Possible Siege defending exploit? Or just a sneaky trick?

[Porter Trill]

I can't really tell if this a bug or not or if most people already know about this. I more or less discovered this by accident.

I was playing as egypt on the Grand Campaign on maximum difficutly. After taking Constantinople, the pope called a crusade on me. After many, many, many years and even more seige battles, I got pretty darn good at defending myself in such a situation. One thing I found by accident, while trying to use flaming cataputs to burn enemy rams....is that if I move 1 unit of catapults outside my gate at the beginning of the battle (i originally did this to get a clear shot to burn up rams and siege towers, sacrificing the unit in the process) and park it a few paces in front of my gate...enemy rams cannot get by. At all. The ramming unit will collide with the artillery and both crews will duke it out for a bit. My unit usually dies pretty quickly, but the ram cannot further advance past my abandoned machine. If i manage to burn all the seige towers...all they have left is their own artillery (which I sack quickly with mamluks or arab cavarly) and ladders....and we all know how well ladders actually work, especially by themselves against a huge city.

If the enemy has mulitple rams, they still cannot get by the traffic jam of abondoned wooden thingsbut they try, ususally getting the new ram burned in the process. I tried this in a few other situations later in the game, i used other artillery such as ballistas and it worked as well. Apparently, you can use rams to go after other sections of wall (i've only done this vs. small wooden castles, not sure if it works on stone walls). And of course, the enemy can go for one of your other gates, but the AI has never even tried anything like this.

Anyone else have any experience with such things? I'm sure this does nothing in MP vs. a real opponent.

Oh, and 1 important thing, leaving your own castle during a siege can sometimes backfire as your army leaves the gate open the whole time, letting the enemy in. I found that when i send cav and arty through the gate, don't leave any defending units anywhere near the gate, as this keeps it open. I wish you could control exactly when the gates open and shut.

[PBI]

Interesting trick. Generally it is quite easy to stop rams via an exploit if you send any unit out to engage the unit pushing the ram; the AI will almost never pick up the ram again and carry on. This exploit seems even better though; if you push a pair of catapults through the gate, and dump them such that there's no room for a ram to pass on either side, I can't see what even a human player could do about it since only another catapult crew would be able to move them. The AI would be completely sunk since I've never seen it attempt to attack another gate, but I suppose a human player would; however, nothing to stop the defender from sending the catapult crew out to pick them up, march them through the inside of the city, and dump them again outside the other gate.

I suppose you could send a sacrificial unit to park on the catapults and kill the crew if they come near; still a huge inconvenience to move the entire army 90 degrees around the city plus almost certainly lose the unit guarding the catapults. I imagine I would be fuming if someone did this against me.

Oh, and ramming walls is only possible against towns and motte & bailey castles, which barely offer much in the way of defense anyway.

[Old Geezer]

I wondered how that lone unit of Mongol HAs got into Antioch after I had sallied out the back and destroyed thier trebs and rockets. My stupid general must have stood too close to the gate and invited them in.

[Galain_Ironhide]

A very interesting observation with the catapaults as an exploit. Must say I have never thought of that one. Good job.

However, I must say I probably wouldn't use it. As these days, I'm more into using house rules to make the AI a bit more competitive. Otherwise battles become a little too 'rinse and repeat' after a while.

I have also had a stray unit (normally HA's) of my own inadvertantly open the gates for the enemy every now and then. I once lost a siege battle against the Mongols due to this. I was massively outnumbered, but had my gates stayed shut, I could have easily bled them out and won. Certainly made it all the more interesting anyway.

[Ramses II CP]

Yeah, this is a good old trick. You don't have to let the ballista crew die (I always use a ballista since it's easier to move them around the gates); just have them abandon the implement in the gateway and no ram can get past it.

A slightly less exploitative trick is simply to attack the ram crew and then retreat. The AI will abandon the ram even if you don't kill a single member of the crew and 99% of the time they won't pick it back up or send a new crew forward. You can do this over and over for multiple rams.

FYI the AI is pathetic at sieges. It's literally broken IMHO. Just wait until you see them try to capture huge walls with a siege tower.

[Askthepizzaguy]

It's easier to use the Holy Cross unit (crusader mercenaries with a wooden cross) to block the inside of a gate, drop the equipment, and turn them into a wall unit.

Also, those Milanese "standard" units can do the same thing. Even if it doesn't totally block access, it severely cramps the opening and allows your units to have the "local numbers advantage", where even though the enemy force is massive, you've bottlenecked the opening enough to slaughter whatever comes through with minimal casualties.

Trying to get through the gate itself is tiring for units, because once the lead unit starts "fighting", all adjacent units begin to tire as well, and they're being fired upon by the towers and not making forward movement.

Also, guys, I really want to share this one with you: It's very effective.

Take a very large, decent morale infantry unit that is mostly effective at DEFENSE, and put them in a standard sized formation, on DEFEND mode, right behind the gates, but with a little room left over so that there's an opening on both sides.

If you have some to spare, put another one behind it, exactly the same way, on "hold your ground" mode. They will maintain formation and not fight until they are being attacked, which conserves strength.

Now, on both flanks, have units that are vicious on offense, but maybe dont have the best defense. Who cares? You need offensive power here. Axemen, billmen, anything with a really vicious streak. Put them on both flanks, but NOT in defense mode.

Put your remaining reserves on the walls, keep your general planted behind the defensive infantry, also on guard mode. Now, when the wall assault fails due to laddermen sucking out loud, and the seige tower men, if any, are too busy fighting on the walls to intervene, eventually the ram will break through, and their main forces and their general will attempt to move through the gate.

Their lead unit, hopefully depleted from missile fire, will be tired from using the ram, and their morale may be beaten down, being so close to your general and also because upon entering your settlement they begin attacking what is directly in front of them (to little effect) and then they are ambushed on both sides by vicious, aggressive forces which begin to erode what's left of them. This puts them into a wavering or shaken mode almost instantly, and when they attempt to rout, they cannot!

Their own forces are bunched up, trying to move forward, and they aren't fighting effectively and their fellow units lose morale and become tired. They lose more men to tower fire and wall losses, and your own men lose few troops and their morale increases.

Already, the entire battle looks bad for the attacker, and the real engagement is only mere seconds into melee fighting. If you can manage to get 2 or 3 units to rout, or slay their general (also easy using this method... too much infantry/spearmen, and usually the general cannot get his whole unit through at once, making each individual man an easy target...) it creates a mass rout.

Now, I HOPE you brought some light cavalry. Chase down the SOB's and kill them all! Get some massive experience in the process, and add some heroic defender traits to your general.

I really wish the AI were more aggressive. I'd make one great defender... but dangit, I'm usually forced to attack. Can anyone recommend a mod with beefy, aggressive AI?

VeryHard/VeryHard on all my current mods isn't hard enough to satisfy me. I want to risk losing for once! In fact, I'd like it very much if I got excommunicated and I got the Pope to call a Crusade against me, but even that doesn't happen very much even when I'm being a sick, evil bastard.

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME.... I want to fight defensive battles for a change!

[Porter Trill]

yeah, i pretty much stopped using this technique after I perfected it, as it makes the game too damn easy. About half the time I manage to burn rams anyway with static settlement defenses. If they bring it with their own artillery, I have a good time sallying out with cavalry and sacking it, and causing general chaos in the lines. Doesnt' work as well if they bring a ton of xbows, but then again, it shouldn't.

Has anyone made any observations on defending seige engines inside castle walls? I set my arty on fire at will and they get a fireing icon, but they never seem to be actually shooting at the attackers. I'd like for something like a cannon, mortar or catapult to be able to fire at rams and towers and such so i have to chance to burn them up. This never seems to happen. Am i posistioning them so the trajectory is impossible, or is it just not possible anyway you position them? If the assaulter is taking his damn sweet time, I sometimes send arty through my side door to fire at them from the flank, but that takes a while to setup.

Do certain seige engines move faster than others?

Is there an optimal posistion for Handgun type infantry on rampart walls? I put them up there and they never seem to rack up any kills in a defending seige, while my archers rock the house. Naffatun is just cruel.

The computer REALLY can't beat me in seiges at all if i''ve made the minimal perparations. And i'm only talking Cities, large and huge. If I have a Fortress or Citadel, there is no chance. Only challenge is with the Timurids and if they have super long range monster bombards. My walls dont' last long vs. them.