Confessions of a siegeaphobic

[Delwack]

I'm actually quite happy that sieges cause a lot of causalities, as they should.

Most of my sieges battles look like this:

If the enemy has units on top of the walls, try to simultaneously cut off both sides of the wall before the computer can get the unit off. While difficult to do because it requires an insane amount of siege equipment or else a higher level of siege equipment than the walls you are destroying, it can be a very effective way to kill multiple units on the walls. Any soldiers that do not have any means to get off a wall (ie cannot get a tower because the walls on both sides of the unit are destroyed) will instantly die.

You really need to decide at the beginning of a siege if you want to force the AI to retreat to the city square or not. This includes a number of different factors. Do you want to spend artillery shoots at the towers and/or gatehouse? Do you want want to leverage your artillery against grouped units in the city square? Do you want to be able to chase down units routing to the city square? Does the enemy have a lot of Calvary that could potentially cause a lot of charge damage? When you force the enemy into the square, will you have a clear shot at it with your ranged weapons? How good are the ranged weapons you bought with you? How many ranged units does the enemy have? If you blow enough holes in the wall, the AI may opt to retreat to the city square.

If you do not want the AI to retreat to the city square, destroy towers that you feel will kill many of your attacking troops and/or the gatehouse, and don't blow so many holes in the wall that the AI will think to retreat. Don't get bottlenecked at the gatehouse if it is operational! The boiling oil can hurt. Try to route units wherever you can and try to capture as many routers as you can with calv before they reach the center. This is often not possible nor feasible if enemy units are group along one lane as units that aren't routing will often block your way.

As for combat in the city streets, I find swords are best for anti-infantry and spears best for anti-Calvary. If I have any AP units (billmen/halberds, etc.) I mix those up in there too, trying to let the shield units take the blows while the AP units help to destroy heavily armored enemies. I usually send a mix of all 3 when available down city streets, having them engage the appropriate units. I usually have calvary hang just behind the infantry until the mass-route begins, at which point that are unleashed to take as many as they can before they reach the city square.

If you want the AI to retreat to the city square, blow as many holes in the wall as you can. Ignore the towers and gatehouses, as they will not be shooting at you anyway once the AI has retreated.

Once they hole up in the city square, things get a little more complicated. Trying to lure the enemy out of the city square will sometimes work, in which case you can try to force a route and chew them up while they are retreating back to the city square. If nothing else, this will eat up the enemy stamina and reduce their combat effectiveness. This often works well if you have long range missiles or siege equipment of some type, have already broken the units at least one, killed the general (or captain) and have spare Calvary units.

If they can't be lured out, leverage your archers and siege equipment to shoot at the largest concentrations of enemy troops for maximum effect. Protect your ranged units with strong mêlée, and you should decimate a good number of them. At this point, you have no choice but to send the foot infantry in to clean up, and that is often where the largest losses occur.

I usually find that city combat is not too bad, it's citadel and to a lesser degree fortress combat that inflict serious casualties. Attempting to take a well-garrison citadel requires the right balance of siege equipment and men. You need enough equipment to disable the walls and towers, but you need enough men to survive the street/city center/wall battles.

You need to position your artillery just right to knock out the appropriate towers and knock down the appropriate walls on the higher levels without getting shot at, and it is sometimes impossible to avoid costly choke point or wall battles. The static defenses will probably prove to be costly in some manner unless you have a lot of siege equipment. It is also very difficult to leverage siege equipment to effectively shoot at enemy units at the highest levels. It is however possible to cut off and trap retreating or routing units, preventing them from reaching the next fortification level. The last ring of walls often provide a ready ledge from which archers can shoot into the city square with great and deadly effect.

If you really are siegeaphobic, you can always opt to auto-battle the sieges. The computer manages to achieve some amazing casualty results in auto-battled sieges, especially if you fail to bring cannons/trebs with you. The only conclusion I can come to is it treats the siege battle almost exactly like a field battle, for some odd reason. I personally however find sieges, both on offense and defense, to be a heck of a lot of fun, and don't pass up many chances to fight them.