Actually, I find sapping terrible.

I tried it first when facing epic walls, defended by only a handfull of troops. I had sent in my three rams, all burn, my two siege towers, both destroyed, ladders seemed not to appear on the battlemap and I assumed this was a feature of epic walls, to tall for ladders.

So, all I had left with my thousand man strong army was sapping. I send in a junk unit to dig, they do so, the wall comes down, everything ios huny dory. I see the defenders moving to stand in the breach and charge in with three liegon cohorts. By the time they get to the breach (situated at a most awkward position by the AI sapping point) there are less than a hundred men in total, and when they engage the enemy they are all 'shaken' despite a good general being in command. When they routed, three, yes THREE men made it off the map, the rest being cut down by arrows.

They killed about 40 defenders, thats all.

So, I think 'towers are my problem, tustedo is the solution' and send in three more, this time in tustedo formation. ten minutes later they finally reach the breach in the walls (gawd they're slow) having lost about ten men each, alot better than last time. So, I tell them to go into normal formation and charge, and they stand thee shuffling about for almost a ful minute getting shot at by the towers while forming up.

In the end, they did charge, killed about a hundred defenders then routed away from the one remaining enemy unit, the general with three horsemen left. At that point I said sod it and reloaded the previous save, then built more siege towers. Killed all defenders and lost about 50 men that way.

I tried sapping a few other times but the towers always kill so many men as they make for the breach that when they get there they are on the brink of running away.

Ladders are the best, send cohorts, principals or similar up there and they will manage to cut their way into the enemy in no time. Yeah, you'll ose a few but with siege towrs by the time your men come out of the tower the time is up. If you send multiple ladders then you can keep the enemy occupied on the wall with one (as long as you don't mind losing most of them) while flanking and capturing nearby towers with the others.


Oh, and rams are very good if you can make them work. Send a junk unit, send it in with another unit to draw enemy fire, and don't worry about them getting roasted by oil. The gates will break eventually and the junk unit can distrat any men on the walls long enough for your troops to rush in, far better than sapping as you have easy access to the walls from the gate, wheras from a sap point you have to fight your way through numerous defenders to get up there.