Defensive Siege AI...

[rvg]

There seems to be a very easy way to beat the defending A.I. in *city* sieges with absolutely minimal casualties for the attacker. All you need is basically a standard siege army with lots of melee infantry, a few archers and most importantly, 2 or more Catapults (basically, anything other than ballista will do. No need to construct any siege towers nor ladders nor rams.

Now for the minimizing casualties part: when the city siege begins, the AI faced with catapults abandons the walls and withdraws all its troops to the city center. With the setup above it does so in EVERY city battle and of course it is a fatal flaw: as soon as the Catapults have busted down the gates, I am able to rush *my* archers onto their empty walls, while my melee troops flood the gate area. A.I. rushes back for a counterattack only to run into my solid mass of defending infantry and get shot to bits by my archers (paivse xbows work even better) thanks to the perfect shooting spots from their ramparts.
Once the A.I. gives up on counterattacking, I can wheel in my catapults (who will be covered by the archers on the ramparts and the melee infantry), get them close to the city square and burn the remaining defenders with some nice fireballs.

Now, I have successfully used this strategy with both Milanese and Byzantines and it works both with archers and xbows (but better with xbows), and will not work vs Castles, Fortresses and Citadels.

However, for the city assaults it brings the attacker's casualties down to almost nil even when the defender has enough troops to make me pay dearly for the assault.

[DVX BELLORVM]

That is very good tactic, I also use it often, depending on a situation. The worst thing you can do during a siege, is to fight on the walls and central square.

[phonicsmonkey]

Hi - nice work

you might find some good ideas here if you get bored with that rinse-and-repeat tactic and want to try something else

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88794

[ReiseReise]

Great strategy!!! Call me a fool, but I don't think taking cities should be too easy and therefore don't mind taking a few casualties doing it the traditional way ie meat waves. However I may have to try this out in my current Russia campaign because Const. has a huge garrison (~15 units), pretty unusual for the AI. I won't be ready to go down there for 20 turns or so but my spy has been checking it out. Right now I am torn between my original goal (and Victory Conditions) of an Asian Empire vs extending my recent conquest of Scandanavia over to the British Isles. I have all the steppe provinces except Bulgar, ready to build an army and pounce on Tblisi and Yerevan, but at the same time Britain is so much closer and richer... I have to decide between conquering and building up Asia and battling the mongols on my home turf (~50 turns away) or evicting England and Scotland (both have regions on the mainland, as Scotland took Bruges!?!?!?) which would give me a nicer economy to face the mongols from a safer distance (unless they appear by Sarkel ). The Britain route is much more interesting to me as a sort of alternate history, but the Asia route will be more difficult, which also makes it appealing.

[ReiseReise]

I've also found that once you punch a certain number of holes through the walls, the defending AI retreats to the city center, at which point they are at the mercy of your arty/missile units. Haven't experimented to find out how many holes, if it works on castles etc, its just something I noticed.

[Old Geezer]

From my experience in Kingdoms the AI does not always abandon the walls in such circumstances. I have shot the walls out from under men on the walls quite often when the AI has a large force in the settlement.

[rvg]

From my experience in Kingdoms the AI does not always abandon the walls in such circumstances. I have shot the walls out from under men on the walls quite often when the AI has a large force in the settlement.

I do not have Kingdoms, but in vanilla game this tactic works time and again.

[ReiseReise]

I actually first noticed it in Americas as Spain, I have never used much arty in vanilla. Punch a few holes in the walls and all the natives group together in the square to receive my lovely gift.

[alpaca]

Yeah I've been using that tactic, too, until I got bored with it and introduced a house rule that forbids using the cats for anything but breaking down the walls.

Besides: This is also the reason why I'm playing with the thought of removing cats/trebs/cannons altogether from my game.

[Cadwallon]

Clausewitz said that an attacker needs a 3 to 1 advantage to ensure victory in a siege situation. The AI needs that when attacking me, but I only need parity to attack his cities.

Storming a city needs to be more costly - there is a reason why long sieges and blockading were favoured. The problem with any AI is that after a while it stops giving you trouble, and you work out what it will do in any given scenario.

I've played VH/VH with most factions and find them almost laughably easy - still enjoy the game though, and every now and then it suprises me.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Interesting....

I've been so focused on the campaign aspect of the game that I haven't bothered too much with reducing casualties unless I have critical battles ahead and I need the troops. Typically I disband troops I don't need anyway, and being lost in battle saves me the trouble.

I will use this tactic if I ever decide I need artillery for some reason. Not sure when or why I would need any.

If I were playing a serious campaign or against a human, I would actually bother with such details. Good tip, though!

[Invar]

I have sometimes taken a wall near a gate, but when I try to order my troops onto the top of the gate (with a tower intervening) they "refuse". Their movement arrows go away and they just stay on top of the wall. Do I have to order them into each tower/wall segment one at a time?

[Ramses II CP]

Yeah, one at a time and only small groups of men can fit between the towers over the gate.

[mir]

This then begs the question:

Why is it that sometimes the walls have archers firing at you (even without any defenders) and sometimes not at all?

In my current game, the Moors declared a Jihad on Spanish-held Cordoba. After many years of sailing, I arrived, laid siege to the city and in the ensuing battle, I did not lose a single man storming his walls!

Of course, all he had was a single General's Bodyguard in the city square waiting for me.

So, do the walls only fire arrows when there are troops manning them?

And unlike RTW, my troops can no longer capture the Wall Towers and make them fire on the troops inside... :(

[Cheetah]

So, do the walls only fire arrows when there are troops manning them?

Yes. You need troops standing nearby the given wall section. Actually the towers firing not the walls. Flags show up when the towers are active.

[WhiskeyGhost]

This then begs the question:

Why is it that sometimes the walls have archers firing at you (even without any defenders) and sometimes not at all?

In my current game, the Moors declared a Jihad on Spanish-held Cordoba. After many years of sailing, I arrived, laid siege to the city and in the ensuing battle, I did not lose a single man storming his walls!

Of course, all he had was a single General's Bodyguard in the city square waiting for me.

So, do the walls only fire arrows when there are troops manning them?

And unlike RTW, my troops can no longer capture the Wall Towers and make them fire on the troops inside... :(

yes, a unit needs to be nearby, or on the wall for the towers to fire. And no, you cannot turn them, but getting an archer unit onto the walls works much better