Lighting up a siege ram...

[Agent Smith]

Alright, I'm getting frustrated.

I am playing as Russia and I am loading up some of my volatile cities in central Europe with a militia army consisting of five archer militia units (along with others). I get sieged and assaulted about every other turn in the current game, but at first I figured it would be easy to light up the siege rams with five full salvos of flaming arrows raining down.

Wrong.

I rarely, if ever, can get sieqe equipment to catch on fire, even in clear weather. Does anyone have more success with this? Is it a function of missile damage, and my archers just aren't powerful enough?

[TeutonicKnight]

The few times I've had to burn seige equipment has resulted in a very disappointing success rate.

For some reason the AI seems to be far more successful however.

[vonsch]

For some reason the AI seems to be far more successful however.

That would be "balance," I'd say.

Don't count on buring rams or siege towers. Counter them at the wall/gate. If you can burn them, great. But don't base your defense on that as even cannon towers are very unpredictable at destroying them (if a lot better!) Unfortunately, we get led to believe out fire arrows will be as effective as the AI's. They are not. I estimate they are 1/2 to 1/3 as effective. I've had three rams in a row go up in smoke in one siege, had to withdraw. Meanwhile I'm lucky to burn one in three when defending.

Get high damage melee units on the walls to counter ladders and towers, and stack spears at the gate or breach on "guard." Plow high damage melee units into the flanks of the assaulting troops at the gate/breach. Save cav for emergencies, or wait until they are storming and send them outside from another gate to charge into the rear of the assault force. Nice routs that way.

A few archers are good. Flaming arrows have nice morale effects and killing off some of the arriving troops is always nice. And they can do wall defense in a pinch against less than high-quality troops. They get big defensive bonuses on the walls against storming troops.

At a minimum you can make the enemy pay 3+ to 1 losses for your garrison. You can hold against 1:3 odds with a decently composed garrison, and higher is possible with experienced troops and good generalship. And luck can make a large difference too. The quality of the walls or castle play a role too. As do the more advanced towers.

[DisgruntledGoat]

I find that the ability to burn siege equipment goes up as you fall back farther into settlements. Of course this is useless in a settlement with only one wall but in castles I find it alot easier to burn a ram once it enters the castles first set of walls. I've literally tried like crazy to burn a ram at my first gate and don't even damage it. But I I've burned plenty of rams at my second gate in about the same time it takes the AI to burn my down.

[Hoplite7]

Using Longbows in Jerusalem will produce vastly greater results than peasant archers in Russia. It all depends on range and weather conditions. Just remember to focus every ranged unit on one single piece of equipment, usually the ram as they rarely employ the backup. Then they will swarm the walls unorganized, where you can slaughter them. (And slaughter your FPS rate, as this always causes substantial lag )

[Agent Smith]

That would be "balance," I'd say.

Don't count on buring rams or siege towers. Counter them at the wall/gate. If you can burn them, great. But don't base your defense on that as even cannon towers are very unpredictable at destroying them (if a lot better!) Unfortunately, we get led to believe out fire arrows will be as effective as the AI's. They are not. I estimate they are 1/2 to 1/3 as effective. I've had three rams in a row go up in smoke in one siege, had to withdraw. Meanwhile I'm lucky to burn one in three when defending.

Get high damage melee units on the walls to counter ladders and towers, and stack spears at the gate or breach on "guard." Plow high damage melee units into the flanks of the assaulting troops at the gate/breach. Save cav for emergencies, or wait until they are storming and send them outside from another gate to charge into the rear of the assault force. Nice routs that way.

A few archers are good. Flaming arrows have nice morale effects and killing off some of the arriving troops is always nice. And they can do wall defense in a pinch against less than high-quality troops. They get big defensive bonuses on the walls against storming troops.

At a minimum you can make the enemy pay 3+ to 1 losses for your garrison. You can hold against 1:3 odds with a decently composed garrison, and higher is possible with experienced troops and good generalship. And luck can make a large difference too. The quality of the walls or castle play a role too. As do the more advanced towers.

You see, that is part of the difficulty of Russia. You need to focus on settlements early for the cash (there is a lack of it in the steppes) so you are forced to field militia armies to protects cities. The best you can do in that department, for the most part, is Spear Militia (no cav bonus and no schiltrom) and archer militia. Maybe crossbow militia if your city is far enough along. Sometimes, it's just not feasible to supply your frontline cities with heavier infantry from far away castles...

[Crazy Larry]

Destroying rams is pretty much impossible until you start developing the defensive towers, at which point it becomes more or less inevitable. I suppose that a siege or cannon unit placed outside the gates could manage it, but I've never tried that tactic. I find the best tactic for handling rams sans defensive towers is to send out a melee unit to engage the unit guiding the ram until the enemy's ladders reach the wall. The A.I. will almost always abandon their other siege equipment and try to send their whole army up the ladders, where they're easy pickings for even Archer Militia to rout. As a bonus your towers and unengaged missile units can pick off a lot of the enemy soldiers clustering about at the ladders' feet.

So I'd always recommend keeping at least two melee units in any garrison (one to occupy rams and the other siege towers). Cavalry are preferable for this, since they can take out more of the enemy in a charge, then retreat behind the gates with little loss. However, not every nation can field cavalry from cities, but infantry will work as well.

[vonsch]

Heh, on this topic, I just had Hungary backstab me and send a small army to besiege Kiev from Iasi. I was 3 turns away with significant reinforcements. I didn't think it was an issue because I had 3 militia archers and 2 militia spears and a wooden wall. I could see 4 units in their army, one a general (which was not good). So they besieged, stormed first turn after arriving. And the odds were 1:3 against me! Turns out one of the other units was dismounted knights (chivalric, I think). The others were spear militia and Croat axemen. No big problems there. Because their army was so small, they only had a single ram.

I, of course, put all three archer units on the wall shooting fire at the ram. As it got to the gate, it started drizzling! I figured I had serious trouble. But I'm used to stone walls more than wooden (I don't seem to have those for long!) and didn't realize archers on the walls can still shoot at the ram when it's working. About 60 seconds after it started bashing, it started smouldering.

Must be the team of Orthodox priests that just arrived to pray.

But Agent Smith reminded me of something I'd noted in the past and forgotten. Russia's spear militia don't get the cav bonus. Ouch. Sounds like they're really town militia in disguise. At least their main enemies don't use much cav... err, wait! Well, the Danes don't!

[_Tristan_]

I suppose that a siege or cannon unit placed outside the gates could manage it, but I've never tried that tactic. .

In deployment phase it is anything but impossible...

Later, after battle starts, moving your siege weapons or artillery out a side door will take longer than the siege towers or ram will take to reach your walls

So I think it's a