City Defence

[Old Geezer]

In some cases I would like to be able to open my gate just to entice the poor devils in to the grinder so that they'd forget about assaulting the walls. Three pike or armored spear units will hold a mass of AI troops in place and the AI's reinforcements pile up under the hot oil bath. The pile of bodies in that small area can be astounding. I don't think the gatehouse ever runs out of hot oil.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I really wish there was a 10x or maybe bigger speed setting to help things along when the AI decides to knock down every wall section, and even more importantly to get through those passive AI battles.

I've even had enemy siege units march through my city to destroy towers on the far side!

[G^2]

I generally only have a few spear militia and one or two units of archers or xbows when my cities get attacked, because I try to fight mostly field battles. I usually, set two spear units right under the gates and bow units on the walls with a unite of spears to fend off any seige towers. Similar to what Old Geezer stated, the two siltroms units pin the enemy while oil is poured on their heads. Man, I love the 1.3 patch. Usually works unless the enemy brings artillery, then I pin them in the streets in a slug fest.

[Duke Bart]

I have gone over to the ballista method, works great in cities, not so much castles though.

Most cities have that one main street the AI always go down and so a few units of balista can really really hurt them there. For some reason they suddenly turn accurate on me!