Assulting Cites is near impossible...

If you try to assualt any good city, first you need to face the stupid seige equiptment that doesnt work well most the time, people falling off ladders and dieing for no reason, or the siege tower, laying down its bridge and missing the walls... then if you get anyone on the walls, the stupid pathfinding, which is retared men get bogged down by the mystery of there being a huge wall in thier way. Then there are the machine gun towers, downing 30-35 men each volly... Then if you make it that far, without loseing 10000000 men, you need to face the stupid pathfinding in the town center, men just stand there, they dont understand attack, and if they do, they will probably go through there fire cycle again, because they dont seem to realize thier pila is gone...( because they dont seem to respond to CRTL-CLICK)

Buh-humbug, I hate citys...

I think it's ALT click to get the sword for immediate attacking. The towers are very effective. I guess you need artillery to knock them out before sending in your men.

The one thing that needs changing about sieges is the damn 20 minute time limit. Even changing it to 25 would make a huge amount of difference....

sieges should almost be no-time limit battles.

I must admit, I have found the city battles nothing less than a joy to play since I removed the time limit. I haven't run in to any pathfinding problems whatsoever-just as I haven't run into a lot of other issues people mention here.

It really is bizarre, it's like some people are playing a different game.

i agree more time limit would be nice.

It takes 160 men like 10 minutes to go up a siege tower... that is what makes me the madest... Rowr...

OK then take off the time limit in the options menu just like mtw.

I think the time limit is necessary to keep the defense in the game, especially if the defensive force is small. However, a much much longer time limit would be greatly appreciated.

What I find annoying is that many (most? all?) of the central plazas are slightly elevated. My calvalry I'm using to flank the defensive units there all stop just before the edge, look around, and then slowly walk into the enemy, losing many men. The only solution seems to be to charge them (double quick) at the enemy from as far off as possible. Still, very frustrating and adds to micromanagement. Unless I'm just doing something wrong or if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.

Still, sieges are great...

Just need more time.

Small cities are of course easy, but the really big ones with large stone walls are killing machines unless you face very weak opposition. I had good luck with sieges until I ran into some Brutii cities. My upgraded sacred band infantry phalanx couldn't even get past the hastati facing them at the sap points (even though I had support and the hastati did not.) Then there was the generals units doing charges against another SBI and poeni phalanx unit in the square and routing them... I reloaded a save and starved them out.

The timer is insanely short, "Ok, I've got a dentist's appointment at 2:30 so if we can't end this siege in the next 20 minutes, we call the whole thing off and I'm leaving."

The pathfinding is very tricky. Think of the plaza as a black hole for attackers, you cannot cross it anywhere without going through the center. Once troops enter, they can't leave until they rout or are victorious (except in rare instances.) Coaxing units down the street requires a lot of time. Left to their own devices, some units will try to take a scenic route halfway around the wall under fire. So I send in a few at a time and micromanage. Need I mention the stupid timer again...

There is something called "sapping" in the game, you know. Very simple, knocks walls down, men go in.

Grifman

My personal favorite was trying to use the tetsudo formation in a siege. It was all well and good except for the fact that my units entered this half tetsudo half standard formation, move at the rate of a millimeter a second, and got destroyed by anything that touches them. Only repeatedly hitting the tetsudo button would FINALLY get them out. First I thought it was a fluke, but then it happened in more sieges.

Tetsudo is dead to me now.

Oh, and pathfinding in sieges makes me want to cleave my monitor with an axe sometimes.

Disagree. It's not that simple. Here is something more accurate.

Walls get knocked down. Men are ordered to go in, then ordered to go to the town square. They go in really slowly (sometimes to an opening that's farther away instead of the one right in front of them), look around, inexplicably go back out, turn around, reform their formation, halt for a few seconds, start marching back in, try to change their spacing multiple times, change their facing a few more times, mill around, start going in one direction, halt midway through, turn back, go in a different direction, stop by each tower you haven't captured yet to take arrow fire, take a meandering route to go to the town square, slow down to change each man's position in their formation, get lost a few times, eventually arrive in the town square exhausted and way out of formation. By that time, the timer is already up. I could have much better success driving around LA blindfolded than these guys trying to find their way to where you want them to go.

You have to babysit each individual unit a few steps at a time which is a very big pain when you need many units to assault a city.

You can't say "turn off the time limit" because then your city gets sieged by someone like Egypt and they take 12 units of chariots and horses and once they lose their 2 or 3 infantry that were manning the siege engines the rest just sit there on the horizon forever and it's either go out and try to kill them or lose....that's what the time limit is for....either they fix the AI or they fix the damn time limit

They should fix both. Even with fixed AI, the time limit should be increased by a few minutes. Without the fixed AI, they should double it.

I have had little to no problem with sieges. Fundamentally, however, I cannot stress how important it is to engage the majority of your adversary's army outside of cities in open warfare. I've had success, regardless, but things are so much easier when only the remnants of an army are left defending city walls.

Regardless, here's my formula:

Julii legion (Assualting Army) approaches city. Main army (Possibly general?) attacks town with Siege equipment (2-3x Mangonels, 2-4x Ballista). Siege Towers and Saps are purchased. Rest of my "Assault Legion" includes 2-4x War Dogs, 2-6x Medium / Heavy Infantry [Started out with a mix of Hastati / Pricipes, now has been replaced with 2x Praetorians / 2x Urban Cohorts with early and Legionary Cohorts mixed in], 2x Cav [Cav Aux works well, Legion Cav, then Roman Cav if I have to]. I've been trying to spice these assault troops up with Samnite Gladiators [also tried with Arcani, who worked well]. This "Legion" should be followed up with an additional army of medium / auxillia / cav / archers. There should be no General in this army, as will become evident soon...

Here's how it pans out:

Mangonels target gate, then near towers. Ballistas assist, then target Gate Door itself. Then Ballista target any near towers. As this is happening, the saps or Siege Towers should be approaching the success. It is imperative that good solid assault troops (Praetorians / Urban Cohorts) are the first inside. In my opinion, it is wiser to send troops through the siege tower first. They will take heavy casualties, but will soak it up. If you've timed it right, the towers shouldn't inflict too much casualties. As the tower-troops are making their assault, commit your war dogs. Get the handlers within striking range, let loose the dogs, then withdraw the handlers. The dogs will go "to town" on the defenders, and you will be able to bring on fresh reinforcements under *your* control, as opposed to the suicide-General-AI.

Next inside the walls should be your Gladiators [preferably through the towers], if you included them. Get them on the walls, and get them moving. Use them to suppress any enemy troops along the walls, and then 'cap' the nearest towers - the quicker you do this, the quicker you can have unlimited arrows flying at your opponent within his own city walls.

By this point, the Dogs should have soaked up some serious damage to the enemy "ground forces" near or around your saps and the gate house. Don't worry about their losses, they will be replaced after you succesfully take the town (or if you don't, heh). Now proceed to use your multiple entry points to stream in troops. I can't stress enough how important it is to open as many holes as possibly in the enemy fortifications - you will find that the enemy commits troops towards the first breach in the fortifications that you enter. By having multiple entry points you can "turn their flank", which is especially useful when facing Spear / Phalanx / Heavy Infantry units. Gain a foothold at one end of the city, secure the breach, reinforce their positions, and decide upon a plan of assault through the city proper. Remember, unsecured towers will play hell upon your progress, so try and find those major thorough-fairs that head towards the center of town. If you have done this correctly, the enemy should be reeling from heavy losses, and is more than likely retreating towards the town center to form up en masse.

Despite their exhaustion, this is another good time for your Gladiators / Heavy Infantry - get them out in front, leading the vanguard of the advancing troops as they head through the city.

I reccommend sacrificing cav units by racing around the edge of town to additionally flank the troops within the city walls. As of yet, I have not been bogged down on the paths within the city walls, but the concern remains - I'm quite positive that at some point, a unit of Heavy Infantry / Spearmen is going to hold their ground on one of the main roads and I'll get held up. As everyone has said, time is imperative, so move around them, and speed is everything.

How to handle the town center? Move up fresh medium infantry (if Roman, any troops with ranged capabilities will do nicely). Form them on the road that surrounds the city center (be careful of the border of the city center, as "touching" it triggers the defenders to assault your troops), and then march them forward en masse, with "Fire-At-Will" turned on [this is how I handle the Roman Pila problem, as well. I let them decide when to fire, and when not to]. Then, once all projectiles are exhausted, commit them. By this time, your cav should have completed their foray around town, and they should be entering the city square from the other ends. Charge them in, as well.

Hopefully you will be able to complete this in the alloted time. I've not faulted on a siege yet, but I'm also very careful to only lay siege once I've destroyed the offensive capabilities of a city (ie, taking on the cities army in the field).

You will take casualties. The only way to minimize this (in my opinion) is to take full advantage of siege weapons and War Hounds.

Sorry for being longwinded.

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Originally Posted by andrewt

Disagree. It's not that simple. Here is something more accurate.

Walls get knocked down. Men are ordered to go in, then ordered to go to the town square. They go in really slowly (sometimes to an opening that's farther away instead of the one right in front of them), look around, inexplicably go back out, turn around, reform their formation, halt for a few seconds, start marching back in, try to change their spacing multiple times, change their facing a few more times, mill around, start going in one direction, halt midway through, turn back, go in a different direction, stop by each tower you haven't captured yet to take arrow fire, take a meandering route to go to the town square, slow down to change each man's position in their formation, get lost a few times, eventually arrive in the town square exhausted and way out of formation. By that time, the timer is already up. I could have much better success driving around LA blindfolded than these guys trying to find their way to where you want them to go.

You have to babysit each individual unit a few steps at a time which is a very big pain when you need many units to assault a city.

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That matches my experience.

I now autoresolve or starve out cities with stone walls or better. Froggy fights herself: everyone dies due to the soldiers not even being able to walk where you tell them, let alone fight. Autoresolve: 100 men die, evenly spread over all the units. It feels very cheesy, but it's preferable to having a apoplexy.

No time limit for Feild Battles, but lets say an hour for Seiges.

*Cleaves the heck out of moniter*
Flavious Julious...10 stars... siege...pathfinding...town square...dead....would not fight...stairs confused him...I need a hug...

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Originally Posted by Grifman

There is something called "sapping" in the game, you know. Very simple, knocks walls down, men go in.

Grifman

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Sometimes. While I do plenty of sapping. I've had some amazingly stupid things happen in certain stone walled cities. So unless the defenders are really meager (3 units or so) I've begun starving them out.

Playing as Carthage i use 5 onagers with 10 sacred band infantry,3 war elephants and 2 cav(general inc).I take out the gate,gatehouse,the 2 walls immediately to either side of the gatehouse plus the 2 towers at the end of both those wall sections.I put the SBI on slow approach to the gaps in the walls and the gate and just before they reach these gaps i charge the elephants through.The SBI then have no problems with being flanked by the shattered units on the other side of the walls.
As the Julii i do something similar except with Urban cohorts who do not need the protection that the SBI require so no elephants needed there.

Deploying men in the city can be frustrating.

So far I've lost once due to time limits. I have had lots of close calls.

I've found the column formation makes marching up and down city streets easier. Also fast infantry like skirmashers can rund up and down the walls "taking towers"

If they do this while you solidify your position on contested walls you'll already be ready to to move your troops to attack the square from multiple vectors. They can also open alternate gates and let your horse (who already moved around the wall at a run) come charging in. If you take your time with the wall, you'll either be able to assault a lightly defended square with a cavalry charge, or send them to hit the defenders from behind and let your men come down off the walls.

Ladders send your men up walls faster than siege engines. So far I haven't seen anyone push my ladders down.

I haven't seen pathfinding issues and siege equipment except when the troops weren't near an engine.

Going slightly off-topic, one new feature I like in RTW is what happens when you starve out the enemy - rather than just die, like in STW and MTW, they try to break out of the city. It's a nice touch, although those battles are a little like defending bridges in STW and MTW - with 3 archer units, you can do terrible damage to the AI units emerging out the gate.

I must have done hundreds of sieges now, including against Rome.

They have been a mix of frustration and extreme fun.

I like the timelimit. It adds a sense of urgency to the game. You have to rush your men through the streets and you cant muck around. HOWEVER - when the pathfinding screws up and you waste 5 minutes just trying to get your men INTO the fight it can be very frustrating.

Usually I send men in small groups at a time. Siege towers are usually pretty good and are my preferred way to get in.
I usually have some sap points just incase - but I like to leave the walls intact so after my men have gained the walls they can run around and capture everything else.

The town square pathing is absolutely horrid.

At the end of the day, I dont siege but rather besiege evenly matched forces. This is common sense. The point of a fortification is to keep large numbers of men out with your inferior numbers of men.
However the usual reason for losing large numbers of my own troops is due to stupid pathfinding than any skillfull defence by the defenders.

Funnily enough I have done lots of multiplayer sieges and have had very little pathfinding problems at all.

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Going slightly off-topic, one new feature I like in RTW is what happens when you starve out the enemy - rather than just die, like in STW and MTW, they try to break out of the city. It's a nice touch, although those battles are a little like defending bridges in STW and MTW - with 3 archer units, you can do terrible damage to the AI units emerging out the gate.

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I think you start way too close (and this works the other way, the enemy starts way too close) during a sally forth battle.
Especially since most of your units are dumbly attached to siege engines when the enemy comes out, if they have a large number of cavalry this can be painful.
I dont think a beseiging army would spend 24/7 of times attached to its engines.

I lost my first assault against my own rebelling city. Unfortunately, I used the same tactics on the stone walls as against the wooden walls and was badly burnt (by boiling oil). With the inclusion of some onagers to silence the very effective towers, assaults on stone walls have become quite fun.

I've enjoyed the sieges I've done. Though they are often slightly b0rked timelimit wise. It's quite stupid how a standard battle with a few hundred men aside gets 30 mins for a time limit, and yet once I was given about 12 minutes to take a city surrounded by a stone wall?! And don't get me started on the time I had to take Rome.... in about 20 minutes?!

All I can say is, bring a lot of onagers for sieges... and a lot of cavalry to race to the square afterwards!

Try going to a siege with 16 Heavy Onagers and a handful of Urban Cohorts. I jumped a Greek city that way with an Epic Stonewall. I toggled fire on, and set them to fire at will and spent the next 33 minutes turning the entire town into a funeral pyre. Heh, Heh. Most fun I've had in months. I strolled in the Urban Cohorts to the unprotected plaza and won, decisively if I recall. ~D

Sieges are fun because they're such a challenge.

First, don't expect to wipe the floor with a large, advanced garrison.

Second, scout the city during set up to figure out the best way to the city center. I usually choose the widest road even if it's longer.

Third, attack the gate with towers (rams usually get flamed against big cities) but attack the wall in another location with sap or onagers.

Once you breach the wall you send cav and archers into the city and swing them around to support your troops attacking the gate. If the defenders are on the wall use your arrows to demoralize them. If their inf is behind the gate hit them in the back with your cav. Send inf next into the breach to block any reinforcements from the city center. After that it's mop up time.

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Originally Posted by DojoRat

Second, scout the city during set up to figure out the best way to the city center. I usually choose the widest road even if it's longer.

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Yeah, its helpful to know where you're going. My troops got lost in the assault where I was crushed. Now I take a quick look before attacking.

Does anyone know how to open the gates from the inside?

I enjoy seiges. It would be nice if you could extend the timer to 40 minutes though, without having to remove it entirely.

I had a few pathfinding problems in the streets, but telling my men to assume deep and narrow column formations helped a lot. I haven't really noticed much oddity at the town square - usually by the time I get there there is one enemy unit (Maybe 2) and a bunch of destroyed units.

I've seen a single unit carry 3 seige ladders and just race up to the wall tops at high speeds.

I've had town watch get stuck on the walls and not advance or attack to where I told them. I don't really know what the problem was, they all just stood there.

Iv'e also had problems telling men to move up seige towers - the inital bunch does fine, but if they get into combat, the rest of them seem to want to walk around in the seige tower instead of climb it.

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Originally Posted by Ulstan

Iv'e also had problems telling men to move up seige towers - the inital bunch does fine, but if they get into combat, the rest of them seem to want to walk around in the seige tower instead of climb it.

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I have noticed that you can get into problems trying to force multiple units up a seige tower as they get mixed up and entangled and this slows the exit from the tower for all units involved. I now have better results letting units go up one at a time and taking the time to build more seige towers. Four is a good number, one either side of the gate and one either side of the next towers from the gate... This allows you to hopfully shut down the towers and gate archers so you can queue other units up closer to the walls...

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Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax

I must admit, I have found the city battles nothing less than a joy to play since I removed the time limit. I haven't run in to any pathfinding problems whatsoever-just as I haven't run into a lot of other issues people mention here.

It really is bizarre, it's like some people are playing a different game.

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I agree, it´s really fun, instead of men falling down siege towers, I had them move onto the walls when the tower was still closed, but it´s very rare and only few men do it. I think the time limit would make me lose almost all siege battles, I had 10 min or so fights on the walls between my hoplites and different other units, was very interesting to strengthen your position, call reinforcements and finally capture the gate and invade with the rest of your army. The towers are no big problem, keep all of your army out of range while assaulting with 2 siege towers and lett reinforcements run to the siege towers worked very well for me on medium.

I had an immensly enjoyable siege last night where my men were duking it out on the walls for AGES, like the entire time. Without the timer I could have sat around waiting for the men on the walls to die, but because of it I had to rush a small token force towards the town square to try and capture it.

The numidian enemy had a ton of cavalry in there and all I had spare was a unit of Triarii, Mercinary War Elephants, and my general. Most of my other 17 units were either dead or fighting on the walls, with 4 minutes to go.

My Triarii died fairly quickly against the enemy cavalry and my elephants saved the day, wading through around 300 units (Im playing on huge) they made it to the town square and I managed to kill all but 2 cavalry units before the timer ran out. That's right, TWO left.

Oh well. I killed their king (only family member) in the siege and all their cities turned to rebel cities, so I practically won.

My point is that while I lost because of the timer, the timer made it way more fun (altho not very realistic).

I find thread titles like this funny, if not ridiculous. It's quite obviously not impossible since so many of us are assaulting cities and assaulting them successfully. I think it says more about the lack of generalship of the posted than anything else :)

Grifman

assaulting cities should be hard... the key though is to get some heavy ornagers, which take out even the strongest towers and gates pretty quickely.

my only complaint is that the timer is so short.

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Originally Posted by Grifman

I find thread titles like this funny, if not ridiculous. It's quite obviously not impossible since so many of us are assaulting cities and assaulting them successfully. I think it says more about the lack of generalship of the posted than anything else :)

Grifman

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true to a point

if someone could siege in MTW pretty well then Rome should be easier because they already would know the basic controls as well as a general idea of what to do. Rome is supposed to be easier for beginers - shouldn't it be that much easier for veterans?

Sapping seems reasonably easy if the sapping point can be protected. My problem is that troops seem to be awkward in the cities - pathing problems?

Maybe not.

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Originally Posted by Grifman

I find thread titles like this funny, if not ridiculous. It's quite obviously not impossible since so many of us are assaulting cities and assaulting them successfully. I think it says more about the lack of generalship of the posted than anything else :)

Grifman

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I don't think it's a lack of generalship. Some people are just prone to exaggerate, which I'm guilty of from time to time. Assaulting cities isn't really that hard in RTW. It's just that there are too many WTF? moments that makes you want to bang your head on the table and wonder if CA thought that Hashish or whatever they're on was popular among soldiers during Roman times.

it isn't hard, but every once in a while you are forced into a situation where you have to assault a large garisson, and possibly some reinforcements.

At the end of such a battle you'll be cursing "I would of succeeded if it wasn't for tha pesky clock!"

Perhaps a part of the problem is that different tactics have to be used to assault depending on the forces at hand.

If you have a pikemen army with no swordsmen (such as the selucids), forget trying to take the walls. Smash em down and get your pikes into the streets!

On the other hand, I almost lost an defense where I was facing a much smaller Brutii army. I had just smashed their large army before the gates as it sallied forth from Corinth with virtually no losses (except for my light cav - and I dont know what happened there since I was focussed on another part of the battle) and I figured it would be a breeze. Sure enough my archers and towers burnt their ram and I figured it was gonna be a turkey shoot. Next thing you know scaling ladders go up and principii are efficiently clearing the walls of my hoplites and archers. Realizing my error, I sent forth my cats and elephants and obliterated the army not yet on the walls. I withdrew the few men remaining from the walls and the brutii on the walls entered the city then routed.

The funny thing was I lost an elephant to oil from the "captured" gate as it chased after the miscreants from the city!

The key to an assault (as I'm still learning) is to vary your tactics and use the weapons at hand. This isnt MTW.