Siege Towers

**Troy Lawton** · 12-01-2005, 23:57

Gday

I was wondering about the use of siege towers in BI. In RTW I never really used Siege towers and in a defencive scenario I normally sally but now in BI I have had to wait for them to attack my walls. Their seige towers must have scorpions or ballistae in them as I am losing alot of infantry on my walls.

I now thought that I will start using towers myself in an assault but mine aren't firing

What am I doing wrong? It's probably sometime really stupid that I overlooked so I will apologise in advance.

Cheers

Troy

**Kaldhore** · 12-02-2005, 00:00

its ok your not stupid :P

You have to hit Fire at will on the unit that is pushing the tower, just to be sure (there was a bug in vanilla) hit Fire at will then hit it again for wait for my orders then hit it again for Fire at will again....unless that bug was fixed :P

**Rilder** · 12-02-2005, 00:00

You turn on there firing just like archer units, see the "fire at will" button turn that on and the siege towers will shoot

**magnum** · 12-02-2005, 00:10

Unfortunately siege towers don't scale like units do. Therefor they are a lot more devestating on Small unit sizes than they are on Huge unit sizes.

**Troy Lawton** · 12-02-2005, 00:46

Thanks a lot Fellas. I am playing on the large setting and I can see how devistating it would be on small. I normally go close to losing 2/3 of my unit.

Oh well.

Troy

**Red Harvest** · 12-02-2005, 06:45

From what I recall, the AI didn't use FAW for its siege towers until 1.3.

I never used the towers much until 1.3, as they took too long to actually scale and enter. I guess I weaned myself off of them when I was still using the timer back in 1.0.

The lower level towers have 100 rounds per firing point (and I think 5 firing points.) They have fairly high attack and can put the hurts on wall defenders.

**Kaldhore** · 12-02-2005, 07:18

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

I never used the towers much until 1.3, as they took too long to actually scale and enter. I guess I weaned myself off of them when I was still using the timer back in 1.0.

If youre playing as the Romans - put Arcani or gladiators on tower duty. Less men means quicker scaling time. Works for me

**Ciaran** · 12-02-2005, 11:02

Dito with the Germans: Send the Berserkers into the towers.
But with normal units I agree, they scale way too slow - why can´t the ones on the top floor just attack when they´re ready instead of waiting all of the soldiers to climb up there?

**TinCow** · 12-02-2005, 11:07

Yep, the siege tower scorpions/ballistae are very nasty. Unless I have overwhelming numbers on the walls, I usually try to position my units where they won't be shot by the incoming towers. Once the towers reach the wall, they stop firing and I then rush my men into position. Sure, they don't resume the tight formation I would have had if I had started them there, but they also don't get wrecked before the fight either.

**Darius** · 12-02-2005, 14:13

Yea pretty much the only time you should have your units take the punishment is if you feel confident that you have enough Archers in place with flaming arrows to neutralize the Siege Towers before they reach your walls.

**Troy Lawton** · 12-05-2005, 01:22

Thanks alot for all the tips

I have give the Sassnid Levy Spearmen a flogging with 4 seige towers on the weekend. Very nice.

Troy

**PseRamesses** · 12-05-2005, 11:32

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

From what I recall, the AI didn't use FAW for its siege towers until 1.3.
The lower level towers have 100 rounds per firing point (and I think 5 firing points.) They have fairly high attack and can put the hurts on wall defenders.

It has been a feat since the vanilla. A neat thing with the new machinegun towers in BI is that you can move the tower to a distance where they start firing, then stop, deplete all ammo, then move on towards the wall. A 120 unit will be reduced almost to 0 since the defeding towers have shorter range than your tower. It´s a pity that defenders can´t hide in towers´n´gates.