Repeating Ballistas in Seige Towers

[Xenopusbruteovum]

Can I make my seige towers have repeating ballistas like the enemy? They totally cleared my trrops from the wall. I would like to reciprocate!

[DerekBaker]

Set the troops assigned to the tower to fire at will mode.

[Quirinus]

I think you get repeating ballistas on your siege towers when the city you are besieging has large stone wall and above. Hopefully that's what you were asking.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I've actually found that the upgraded structures (Large and Huge Stone Walling) really are not in any form worth the money.

The problem is siege towers - with every wall upgrade the enemy improves their siege towers dramatically when assaulting that settlement. These upgraded siege towers fire on your units on the wall when they are in range. This is equally as powerful as your towers' attack on the enemy below. Also the attacking siege towers have a greater ability to withstand structural attacks from the walls due to protections which has been placed on them.

There also is the problem of wall thickness. It's hard to describe, but on the large and huge stone walling, the walls have a larger width which leaves space behind the units standing on them and the edge of the wall. For some reason this seems to make it easier for the foes to to push the enemy backwards and use their unit mass more effectively.

Edit: Gah! Ignore that.

You gain more powerful siege towers whenever you are assaulting Large and Huge Stone Walled cities.

The fire-power of the city's towers is equal to that of the assaulting siege towers and they are better protected against any missiles flung at them. I do actually believe that the towers which are used to attack huge stone walls are immune to being set alight, although don't quote me on that.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

Often times I will build extra siege towers just so I can have more shots against the defenders with the repeating ballistas in the siege towers. Many times I have cleared out entire units on the wall tops with the ballistas, before I even set foot inside.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Often times I will build extra siege towers just so I can have more shots against the defenders with the repeating ballistas in the siege towers. Many times I have cleared out entire units on the wall tops with the ballistas, before I even set foot inside.

Pretty much the same here really. At one point, though, I tried using them exclusively for that purpose rather than for getting onto the walls. Sadly, however, I took a lot more casualties than the enemy did while sitting a siege weapon and guarding units directly in the range of their towers.

[Xenopusbruteovum]

Thanks for all the info. Iwill try it out.

[el_dext0r]

I've been wanting to share my frustration with this for a while, like Omanes said, I always find defending a city with large or above walls much costlier than defending a normal stone wall for 3 reasons.

1. The ballistas from upgraded seige towers kill far more men on your walls than the standard ones.
2. Onagers can fire over smaller walls much easier.
3. (and most importantly) fighting on small walls is much easier, particularly fighting phalanx based troops with normal infantry. Even Spartan Hoplites will struggle on a wall.

Essentially making anything above a standard stone wall pretty much useless.

[Spartan198]

I've been wanting to share my frustration with this for a while, like Omanes said, I always find defending a city with large or above walls much costlier than defending a normal stone wall for 3 reasons.

1. The ballistas from upgraded seige towers kill far more men on your walls than the standard ones.
2. Onagers can fire over smaller walls much easier.
3. (and most importantly) fighting on small walls is much easier, particularly fighting phalanx based troops with normal infantry. Even Spartan Hoplites will struggle on a wall.

Essentially making anything above a standard stone wall pretty much useless.

I don't believe in walls,just my army... !
...sorry,that's just the Spartan inside me.

[Xenopusbruteovum]

I was talking about an attacking siege army using upgraded towers. I am not there yet in my current Brutii campaign and I don't have any campaigns saved so I can try these suggestions out. I have played all the way to Brutii hard for quite some time, but I could never get my siege towers to fire ballistas for the fun of it. I usually just use heavy onagers, missile troops, and then heavy spear or other heavy infantry to get past defenders. This is an awesome game. Kudos to the CA people.

[carbz]

yeah switch to fire at will, mow down the defenders.

I have alwys had great trouble defending against people attacking my walls, my archers always seem to do nothing. Myabe i need a patch (i have rtw gold)

as for using onagers to defend, i always had trouble firing over the walls, so i am going to taken teh advice here and only build small walls, cos if your right about the scaling of siege tower attack then im not interested in wasting all my men!


I also think i have perhaps been placing my onagers in the wrong place, right under the walls doesnt seem to work lolz, any thoughts?

[Xenopusbruteovum]

I put Onagers at a distance when I am attacking, and whwn I am defending I put them at a distance approximately where I can down attacking towers. I have done this several times, and it's satisfying seeing a siege tower go down with men inside and hearing their screams. That's for fun. What I mostly do strategy-wise is position troops inside the city square and watch the enemy flee.

[carbz]

in the square? oh you mean so you can hem the attacks in the narrow streets?

[Xenopusbruteovum]

Yeah Carbz. You can hide heavy calvary and when the enemy engage your spears, plow into their backs and watch their banners turn to rout. This is the best way to defend a seige. Fighting on walls spends too many troops. I have defended with 1/3 size of the attacking army. Its hard for them to get through
all your troops.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

You can also use the mentioned tactic if the enemy break through your gates - send a cavalry unit out through a side gate and flank them like that. It pretty much has the same effect.

I've always found Stone Wall defending a lot easier though. Rams are often destroyed by small stone wall's projectiles preventing a ground fight there. Troops coming onto the walls from ladders simply get slaughtered as they come up one by one. Troops coming from siege towers are a bit more problematic, but a unit of equal, and possibly even slightly lower quality troops often can sort them out. Although these siege towers do fire at you as they come to the wall, their projectiles cause very little damage.

It's Large Stone Walls and above which make wall fighting less reasonable. The walls are wider, making it more easy for enemies to dominate, and the siege towers throw missiles at your men which are a lot more powerful. This destroys a fair number of the wall defenders before combat can begin.

[The Wandering Scholar]

Unfortunately there is no way to attack Large Stone Walls and above then reduce them then to normal stone walls.

[carbz]

bugger.


No wonder i been getting slaughtered on walls.

playing hide and seek in the city sts is great fun, i have even started putting onaagers in my town sqaure, causes a lot of damage but christ almighty it deciamtes the enemeny in choke points.

sallying out the side gate? even better!

[Xenopusbruteovum]

Onagers in a square really do some damage. I had never thought about sallying some cavalry around to their back. I guess it pays to keep some cav units in the city. I guess I don't have to build big walls, but I never fight on epic stone walls anyway since I got creamed by the towers the first time. It sounds like a good idea, though, to keep the walls small.

[carbz]

yeah the laugh is with onagers in the sq, i end up survrying the devastion i have caused to my town afterwards.

are there any mods which make siege battoes more realistic? ie dont upscale the ballista power of siege towers, and make it seriously harder to assault epic stone walls?

[Quirinus]

I've not heard of one, but it would certainly be a good idea-- also, make siege towers for bigger walls significantly more expensive to build.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I've not heard of one, but it would certainly be a good idea-- also, make siege towers for bigger walls significantly more expensive to build.

Sadly siege towers are 100% free anyhow regardless of the power of the walls being assaulted. This is hardcoded into the game engine, so, most unfortunately, there is no prospect of change.

If it were implementable, I do also feel that this feature may be a little unfair unless the player had a choice between building different grades of tower on higher strength walls. If the player were in a tricky financial situation and needed to capture this settlement to survive, things could be made very difficult.

The strength of the towers could be pretty much as they are now, possibly with the missiles they fire being weaker, "Makeshift Siege Tower" (Stone Walls - free), "Medium Siege Tower" (Large Stone Walls - 500d) and "Armoured Siege Tower" (Huge Stone Walls - 1000d).

Alternatively, towers could be removed from the construction menu at sieges and be transformed into a completely separate unit. Sadly these units may be a little useless on a standard battlefield. As an alternative, perhaps a separate siege only category could be added to unit types - such weapons only ever appear in siege battles and not in standard field assaults.

[Celt Centurion]

Often times I will build extra siege towers just so I can have more shots against the defenders with the repeating ballistas in the siege towers. Many times I have cleared out entire units on the wall tops with the ballistas, before I even set foot inside.

There ya go!

I usually have a dozen or more siege towers by the time I assault. Just remember to push the button to make more each turn. By the time it's time to assault, every man without a horse, camel or elephant is assigned to a siege tower. Even if half a dozen get torched, I usually have at least that many or more that don't.

Also, just recently, I've started sending three units of onagers or heavy onagers to knock holes in walls. The three are usually enough to breach the wall, clear off some of the defenders and best of all, damage the stone towers on both sides of the breach so that my soldiers don't get shot marching to the breach.

Onagers make the holes and disable the towers, archers clear the holes, light infantry goes to the tops of the walls and converts the towers to my side.

If you are really adventurous, after your onagers run out of ammo, you can have them run along the tops of the walls. Woe however, to any who suddenly find themselves running into an Urban Cohort standing above a gate!

Then have heavy infantry head for the city square. Keep cavalry close enough to the archers to protect them. You could send archers along the tops of the walls, but unless they cross some enemy unit on the ground, they cannot do much about them.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Celt Centurion]

yeah switch to fire at will, mow down the defenders.

I have alwys had great trouble defending against people attacking my walls, my archers always seem to do nothing. Myabe i need a patch (i have rtw gold)

as for using onagers to defend, i always had trouble firing over the walls, so i am going to taken teh advice here and only build small walls, cos if your right about the scaling of siege tower attack then im not interested in wasting all my men!


I also think i have perhaps been placing my onagers in the wrong place, right under the walls doesnt seem to work lolz, any thoughts?

While I like onagers to knock down enemy walls, they usually damage my own if I try to use them from inside.

I will usually be building another army with the onagers being the first units of the next army. I prefer to not have them inside cities with stone walls. On the other hand, if onagers are inside a city with a wooden wall, they seem quite useful. I had a battle a few months ago, the only thing I "might" have done was put the onagers on "fire at will." As soon as "Start battle" was pressed, my onagers fired immediately at an enemy onager destroying it. In just a few seconds, the other three enemy onagers were also destroyed, and at most, I might have turned on "fire at will" before "start battle." I'm not even sure if I did that much. Once the enemy's last onager was destroyed, I had won the battle.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[ThePianist]

I put Onagers at a distance when I am attacking, and whwn I am defending I put them at a distance approximately where I can down attacking towers. I have done this several times, and it's satisfying seeing a siege tower go down with men inside and hearing their screams. That's for fun. What I mostly do strategy-wise is position troops inside the city square and watch the enemy flee.

How many hits of onager does it take to take down a siege tower (and do you set the onager to regular or flaming ammo)?

[Xenopusbruteovum]

I finally attacked Epic walls of the city, Rome against an SPQR first Legionary
cohort. I cleared half their troops off the wall!

[Thundermace]

Of course, when it comes to Large and Epic walls, siege towers are the only reasonable choice. Using rams means you have to fight at the gate and being poured over by boiling oil; onagers on the other side make a hole in the wall, but eventually you have to fight in the gap, being shot by the nearby towers...
However, when it comes to the ordinary stone wall, I personally have noticed ladders to be much more effective than anything else: this is the quickest way to get on the walls and clear them of enemy troops. Well, missile units on the wall may be a problem , but in my experience it's very much the same with towers - I mean casualties are nearly as many. So my choice is for ladders!

[RLucid]

Actually if you have Onagers you can attack the towers to, as well as the gatehouse, if you feel they're a serious problem. Similarly with Ballista's on Wooden Walls, couple shots to take out the arrow boxes before shooting the gates, can be worthwile.

Ladder's don't seem to be popular on forum, but they're cheap, and you don't have to go through with scaling the wall. One siege tower tends to attract the defenders, whilst the other gets ignored, ladders behind it allow getting missile troops, up behind the main infantry unit to aid them. May require, attacking the right spot, so they can shoot across and internal corner into flank of defenders, rather than other heads of fighting troops.

[Thundermace]

Actually if you have Onagers you can attack the towers to, as well as the gatehouse, if you feel they're a serious problem. Similarly with Ballista's on Wooden Walls, couple shots to take out the arrow boxes before shooting the gates, can be worthwile.

Yes, that is right, but I have noticed that on Large stone wall onager ammo (I used to have two sets of onagers with me) is sufficient only for making one gap in the wall and ruining one tower (approx.) This surely is not enough for me; on the other hand I do not consider bringing more than two sets of onagers reasonable, because they just engage two slots of your army and are not so efficient in field battles (moreover I do not consider bombing the enemy in field battles with onagers an interesting, nor a fair strategy - )
So this is why I don't like using onagers on Large walls. As for ordinary ones - well with 2 sets of onagers you can do quite a good work; however I prefer to take the walls with ladders and safely march inside - it is so annoying getting shot by towers

One siege tower tends to attract the defenders, whilst the other gets ignored, ladders behind it allow getting missile troops, up behind the main infantry unit to aid them. May require, attacking the right spot, so they can shoot across and internal corner into flank of defenders, rather than other heads of fighting troops.

That's an interesting idea. In fact I don't use such tactics, but seems worthwhile trying

[RLucid]

Seems like you could have a reinforcing army around and remove the AI control before battle.

When your Onager, Ballista, Archers or Javelin units run out of ammo, withdraw them (there's usually forces that cover gates for example)! The crew may not have that far to go, before off map and you can call up re-inforcements from edge of battlefield. Similarly you may do that usefully with the initial wave assault troops who have been chewed up.

But with Large Stone Walls, most seem to think they're easier to take with siege towers. With 20 units, you must have forces which can threaten defenders in one sector, drawing them away from where you'll make the break through.

[Thundermace]

Seems like you could have a reinforcing army around and remove the AI control before battle.

In fact I've tried something like that - but I don't find reinforcements reliable mainly because sometimes the AI takes control of them regardless the box isn't ticked.
And as a whole - even if this is Okay - reinforcements may be delayed or may join the battle from an inappropriate direction, which may make things hard. I like simple things - one army, one choice (not even a step backwards )
Hehe - in my opinion there are certain things in the game one should never rely on - reiforcements are one, ambushes and diplomacy are another. At the moment can't think of more, but there certainly are...