you need to dowgrade to Stone Wall (5 turns, plenty of time for your city to be prepared to face the Horde that is besieging your nieghbour and will go after you next).

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61764.

Why use stone walls, anyway?

I have to say, I never upgrade beyond a pallisade, as I never defend the walls. I play as the sassenids/carthagians/anyone with big, pointy sticks, and tend to just defend the square - this way, the attackers are funnelled onto the points of the pikes, and your kill ratio goes WAY up! To be honest, with Antioch especially, I tend to allow the Egyptians to siege me without hinderance, as I know that they'll loose the best part of a 1000 men in an assault - a much better (and eventually more economically ruinous- for the enemy) result.

My fav. method is to put a block of 4 pikes a little way back from the entrance to the square with a further 2 units at right angles to them. The AI surges forward onto the block of 4, my 2 pikes take them in the flank and they immediately rout. This gives me time to send some reserves (the back 2 units from the block of 4) to the beleagured 1/2 units fending off the AIs flanking attacks in time to defeat them and then throw all my forces into blocking the AI rallied troups attacking again, this time with support from their general. Works every time for me, even just using militia hoplites and peasants! (btw, peasants are excellent for chasing down routing troops!)

Any faction with archers benefits hugely from stone walls, raining death down upon the besiegers.

Fighting in the square feels like an exploit to me, so I don't do it.

I just cottoned onto something after reading this thread.

There are three levels of wall beyond wooden walls. Stone, large and epic.

I dont recall coming across some of the larger walls. Athens, early in the Brutii campaign, used ladders and seige towers but i dont know what sort of stone wall it was.

Is the 'problem' with machine gun seige towers confined to any particular type of wall ? ie is Stone alright..but not large nor epic ?

Stone is fine, you lose 2-3 soldiers, which is alright.

However Large and Epic are equally idiotic investments (Especially in Rome Total War because they don't give Public Order Bonuses yet), becuse the Siege Towers have Machine Guns for them.

Rhubarbmisterwellington you will have a problem then if the enemy decide to starve you out.
I usually upgrade to normal stone walls and have a couple of units of archers among my defenders stationed in my cities. No problem with the Gatling gun towers if they attack, and if it looks like they are going to starve me out I can sally and draw them close enough to the walls to commit genocide. Try that with a pallisade...
Also, you will find that you are attacked by numerous rams, so how can you defend against 1000 strong armies with only six units with any certainty? If you have a stone wall you can sally before they attack and your walls will kill many more enemies than crap pallisade towers would (BTW I play no time limit which makes it easier I guess, I just dont like the idea of Julius Caesar saying "cmon lads lets just rush 'em as I'm on a tight schedule here").

I can´t remember fighting a defensive siege battle in all my time of playing RTW, so far. Either my garrison is strong enough to sally out and destroy the besiegers or I only have peasants and playing any kind of battle only with those holds no appeal whatsoever for me.

Ive not had any big seige battles...well not up on the walls or in the gates. Would get too many of my troops hurt :no:

Against Athens I split my two seige towers and ladders. Once deployment was over I could move the equipment around and found ways over the walls unopposed and in areas not subject to defending tower fire.

When defending a seige I tend to send mobile units out to harass and distract the enemy.

This was different. Near the end of my Julii campaign.
https://img96.imageshack.us/img96/81...p1030yz.th.jpg
I am assaulting the Trace town. Complicated by a stronger relief force also in play. Spys got me in. Captured a gate. Ran the walls, captured the towers. I now controlled the gates, wall and towers. The Thrace outnumber me, they control the Plaza and relief forces are trying to break in through the gates my spy opened...(and I cant now shut !). Thracian will later rout 'in' as they are all classed defenders.

Most the reinforcing Thracians marched to the gate I had captured first. Meaning they marched past the wall towers I had captured.
https://img105.imageshack.us/img105/...p1042tz.th.jpg
You can see the carpet of dead Thracians outside the walls.

Siege assaults :dizzy2:
If there´s a part in RTW that is in dire need of improvement, that´s it. Labyrinth cities, auto-firing towers, a horrible pathfinding within the cities (did you notice units don´t use the whole available free space between two buildings, no, they use no more than the width of the street)...

I hate labyrinths.
Especially if in order to get to the towem center you need to go through every possible corner of city (taking tower casualties all the time). Makes sapping very week option.