How to assault city walls

[Productivity]

Have you ever seen the neat little lines of dead people under a ladder before?

No more so than siege towers.

Their casualty rate compared to towers is poor, also unlike towers they cannot initially deliver a small platoon of men onto the wall in one heap to clear a path for the following troops.

Actually, I did a bit of testing and ladders get more people onto the walls in the same amount of time than siege towers do. And while the casualty rate may be higher sometimes, every now and then a full siege tower will go up in flames, taking out the whole unit, which then blows your average casualty rate apart. I'd take 15 losses every time on the ladders, compared to 5 losses most times, and about 1/5 times lose an entire unit due to the tower going up in flames.

Ladders are only useful against defended walls if the enemy infantry is decidely inferior (rather than equal or slightly so) to yours anyway, and then the enemy will still inflict higher casualties then they otherwise woud have if you'd used a tower I've personally found.

Well I disagree. Ladders get more men on, split the defence, and provide just as much impact on the walls as that of siege towers.

I have not experienced a game bug with towers at all since installing 1.2, they do not seem to be 'buggy' to me at all certainly I imagine no more than ladders.

Well you are lucky. I've seen towers not line up properly and have men fall down between the tower and walls, rendering the entire tower useless.

Also the towers are risky, because you can lose them all, rendering you unable to get inside. Ladders never "die" (or at least I've never seen it happen).

I'll give that the (ridiculously stupid) repeating ballista for epic walls makes towers worth it though. But you can't take ladders then anyway, so it's a moot point.