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?

[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.

[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.