best seige weapons

[gaiusjulii]

Ok guys I am currently playing M/M with huge units as the julii, i have the italian paninsular and just taken Alexandria with:

4 Principes
4 Hestati
4 Equites
6 Archers
1 unit of War dogs

ok so now alexadria was beseiged by the egyptians with 3 full stacks, so here goes the egyptians attack my castle with the 4 units of ladders a battering ram and a Seige tower, So the battle goes something like this: I put all 6 untis of archers the walls 3 on the front and 2 on the sides and one in reserve. so i burn the seige tower and the battering ram with flame arrows and then push on each section of the walls where the ladders are heading one unit of hestati backed up with princepes with the archers still raining flaming arrows and all sorts of death from the walls I then move out 1 unit of princepes and 1 unit of hestati and 4 units including general unit of equits out of the side gate backed up by dogs to hit in the flank of the engaged troops on the ladders using the wall one one side and a unit of equites on the other to stop the enemy flanking me while the infantry under the covering fire from the walls engage the egyptian infantry. so in short the battle ends with me losing 354 men out of about 1800 and the egyptians losing some 4500 men when i looked at the stats I noted that nearly half of the kills were done by the men fighting the troops on the ladders one third by archers and the rest by the troops sallying and that got me thinking what would be the ideal seige equipment to use as ladders is asking for death and seige towers always get burned in my battles, what do you guys reckon would be more reliable?