Burning siege eqip. almost impossible (for me)

[Specky the Mad]

I am hoping its not just but is any one else having trouble using archers ( with the flaming arrow ability on ) to burn siege equipment before it arrives at my door or walls, because it never catches on fire even at point blank range.

So if i could get a bit of help on this issue it would be great.

PS. I am very sure I have the flaming arrows ability on and i got in nice and close to watch the archers and their arrows hit the siege tower like darts, although in the animation a good 75% of the arrows were hitting the empty space at the top of the tower in between the roof and the floor.

[Specky the Mad]

i forgot to add that i am pre-patch as the 40mb on dial up is pain ( tried but the download dies at about 30mb ).

I should also note that i am only using a on average 2 units of archers but never see anything being burnt down even on focused fire.

I know this happens as it happens as it has happened to me a couple of times, but i never though of checking if the opposition had ballista towers ( even then i don't know if they can fire fire shoots ).

[Von Nanega]

I have found the AI has better luck at setting fires than I do. Hardcoding for AI advantage perhaps?

[Wallas]

I have found the AI has better luck at setting fires than I do. Hardcoding for AI advantage perhaps?

May be. Because if you manage to kill all rams and siege towers from the ai it gets totally messed.

The ai moves all his foot soldiers to a bottom of one ladder and gets stuck there. At this point you can move you units out. kill their cavarly that will charge and then surround the ai troops on bottom of the ladders and easily kill and rout them.

Or wait untill the battle timer has passed.

[Lachned]

I've got the same impression.

I've had four siege towers burned before they got anyware near the wall, while the enimy managed to get 2 of 3 towers to the wall.

That's why I prefer Trebouchets!

[Specky the Mad]

well not not sure about after the patch but before the patch to counter this problem I rush out with a single calvary unit and attack their ladders and rams unit just enough so they drop them then i get the calvary back inside the walls, but instead of going to pick the equipment up they join the line the for the siege tower where i haven't noticed any major performance issues of unit gathering unlike the ladders issue. Then its just easy pickings or once their numbers are down you can sally out and get them in the back while they are in line.

[Sir Moody]

I often find i can set fire to towers with little trouble but i never bother even trying with rams - until you get balista/cannon towers 9 times out of 10 they wont burn

it is definatly a Hidden bonus to the AI that they can trash our seige equipment with little trouble... i generally rely on ladders

[baron_Leo]

Interesting...I have played about 5 campaigns by now, and never seen the ladder problem. Actually I've never seen the AI using battle towers or anything...okay the reason for this is that ia always sally out, and kill 'em when they attack me. It always workes for me:-)

[Scotsmanforlife]

Have to agree with the op, i hardly ever get anything to burn. Once in awhile i get a battering ram to go up but that's about it.

[Daveybaby]

I'm of the opinion that flaming arrows from your archers (and presumably the AI's as well, though i've never seen them fire them at your siege equipment) do nothing to siege towers / rams. I think the only stuff that can actually set fire to them is arrows the your city/castle towers.

Having said that, i dont think the AI has much of an advantage that i've noticed. I've rarely had more than one tower or ram set afire. The only time i've found it really annoying is when trying to break down the gates for the inner walls of a castle. Quite often your rams or catapults have to negociate long streets within firing range of the inner walls, and as a result they tend to come a cropper a lot more often.

[Neoncat]

If you want to see ladder bug, sally out with one unit and attack their ram with it. If you can reach their ram, they will be clueless and they just try to use whatever is on the walls. However they will use the ram after they have only few men left. And I must warn you that ladder bug will render your battle unplayable, if enemy has enough men.

[Snite]

Or how about when rams spookily go right through each other. Nevermind that they abandoned one at the gate, they just move another up and it tranposes(heh, probably misused that word) itself over the old.

Eerie.


Peace, One Love,
Snite

[Kraggenmor]

I've managed to set fire to a ram once, and siege tower once.

I started firing flaming arrows at the siege tower as soon as I got the message that the enemy had it at the wall. The thing was in flames before the door opened and the unit that was pushing it met a firey end.

Overall though, I agree. Not much luck with setting their gear on fire.

[part_time_player]

Hi guys

I've had all the same problems setting fire to the enemies ram with one exception.

Playing as the English on H/VH I have been defending the fortress at Metz from repeated Danish assaults. So far I have used the same tactic every time. I line all my infantry up on the walls above the gate to the INNER keep or just inside it. I place two archers either side of the main gate and the rest of my archers lining the walls of the inner keep on the approach to the inner gate.

When the battle starts, the enemy advance with their ram, tower, ladders etc. My archers cause as much damage as they can until the ram reaches the gate at which point they abandon the outer wall and leg it back to their mates on the inner wall. I have never, even with five or six archers on the outer wall hurt his ram or towers.

Once the enemy captures the outer wall and reforms his troops, they proceed to march towards the inner gate. They have to walk a line past all my archers and towers which causes them enormous damage and generally they're lucky to even reach the gate before they start routing. The interesting thing is though, that as soon as his ram is in range, my archers have set it on fire and destroyed it, every time. The archers are only set to fire at will as well, in fact I find if I target the ram at this point it doesn't work, but if i leave them to it, they destroy it no problem.

My only theory is that it is possible to destroy the ram easily from the side, but firing down on it from above it is protected by its roof?

[PaulTa]

It's really hit or miss. I don't know if the computer calculates a percentage chance each time a fire arrow hits it or what not, but if so the odds have to be way over 1 in a 100. If you really need to take out siege equipment, and you're in the gunpowder age, go for mortars.

It's still not a waste to use fire arrows on the walls though. Supposing you have two units of archers, you might not cause tons of casualties with your arrows, but you will indeed cause huge morale penalties, which helps a ton when you mob the units trying to shove through your gates.

[Von Nanega]

Yes, fire arrows are the trick when the enemy is essentially stalled while breaking down gates. They hit your gate guards with some nice morale penalties that make it worth your time.

[Steph]

Same for me. Few luck when trying to set a ram in fire.
However here a good trick to slow them down and pin them down at your gate:

Usually the ladders arrive long before the ram, because they charge. Just take them down, then, when the ram is at your gate, climb down with your troops and attack the ram. The other enemy units won't move, normally. The unit controlling the ram will move it back and defend themselves. At that moment go to your wall. Then the enemy will move their ram again, so you have to climb down again (actually some of your men are still downstairs).
And during all this time, you can kill them with whatever arrows you have.

Stéphane

[maestro]

I think you guys aren't using enough archers perchance?

I always try to defend with at least 4-6 units of longbows or above and nearly always successfully burn anything that comes close

I always aim all my archers at a ram first cause I always protect the gate. I can defend the walls easily against towers and ladders with leet troops but I never let cavalry into my cities. I've always been successful so i'm not sure where you're giong wrong

[Forward Observer]

I think you guys aren't using enough archers perchance?

I always try to defend with at least 4-6 units of longbows or above and nearly always successfully burn anything that comes close

I always aim all my archers at a ram first cause I always protect the gate. I can defend the walls easily against towers and ladders with leet troops but I never let cavalry into my cities. I've always been successful so i'm not sure where you're giong wrong

I have had the same experience as you playing the English. I love the longbowmen and so I usually have plenty of them to man the ramparts.

When defending against towers, rams, and ladders I also take them off fire at will and assign targets, which I think you are say that you also do. Mostly the rams and ladders first, and then towers which are usually the slowest and the last to approach.

The good thing about the retenue longbowmen is that they are decent melee troops in a pinch, so if a tower does make the wall they can sometimes hold on their own or at least until you can get stronger melee troops to the rescue.

I'm playing Spain now, and although peasant archers suck in melee, in sufficient quantities they have also managed to set fire to well over half of the rams and towers that they have come up against.

I also park a unit of my best melee troops in the space between the gate towers in such situations. I don't think the area is wide enough for archers to be that effective, but a melee unit is fairly safe there and will be well positioned to rush to the walls on either side of the gate towers as the need arises.

Cheers

[gardibolt]

Using the English on M/M, patched, no mods, I have a city in Egypt that has been besieged repeatedly by the Mongols, using rams and siege towers--at least 8 times in the last 16 turns. I have about 10 archer units on the walls, and only once in all that fighting has a siege tower made it to the walls, and a ram has never made it. Always, they go up in flames. But if they make it to the wall then the flame arrows don't seem to do anything and it's time for plan B.

Could the difficulty setting make a difference, I wonder?

[seneschal.the]

I'm actually glad it is very hard to burn siege equipment. It is not that defending against assaults is hard; machine gun towers, magic that makes knights lose against peasants on the walls and the unbreakable town square combined with the laughable AI... The only real danger is enemy cavalry, and if you burn the ram (I've never seen em go back and pick up the other ram, they just freeze and die) then that's it.

And just for the record, I've also noticed that you can sometimes fire flaming arrows from several units of archers and towers onto siege equipment and it seems to do nothing while it sometimes catches fire on the first or second volley. Random seed fixed at start of battle probably.

[gardibolt]

I don't get these references to the "unbreakable town square." If I'm ever reduced to a situation where I'm defending the square, I'm virtually always annihilated.

[danfda]

I've seen some similar problems. I've not yet been able to burn any enemy seige equipment, though to be fair I generally have 1 to 3 units of archers per city/castle, no more. On the other hand, I find I have to build at least 4 seige towers and 2 rams, since at least one ram and 2 or 3 towers get burned by the AI, even if they only have DFK on the walls and zero archer units. Gah! The universe hates me.

On a different note, I've seen multiple instances of my sallying out to murder the enemy at his rams and ladders, and the enemy troops being relpaced by others after I retreat. Both with ladders and rams this has happened. Though, if there are seige towers, they will simply run and try to use those. Silly men.