Walltakers Anonymous

[mir]

I just discovered very late in the game (much to my embarassment) that Hashashim make excellent walltakers. Even when rushing the walls with ladders they literally *shrug* off arrows and bolts (!), rush up the ladders (ok, kinda exaggerating here) and then slaughter the defenders (not exaggerating here).

While I usually prefer to use siege towers most of the time, I find that for Hashashim, ladders are better since it allows them to *run* forward and scale the walls quicker.

This proved to be a huge boon to my campaigns - during sieges, I now advance with Hashashim first, once they're up the walls, my spear units and Janissaries follow up to support (they make lousy walltakers sadly).

So, for the purpose of research, as it were, which units do you think/believe/know make good/great/excellent walltakers?

[PBI]

Generally any kind of one-handed heavy infantry should do the trick. I usually go for DFKs, although armour-piercing guys such as dismounted huscarls are usually even better if the walls defenders are any good (which thankfully they usually aren't). Hashashim are probably the best wall-takers in the game. Flagellants are also pretty good if you can get them, cheap, plentiful, armour-piercing and high morale. In fact, I would say heavy infantry aren't really good for much else besides wall-taking.

In general, just remember that the defenders get a big advantage on the walls; defending spear militia are roughly a match for attacking armoured sergeants, defending armoured sergeants are roughly equivalent to attacking DFKs, etc. In order to have a good chance of a successful assault you need to use attacking troops who are much better than the defenders.

I used to hate trying to win sieges by taking the walls directly, I generally preferred to flatten the walls with siege equipment and force the enemy to retreat to the center, but I'm becoming more comfortable with doing sieges "properly" i.e. taking the walls by storm. I was put off for a long time by my first disastrous attempt at storming a castle, but I'm finding I'm getting the hang of it more now. It is key, however, to accept a certain number of casualties, especially if the settlement is well defended.

[Anonymous II]

In fact, I would say heavy infantry aren't really good for much else besides wall-taking.

What about hand-to-hand battle with spearmen?

[PBI]

They're good at it, but in the field I find I rarely see a good old infantry-infantry scrap that isn't made irrelevant by a cavalry charge to the rear. Heavy infantry are good against spears, but in my experience archers and cavalry are better. Spears just aren't effective enough against cavalry charges to make heavy infantry irreplaceable, and they themselves are dangerously vulnerable to cavalry charges.

However, both archers and cavalry are useless at dislodging enemy defenders from a wall. Heavy infantry are the only unit which can do this. They are specialist siege troops in my opinion. The field belongs to the cavalry.

Incidentally, I have a suspicion that while units are actually climbing ladders, they cannot be harmed. Can anyone confirm/refute this? I certainly have never seen anyone shot from the ladders whilst climbing, even though you'd think it would be a dangerous job. Or is it just that they're hard for the towers to hit while they're climbing?

[Vladimir]

In my limited experience with sieges (remember Sun Tsu, you shouldn't fight a siege in less you have no other choice) it only takes a few shots from a catapult hitting a wall the defenders are on to have them withdraw. There is no need to destroy the wall. Surround the city and attack from as many sides as possible. I don't assault castles with large garrisons. There are far better targets out there.

[Ramses II CP]

Any one handed heavy infantry works very well, but don't send two handers to capture the walls. They'll be sent back in chunks.

[TheLastPrivate]

The 2hp infantry with shields and good stats/morale are great. Hashashims, Battlefield assassins are great, and in Kingdoms the Muire does the best job among all the other units I've seen.(basically dism. knight with half size and 2hp and high armor/shield)

[Delwack]

As far as siege towers and ladders, generally speaking, if your troops are one level above the enemy or less (equiv; say, ie DFK vs. DFK), towers are far better for allowing you to project your soldiers inward (as they'd simply get slaughtered off ladders), but if your troops are heavily armored and are 2 or more tiers above the enemy (armored swords vs. militia), I'd invariably have to say ladders are better for their great speed and coverage (mounting 4 ladders covers a heck of a lot more wall than one siege tower), allowing you to kill more weak troops faster, getting you out from under the dastardly arrow fire quicker.

Heavy infantry are are essentially siege specialists. In fact, I'd say they are more wall specialists than anything else, since calvary seems to dominate anything even remotely resembling open, and spears are still a better option vs. calvary in the streets. The only thing heavy infantry should be fighting in the streets is other infantry.

A unit of DFKs on the wall can hold off just about any force attempting to scale the walls. Sally knights to destroy any catapults/trebs/cannons, burn out enemy rams, and let the slaughter begin!

With storm-capable heavy infantry, it is possible to move large armies without siege weapons to take everything but the most fortified of castles (generally speaking running into 5 units of dismounted knights in a defending full stack will force you to bring siege weapons to the table, or else suffer gigantic casualties and still have a close battle in a city. with 5 units of dismounted, I wouldn't even dare attempt a fortress or citadel, even with a force consisting of 12-14 heavy infantry units). Fewer can be overwhelmed by simply having more heavy infantry. Since the AI in vanillla has a tendency to build only very few endgame units, storming any full-stack city becomes a very doable affair without any artillery.

It's been a very long time since I fought any cannon tower settlements but if I remember correctly against cannon towers it might be preferable to storm if you cannot outrange the towers with your own artillery and the defending infantry is weaker. Once you get your siege towers in place, the cannons will stop firing and it'll become a straight-up wall fight.

These types of heavy infantry siege armies are easy to assemble with certain specific factions (like England with their cheap armored swords, Scots equiv noble swords, the slightly weaker but cheap Spanish/Portugal Sword + Buckler, or Byzantines Vagarian guard, all which have lower upkeeps than your standard dismounted knight force), meaning you'll usually only need one or two late-game siege armies with actual siege weapons, allowing your heavy infantry siege forces to move significantly quicker and without having to expend huge wads of cash each turn on bulky dismounted forces.

An example of a heavy infantry siege army would be 1 general unit, 1 knight of any choice (for race to the city square/city route killing duty, light horses may be better for these purposes), 3 spear or two-handed heavy infantry units for anti-calvary within the city. (You may replace these with more heavy infantry since calvary cannot do formed charges within cities, though I still prefer to use armored spears where available), 12 heavy infantry, 3 archers. Once inside the walls use the SOP for clearing city streets: use your archers to draw enemy infantry/calvary into your heavy infantry/spears respectively, or watch them get shot to death, depending on how the AI decides to act. Such an army can take city after city with minimal casualties, and be resupplied and on the move again to siege another city very quickly. Especially a boon in huge, spread out areas that are a pain to move around in where you find yourself spending more time dragging your siege units around than fighting battles (like Russia).