Tips for Siege?

Medieval 2 is my first Total War and I'm starting to get the hang of outdoor battles most terrains (except jungles because it's packed with trees/grass). However I always see to be very inefficient at handling siege battles.

How should I start them out?

I would like tips for 2 different scenarios

-When I have siege weapons + artillery support
-When I don't have artillery.

Since the AI has been a bit crummy with handling defenses, whenever I have artilleries I've blown up walls that support archers/troops so they fall off. When I have artillery the basic step is:
-Take out towers
-Tear out walls that support units
-Bust the gates open
-Send cheap melee units with ranged to wear units out

Then the problem unfolds. I just don't know what to do next because the enemies are very crowded and they're slowly killing off my forces. I'm also frustrated when I have to work with Cavalry during siege because the capture zone gets too crowded for them to be mobile.

When I don't have artillery, the only difference is I send cheap peasants front line backed by siege equipment and ranged units. I steadily move my other units forward to start some real offense.

Any tips? :wall:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vintage318

Medieval 2 is my first Total War and I'm starting to get the hang of outdoor battles most terrains (except jungles because it's packed with trees/grass). However I always see to be very inefficient at handling siege battles.

How should I start them out?

I would like tips for 2 different scenarios

-When I have siege weapons + artillery support
-When I don't have artillery.

Since the AI has been a bit crummy with handling defenses, whenever I have artilleries I've blown up walls that support archers/troops so they fall off. When I have artillery the basic step is:
-Take out towers
-Tear out walls that support units
-Bust the gates open
-Send cheap melee units with ranged to wear units out

Then the problem unfolds. I just don't know what to do next because the enemies are very crowded and they're slowly killing off my forces. I'm also frustrated when I have to work with Cavalry during siege because the capture zone gets too crowded for them to be mobile.

When I don't have artillery, the only difference is I send cheap peasants front line backed by siege equipment and ranged units. I steadily move my other units forward to start some real offense.

Any tips? :wall:

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The easiest way to win a seige, though you might consider it a bit on the cheesy side... just beseige them until they fight back, then surround and charge as their army is rushing out the front gates.

Avoid them. Try to draw them out on the campaign map. Only enter a siege when you greatly outnumber your opponent. Use artillery to punch a few holes in the wall, and then try to storm it. Always attack on 2 or more points so that you divide enemy forces.

When you don't have artillery, using multiple siege towers/ladders works. Use heavy infantry/cavalry cause light gets killed very quickly. Infantry is generally better...

Don't try to outshoot enemy archers at the walls.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vintage318

How should I start them out?

I would like tips for 2 different scenarios

-When I have siege weapons + artillery support
-When I don't have artillery.

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Sieges are fun and if you don't overpower your armies with tons of siege equipment the AI can hold it's own.
So, the easiest way to siege a castle or city is to have a superior force and lots of siege equipment, preferrably gunpowder. With Culverins and Bombards the walls fall easily, with Trebuchets it takes much longer. Your aim is to make several breaches in the wall to avoid fighting at the gate. Remember, the defenders have a bonus, making the defense of such chokepoints easier for them. The more breaches you make, the less defenders you have to fight at them because the AI will spread. For the actual fighting through at those breaches you should use heavy infantry like Dismounted knights. Do not advance until the ammo of your artillery is empty. Do not switch on fire-at-will for siege equipment, always target manually.

If you don't have artillery you have to take the fight to the walls. You've to use ladders and towers to approach the walls and a ram for the gate. Prepare at least for three or four attack points and calculate in possible losses of your siege-towers and rams (making 4 rams, like the AI is a bit much, though).
Then attack the walls with heavy infantry, those with ladders can run which makes them harder to kill with arrows. When fighting at the gate, try to make one of your units push through and flank the defenders or if you have taken a wall segment, descend and attack the gate defenders from behind.
You really have to fight your way through.
Cavalry is almost useless when attacking cities and castles because they can't charge in streets and will be easy targets for any cheap spears.
Try cities first and then castles, as they have three rings of defense.

R'as

Generally I prefer to starve cities and castles into submission, but when time is pressed I usually go with a fairly straightforward approach:

Lay siege.
Construct 2 rams, 2 towers and 2 sets of ladders.
Position the rams facing the enemy gate, the towers facing the walls on each side of the gate, and the ladders on the walls next to the towers.
So you've got something like:
"wall - wall - gate - wall - wall"
"ladder - tower - ram - ram - tower - ladder"
I then deploy my infantry around the siege equipment, and my cavalry well back out of range of the walls.

When the battle begins I throw any missile troops forwards in loose formation, hoping to draw the fire of enemy missile troops on the walls. I roll both rams up towards the gate together, and all the siege equipment towards the walls at the same time, and generally rush as many infantry forward as possible - it might sound harsh, but there's a limit to the number the enemy can mow down at once.

If all goes well I should end up with several places to get onto the walls and a ram at the front gate. With troops streaming into the city/castle from so many places, victory becomes probable.

Or, yeah, just sit back and blow the place to pieces with large cannons, giggling as the defending troops plummet from the walls to their deaths. That works too. :)

Four sets of ladders and such siege equipment as I have. Works best with infantry-heavy armies.

The way that exhaustion works on vh/vh, large numbers of cheap infantry can usually overwhelm wall defenders. You'll have to accept that a lot of your cannon fodder will be killed in the assault first, but the clue's in the name so this shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

One tip is that you send some cheap and expendable infantry unit to the gate tower firing range and it will draw the fire of the towers, which in turn will give your ram and siege towers a better chance of reaching the walls before being burnt down. I don't remember the source of this tip ... it could have been in-game or from the manual. If it was one of those then its the devs sort of pointing out the silliness of the AI that cannot turn its attention from a harmless unit (from their perspective) to a harmful one.

I haven't managed to try it out yet because I either forget it and start off with my siege equipment or I don't have cheap and expendable units to spare. If anyone has tried this and knows it actually works, please post about it.

On narrow roads inside the cities do not send all your troops to fight at the same time. Use one infantry unit at the time in front and when they get tired or low on numbers take them back and move next infantry unit in front.

While you infantry is fighting in the central road try to flank the enemies with horses or other infantry.

If you send more than one unit into a stack your troops will fight very inefficiently.

If there is more space like in the center of town, first position additional unit so that they all have their own attack vector to the enemy and they won't get mixed with other units. You will lose less units by spending some time micromaging your units rather than ctrl+a and right clicking.

The wall taking part was in a earlier post. I never wait for the enemy to come out. I allways attack even with inferior troops and enjoy the bloodshed. It is quite easy to win the AI even in cities and castless but more entertaining than fights in the open.

The in-game tutorial is where it tells you to draw the fire of the ballistas and range weapons with an expendable unit. I think it says to do this while your battering ram is making it's way to the gate.

I tend to use the divide and conquer philosophy. I will break two holes on either side of a gate - then break a couple more in another side of a wall. This means the AI can't concentrate their forces.

2 posibble ways whit wariatoin :

1. lots of cannon foder * spear militia ore peasants * and siege equipment *ladders etc ..
2. Heavy infantry + siege units catapults ore even better cannons :)) sit back and enjoy the show ... * trie not to burn the hole town, city .. capital ... *

last night my scot highlanders killed the defending dismounted knights of the english :) ... nice .. axes are better than swords ? or is it scotisch stobberness ? anyway .. HIGHLANDER are cool !!! even the highlander archer are strong :)

When defending a siege, make sure you have light cavalry to sally forth. This brings the general charging down into the fire zone of the castle defences. Leg it back inside and they return to their post, getting slammed in the back in the process. Once you've killed off the mounted troops in this way you can either harry approach seige equipment or send your light cavalry in a suicide mission against any cannon.

Its a bit cheesy as the general can't resist and gets whalloped every time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vintage318

I'm also frustrated when I have to work with Cavalry during siege because the capture zone gets too crowded for them to be mobile.

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The rest has been pretty well covered so I'll just tell you how I use Cavs effectively in a seige. Once you've created a few holes in walls and have pushed the defenders back at least a little ways from the holes with infantry, you can usually use cavs to flank/rear attack the defenders. So long as there's a path in the city that will let you bring your cavs around to the rear of the defenders that is. I use this same tactic when defending in a seige. If you can get a unit to go after one of your cavs, you can go around in a circle, and that inf can never catch the cav. They usually end up going back to the main battle, at which point you can rear attack with your cavs.

A friend of mine did this when running from the cops back in college. Kept circling around a large bush, and they couldn't catch him. He gave up when the K-9 unit got there though. :clown:

After never having used artillery much in previous TW games, I find it nearly indispensable in M2TW.

In RTW I just brought superior infantry and rolled up towers. Once you had the walls, the towers started working for you. In M2TW the defense bonuses are just too high. Even just one cannon is enormously valuable. Multiple cannons is more fun because you can destroy a wall segment in one volley, before the defenders get off it.

One of my favorite tricks from RTW is to get a few of my missile units up on the enemy walls before entering the city so they can shoot down on the enemy inside his own walls. It's harder to do in M2TW, but it will work nicely against cav heavy factions like the Mongols who don't defend walls well.

I fought a battle yesterday where I sent some dismounted knights up ladders to clear out the javelins they had on the wall, then had the knights climb down and some crossbowmen climb up. When my infantry came in the gate, the Mongols sent their cav (and a unit of elephants) at them in a nasty street fight, but I had 4 units of xbows up on the walls shooting down into the pack.

The key element of bringing cannons along is not havng to wait to attack. Most of my siege assaults are now surprise one-turn hits on lightly defended cities. This is especially good for wars against fellow catholics. You want to take the city before the pope warning comes.

For the rare assault on a well-defended city I'll bring cannons, then generally I'll knock out the towers, then punch a few holes in the walls (gate plus one on hole on each side), then march up some xbows to shoot through the breaches, then send in my heavy infantry. Haven't had much luck shooting cannons through the breaches and hitting anything.

Something to keep in mind when defending against an assault, but it can be used offensively once you get heavy cannons is this: you can instantly kill off parts to entire units on the wall without ever touching them. The long explanation is that walls take damage, expressed as a percentage. That damage shows on the battlemap as deterioration. Once it gets to a certain point (around 40% or so) the wall actually starts falling apart, and the walkway on the top becomes impassable where the crack is. Any men caught between two of those cracks die instantly. I learned this the hard way.

I was defending against a siege, and the AI made its usual wall breach right next to the gate. I'd moved a unit of peasant archers down to that wall section next to the breach so they could shoot at one of the two enemy generals in the battle; it was the only place they'd be in range. The AI, after destroying the towers (side note, it's rather amazing how much more accurate the AI is shooting at towers with trebuchets than I am) the AI started working on the walls next to the tower the archers were near. None of them were on the wall section being attacked, so I didn't worry about it. The instant the wall took enough damage to crack, that entire unit literally bounced up in the air, flew forward over the rampart, crashed to the ground and died to the man.

Later, when I was assaulting a citadel with two culverins in tow, the deployment showed only one enemy unit on the walls, a unit of armored sergeants. I targeted the two culverins one each at the wall sections near the towers on either side of them. The minute the cannon rounds started hitting, the AI started getting off the walls, but they didn't completely make it before the cracking. Everybody in the unit who hadn't made made it past that point died; I killed about 1/3 of the unit.

It could be done with anything, but it since the AI starts moving as soon as the danger is there, you'd need a ton of the earlier siege engines to damage two wall sections fast enough to make use of it. Two cannons/culverins/basilisks is enough. 4 could do it almost instantly.

My tactics are a combination of those described by Aelwyn and Dismal.

I always bring artillery to knock a few holes in the walls and gate and find that the enemy usually abandons the walls and withdraws after a charge into these breaches by my best melee troops (they dont take much in the way of dammage on the way in)

As soon as I'm told that I have taken the walls, I rush my archers up on to the ramparts (whats left of them..) and start moving cheaper melee units through the back streets to near a crossroad.

I find that the enemy soon re-groups and starts sending units down the main street towards the gate.

My archers on the wall start shooting and when I've judged the enemys moral to be on the decline, engage them from the front with my elite units waiting by the gate.

It rarely takes long for the enemy to rout and start running back up to the centre of the settlement, but have their exits blocked by the cheap units positioned at the cross roads.

This makes the final show-down far easier.

Many thanks
SJH

Here some tips for seiges before the assault.

1) Take as many units as possible (and a general).

2) Take units built in castles, units from cities are very capable at deffending cities or castles they just seem to be lacking when seigeing so take a professinal army.

3) Dont take many missle units you'll do far better with more infantry.

4) Take a mixture of infantry dont take just loads of heavey infantry take roughly 4 stacks of spearmen aswell.

5) On your way to the place you want to seige (and while seiging) keep checking what mercs you can higher if youve got the money replace some of your units with better mercs. i.e. Merc spearmen are better then english spearmen so i try and replace them.

6) Scout around the city your seiging last thing you want is to be segieing a city then for a full enemy stack to attack you from the rear. So then youll be stuck in a battle with the enemy attacking you from the rear and front (bloody hard when that happens).

Against cities without your own artillary/seige weapons

1) Build 3 seige towers and 3 battering rams.

2) Move as close as possible to the city and have you heavey infantrymen man the seige towers and anything you want to the battering rams. Have the seige towers slightly infront of the battering rams and line up the seige towers directly infront of the wall section you want to attack so they can get to that section of the wall as fast as possible. And have your battering rams directly lined up with the gate and grouped together.

3) When the assault starts firstly send in all your seige towers first the enemy ballista towers & cannon towers should direct there aim at them. Straight after you order your seige towers in order one battering ram to attack the gate and the other two to move to just infront of the gate. So then if you lose one battering ram you've always got two more there right next to the gate ready to assault.

4) Charge everyone you have towards the walls and set them to loose formation right next to the walls. The reason you do this is to stop cannon & ballista towers raping your men as they cant fire at you at close range. And you set your men to loose formation to minimise the loses from enemy missle troops on the walls. If youve got any archers with you have them fire at the men behind the walls not the men on the wall as you'll kill more men IME.

5) Move your camera to the gate and rotate it sideways so you can see whats on the other side waiting (you dont get to look in the city untill you get men on the walls or through the gate thats why i do this.). If its massed cavalary Group all you spearmen together then indavidualy move them in front of the gate and when the gate is battered down charge them through first followed up by your heavey infantry you'll massacre them doing this.

If its infantry on the other side send in your heavey infantry first then spearmen.

Tip:- Have your general not far from your men when going through the gate and keep blowing that horn to rally them. Also dont have your men in loose formation put them back into tight formation when going through the gate.

6) Now youve got a big battle going on have your cavalry grouped together and charge them through the gate you dont really want them to attack though you want them to break through the big battle at the gate. If you can get them through ride around the city taking out any loose units not in the main battle at the gate except for spearmen stay clear of them. If there are no loose units and you break through smash them into the back of the enemys units at the main battle at the gate then pull them back and do it again they'll rout realy easilly doing this.

There you go you've just won the battle with minimum loses

Note:- if any of your seige equipement goes on fire pull your men away from it as they will burn too.

Against citadels/castles without your own artillary/seige weapons

You do pretty the much the exact same thing as i suggested with the cities
although this time you can do one of two things use your cavalry to chase the enemy (none routing) through gates dont engage them so you capture the gates and your men can get through to the next ring of deffenses no problem.

Or when you get through the first wall of deffences send your heavey infantry onto the walls in one of the corners of the compound and have them work there way round onto the second wall (all the citadel walls are linked in the corners) then move them along the wall to the gate to capture it and open it for the rest of your army.

Tip:- If you've got a one on one (units i mean) going on but only somthing like 20 or so of your men are fighting and the rest are scatered behind them. Double click behind the enemy unit and all the loose men will push up and get involved in the battle.

Also if you try getting the cavalry to follow the enemy through there gates use a disaplined cavalry unit one that wont charge at the enemy without orders. The idea is you want the enemy to get through the gate and you follow through if your men attack them the gate will stay closed.

Attacking cites/citadels with seige weapons/artillary

I never bother with seige weapons or artillary myself as i find it to easy but heres what i would do.

For seige weapons just have all your men hold back out of range of cannon/ballista towers group all your seige weapons together and move them forward and make as many holes as possible in the walls were the enemy has units on the walls. You might want to stick a unit of spearmen in loose formation in front of your seige weapons aswell so the cannon/ballista towers target them first. Once youve made as many holes as possible just charge in and massacare the enemy

For artillary hold everyone back out of range and blow up all the towers first then blow up a couple of holes in the walls. Once youve done that charge in and kick arse its just so easy thats why i never use artillary or seige weapons.

With siege, shoot out the walls supporting units to kill some and then take out the towers.

Otherwise, make pure rams as your guys get huge penalty for going up siege towers and ladders. Instead, use hordes of cheap infantry like spear militia. Antiblob penalties isn't a big deal. Zerg flooding still works fine. Pour through the gates and rush for the square with all your units. Then set up your blob in the street leading to the square. Defending troops will try to fight their way back and be routed and picked off. Don't let them get to the square or they will fight to the death. This tactic can easily get 3:2 kill ratios in your favor. Spear militis are also easy to replace.

fighting inside cities is close quarters combat in cramped environent. cavalry are not goign to do well unless the run round side road i time to support fromt he back.

usually your will need as much heavi ifantry as possible. ie infantry with hight attach stacks. lots of them are going to die but its expected in a seige.

so far in my game i ahvent used artilerry against walls yet just have a good spy who keeps opening gates for me so i can attack same turn before any reinforcements arrive.

clear the walls of any enemy archeres archers from walls kill a lot of troops.

alwasy take some spearmen to kill any AI cavalry in the sttlement.

you can use spearmen set on guard mode to block off a stret and bring in xboxs, javelines from bind to wipe out heavily armoured defenders.

cavalry have to be micro managed a lot inside a city but can sometimes make the difference.

only assulted one castle yet but again my spy opened the gates so it was again a matter of crearing the walls
the fun part was i got inside in time before the reinfrocements arrived. 2 units of heavy knights. sacrificed one unit to hold them up and then got my javelines on their own walls and killed them all. thanks god routing units dont open the gates for the enemy anymore :sweatdrop:


even defending i fousn the archers on the walls do the most damage even to haeavy cavalry and infantry. maybe its cos i'm playing english havent treid another faction yet. (not longbows just miltia and peasant archers)

Artillery is awesome in seiges but it slows down your armies on the strategic map, so I often rely on improvised seige gear, ie battering rams etc.

The plan:
1) Upon laying seige, build 2-3 battering rams and 1-2 seige towers.

2) Assault ASAP. The sooner you take the town the sooner it starts making you money.

3) Roll forward with all seige engines. Only 1 ram can attack the gate, but keep the rest handy as backup.

4) Dont waste time fighting on the walls. Wall defenders get a massive morale boost, while attackers suffer deadly fire from the towers. And usually, combat proceeds slowly since few troops are in contact. Concentrate your main push through the gate, using infantry. I like to open with riff raff units whose salaries exceed performance.

5) As your disposable attack runs down, move elite infantry through the gate. If the enemy has few spearmen, cavalry is an option. Continue to ignore defenders on the walls, even archers. Their shooting will be highly inaccurate, and your troops will be more effective fighting on the ground than on the walls.

6) Eventually your assault will defeat the gate defenders and you'll have an open road to the town square. Advance all melee units toward the town square, while continuing to sneer at the wall defenders. This forces them to abandon the walls and try to intercept your march. Typically they break instead, having lost their wall-boosted morale while outflanked and outnumbered. You now capture the walls by default.

7) If you are facing a strong defense, they will be setting up a last stand in the town square. Take your best spear unit (or two) and position them near the town square. They will be a shield for your ranged units. Behind that roadblock, fill the street with archers, and they'll rain death upon the town square. Victory is yours.

if you have superior numbers then either attck with arty and destroy them on the walls and then on the ground. attacking their depleted numbers will overwhelm. also as prev post said then get cavalry round the side streets and attack rear or block rour paths so that few make it back to city square. the refusal to rout or surrendor in square is annoying (although usful when defending against far superior force as all your troops can satrt in square and never rout.
if no arty then make 3 rams and 2 ladders. the ladders should be postioned on the 2 castle sides near the side gates. they should be manned by your missile troops. the enemy will defend walls near these guys. do not use them at all just bust through front gates (i had 2 rams catch fire once now i move all 3 at once. rest army only advance once gates nearly down).
your superior numbeers are now enhanced by the fact that maybe as many as half the defenders are defending against your out of range missile troops. when you are winning cav around the sides to intercept these troops as coming off walls and move in your missile to take walls once deserted. missile to centre from both flanks and infantry up the middle. score one massacre to you.
3rd scenario= they have equal / superior numbers. lay seige and when they sally to massacre you either beat them as normal or.... if you will lose then retreat infantry and missile as far as poss before engaging. take cav to both flanks and if poss through the city gates and to town centre. i did this once with 3 damaged units of jav cav and although my army was slaughtered by far superior army the defenders did not make it back in time to defeat the 2 units i used to block and harrass. i won on town square time out they were kicked out of city and the danish empire was no more. how i laughed i lost 90% of troops and they lost 50% of larger force. now just rebels.

I can never get this to work "Or when you get through the first wall of defenses send your heavy infantry onto the walls in one of the corners of the compound and have them work there way round onto the second wall (all the citadel walls are linked in the corners) then move them along the wall to the gate to capture it and open it for the rest of your army. " I get to the intersection of walls and can not move up. Please explain how you move up? I click all around the next wall catwalk but they will not move up. Please advise poor SadCat :help:

My tip:

Make sure you outnumber the enemy and click the auto-resolve button. :2thumbsup:

I only fight sieges when I'm defending and the odds are against me.

Evening SadCat,
I've alway found that a simple click on the top of the wall will suffice.

It may be that you've selected multiple units to move on the target wall. Try moving them one at a time.
If not, the problem might be that theres no doorway to the section of wall you're trying to reach... I've spent a few moments cursing the screen after asking a unit to run through a solid wall... Worth a look.

Hope this helps?

Many thanks
SJH

I actually rarely fight sieges, particularly big ones by myself on the battlefield.

You should almost always autocalc the battle because when you auto resolve, the program doesn't take into account the walls during the battle so in the imaginary battle, the defenders are simply defending, they don't have walls to shoot from, towers, or an infinite morale town square so you can almost always get alot less casualties

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Originally Posted by Xdeathfire

I actually rarely fight sieges, particularly big ones by myself on the battlefield.

You should almost always autocalc the battle because when you auto resolve, the program doesn't take into account the walls during the battle so in the imaginary battle, the defenders are simply defending, they don't have walls to shoot from, towers, or an infinite morale town square so you can almost always get alot less casualties

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This is very true but if I hit a city with cannon in train and odds are so on my side that with autocalc I expect 20-30 man loses. I jest can not pass up making big holes in the walls and doing it myself. Yes I will lose a unit or two because I am not that good but it is a blast. Gest my way to 'kick the dog and call the cat a :furious3: " now and then. SadCat :book:

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Originally Posted by Vintage318

I would like tips for 2 different scenarios

-When I have siege weapons + artillery support
-When I don't have artillery.

Since the AI has been a bit crummy with handling defenses, whenever I have artilleries I've blown up walls that support archers/troops so they fall off. When I have artillery the basic step is:
-Take out towers
-Tear out walls that support units
-Bust the gates open
-Send cheap melee units with ranged to wear units out

Then the problem unfolds. I just don't know what to do next because the enemies are very crowded and they're slowly killing off my forces. I'm also frustrated when I have to work with Cavalry during siege because the capture zone gets too crowded for them to be mobile.

When I don't have artillery, the only difference is I send cheap peasants front line backed by siege equipment and ranged units. I steadily move my other units forward to start some real offense.

Any tips? :wall:

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A lot to be said about sieges...

First of all, know your odds (a good spy is definitely a good idea) and compose your stack accordingly... thus bring artillery if you can...

Firstly, you should consider a third scenario which doesn't require any siege equipment nor artillery : sendind a spy as forward observer (or multiple spies to bette the odds)...

It will give you access to every city/castle gate at the same time and with no effort...

It is particularly useful if you are an almost all-cav army... Thus you can flank the defending forces or even take them from the rear...

The main point then is in deploying your forces... I tend to leave all my forces facing the main gate of the city with my cav as far as possible on my flanks and at the start of battle I send it at a run to the nearest side gate...Most of the times the AI forces will be gathered around the main gate and the center plaza, leaving side gates undefended.

The main advantage of this strategy is in blitzing, use an all-cav army moving fast and not losing any turn buliding siege equipment...


Secondly If you have siege equipement and artillery, your tactic seem rather sound to me... Once you're in the city try to find the main crossroads coming down from the center plaza and engage one of your infantry (either spears or Hvy Inf) just before the croosroads...send units to either side of the crossroads (preferably cavalry or hvy infantry). The Ai troops will come charging down soon and engage your barraging unit. Once engaged, send flanking units and see them rout...

I tend to send my cavalry around town to charge on the center plaza from the rear or flanks and if I have missile units at my disposal I tend to place them in range of the same plaza, with spears as support.


Last If you have no artillery, I would say use spies... They'll make things much easier. Otherwise, try to make as many fronts as possible for the AI by deploying all around its city/castle...I've found that most of the times, it will leave a part of its walls undefended, rush that part of the walls and proceed from there to remove all wall defenders...(using a mix of Hvy infantry and missile units if possible). When done, you're back to fighting as described above...

If ever, all the walls are aptly defended by the AI, rush him with all you've got in loose formation, beginning with less-costly units, the sheer numbers should overwhelm him unless you've picked too strong a city...

On the use of artillery, I prefer to start shooting at wall-mounted units even before I start shooting at towers. Those units will most of the times retreat some distance from the walls thus making towers inactive enough time for me to move in siege equipement. Then if some towers are still active, make them go silent...If find this way to be much more cost-effective when considering after-siege repairs...

Don't let your last rock be the killer one.

I had a seige this evening. My English against the Danes in a rather large city, Antwerp I think.

I only had 2 ballisters in my attacking army, I didn't notice that one of them was shooting at a different bit of wall to start with so I had to hustle one about so they could both shoot the same bit of wall. Anyway time passes and the bit of wall I'm going to breach reaches 99%, one unit has run out of ammo and the other unit launches it's final chunks of rock.

It is announced that it's a close defeat, the info screen pops up.

In the background, the final round deals the final blow to the walls and the walls are shown falling down.

Battle ends, and then the pope gives me a 4 year warning.

I was a little dissapointed, I had the perfect army lined up..... :wall:

If you want to keep your ram from getting torched, surround it with cheap/tall units to absorb the arrows.