Are Ballista's Good For Gates? Not Just Plasaide, But Sone Wall Gates To?

[Siris]

Are the Ballista's good for knocking out the gates even on stone walls, large stone walls, & Epic's? I know that their good with plaside walls, but will they be good for piercing open an enemy gate from afar even on the large stronger walls since your only fireing on the gate itself?

If so, this could be a new good strategy for people wanting to take the gate, instead of having to wait on the ram, if it ever makes it! Just fire huge missles from afar & ride in claiming the gate, but of course losing lots to oil, but you'll still capture the gateway quickly by riding through it right ? Much simpler & easier than a battering ram.

[Darius]

Well while they would eventually take down the gates, its definitely not a move that I would advise. Lets say your favorite faction, the Greeks were the owners of this fortress. Seeing as how you are trying to take it, they will of course defend it.

So by the time you have finally opened the gates, they will have arrayed their strongest hoplites in a nice little kill zone on the other end. Along the ramparts would be your enemies missile units, whom would be raining down death upon your men as they attempt to enter the gate. Since this seems to be the only way your entering (or so I'm assuming) the enemy will have the majority, if not all of their units deployed here in order to keep you bottled up here.

So as your men charge towards the walls, they take fire from the towers and the missile units. Then they begin being immolated by the oil, only to finally be met with bristling spear points that prevent them from getting out from under said oil. As your men are stalled the missile units continue to shoot your forces that are bunched up about the gates.

Now lets say that somehow, your army managed to break through the spearmen. You'll still be taking damage from the remaining missile units upon the walls, and since they are up there still, you havent taken the gate house (At least I believe that is how it works, may be wrong here) and therefore your army is still being immolated as it goes through the gates. So now your battered infantry are forced to now climb up and do battle with the missile units.

Should you manage to then capture the gate house, you will have to then defeat any reserve units as well as those of any that might have made it back to the city square. So now you have to engage in street fighting, and then finally make a mad dash into the square.

Of course this would likely all result in a mind boggling amount of casualties on your part, if not an outright and humiliatingly decisive defeat. I should know, I saw a friend of mine try this once. There was much that day.

[Siris]

Yes, what you say is true, but for the Plasaides, this is a good tactic I think, you wont lose as much men on the advance with the battering ram from their towers. As for the big gates, say I put seige towers to the walls (romans Julii Post Marius vs. Greeks), some ladders mabye, or a sap point, and use say some weak peasants to keep them busy at the gate, while their missle units are being ravaged by my elite soliders on the walls, I send my calvery or another force around through the sapped hole.

I flank their main gate defense line, and ravage them badley, even if they continue to win down there, their missle units & few infantry units up top are destroyed by my elite men.

I send up archers to the top, & peltasts (which I never use, archers only). Then then rain fire down upon the flanked enemy. My peasant unit flees, from being bathed in hot oil, and being massacred by the phallanx spears.

I send down my elite units from the top walls to attack the remaining gate defenders, which are now turned fighting the calvery & other force that I sent through the sapped wall hole. They get flanked, and massacred, then attempt to flee, and I then send in a full unharmed unit of calvery that I had waiting near the main battle of the gates, and mow them all down.

I send in my archers to rain fire upon the city square, killing all I can until the arrow's are all used up ( no time limit ), meanwhile manuvering my elite soliders around to attack from three or more directions.

Then I send them all in from each direction & surround them. I lose much men from the spears, but the flanking efforts destroy them utterlly, and I gain a decisive victory.

Another way to look at it. Supreme human tactics, reason AI gets demolished most of the time, unless they horribly out number & out strength you.

[Fridge]

If you've got ballistas, have you also got onagers? They can knock down a gate in no time, and they can take out the gatehouse pretty quick too: no boiling oil

[Sinner]

The AI's main weapon in sieges is the game timer, backed up by the damned pathfinding.... doesn't matter how good your troops are or how clever your plan, you'll be losing troops, often in a ludicrous way.

Without the timer it's possible to properly plan your attacks, minimizing your losses when taking a stone walled city against even the toughest defenders. My favored technique involves elite archers - so Cretan Archers for factions without their own - to kill any troops on the walls, although cataphract archers in a cantabrian circle can substitute. If you're low on archers but have onagers, then use them to isolate enemy troops by knocking down the tops of the walls on either side of them, at the very least you'll delay their movements if they attempt to reposition and at best you'll isolate them.

During the intial missile bombardment you should be getting your siege towers into position. Before you start the battle have a close look at the city walls, you will often find avenues of approach that cannot be covered by the wall towers or at most only for a short while at long range, this is where you want to direct your towers.

Another trick if you're low on archers but have plenty of cheap infantry is to push a spare siege tower up towards some defenders you want to clear off the walls and let the missile capability of the tower kill them. Just move the siege tower in front of the wall - don't actually attack the wall - and make sure fire-at-will is on. I like using mercenaries for this since I consider them expendible and if they and the siege tower survive I either assault that section of wall as a diversion or move them elsewhere to repeat the same.

Once my siege towers have delivered the first wave of troops to the walls I like to send troops racing around as much of the walls as possible, capturing the wall towers and gates, thus turning the defences to my advantage. You do have to be careful with some sections since the wall towers are actually positioned to cover the battlements themselves rather than enemies outside the walls. I either ignore these areas, approach from the other end if that's clear, or swallow the casualties if it's a unit of archers who were dumb enough to shoot that one peasant in the middle of my elite infantry... perhaps one day they'll learn!

While taking as many wall towers as I can reach, I'll send missile troops up the siege towers, positioning them on the walls to kill as many defenders as possible in the streets below, pushing them back so that my final assault infantry can enter through the now-captured gates unmolested.

If the enemy has tough blocking forces positioned - phalanxes spring to mind - then I'll lead my heavy infantry with more archers, if neccessary setting up an ambush. The lead archers skirmish against the defenders, whittling them away with arrows. If the defenders stand then I'll either eventually kill them all with missile fire or weaken them so much that they stand no chance against the infantry. If they try to chase my archers away, then I'll try to lead them down side alleys towards additional waiting archers, continuously skirmishing away and again slowly whittling their numbers away.

If I'm short on realworld time I sometimes exploit the silly bug that causes the last defenders to dumbly stand in the middle of the city square while being slaughtered by missile fire. By preferance I like to get my infantry to each of the entrances to the square and then send them charging in to slaughter the poor hapless fools with handheld pointy things instead.

So the basic plan is to use arrows and the wall defences wherever possible instead of the lives of my troops. Except for those dirty mercenaries. And any archers guilty of friendly fire. Oh, and the peasants... umm... because they're peasants.