Anyone else hate assaulting a city?

[satalexton]

the pathfinding inside settlements tend to tick me off so much I start screaming gibberish at my laptop D=

[||Lz3||]

the pathfinding inside settlements tend to tick me off so much I start screaming gibberish at my laptop D=

<.< las time I lost like 150 skirmishers cause they "retreated" straight to the enemy...

[jabarto]

They annoy me too, not because of difficulty or lack thereof, but because of the fact that units in the town square never flee and seem to take forever to kill. Which means I have to sit and watch my 3 or 4 units of shock troops take on a shattered unit of levy spearmen who just refuse to die in any timely fashion.

The one glaring exception to this rule is when I'm playing as Carthage and trying to subjugate Africa. Few things please me more than filling those Numidian skirmishers with arrows as they dash about like headless chickens behind their feeble walls.

[Ibrahim]

It depends on what's defending. if the unit(s) is a nightmare to fght on a sreet, then I wait it out-that way in the open, I can surround and neutralize it quickly. I also usually prepare a special force (usually shock troops), to assault the walls. normally they can just charge in (afte they use a ram of course), but if the enemy is shooting at me with much missile fire, I send in some mercenary light infantry as cannon fodder; I prefer the mercenary gallic swordsmen for cannon fodder, since they take a lttle longer to die= more enemy missiles wasted. I also tend to fire over me troops if the enemy has a stone wall, so as to cover them in an assault (esp. with battering rams and ladders). If they sally, I send missile troops out to shoot at tehm as they leave the gate, since usually the AI is dumb enough to just cram into a single gate. I once killed off 75% of an enemy force by shooting at them with slingshot and javelin, and getting them to charge through 1 gate (anyone seen the 1931 movie gallipolli? never mind). I lost only 3-5% casualties, most from friendly fire.

and yes, i hate to assault cities. the siege I mentioned up there was an exception to the rule; typically, 10-15% is considered acceptable in a siege, mostly due to plaza fighting. but to defeat the enemy, I must deprive them of their cities, so I do it anyways. also, since I prefer to minimize field battles, by out manuevering the enemy, sieges are far more common than with most players; 80% of all me engagements in the AS campaign i played last year were assaults on cities. a romani game had the most field battles, at c.40%. but even with the romani, its mostly siege.

[Perturabo]

Ones that tick me off are when the enemy repetitively besieges my cities with 4-5 units - and I have a full stack.

As to assaulting... Phalanx dude! Assuming wooden walls, massacre the headless chooks with archers/slingers. Then knock two holes in the wall. Run a phalanx into the street behind the wall and form a street filling phalanx, or as close as the re-eff%$#-tarded pathfinding will let you... When the enemy charge into the front of the phalanx as is inevitible, let them wear down somewhat then charge heavy cavalry (preferably) or heavy infantry into their rear. Run down survivors, rinse and repeat.

Bar the final square you should capture the town with less than 1% casualties.

[Senshi]

Yeah, and that's exactly the thing which is no fun -_-

It's absolutely stupid if you can conquer a whole capital with such minimal losses, and rather unreal...

I noticed that if the city garrison has no general as a leader, normal auto-calcing gives pretty accurate results (slightly higher losses on your side), but if they have a general (who most the times also has like 9 command stars) it doesn't matter if you attack with your 2000 men highly experienced elite troops and he only has a garrison of 400, autocalcing massacres your army and there even is a high propability of being defeated...
Here typing "auto_win attacker" in console first tends to give you accurate results, still adequate losses on your side, but you win the battle obviously.
If battles are really tough and the outcome is not 90% clear, I of course play the battle, because these battles are the most thrilling ones!

[Jaywalker-Jack]

If youre really stuck with a walled city, there are ways around it. For a start, building lots of siege equipment will allow you to attack from multiple fronts, dividing the defenders.

Or if youre being sneaky, you can make a feigned attack on one side. Let me explain.
Place your entire army plus a siege unit on one side of the city, except for one other siege unit, which you ready to attack a different side. Click "start battle" and you'll see the AI has placed all its defenders on the wall facing your main army. Then you simply take the undefended wall, completely unopposed, while you move your main army.

This creates a new problem though - assaults go from being too hard to a bit too easy.