Frustrated with city/castle assaults

[hoof]

I've just fought the same wooden-castle assault twice, and I must say, the siege combat appears to have taken a huge step backwards from RTW. Unless I can find workarounds for the things that are frustrating me, I might stop playing this game.

First off, it appears that there is no way to silence the infinite-arrow-towers, short of destroying them via siege weapons. In RTW, if you sent men up to the walls, and passed them through the towers, the towers stopped shooting at you. Not so in MTW2, if you're within range of the tower, you get fired upon. The siege combat doesn't need that kind of hamfisted "help" for the defenders, IMO. All this serves (other than artificially making the battles harder), is ruining suspension of disbelief.

Second, one cannot capture gates by taking the walls anymore. I was assaulting a gate, by sending men to the unoccupied walls and through the gates via the walls, yet the enemy, who had troops at the base of the gate, maintained control.

Due to the utter inability to silence towers, and the fact you cannot capture gates if the enemy is nearby on the ground, what the heck is the point of going up on the walls? Even if you do clear the walls, your victorious troops are doomed, because (again), you cannot silence the towers, so they simply get shot to death.

However, that's not nearly as bad as how moronic your troops are when dealing with the walls. No matter what I do, most of the time I cannot convince my troops to attack nearby enemy troops on the walls (or to go up the siege engines to reinforce troops that are approaching breaking point). Nor can I convince them to go to a different spot on the walls. They refuse, preferring to die by the tower's firepower instead of fighting. Very frustrating. I'd hoped that MTW2 would have improved upon the controllability of troops on the walls, but now they're an order of magnitude worse than in RTW, IMO.

Anyone have a suggestion as to how to assault towns/castles with walls? Since there is no point of sending troops up the walls, should one wait until siege equipment comes online, blast holes in the walls and take towns/castles that way? I haven't fought a stone wall fight yet (we'll see if my frustration lets me get that far), but in RTW, stone walls had devastating oil defences for doors. If MTW2 has those two, going through the gate (via a ram) is pointless too.

Very, very frustrated. I had high hopes for MTW2, but it appears that siege combat is much worse than in RTW.

FYI, I was playing with "huge" unit sizes, and VH battle difficulty. I'd heard that VH only affects the enemy's tactics this time around. Please correct me if that isn't true. Also, with the sheer firepower and unstoppability of the towers, I shudder at thinking about trying to take a town with less than huge unit sizes. At this point, I see no reason to ever bother assaulting a city/castle w/o some serious siege equipment, it's simply better to wait until they starve.

[Nestor]

Well, since I found the problems on the walls for the units I just divide the army in three and place them on the three sides you can deploy before the battle. They have ladders and, sometimes, rams, but I do not use them against enemy units on the walls: I move them around until I see an unguarded part of the wall and send them there.

This way you can take a gate without fight and rush the troops on that side inside the walls. Usually at this point the defender starts sending reinforcements to the open gate, leaving other sides unguarded: I do the same thing there. It's a matter of patience and taking opportunities. Even better with a spy opening the doors: you can find easier an unprotected point to rush inside. If you stay away from the walls it doesn't matter if the enemy sends any units close to the towers since they have to leave immediately to attack you when you are closing to the center.

I am still waiting for the patch to correct things, at the moment I just changed my tactics.

[pevergreen]

First off, it appears that there is no way to silence the infinite-arrow-towers, short of destroying them via siege weapons.

That is not true, in M2:TW, the towers now require units nearby to fire, the towers that are firing have flags on top. Try a custom battle defending a castle, and notice how only towers that have a unit nearby are firing. The way to get them to stop is to drive away all nearby units, again, more realistic.

Second, one cannot capture gates by taking the walls anymore. I was assaulting a gate, by sending men to the unoccupied walls and through the gates via the walls, yet the enemy, who had troops at the base of the gate, maintained control.

That is true, taking towers does not turn them to your control, but to capture the gate itself, have a unit on the ground run outside. That should open the gate and make it yours.

[QUOTE=hoof]Due to the utter inability to silence towers, and the fact you cannot capture gates if the enemy is nearby on the ground, what the heck is the point of going up on the walls?[QUOTE]
The point of walls, is higher level castles (more than one ring of walls) instead of running in the city and getting ambushed and so forth, you can troop along the empty side towers. Each ring of towers is connected, so you can batter tier 2 defences, and then run men through the towers anyway.

[QUOTE=hoof]Even if you do clear the walls, your victorious troops are doomed, because (again), you cannot silence the towers, so they simply get shot to death.[QUOTE]
That makes it mandatory to fight off the defenders unit, continually pushing them back. Remember, any odds of less than 10:1 the defends were supposed to win.

[QUOTE=hoof]However, that's not nearly as bad as how moronic your troops are when dealing with the walls. No matter what I do, most of the time I cannot convince my troops to attack nearby enemy troops on the walls (or to go up the siege engines to reinforce troops that are approaching breaking point). Nor can I convince them to go to a different spot on the walls. They refuse, preferring to die by the tower's firepower instead of fighting. Very frustrating. I'd hoped that MTW2 would have improved upon the controllability of troops on the walls, but now they're an order of magnitude worse than in RTW, IMO.[QUOTE]
I have had no problems with getting on the walls (apart from a few men that eventually correct themselves) and i have had my defends go down towers and ladders, but moving on the walls themselves isnt hard. Ordering a unit Off the walls into the settlement screws up if there is more than one unit in that section of the wall.
Example:
T = Tower
W = wall
M = wall with men on it


TWWMMMMMMMMMWT
The men would march towards the right hand tower and then stop. Only the front 3 rows and the centre part of that would stop. I had 250 men trying to get off a wall being pounded by trebuchets and cannons but 8 guys had stopped, so everyone had to try to get around them. Those 8 were the last to get off the walls. With attackers on the walls, they now have massive attack and defense penalties. Peasant Archers will butcher Feudal/Imperial/Gothic Knights even. The penalties remain, even when they shouldnt. The defender remember, should win 10:1.
The main change with M2:TW is that it is more realistic.

Anyone have a suggestion as to how to assault towns/castles with walls? Since there is no point of sending troops up the walls, should one wait until siege equipment comes online, blast holes in the walls and take towns/castles that way? I haven't fought a stone wall fight yet (we'll see if my frustration lets me get that far), but in RTW, stone walls had devastating oil defences for doors. If MTW2 has those two, going through the gate (via a ram) is pointless too.

Oil defences now do not exist, but stone walls still look like they have them. They dont. Making multiple breach points (as the AI does) is a good idea, and destroying the towers around them helps. A massed cavalry charge through the gate/wall is what the .org seems to agree on. Taking walls leads to massive casualties, but ladders and siege towers now load up faster, instead of having a ladder deposit 4, then 4 then 4. it will now go from the first guy, to having literally 50 at once (i play Huge unit settings as well)
Having multiple units scale whatever you are using is the only way i can do it (on VH)
Moving units onto walls when you are attacking is easy, either attack a unit on the walls, or right click-drag until the purple things show up. using the latter, even if there is a unit on the walls, they will attack once a single man touches the enemy unit.

Very, very frustrated. I had high hopes for MTW2, but it appears that siege combat is much worse than in RTW.

Only moving is slightly bugged, i was retreating a unit from the walls into my town square (castle), properly, the AI made it path find a path AWAY from the 900 man melee at the gate (57 of those men were mine, sarge spearmen)
I thought, well i want to forget about them, so i used the Withdraw function and they ran into the melee....most dissapointing.

I'd heard that VH only affects the enemy's tactics this time around. Please correct me if that isn't true.

The AI becomes smarter on VH, but fatigue plays a bigger part. The AI gets no bonuses as with Rome, but running a unit with good stamina from the walls to town square (castle, 2 ringed) makes them very tired.

Also, with the sheer firepower and unstoppability of the towers, I shudder at thinking about trying to take a town with less than huge unit sizes. At this point, I see no reason to ever bother assaulting a city/castle w/o some serious siege equipment, it's simply better to wait until they starve.

Thats what i do its better than

pevergreen

[JeffBag]

Towers can be silenced; when there is an enemy unit around the tower, a flag will appear at the top of it, showing that it is active, once all enemy units have been cleared away from the tower's radius, the flag will disappear and it will become inactive.

Gates can be captured, I think, for I have done it before. You have to clear the area behind the gate of all enemy units, then move your men from the walls down onto the ground until you hear something about capturing the enemy walls, and then the gate should be accessible to you. I always bring a ram in case though.

Now that I have gotten myself 4 units of trebuchets, I don't bother taking the walls anymore; therefore I believe that the only reason why you would bother taking the wall is that you have no seige weapons to bypass it. I do share the same problem with you though, with inactive units on the wall. Most of the time, my unit clumps away from the enemy clump, and they both send 1 men each at a time to have a 1v1 duel. And then my clump gets shot to death.

[Handel]

Exactly those problems don't exist. The sieges are supposed to be difficult and the towers are supposed to be firing (that's why they are built).
The problem is quite another - the poor attacking AI. This makes castle defending a joke. BTW - the assistant told me the first time I attacked a castle: "Remember, you are here to capture the walls, not to destroy them" So the AI is crushing the walls until they make a single breach and then attack, no matter they can demolish a larger portion of the wall. The result - you need 5 defending units and that's all. 1 unit for the breach, 3 for the ladders and siege towers (the AI always makes 1 tower and 2 sets of ladders of 2 towers and 1 set of ladder) and the fifth flanks the enemy at the breach. At this point the siege is won. One or two cavalry units are usefull to pursue the retreating units or they can rally.

[Trithemius]

What bothers me about fortifications is that no-one seems to have thought about digging bloody great ditches in front of walls to stop cheeky punters rolling rams up to the gates without too much bother.

I've also got to say I have no idea how to reliably kill siege equipment. If I use flaming arrows from four units of Ottoman Infantry on a single ram it still ends up reaching my gates. Fortress-guns cannot seem to deal with siege towers either (which is ridiculous...).

Is it possible to have artillery within the walls and fire indirectly over them, because the built-in artillery upgrades do not seem to up to the task?

[ULT255]

...screws up if there is more than one unit in that section of the wall.
Example:
T = Tower
W = wall
M = wall with men on it


TWWMMMMMMMMMWT

In all that, you couldn't find ONE chance for M:TW?

[pevergreen]

In all that, you couldn't find ONE chance for M:TW?

Wow, i didnt knowingly have those letters...i just used them because of tower, wall and men...yeah, there was not MTW though.

[cassiusdio]

I've also got to say I have no idea how to reliably kill siege equipment. If I use flaming arrows from four units of Ottoman Infantry on a single ram it still ends up reaching my gates. Fortress-guns cannot seem to deal with siege towers either

I discovered quite by mistake that trebuchets can fire over city and castle walls. my siege train had in fact been caught in a city by the enemy and they assaulted, the trebuchets, although fairly innacurate managed to smash the attackers rams and one of the siege towers, the last made it to the wall, and i had to reposition the trebuchets, but even when they were at the walls, the trebuchets took them down (and killed all the attackers climbing up them)

To the OP. there are several strategies you can adopt in a siege, the most obvious being investment (starve them out) and escallade (go over the walls) i favour investment, but when forced to assault i will build many many ladders and pick a spot on the wall, i will then put as many of my troops as possible up onto that wall to take it from the enemy. missile shots from towers can be dealt with either by smashing the towers first, or by driving off the defenders. once the wall is taken its then simply a matter of fighting your way to the square. but the key imo is to get as many people onto the wall as quickly as possible. Breaching the wall is all well and good, but any attackers will be jumped on pretty sharpish, whereas on the walls i have found its a lot more equal, even taking into account the defensive bonuses defenders get

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Are we sure the cannot capture gates etc..isnt a bug? I mean everyone noticed that the central city square doesnt change flags when you win it...sometime there are no flags on your own towers etc.

I think its a bug myself...as is the cannot deploy units properly inside a settlement..now that is a pain too

[Whacker]

Methinks this is a bug as well, not being able to capture gates by running through the gatehouse, arrow towers as well.

Probably going to get jumped for this, but I still say the tower system in RTW was far superior to M2TW. Towers should fire automatically, and anyone should be able to capture one by simply running a unit through it. I also respectfully submit to those who think that the "unmanned towers shooting" wasn't realistic... how realistic is it that you just have to park a unit within so and so yards? You still have all your men in the unit on the ground...

/shrug

[Gustav II Adolf]

I think sieges in the early period are boring much because of the problem of clearing and capturing walls. Later you just smash everything to pieces (very nice). I dont like the different pragmatic tactics you can use to beat the ai compensating for uber effective towers. I liked the way you could capture the towers and gates in RTW. This is absolutely a step backwards. It would be much more interesting if you at least could stop towers from firing when having troops in them.

G

[Zenicetus]

That is not true, in M2:TW, the towers now require units nearby to fire, the towers that are firing have flags on top. Try a custom battle defending a castle, and notice how only towers that have a unit nearby are firing. The way to get them to stop is to drive away all nearby units, again, more realistic.

I don't buy that it's more realistic. Here's the problem. You can design a castle or city curtain wall with towers that would work that way; i.e. with no openings or doors at the parapet level for attackers to breach, and access only at the bottom of the wall. In that case, you'd need to control the bottom of the wall (inside the gates) to "turn off" missile fire from the towers.

But you can't have it both ways. If that's the design of your wall, then you can't also run men along the top of the curtain walls through the towers, to reach other wall sections. It's one or the other. If you can run through the towers, then you should be able to control them (kill the defenders) inside the towers. Unless they're magically barricaded somehow, and also magically give up when you clear away all other defenders. Just doesn't make sense to me.

Realism issues aside, I do think the defending towers are overpowered with this new dynamic, if only because it steers the player into using tactics that avoid climbing the walls. As dangerous as that was in real life, it should be a viable option for the smaller wall types, and for the early years of a campaign before you can build artillery capable of breaching walls. Otherwise why have ladders and siege towers in the game at all?

[Gustav II Adolf]

I don't buy that it's more realistic. Here's the problem. You can design a castle or city curtain wall with towers that would work that way; i.e. with no openings or doors at the parapet level for attackers to breach, and access only at the bottom of the wall. In that case, you'd need to control the bottom of the wall (inside the gates) to "turn off" missile fire from the towers.

But you can't have it both ways. If that's the design of your wall, then you can't also run men along the top of the curtain walls through the towers, to reach other wall sections. It's one or the other. If you can run through the towers, then you should be able to control them (kill the defenders) inside the towers. Unless they're magically barricaded somehow, and also magically give up when you clear away all other defenders. Just doesn't make sense to me.

Realism issues aside, I do think the defending towers are overpowered with this new dynamic, if only because it steers the player into using tactics that avoid climbing the walls. As dangerous as that was in real life, it should be a viable option for the smaller wall types, and for the early years of a campaign before you can build artillery capable of breaching walls. Otherwise why have ladders and siege towers in the game at all?

I completly agree.


G

[FactionHeir]

According to the manual you actually are supposed to be able to capture a town's defenses when you are the attacker by taking the town square, but for some reason that does not seem to be working...
Also, when you capture the gate from the defenders and they are on the outside (for whatever reason), they can still open the gate from the outside and come in. (the second point I haven't tried out, but I heard it mentioned a couple of times)

[Morindin]

I don't find the siege mechanics to be a step backwards at all. It was far worse in RTW how you would have a garrison of 100 men who could magically fire from all the towers in the city with machine-gun like arrows at your attacking army.
I like the M2TW system MUCH better.

There is a bug however. The game manual states to control towers and so forth as the attacker you need to capture the town square, however I've noticed in the campaign you just capture towers and gates by having more of your men close to them than the enemy. You do not get flags indicating they have been captured, but they work anyway.

[hoof]

Well, I tried it again. This time I ignored the walls (except for my archers, who served the dual purpose of harrassing the wall-defenders while attempting to draw fire from my "real" troops). I built 3 rams, and sent them all to the main gate (lost one due to fire, but the other two survived). Once open, I forced through, using superior numbers until I had attritted the defenders to the point they pulled back. Much better results than by assaulting the walls. Except for ladders to open an unguarded gate, I'm never bothering with a wall attack again. Thank goodness nobody has Phalanxes in this time period, otherwise early sieges would be impossible.

My remaining beef is the infinite ammo supply for a contested arrow tower, and the sheer inability to control your troops once on the walls (the dreaded "enemy is 20ft away, attack!", but they stand still problem).

The more that I think of it, the more I prefer the new tower arrow system vs the old. I would go a different direction: Each tower has a finite ammo supply, and can "bar" itself from entry (attacking troops rarely have the equipment to breach a stout wooden door from the walls). To resupply, you have to "unbar" the tower, and have troops nearby to supply more arrows. If there are enemy troops in the vicinity (on the walls or on the ground inside the walls), the tower auto-bars itself, thus being limited to its finite ammo supply until it runs out. Once out, the only way to continue firing is to clear the defending side of enemy, and have troops nearby. The ammo resupply would be a certain rate per time (which might only match depletion if the tower is firing).

This way, if you're defending a wall section and the enemy hasn't gone over the top, you still have the "infinite" ammo supply. However, now there's a reason to go over the top, as the towers would bar themselves, and they would stop firing after depleting their ammo supply. If you go in through the gate and ignore the walls, the towers will continue to fire if they have nearby friendly troops.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

Well I am going to reserve judgement until the issues are patched up...till then sieges are not really a lot of fun. Attacker or defender...

You have these problems:

Flags don't change on square or buildings/walls/towers etc

Single ladder AI problem

Enemy AI units stuck in walls! ( had this a few times...they cannot move or fight)

Some lag issues...(even with a tasty pc)

Archer stake defence exploit! (not sure about this...kinda fun to do it..but then the AI just runs his horses into them! wipeout time!)

Unit hang back bug....you attack..but most of the men hold back and dont charge...most frustrating indeed. The few who do die quickly or lose morale fast.

Info bug..cannot tell what damage is done to a tower or wall sometimes..(nothing shows up)

Deployment issue...cannot seem to easily deploy troops..even if indicated it is ok...

At the moment RTW is better for seiges..but we shall see when the patches are out...I doubt all the issues will be fixed...in the ist one

[pevergreen]

Deployment issue...cannot seem to easily deploy troops..even if indicated it is ok...

At the moment RTW is better for seiges..but we shall see when the patches are out...I doubt all the issues will be fixed...in the ist one

The deployment issue isnt a bug in most cases. If you cant deploy your troops, that means the AI has sent a spy/spys into your settlement. If you cant deploy your troops, click Start Battle, and you should hear (in HRE case)
'Ach! Shome Shwine has opended our gates to the enemy! Steel and valour most hold the day etc etc.' The gates will say they are under your control, but the enemy can run through them (makes hell defending from 22 unit stacks with 6 units) The bug is, the enemy doesnt use the gates. Most of the army holds back, and while they flank you with ladders (they do for me VH/citadel) They eventually stop. You can run a unit near them and they will start again, but very annoying.

[FactionHeir]

I think he meant that you often can't deploy units on the streets properly even though you can drag out the unit. It just won't appear there, which is quite annoying. In RTW the drag would at least get blocked if you tried to place units where it wasn't possible but in M2TW this doesn't happen and can be quite irritating.
I found that its especially tough to figure where you can place units near a gate.

[Whacker]

Archer stake defence exploit! (not sure about this...kinda fun to do it..but then the AI just runs his horses into them! wipeout time!)

I kinda like this one.

I do somewhat agree though, unfortunately... I've just had too many of these leave a bad taste in my mouth in terms of sieges, hence why I shelved my campaign and don't play sieges in custom battles, except to verify bugs and things others have posted. Here's to honestly hoping that the first patch fixes a good number of these. I really, really, really want to like this game better than I do right now.

[Beren Son Of Barahi]

Surely the best way to get past the gates is with spies, then use arty to break the the walls down to get rid of the defenders (2 wall breaches on the wall segment will get rid of the defenders) then charge some hardened troops at the gates and cav through the walls, put some archers on the wals and go from there...


i think the AI's sitting there while you pour on the pain is one of the only problems in sieges, that and the deployment issues above.

[Fearless]

Sadly I auto resolve all sieges because of the numerous problems. My biggest beef is troop deployment under siege. It is one of immense pain as you just can't get troops to position themselves where you want them. On many occassions I have just clicked every part of a road or wall just to see if the unit would drop in place. I do eventually find some area but what's the point, it ain't where I want them!!!!

[geala]

Before the appearance of potent black powder based artillery (and again after the quick following improvements of the fortresses) the siege of a greater stronghold was a very risky affair for the attacker.

To me sieges are by far too easy still. It is annoying f.e. that canon/ballistae towers can not reach siege artillery despite the fact they have better elevation. Rams and non-powder artillery are too powerful. So I would argue against the seduce of reducing the existing difficulties. Take also in account the odd behavior of the AI, sending big armies against you and leaving back only one unit in its castle/city.

As reality is concerned: of course you can construct a castle that way the enemy cannot control the gate even if he has access to the top of the walls. And you can have independend towers and the possibility of sending your troops all around the walls: simply build a gateway around the closed towers. And secure the towers with heavy doors.