Which Units Do Better On Walls?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I'm finding sieges (even city sieges) more difficult than in Rome, which is excellent. However, even when I outnumber the enemy on the wall, I almost always lose. I usually hire mercenaries to take the wall, but they continue to fail, even if they massively outnumber the enemy. I've been auto-resolving sieges - even if I lose, I take less casulaties (which I know is because the resolve doesn't take walls into account). I'm at a loss, so I can only say that it must be the units. Which units do better on walls?

[FactionHeir]

Any unit that is substantially heavier than their counterpart manning the walls and definitely only one hand units with swords, maces or axes.

DFK and the like perform decently in taking walls. Usually you don't want to take the walls though but get through a breach (gate or wall) instead.

[Per Ole]

I think the defender gets a hidden bonus on the walls, which explains why if you got the exact same units on the walls, the defender always wins

[Ramses II CP]

In addition to the heaviest one hander you can find per FH, as the Danes Swordstaff militia do surprisingly well on the walls. They're one of those units that generally outperforms it's stats anyway, but I've found them near unbreakable on the walls.

[Cheetah]

Ignore the walls. If you blast the gate with arty the AI will pull back to the city square. If you ram the gate that is more costly, there will be a fight for the gate but once you win it the AI again will pull back to the city square. All in all, absolutely no need to take the walls by force. Ofc you can put archers on it once the AI pulled back.

[DVX BELLORVM]

I think the defender gets a hidden bonus on the walls, which explains why if you got the exact same units on the walls, the defender always wins

It does seems so. Anyone knows what exactly this bonus is? A moral, better stats or something else?

[FactionHeir]

No morale.
I think it gets a defense and attack bonus. Don't know how much, but it feels like +3 each.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I'm not sure I like that units rout from on top of a wall instead of fighting to the death. It's definately horrible from a gameplay perspective - by climbing back down the ladders they block reinforcements that could've saved them from coming up.

[FactionHeir]

I think they used to fight to the death in RTW. It was changed apparently in M2TW.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Units defending on a wall seem to get a pretty massive stat boost from what I've seen. I don't think its a morale boost, as I find the best way to defeat them is to swarm them and hope they rout.

Otherwise you must have much, much better quality troops to defeat enemies on walls.

[Husar]

Never noticed a stat boost for defenders.
Several problems though:
1. the attackers lose men to towers and other ranged units before they reach the top of the walls
2. the attackers lose men upon entering the walls because the defenders often strike before the attackers go into combat mode until the attackers have managed to spread out
3. the defenders will often surround the attackers from 2, maybe 3 sides(both sides of the wall and maybe cavalry on the street) resulting in a morale hit from being surrounded which can be quite severe

units which do not suffer too much from all these have a chance of taking a wall depending on who defends it, usually that is infantry with a onehanded weapon and a shield and good morale, positioning a general outside the wall to boost their morale can help but puts him in the range of enemy missile fire.
Trying to enter from multiple points with one or two units which only have enemies on one side of the wall, being the outer flank, can help as it allows one to surround the defenders and inflict a big morale hit on them as well.

[Ramses II CP]

Towers continue to fire into enemy troops fighting on the walls too, which no doubt reduces their will to fight. ;)