Cities Indefensible?

[Grog]

As other posters have mentioned, flanking is the way, but heres a few tricks if you fight with small armies:

Onel trick for early era sieges is to run your general in first and charge him up and down the enemy wall outside to draw enemy fire away from your rams. I use this early game when siegeing with understrength armies. As the defenders are city militia bows/xbows they will have a hard time hitting a general charging across their line of fire..

Alternatively, as you had a lot of troops in your example, marching some cannon fodder in front of the rams usually draws enough fire to get the ram to the gate.

[ReiseReise]

I ALWAYS use two rams on the front gate. One walks straight to the gate but doesn't actually attack it until they are real close. The other unit walks foward and to the side of the main unit to soak up arrow fire. In case the main ram gets set afire, the secondary unit can take over.

[Daveybaby]

I ALWAYS use two rams on the front gate. One walks straight to the gate but doesn't actually attack it until they are real close. The other unit walks foward and to the side of the main unit to soak up arrow fire. In case the main ram gets set afire, the secondary unit can take over.

Same here. Works every time, without fail. If youre assaulting a citadel you'll probably need to bring along a few extra rams for the inner walls.

Ladders (In addtion to the rams) manned by sacrificial units are great for diverting enemy forces from the main entrance, as are siege towers. Once youve established a beachead at the gates and gotten archers onto the walls victory should be assured.

As for the OP... i can only wish that the game was as difficult as you make out. I'd give anything for a version of the game that wasnt a total walkover from start to finish. Also I really dont understand people that quit battles if theyre losing - what's the point of the game if you win every battle? You might as well just hack the game to show the victory screen at the start and save yourself all the bother.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I never quit battles unless I get annoyed with the AI (eg Mongols attack me on campaign map then camp up a hill). The reason I quit that siege was that there was no way for my units to get into the city, as once pratically all my infantry were killed all I had left were Cavalry Militia, which couldn't use the ladders - nothing to do but run down the timer.

I actually enjoy losing battles, either because its nice to get beaten fairly by the AI (rare though that is), or because it tends to be a last man stand against some giant Mongol/Timurid/Aztec army.

[phonicsmonkey]

Yes, funny that.

I think we can all agree that the game isn't hard enough, but there is something perverse in our constant dance of trying to make it harder so we can lose at it, then get better at it and beat it all the time.....

I guess it's because, although we'd like to win, we want it to be worth something....

[Daveybaby]

I never quit battles unless I get annoyed with the AI (eg Mongols attack me on campaign map then camp up a hill). The reason I quit that siege was that there was no way for my units to get into the city, as once pratically all my infantry were killed all I had left were Cavalry Militia, which couldn't use the ladders - nothing to do but run down the timer.

Ah, apologies for my assumptions.

[DVX BELLORVM]

I actually enjoy losing battles, either because its nice to get beaten fairly by the AI (rare though that is), or because it tends to be a last man stand against some giant Mongol/Timurid/Aztec army.

Same here . Some of the most interesting and most memorable battles I fought, are the ones I lost...

[Rhyfelwyr]

The AI never fails to amaze. I just defeating a Portuguese army consisting of a 5 star / 3 dread General leading a full stack of about 10 Dis Feudal Knights, 5 Pavise Crossbowmen and a few ballistas and catapults. Quite an army for th AI.

I had pavise crossbow militia, armoured sergeants, and a newbie general, with the other half of my army various mounted knights.

Anyway, the paved road was built at a 90 degree angle along a cliff. The only way up the cliff was on my side of the battlemap, at the end. Basically:

    C enemy army
    C
    C 
xbowC
xbowC
xbowC

army

    C
    C
    C
    C

So they followed the road right along the base of the cliff and lost over 50% of their troops before they charged uphill into my spearmen.

Maybe I was being a bit cheap using that tactic, but it was fun.

Having said that, battes like these do not happen often.

[PseRamesses]

One thing I found very useful during assaults with few troops is waves and outflanking on the walls. Lets say you have 6 infantry of any kind. Build 6 ladders and line them up as follows.
1____2__3_4__5____ 6

1 and 6 is placed as far out on your flanks as you can place them. Move 1 or 6 towards the wall, not both, wait some 10 secs then move the other. When the first hits the wall the defender will counter. Now move the rest to counter the AI´s move. This way you´ll always outflank and encircle the enemy on the walls.

With this "method" you can surround any enemy unit on the wall with 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6 and thoose that isn´t needed for this task will secure towers/ gates or move towards the centre. Good luck.