siege weapon field tactics

[Marquis of Roland]

Not just onagers are good for attack, I actually found that the other siege weapons work better when you attack than when you defend. Whenever I defend with siege weapons the AI always rushes my position no matter what.

When I attack the AI only rushes sometimes. Plus as mentioned before the siege weapons are excellent for driving the enemy off the hill.

The best non-siege use for these units would probably be attacking bridges, because you can use lesser units for defending bridges.

The only other thing I use siege weapons for is killing elephants, which they don't do very well, except onagers, but even they're barely adequate, and this is with temple of mars pantheon. I need to kill at least a significant percentage of one elephant unit and the onagers maybe kill about 20-25% of them.

I tried using scorpions on elephants; the elephants just charged and stepped on them. 2 scorpions + 2 archers vs. 1 war elephant = 2 dead scorpions + 2 dead archers.

[Norxis]

I find siege weapons very effective during battles as well, both in attack and defence. Siege weapons are an absolute must for your bridge defence armies and its always useful to have 2 onagers in your invasion forces. I also find it extremely useful to have siege weapons (usually a wide array) for your defence forces inside frontier towns that get invaded often (especially if you have stone walls), onagers are good at taking out siege towers (if your lucky enough to hit them) relatively quickly, and you can places balistas inside your walls facing the gates/wall breaches to give the enemy hell when they inevitably get inside your city through those small chokepoints. The effect they have on morale make them particulary good I think.

Other good points about siege engines:
- burning as much of those gallic cities to the ground, just because you can.
- getting lucky and hitting the enemy general and getting a cheap easy kill.
- that great feeling you get when your onager fireball gets a direct hit on an enemy phalanx
- cheap and easy kills on elephants (again if your lucky)
- the fact it mixes up battles a bit more cause of that big risk of the fireballs smashing into your own troops instead of the enemy
- they're fun

[pezhetairoi]

that's quite counterproductive, from my POV. But that's just my personal bias.

a) why would you want to burn all those gallic cities to the ground when all that eventually happens is that you'll have to repair the damned barbarian buildings again? They don't disappear off the 'town' display, they just show up as 100% damaged, and will deprive you of retraining and public order facilities that you eventually have to spend on. Obviously you weren't listening to Marcus the Centurion's admonition: Your objective is to capture the city, not destroy it.

b) Cheap easy kills are okay, it's exciting, but is it worth taking up one entire unit card (or two, in your case) just so you get that 5% chance of hitting the enemy general?

c) I wholeheartedly agree on this one. Just that, well, most of the time they're too damned inaccurate anyway to hit. So not worth the time, the risk, the expense, and the lower mobility of armies and manoeuvre with siege weapons to burden the movement.

d) More likely (read the post just before yours) the stupid elephants will just step on you. It's dumb to hope to kill elephants with lucky hits--you'd need at least 13 of them. Spook them, maybe. But not kill them.

e) I fail to see why you're so excited about friendly fire. Most people on this forum are searching for ways to minimise FF.

f) ...and they're practically useless in most contexts.

[nameless]

In the campaign, the AI likes to have some siege weapons on hand so I usually try to counter that with my own seige weapons. Besides, its fun to see the people go up in flames and cry out

I keep 1-2 Onagers behind my archer line which is behind my frontline to take out any artillery on the field.

[Krauser]

I find that the AI when defending seems to just sit there letting you pelt them with fireballs until 50% of their army is gone. I don't use siege for normal fighting most times. On the way to a new settlement I might come across rebels or some defenders of the settlement and will get a chance to use it in a normal battle but they are definitely not needed.

[massimorocca]

I've played only two imperial campaign so far, before and after patch 1.2. Both on VH and with the Scipii. I based all my tactics on Onagers, giving a battery of 3 as soon as possible to every army and making a sort of siege park in reserve when I start to assault cities. They did wonders, in attacking batlles, cause they burned from 60 to 150 men each ( I'm playing with 160 men's unit). Using flamed loads I usually target the central unit in front of the enemy general's squadron. Rounds spreaded as you know, but you have a good chance to flame the general ( I experienced a 25% ratio at worst). If the enemy had some tough nut, like elephants or cataphracts, I switch one of the onagers, the best ranked to precision fire with solid shots to soften'em, if the elephants shows no willing to advance fast I try also the flamed shots to "ignite" a stampede.
The best onager's scenario, a true heaven, is the bridge defense. Here also the more linear deployment of the 1.2 patch is forced to switch in long columns. You must only target a mid column unit and watch for the slaughter. You must only be quick to switch target if the unit start a charge to avoid the back shot on your defenders. If you think that the pause command is too gamey switch to solid shot, they seldom to never cause friendly fire when you hold your position.
Also in pure defensive battles onager shines. Yes enemy rushes, but a couple of well aimed shots are possible and if the enemies had tight formation like hoplites or phalanx, every hit did 20 casualties. then you could turn you aim to one of the flank. With solid shots you can slow or stop the usual cavalry flanking.

[Deus ret.]

interesting. I did find them quite useless in defence battles for the reasons you mentioned: the enemy attacks you too soon to let your onagers really shine....and in my experience they hit cavalry only as long as the latter don't move.
maybe unit size matters? I'm playing on normal and they ARE useless while defending. Even if they manage to fire one of the two shots they have somewhat accurately, a very little percentage of enemy troops will be dead, and your onagers will be standing on the battlefield futilely until the battle ends.
about killing generals however you're definitely right. I have the same experience: Whenever you fire at units close to the general (and he will likely be close to some of his troops), he almost certainly gets killed by a shot. Of course provided you're attacking and thus have enough time to scrunch him.

[cruix]

In the campaign, the AI likes to have some siege weapons on hand so I usually try to counter that with my own seige weapons. Besides, its fun to see the people go up in flames and cry out

I keep 1-2 Onagers behind my archer line which is behind my frontline to take out any artillery on the field.

the AI is too dumb to guard its artilary with spearmen. just one or two units of equities will take care of nearly all of their siege weapons. and if they're crazy enough to roll those lighter siege weapons along with their army line, just shoot them up with your archers. the 30-40 men running the siege engines crap out after 2 or 3 salvos.

[Somebody Else]

Playing RTR, I liked to have a few units of scorpions - the larger unit sizes meant that a massive volume of fire could be directed at the enemy - whether it be defending or attacking. Just sitting on a hill was enough - the scorpions would kill a quarter to a third of the enemy before they got in range of my archers, who would kill off roughly the same again - so that by the time they got in range of my skirmishers, they'd rout. I'd typically have 100-150 kills per scorpion unit, 50-100 per archer unit, 0-30 per skirmisher unit, 0-15 per melee infantry unit. Cavalry would possibly have commensurate kill rates with the artillery, as they were in charge of chasing down routers. (N.B. Playing on normal unit sizes - I only have a battered old laptop)

Artillery is also especially useful against slow phalanx heavy armies - have a couple of cavalry units running around them as they advance, causing the AI to stick them into phalanx formation, then do some target practice - as they march oh so slowly to their deaths.

Also, as someone said - artillery is excellent for taking out hardened targets, such as legionnaires, armoured hoplites, cataphracts, spartans, elephants, generals, entire army units...

[Emit_Flesti]

Artillery is also especially useful against slow phalanx heavy armies - have a couple of cavalry units running around them as they advance, causing the AI to stick them into phalanx formation, then do some target practice - as they march oh so slowly to their deaths.

Also, as someone said - artillery is excellent for taking out hardened targets, such as legionnaires, armoured hoplites, cataphracts, spartans, elephants, generals, entire army units...

Ah! Exactly! I usually take 2 of my best artillery with every army. I use them with fire bolts to soften up the enemy lines until they are within my archer's range. Even if they don't do much damage, they help by lowering the morale and ocasionally killing the enemy general.

Onagers are great for offensive battles. I am under the impression that if you aim them to the enemy flanks, they tend to mass in the centre. THEN you aim at the centre, thus buying time for that cavalry to flank and you main line to approach with those deadly archers. Anyone else tried this?

As for sieges, I use ballistas to destroy those wood towers while fighting barbarians. Three or four onagers make it quite easy to smash walls and disperse enemies within the city.