Siege Weapons - How to use them as the attacker?

Excluding sieges, how would you use the siege weapons? I find both the ballistic and catapult weapons have a too short of a range to be effective. With the trebuchets, they have a better reach and could dislodge a defender from those hills, but that is dependent on you getting the direction correct.

The only other option is to use the feint attack and hope that the enemy comes to me, but that does not usually work.

Any advice?

Um seige weapons are not really that great to use as a Anti Troop weapon. But your best bet if you do use them as this is Too.

1. Have alot of them one isnt going to do it.
2. Try to get some of the later Cannon Guns. These seem to be a little more better then the early rock throwers.

I managed to kill a archer with a ballista once... and that is all I ever managed in my +10 battles with my army with 5 ballistas included... Opened a gate too.

unlike other troops in the Setup before attacking, you can actually reposition your siege equipment to a better location. I like mine as far up front as I can get. The bigger catapults can usually immedietly reach the enemy in their setup zone once the game begins, and sometimes the AI won't move their army out of range if it thinks it's in the best strategic/defensive spot on the map.
Still, I don't recommend siege equipment as a standard attacking-army unit.

I managed to kill the enemy king with a catapult in a bridge battle. It made crossing easier.

Seige Weapons and seige work shops are useless.

here is why

on a battle field, u want all of your best units on the field first to crush the other guy,
but
balista is a over sized crossbow with a single puny little bolt and kills no more than 1 guy at a time by the time the other guy closes in. and they are done...occupie a extra slot just to kill 2-3 guys??? common, peasants have more use than that?
("archers cost money, send in the irish!"-- brave heart)

Catapaults...now they are a door knocker... literally! the only good uses for them to use as a door knocker at castle sieges, but again a unit of peasants or low rank troops will do fine("send in the irish"). plus cata has short range and grossly inaccurate so by the time u knock over a door, they either ran out of men or ran out of rocks. on defense they can be a use, but still a unit of basic archers can do way more damage and more tactiaclly flexable then a unit of catapault.

now as for trebs and mangs....I guess its not Age of Empires where trebs are like city busting nukes, but still they are inaccurte and too big to conceal in a forest. and on defence now your entire focuse is centered around trebs so you are in a camp on a hill type of thing... very vulnerable in lets say.....anywhere east of river elbe and south side of medi.

Cannons, now their range and accuracy along justifes their inclusion... place them on the edge of a map a let them rip. I once riped a rebel army of 1000 with 4 demi-culvs with 2 arbalist and 4 sergents, in Switzerland, against revolting switz halberders.... place them on teh edge and let her rip...it was fun fun fun!

so my conclusion...cost effective wise...not as good as the "irish" and wait until gunpower and cannons...

Sorry about all the "irish" reference...it was uncalled for and a jolly good line http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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"War is Peace." - Newspeak

I've had one battle as an attacker using a catapult where I managed to kill 22 enemy before I ran out of rocks. I did as Soly suggested, moved them as far forward as I could. The AI set up his defense on a small hill and wouldn't move even after I started skipping rocks through his ranks. Just missed killing his general too. Most attacks I leave them home. I haven't played with the cannons yet, maybe they are better or at least more mobile.

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Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell so that they look forward to making the trip.

Ballistas are nice seige weapons though. They seem to be more accurate against gates opposed to the catapults missing after hitting and such.

Arnt they supposed to get more accurate after each shot?

i haven't used them as attacker (in a no castle situation) yet, but i find them relatively useless for defense. cannons are alright, but trebs/catapult/etc rarely make contact.