Help....how to break a massive siege!!!

[Besieger]

My dear fellow Total Warriors....now playin my first campaign as Britti(hard/hard) and my new capital in Athens being heavily siege by the Macedonians.....for ur info....i have 8 roman archers, 3 calvary, 3 townwatch and a general, while they hav 2 stacks of army(i think 20 each) besieging me......HELP!!!!

[Fridge]

The important thing is... what sort of walls have you got?

If you've got wooden, you're f***ed! Your garrison's a bit odd - archers are the most useful units in sieges with stone walls, but you can never really use more than four at a time, and the one thing that will really save you is good infantry. And you've got town watch... :o

I'm guessing as its Athens you've probably got stone walls, in which case, ignore the front gate, and just put a unit of town watch on the walls opposite wherever their siege equipment is (if they've got saps you're in trouble, but just line up the tw on the ground behind where the wall's going to collapse - they don't get crushed by the several hundred tonnes of rock falling on them!). Then arrange your bowmen in the gaps.

Your only chance is to take out the siege equipment - they may have 40 units, but they'll still probably only have four bits of equipment, so they can only attack at four places, one of which will be the gate - let the boiling oil and towers take care of them.

Siege towers, get flaming arrows on them asap, and I find you can't just click once and let the archers carry on, you have to keep ordering them to fire. It won't look as if the flaming arrows are doing much good, but four or five volleys of flaming ones should set the tower on fire, collapsing it and killing everyone in side. If you can get rid of their siege quipment, your cavalry should be able to finish off anyone stuck inside.

Ladders you'll just have to fight off with the town watch, and when the enemy get to the walls, be careful that your archers aren't firing into the melee, you can lose half a unit in one volley like that.

One thing - if you've got a unit on a wall that's about to be sapped, move them.

Get reinforcements there as soon as possible as well. With two stacks, they can keep you continually under siege, and you won't be able to retrain units or repair the wall. A small army of shit troops or mercenaries can sometimes draw off one of the stacks to give you a turn of breathing space...

If your walls are wooden... ever thought of surrendering?

[Leodegar]

it's often possible to lure your besiegers within range of your towers/archers on the wall, with just one unit sallying, and retreating, as soon as they rush towards you... do it again and again... also, some may say it's kind of cheating to extensively exploit the ai's stupidity...

or just attacking your besiegers from outside... or just wait, often the ai abandons seiges without obvious reasons...

by the way, who are the britti? brutii who took over britannia? ;)

[asmode]

Your archers will be useless when the macedonians will either break your gates or climb on your walls using assault towers.
Try to build infantry or pikes, place them on the wall, and crush your enemies as soon as they put a foot inside.
Or, and it might be the best solution , surrender and become slave, I’ve know happy slaves....

[Paul Peru]

If you're not adverse to cheesy exploits, Leodegar's suggestion might work.
Send out a unit or 2 of cav., and lure the enemy close to your towers.
I took out 2 full phalanxes and 2 full units of falxmen with 2 units of peltasts leading them round'n'round the wooden walls.

[Fridge]

Ah well now, if we're using cheesy exploits... ; )

If you've got wooden walls, and can recruit any unit with phalanx ability (merc maybe?), just line them up as close to the wall as possible in front of the enemy rams, and whaddyaknow, their spears stick out through the wall and kill anyone who attempts to use the ram...

[Oaty]

First of all you might want to move your capital. Do you really want your new 16 year old general popping up there.

Considering what your up against your best off training units elswhere and bringing them in as soon as you think you can beat them or on the last turn of the siege.

Another option (not to sure on this) since your going to lose it extermnate the populace before they take it. It's a Greek city culturewise, so they are just about guaranteed to maintain the city.

You can't train new units on a city under siege but you can que it up. Que up as many peasants as you can and when they take it the city will only be good economically.

In cases like this I usually plan for the loss I just try to find a way to make em pay

[Ziu]

For a start he cannot train new units if he is being besieged.

Other than that like others have said it depends on your walls.
I assume also they are stone in which case you should be able to do a lot of damage with your archers. Target the towers with fire and the ladder unit can be decimated enough to not be able to raise the ladders. Sap points can also be targeted with fire and will collapse killing many of the soldiers digging. Try to get as many archers units on the walls as possible. I would put my town watch in front of the gate as if it is breached cavalry will more than likely be the first coming through.
Good luck and most of all, have fun!

[megger]

Presonally, I try to keep 5 or more archer troops in my larger settlements. When I am besieged, I try to break the siege right away during the turn when I am first besieged. This way, I can just put my archers on the walls and start firing at them. If they are not close enough, I send out a horse-troop real quick to lure them closer, which works more often than not.

Fairly often, I run out of arrows before I scare them all away. In that case, I simply try to break the siege a second time within the same turn, and if I have to, even a third.

At the end, you seriously weakened your opponent with hardly any losses on your end. Kind of almost like cheating, but on the other hand, I am not entirely sure why it would not be fair...

Markus

[Besieger]

Hey thanx for all ur precious info on how to counter e macedonians....My city is protected by stone wall as i had juz occupy it in 201B.C...Leodegar's idea kinda work for me lifting the siege...but in addition of that i totally finish off the enemy 10++ hoplites with my 3 calvary flanking them from their sides...but it took me 2 turns to do it as i can onli deal with 1 stack of 20 enemies each turn...

To make it clear theres a reason why i moved my capital to Athen, firstly,i had occupy most of greece and as we know, its a place when wealth increases thru trading with e east asia...secondly, i'm now goin to concentrate my expansion to the east while still wantin to maintain my influence in italy, so Athen is e ideal place as my new family members can be easily distribute evenly to my west and east frontiers....Last but not least....why do i still hav to be content in italy with e senate when i can be King in Greece!!! :p

But still....thanx for all ur help...pls kindly share ur view on my plan list above....all will be appreciate....thanx!!!

[Mikemyers64]

hide in the town center, by the time they reach you theyll have like 2 mins to do any damage to you