Lighting up a siege ram...Part Deux

[Agent Smith]

I have encoutnered yet more strangeness in the realm of lighting things on fire, being the pyromaniac that I am.

I decided to run a few tests on a siege battle. I hade my standard contingent of 5 archer militia and the enemy was approaching my walls with a siege ram. The walls were stone walls, and the gate was located in a way so that it was at the rear of a square that was missing one side (i.e., the gate was inset from the rest of the wall). This gave me an opportunity to place archers on both sides so they can fire into the flanks of the siege ram. It was also pouring down rain.

I played the same battle three time, using my archers with fire arrows to shoot at the ram as it approached. All three times, absolutely no success whatsoever. I half expected that with the pouring rain.

However, the next test astounded me. Under the same conditions, I had my archers fire normal arrows at the peasants pushing the ram. Both times I ran this test, the ram caught on fire at the exact same location.

For some strange reason, my towers firing flaming arrows by themselves at the siege ram was much more effective than my towers firing along with five units of archers with flaming arrows. I can only think of two possibilities, both of which I am not sure of:

1.) Tower arrows cause more damage, and
2.) The rate of fire of the archers on the walls somehow affects the rate of fire of the towers.

Any thoughts?

[FactionHeir]

Well, firing normal arrows means you hit the people carrying the ram more often and more deadly, so the ram's pushing speed is reduced. That gives the tower more opportunity to shoot the ram and its crew too.

Still, I'd expect 5 flame archers to be more effective.

Something else to consider is that in my campaign games, my ram catches fire much more often against a large town (large wood) with 2-3 towers firing at it than it does against a stone castle northern (4 towers firing at it at further distance already and at higher altitude) or even a huge stone wall (2-3 towers, high altitude)

Maybe large town towers are best :p

[Agent Smith]

Well, firing normal arrows means you hit the people carrying the ram more often and more deadly, so the ram's pushing speed is reduced. That gives the tower more opportunity to shoot the ram and its crew too.

Still, I'd expect 5 flame archers to be more effective.

Something else to consider is that in my campaign games, my ram catches fire much more often against a large town (large wood) with 2-3 towers firing at it than it does against a stone castle northern (4 towers firing at it at further distance already and at higher altitude) or even a huge stone wall (2-3 towers, high altitude)

Maybe large town towers are best :p

To be honest with you, I saw no noticeable drop in speed of the ram when I was picking off the people pushing it. In fact, I got to points where there was only one guy aside while others were running up to take the positions of their fallen comrades...and the ram was still chugging along. The only time I have seen any effect on a ram by taking out the pushers is when it actually reaches the gate. They won't be able to batter the gate down without a certain threshold of troops manning the ram. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Still, five full units of flaming arrows + towers firing at a ram should be more effective than the towers by themselves, shouldn't it?

[pike master]

i know this isnt related to burning the ram but it is incredible how accurate a mortar is when it targets a ram or siege tower.

try to hit catapults and bombards all day but aim at a ram or siege tower and you usually destroy them by the second salvo.

[FactionHeir]

To be honest with you, I saw no noticeable drop in speed of the ram when I was picking off the people pushing it. In fact, I got to points where there was only one guy aside while others were running up to take the positions of their fallen comrades...and the ram was still chugging along. The only time I have seen any effect on a ram by taking out the pushers is when it actually reaches the gate. They won't be able to batter the gate down without a certain threshold of troops manning the ram. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

If you look closely you can see the ram speed up slightly when it had lost pushers and those are replaced. Very slightly though.

Still, five full units of flaming arrows + towers firing at a ram should be more effective than the towers by themselves, shouldn't it?

As I said, I agree with your notion, but there is something odd going on

[Carl]

As I said, I agree with your notion, but there is something odd going on

, it's called archer unit fire arrow innaccurracy. If you watch carefully, less than 1 arrow in every salvo, (small unit size), from the archers on the walls actually hits the ram. Ad to that that nearly every tower based fire arow hits and the towers fire much faster and the towers easilly achive 10 times the number of hits that the archers do. The fact that it happened so easilly with archers firing normal arrows is simply random chance BTW.

[Whacker]

Methinks Carl is right about those mechanics tower/archer mechanics... For the record my experiences with archery units in both RTW and M2TW is pretty much the same as yours AgentSmith, in that they do absolutely squat against siege equipment. Think I've maybe had one tower go up in flames based on fire from my units in my total time playing both games. If anything is going to get them, it's going to be your wall towers. Hopefully CA knows about this (or does now if they see this thread) and will consider doing something about it in a future patch.

[chilling]

Ballisters are pretty effective against Generals. I've had a number of Kings catch flaming ballister rounds in the face resulting in the inevitable cut scene.

I've also used them effectively myself against General units. The last king of Scotland died to the very first round one of my ballisters fired (The first round of the battle ) in my current campagin. I don't think he'd even finished his speech.

[rosscoliosis]

Same here, I don't think I've ever destroyed a ram with archers in M2TW, and the towers have been about as worthless in destroying them. It seems you have a much better chance in RTW, though.
I've actually destroyed far more siege towers than rams in M2TW, but I guess realistically those are much bigger targets and easier to light afire?

[TevashSzat]

Carl is probably right, but i think that rams and siege equipment in general just catches fire more often than RTW when I am fighting the siege that is, attacking a city

[nikolai1962]

Same here, I don't think I've ever destroyed a ram with archers in M2TW

Had some success with this myself. But i take them all off fire at will and target them individually on the ram. Might have just been luck though.

[Durallan]

I've been playing Denmark and don't get mortars. However I do get Cannons and even just 1 unit of cannons can take out a cannon tower in 1 round. :D however cannon towers just are not as accurate as ballista towers and with the Timurids arrival I have had Antioch Baghdad Jerusalem and Cairo and Alexander fitted out with ballista towers after one of my citadels that had ballista towers was sieged. All I had defending it was 3 units of Norse Archers (great for defending the walls of any city as they have 11 melee and 7 missle attack, not so great in open combat however, get cut down very quickly if in hand to hand combat) The ballista towers unleashed flaming destruction upon the ram when I made all my archers target it, and it was set alight shortly after. unfortunately the enemies siege tower reached the wall, but I set my 3 norse archers infront of it and I managed to hold off a force larger than my own, the only problem I have had is once the Sicilians sieged me once, but the citadel had cannon towers and the ram survived easily, and my archers fell back to the secondary walls, but the computer was acting strangely and wasn't moving so after an hour of waiting and trying to kill as many as possible I ran out of arrows and had to surrender the citadel :(
I'm still waiting for the Timurids to attack me, right now theyre still messing aorund in the northern part of Turkey, costing me 50k silver florins a turn to support the armies in those cities but I bet you as soon as I disbanded them the Timurids would head straight here!