Gatling Towers

[Carthaginian General]

Honestly. What's up with towers? yes - the towers on the walls. You'd think they'd have archers inside them, but they seem to have gatling guns inside. Siege Battles are annoying and unrealistic enough (even for a game, and a game that was made several years ago), but these things make assaulting even basic villages very frustrating. Anyone else experiencing these horribly annoying antique Gatling Guns?

[Majd il-Romani]

I know, it sucks. I just avoid them and send my ram/seige tower to a section not covered by their fire. Testudo DOES NOT help either. Learnt that the hard way...

[General Appo]

Well you know, in reality they might cause the same amount of damage they do in-game, because there wouldn´t just be a single guy in those towers. There mighht be dozens, if not hundreds in the biggest ones, and all those guys firing bows and possibly light artillery and such could cause great damage to the enemy.

[^RaGe^]

I don't have any problems with the towers. If you are assaulting wooden walls, it should be very easy to stay away from their range. If your units have proper armor, stone wall defenses won't cause too many casualties either (just make sure they never turn their backs to the towers).

[Majd il-Romani]

I don't have any problems with the towers. If you are assaulting wooden walls, it should be very easy to stay away from their range. If your units have proper armor, stone wall defenses won't cause too many casualties either (just make sure they never turn their backs to the towers).

What? Are you kidding? Stone wall ballistas killed off ARMOURED ELEPHANTS!!! Roman Testudo doesn't work either!

[Carthaginian General]

Well you know, in reality they might cause the same amount of damage they do in-game, because there wouldn´t just be a single guy in those towers. There mighht be dozens, if not hundreds in the biggest ones, and all those guys firing bows and possibly light artillery and such could cause great damage to the enemy.

Of course, but when you're assaulting some simple village you wouldn't expect there to be hundreds and hundreds of men sitting on the pallisades, killing men like they were Cretans on triple steroid overdoses firing heat seeking missiles and fragmentation grenades with laserbeam rifles for a secondary weapon. Sure, you somewhat can justify it when it's a city, but a little pallisade? ...

[General Appo]

I´ve never had a problem with just a pallisade, nor the wooden walls. Sure, if I´m sloppy enough to get my troops within firing range I might lose a guy every 5th second, but it´s nothing overtly dramatic. Plus, I never do get that sloppy.

[^RaGe^]

What? Are you kidding? Stone wall ballistas killed off ARMOURED ELEPHANTS!!! Roman Testudo doesn't work either!

Oh, you are talking about LARGE stone walls. I haven't encountered them myself because the AI doesn't seem to be very interested in building walls.

[Gnostiko]

Oh yes, I've encountered them, and they're doing a good job of defending my cities from marauding non-romani savages

[General Appo]

What? Are you kidding? Stone wall ballistas killed off ARMOURED ELEPHANTS!!!

What do you expect? Hundreds of men, probably prepared to fight elephants, throwing and firing anything they can find on the elephants. They´re not invincible you know.

[Majd il-Romani]

What do you expect? Hundreds of men, probably prepared to fight elephants, throwing and firing anything they can find on the elephants. They´re not invincible you know.

THEYRE NOT!!!!

No seriously, I knew that, but he said that as long as you had armoured units you were good

[Reverend Joe]

First, I've never lost more than 3-5 men marching by the wooden towers. Second, the stone towers are huge, and like Appo said, they would be relaistically full of people desperate to stop you from taking their city and willing to kill your men with whatever's handy. Finally, of course a "ballista tower" will kill armoured Elephants. So will any good unit of archers, say Persian archers or Indian Longbowmen, and they aren't armed with huge catapults that fire gigantic wooden bolts at high speed. That's lie the classical equivalent of an armor-piercing tank round.

[Chris1959]

One of the reasons I've given up assaulting walls is that they are so easy to overcome with siege towers and you will only loose a few men, if the AI defended the walls then it would be a different matter.
In a siege you'll win 99 out of a hundred, if you take your time and do it right, it's just a little boring.

[Ibrahim]

One of the reasons I've given up assaulting walls is that they are so easy to overcome with siege towers and you will only loose a few men, if the AI defended the walls then it would be a different matter.
In a siege you'll win 99 out of a hundred, if you take your time and do it right, it's just a little boring.

and it can take forever; I only keep the no-time limit because of them. you have to admit though, those troops walking on empty walls look like a long snake winding on top, so thin does the formation get.

[Vasiliyi]

I have to say that if you are patient enough you won't loose many men at all. I don't think I've lost more than 10 men to a tower during a seige battle for months. And I always assult. Just be patient and look for weak spots in stone wall battles. And same with wooden walls. On a different note I'd like to ask if anyone else did this. Does anyone else use seige towers as field artillery when the enemy sallies? I find it quite effective and usefull for killing off skirmisher calvary. Sorry for hijakcking the thread for a moment.

[Beefy187]

In any case I don't think this is a EB issue but more of RTW issue.

If you got superior number of soldiers then keep your man back except the first wave of the assault forces. Capture most towers then move your main force.

If you have around equal then I suggest starving them out.

As for siege tower killing sallies.. No I never tried it but thats a really neat tactic. I must try that sometime.

[penguinking]

I think the tower rate of fire should be toned down a bit. It's too fast.

[desert]

The tower fire rate is fine, in my opinion. In fact, stone walls(at least the bigger ones)should have more powerful towers, perhaps with catapults to obliterate your siege towers with.

[ludwag]

i love when they are facing away from you. When they are on the corners they cant shoot you when you approach the wall from the front. Only on settlements with tree-walls though.

[keravnos]

Honestly. What's up with towers? yes - the towers on the walls. You'd think they'd have archers inside them, but they seem to have gatling guns inside. Siege Battles are annoying and unrealistic enough (even for a game, and a game that was made several years ago), but these things make assaulting even basic villages very frustrating. Anyone else experiencing these horribly annoying antique Gatling Guns?

The stone walls you see, were hollow and had ballistae and scorpions in them (Ancient greeks called them Katapeltai oxyboloi (bolt throwers) and lithoboloi (stone throwers)-. Towers too. In fact the game is very realistic. You couldn't expect to be within 200 meters of the walls of a major city and not having a projectile shot at you. When Pyrrhos tried to conquer the last vestige of Qarthadastim power in Sikelia, there were so many oxyboloi katapeltai on the walls that the soldiers on them couldn't move. He was unsuccesful.

[Carthaginian General]

The stone walls you see, were hollow and had ballistae and scorpions in them (Ancient greeks called them Katapeltai oxyboloi (bolt throwers) and lithoboloi (stone throwers)-. Towers too. In fact the game is very realistic. You couldn't expect to be within 200 meters of the walls of a major city and not having a projectile shot at you. When Pyrrhos tried to conquer the last vestige of Qarthadastim power in Sikelia, there were so many oxyboloi katapeltai on the walls that the soldiers on them couldn't move. He was unsuccesful.

Well I wasn't talking about stone walls...

[Centurion Crastinus]

I have to say that if you are patient enough you won't loose many men at all. I don't think I've lost more than 10 men to a tower during a seige battle for months. And I always assult. Just be patient and look for weak spots in stone wall battles. And same with wooden walls. On a different note I'd like to ask if anyone else did this. Does anyone else use seige towers as field artillery when the enemy sallies? I find it quite effective and usefull for killing off skirmisher calvary. Sorry for hijakcking the thread for a moment.

I always do that. I guess it might be considered cheating, but it works really well.

[General Appo]

I always do that. I guess it might be considered cheating...

Not at all. Historically the besiegeing forces always created fortifications of their own around the city to stop enemy outbreaks. Of course, representing these fortifications with a 40 feet high tower might not be the best way, but I wouldn´t consider it cheating.
I´ve never used it myself, but I don´t consider those who do cheaters.

[chenkai11]

The firing rate of arrows from the towers doesn't seem to match the firing rate of a Gatling. It's more like a semi automatic to me.

And I wonder why some people find assaulting a settlement especially cities "boring"?

[Zradha Pahlavan]

Think of it as a bunch of guys weilding harpoon rifles. The kind used to kill whales and sharks, but in a semi-automatic version.

A battle is boring depending on how you fight it.