Invincible Greeks?

[Thrudvang]

Okay, I just started a game as Carthage on Medium/Medium and trying to take the Greek city on the island below greece (that has a Carthage, Scipii and Greek city on it).

I have alot of guys and I tried automating it (since I dont like attacks on stone wall cities) since I had the bar mostly in my favor. Defeat. Reload and retry, defeat. Always defeat. So I try fighting it.

I had a ram, but archers burned it down. So I reloaded and tried working on the unit of archers on the wall. I used my horse javelineers, javelin guys and slingers against them and all 3 units died and only brought the archers to half-way.

So I reloaded I tried with ram and siege tower. After getting the tower up and loaded and my guys came out, I sent my men (Iberian Round Shield Infantry) to kill the archers and look what happens:



Ehh, how do plain Archers beat a combat unit in straight up melee??

I even sent Javelin guys to toss at the archers sides and that barely did anything. Then I sent the ram forward, since the archers are busy.

And the walls have archers in them and they burned my ram down!

So..

1.How the hell am I suppost to kill them?
and
2.How am I suppost to break the door down?

Thanks in advance

[Daevyll]

Try building some more advanced siege equipment, like towers and sapping points.

Incidentally, the island you are referring to is Sicily, and it lies to the south of Italy, not Greece.

[Thrudvang]

Whoops, I ment to say Italy.

I did build a siege tower (thats how I got my guys up there) but I cant really build anything else besides rams/ladders/towers/saps because it's the start of a new game.

[Bob the Insane]

Personally I never use rams against stone wall citys.. The gates are too well defended...

I just about always use Siege towers... Take the time to build some, maybe even 3 or 4... I often send the time to build extra siege equipment and then take the unit away from it during the setup so it is a sort of reserve..

But for normal stone walls I find a couple of siege towers sufficient unless the enemy has lots of archers... I find one units of archers can usually destory one seige tower in the time it takes for the towers to reach the wall...

You can work around this by spacing your siege towers as wide apart as possible so at least one gets through... Once you have men on the walls you need to start capturing towers and the gates...

For men on the wall, wait until the majority are up the siege tower before sending into a fight unless the enemy are waiting for you on the wall where the siege tower is deployed...

Don't be tempted to try sending multiple units up a siege tower at once as they will get totally tangled up and take for ever to all get on the walls, much better to have a couple of whole units on the wall rather than a portion of 4 or 5 units..

Be very aware of any wall towers that a capable of firing at you troops on the wall (near corners of the wall usually), these need to be captured immediately unless you like wasting your men...

Capture the gate asap so you can bring up more troops... and try and clear the walls of any defenders (pretty obvious that one)...

If the enemy has a lot of phalanx and cavalry waiting inside the gate area make sure you have captured all near by towers and gates as they will fire on the defenders... Also getting your missile troops on the wall is a good idea to clear the inside of the gate area...

At this point you can move you own troops inside the gate and start bringing your troops down of the walls to finish things off..

Note for troops on the walls, be carefull moving multiple units at once as they can get tangled up, block and even knock each other off the wall if it gets crowded enough...

Additionally never, never, never tell a unit to get down off the wall though a tower of gate until the unit is completely on the wall first (no men left climbing the seige tower) as this will completely screw the unit pathfinding and the unit will become unusable...

[MonkeyMan]

Whoops, I ment to say Italy.

I did build a siege tower (thats how I got my guys up there) but I cant really build anything else besides rams/ladders/towers/saps because it's the start of a new game.

Try using saps they are slow to dig but much more reliable than towers and rams on the larger walls. Also once the saps break the wall, your whole army can be in the city fast, whereas with a tower you have to capture the gate (which doewsn't always help!!) or bring units up the tower very slowly. I've actually given up on towers/ladders/rams on stone wall cities, its far too costly in men. I've had tower collapse and burn with a full unit of experienced urban cohorts in it. I've also seen 20 odd men who were on the floor waiting to get on the tower, suddenly make like they were falling and die.

[Magraev]

Let those archers come to you. Breach the wall at some point where there are no archers and rush to the city square (elefants in front naturally).

then the archers have to come after you, and then you can run them over with your cav. Don't even think about using iberian infantry as anything other than cannon-fodder. They are very very weak.

[Thrudvang]

Thanks for the tips, i'll try them out

[qmark]

Gotta agree with the previous replies... build at least 2 towers. I sometimes build a couple of ladders as well. Send your hardest unit up the towers (on seperate walls, normally either side of the gatehouse) and try to clear the battlements. Once you've captured the battlements or look like doing it pretty soon, get a unit of archers up there! They can then rain fire down onto the garrison troops below with near impunity.

I've found that the wall towers will keep on firing until you've sent some men down onto the ground but this can be costly. As you're about to take control of the gatehouse have the rest of your force move closer into the gate and make ready. If possible have a unit of Hoplites and cavalry charged, pardon the pun, to storm the gates.

Later on use Elephants to do the same thing, they'll clear the route to the sqaure for you sharpish!

Attacking stone walled cities is one of the best things about the game, possibly excepting trying to find the bloomin square in time! Though I've downloaded the battle timer off/on app to solve this.

[Thrudvang]

The sap did the trick and I would of won it, but the dumb clock..

This image is my gripe about how little sense the timer makes



And yeah, afterwards my forces withdrew from the Greek town..

[Didz]

First of all against walled cities I only ever use sap points and ladders.

Don't automanage.

Once you have a practical breach, use missile troops in open order to keep the archers on the wall busy and to pepper any troops sent to defend it.

I usually follow a set pattern in storming a breach.

Massed archers and javelins to soften up the defenders.

Then send in the dogs of war to cause chaos and whilst the enemy is trying to finish them off storm it with a column of heavy infantry. As soon as you are inside tally off units to seize the towers and clear the walls. Keep feeding units onto the walls until they are cleared and in your hands then replace their archers with yours.

Let the archers slaughter any counter-attacks.

After that mass your troops inside the walls. Form a column and march on the Town Square.

If you are going to lose it will be because you can't gain a foothold inside the breach thats the hardest part. Once you have the walls and all your troops inside the city it should be pretty easy.

[Sinner]

As another option, why not simply starve the defenders into submission? It does tie up your troops for a number of turns, but best case the city will just surrender with no losses to you - which is what's happened in every siege I've done so far - if not, they'll eventually sally and you get to fight them, but at least they'll be coming out from behind the walls.

[Khorak]

And finally, you appear to be making the mistake of thinking that Iberian swordsmen are useful for combat. They're not. Possibly some can be used as servants and doorstops but otherwise, they're just a showcase of how everything Iberian in this game blows. Those Hoplite mercenaries should have been on that wall schooling those archers, they would have massacred the lot of them.

[Ulstan]

For stone walls, don't bother with rams. The gate will have boiling oil on it anyway. Send up men onto the walls with seige towers and ladders. Take the time to build quite a few and flood the wall with infantry.

Your current army is very infantry light to try seiging a a city like syracuse.

I think you can give a single infantry unit more than one ladder (it could depend on size though - with 80 man units I have had 3 ladders in one unit) and this lets them get up onto the walls nice and quickly.

[Slaists]

it also depends what difficulty you are playing: on VH, vanilla archers have better attack stats than your iberian infantry... the latter being just a unit of beefed up town militia. Also, while your infantry was attacking the archers, the wall towers probably just continued shooting at them...

[Slaists]

I've found that the wall towers will keep on firing until you've sent some men down onto the ground but this can be costly. As you're about to take control of the gatehouse have the rest of your force move closer into the gate and make ready. If possible have a unit of Hoplites and cavalry charged, pardon the pun, to storm the gates.

the wall tower actually stop firing at your troops as soon as you fully control the wall section they belong to. sometimes it's tricky, since the tower might actually belong to the "next" section rather than the one you are on. the posession of the wall section is indicated by the little flags on it. if the flags up are still enemy's: the towers will shoot at you. also, after you take posession of the wall section, towers will still be shooting, but - at your enemy... i've had towers decimate and route whole defender units.

[sapi]

Always use sap points. The key against the greeks is to move in before they can form phlanaxes and block the roads. Quick!

[Bob the Insane]

the wall tower actually stop firing at your troops as soon as you fully control the wall section they belong to. sometimes it's tricky, since the tower might actually belong to the "next" section rather than the one you are on. the posession of the wall section is indicated by the little flags on it. if the flags up are still enemy's: the towers will shoot at you. also, after you take posession of the wall section, towers will still be shooting, but - at your enemy... i've had towers decimate and route whole defender units.

Thanks for that , I thought you only had to get your men int the tower (run through it and onto the other section of wall.. But I guess it looked like that because their was no one else on the walls...

[Bob the Insane]

The sap did the trick and I would of won it, but the dumb clock..

This is why I always make sure the timer in disabled at the beginning of a campaign (the old Historical Battles section trick)...

The only time this can cause a proble is if the AI sieges you with a superior force but you manage to destory their Siege equipment when they assault... They will just sit there wondering what to do and you can't end the battle...

But you can abuse the AI ignoring the arrows from the towers and gates issue to resolve this by tempting them closer to the walls... And then speeding up time... Cheap I know but I can't think of another way around the issue...

Additionally: IMHO withdrawing from a Siege assault or even having been routed (on the battle map) should result in the lifting of the seige and your armies taking just one step back... This means that there is a penalty for assaulting but failing to follow through and capture the city but your full strength and well ordered attacking army will not simply disappear. As you have only moved one space away it will also mean that if you have withdrawn because of the destruction of siege equipment you have the option of restarting the siege (the penalty is the reseting of the seige timer) and if you have withdrawn/routed due to losing the battle you would be close enough for the enemy to follow up if they wanted for a normal field battle with the normal results...

Anyone know if that sort of logic change could be modded in???

[Slaists]

even though i hate the timer and i believe, the times aloted are frequently insanely disproportionate to the difficulty of capturing the particular settlement: i still use it. kind of gives me additional suspense...

nonetheless, it can become very frustrating with the current path-finding problems (and, unfortunately, i do not believe they will solve those to our satisfaction in the upcoming patch), which cause your units not listen to marching commands given in a city or sends some of them sideways right into the way of a hail of arrows... similarly, very disenheartening are those times when the lone horse missile router runs back and forth, on and off the town square and you're playing greeks, for example - with no unit that can catch the guy...