ladders vs siege towers: real difference

**Black_ice_Spain** · August 15, 2009, 12:25 PM

siege towers cover your soldiers from frontal fire, ladders doesnt (while they are going to the wall)

isnt that true?

and well, ladders cant siege huge walls -_-

**Kaizer Merlox** · August 15, 2009, 12:33 PM

Also, some of the larger siege towers if you click "Fire at will", depending on which tower, They can shoot tiny crossbow bolts, to Ballista bolts (On Huge city / Citidal when you need massive towers)

The Biggest of the Siege towers covered in metal shoot the Ballista shots, and can clear a whole column of soldiers waiting for it

Also. the rate of fire is incredible... it shoots 2 bolts a second? Though since it's that fast, it runs outa ammo fast.

The best way how to do it is to simply build siege towers in the front where most of the defenders will be, and place ladders on the far flanks, so you can hopefully cause them to re-organize their defense and try to go after the ladders, leaving more of the bow men left to the siege towers.

If you get a gate open with the flank, call in the cav, and the city is in major trouble, (Most of the defenders forces are on the walls stuck while town center is in danger of being captured.

In honesty, you don't use just 1, you use them all. =p

**Ichon** · August 15, 2009, 01:36 PM

Maybe by the time siege towers are required for large and huge stone walls my empire is rich enough and developed to afford the spies to open gates. Put in 3 or 4 spies in a single city gives you 90% plus odds as well turn off arrows etc. I've never had a chance to siege a city with the larger towers, I might try it once just to see if the larger siege towers do make sense more than ladders for the big fortifications.

I don't believe siege towers offer that much more protection than ladders from arrow fire... when send both up at once nearby the identical units using both suffer almost exact same arrow casualties. Of course maybe the larger towers offer more protection but the basic ones definitely don't.

**bɑne** · August 15, 2009, 05:08 PM

Spies might open the gates but my units still get a nice oil bath when they march through - which can be nicely avoided with siege towers / ladders

**Ichon** · August 15, 2009, 07:42 PM

Do higher level siege walls cause much more damage due to oil? Never notice many oil losses when unit walk thru the gate. If they stay and fight at the gate there will be huge losses but not just moving past.

Plus entering by additional gates spreads out the AI initially from the main front gate letting you move the cavalry in without facing a spear wall.

I rather enjoy raids... moving 3-4 armies on ships to an enemies coast and then capturing 4 and siege a 5th city furthest away from reinforcements in a single turn. Expensive in spies and boat but allows preservation of armies in taking and then to hold a city.

In current game as Genoa fought the Pope in 1 field battle and due his 16 Papal Guards units barely won with 70% losses after healing. After that moved those armies back and moved ships down the coast. Captured all 5 Papal cities and killed the Pope on a ship in 1 turn.

**Vae victis** · August 16, 2009, 01:34 PM

I disable boiling oil from the castle/city gates because the ai does not know how to use it. I have never defended a siege where the ai hasn't gone straight for the gates. Once the enemy breaks the door, they send soldiers storming through the gates, boiling oil gets poured on them, and they all rout, or fight with very low morale. Sieges are too easy to defend with boiling oil when this happens. I disable it to give the ai a fighting chance.

If you are sick of using ladders and siege towers and want to fight tougher siege defenses check here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Ichon** · August 16, 2009, 01:54 PM

How does that make it more difficult for an attacker? I can see for a defender maybe, but usually the only time AI attacks my walls is when it outnumbers 4 or 5x and the oil adds some to their losses but doesn't change the course of the battle.

I haven't fought any sieges with huge stone walls or larger castle though so maybe oil is more damaging in those types of sieges? By that point in game like I said I either have many spies or can afford to siege the enemy into starvation sally.

Thanks for the info though if I ever want to try it if I do notice that the oil destroys AI sieges.

**Birk** · August 16, 2009, 01:55 PM

Originally Posted by Black_ice_Spain

siege towers cover your soldiers from frontal fire, ladders doesnt (while they are going to the wall)

isnt that true?

and well, ladders cant siege huge walls -_-

True but, that won't help you if they burn down.

**Vae victis** · August 16, 2009, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by Ichon

How does that make it more difficult for an attacker? I can see for a defender maybe, but usually the only time AI attacks my walls is when it outnumbers 4 or 5x and the oil adds some to their losses but doesn't change the course of the battle.

I haven't fought any sieges with huge stone walls or larger castle though so maybe oil is more damaging in those types of sieges? By that point in game like I said I either have many spies or can afford to siege the enemy into starvation sally.

Thanks for the info though if I ever want to try it if I do notice that the oil destroys AI sieges.

Its supposed to make it easier for an ai attacker. With boiling oil, it is very easy to defend against ai sieges, depending on the forces they attack you with. Just mass some units behind the gates and let the boiling oil kill the enemy off and make them rout. The oil keeps pouring while the enemy attacks. I used and reused this tactic and never lost a siege. Thats why I turned boiling oil off. It was added in with the Kingdoms expansion and I never liked it because the ai does not know how to not direct their main attack through the gate.

A bonus is that the player will not have worry about boiling oil either. It helps the ai more then the player. Maybe Caesar or an admin will have more insight.

**Ichon** · August 16, 2009, 04:28 PM

Hmm... only very few sieges where the AI attacking did not have large amounts of cavalry able to push thru the gates relatively quickly in the campaigns I've played. Probably not as many as you since I only bought MTW2 last month but am on my 5th or 6th campaign now.

Usually if the AI does not outnumber me severely it simply starves me out and does not siege my city so I don't encounter these long sieges where the oil makes so much of a difference very often. In the few long sieges I've had the AI sends enough men to the walls that the battle at the gates is only about 50% of the total battle and if the AI attacked without cavalry(because it uses auto calc odds to think if it can win or not and cav weight those odds) it means it has hugely more infantry than I do and it can usually win the walls.

You could have different experience of course... just reading some of the screenshot thread I see how different some people fight their battles or weird things I've never seen on the strategic map even as well.

I'd rather more time be spent trying to figure how the AI can defend in a siege better more than attack as that so rarely happen in my campaigns where the battle is much in doubt. I usually have siege defense only to cause as much losses as possible or delay the attacker so reinforcements can arrive, not that I will win with the forces being sieged unless AI just lost its mind and siege with small army which happened a couple times. Then it is a sally battle though and not a siege so the oil does not really figure there either.

**Vae victis** · August 16, 2009, 06:07 PM

Just dont use it then. I made the changes in a previous version of SS, and I make it in all of my mods. I think of all the mods that I played, it has helped in SS the least because of the unit mass and cohesion differences. In other mods it is easy to hold the gates with a few men because the enemy units dont mass together and push themselves through.

Lol, I have got another fix that I did more recently that works better with the current SS. (I installed it with 6.3) If you are having trouble with being vastly outnumbered and having too many cavalry heavy armies besieging you, change the timer for the castle/city center to a higher number. I set my timer to 30:00. I made this change after losing a siege battle against 4 full french stacks. I was playing as Aragon and defending Toulese castle with 8 units. I didnt have the men to fight them all at once and I needed more time to defeat the units. I knew that the enemy mass in SS would crush my units on the ground so I wanted to fight the men on the walls. I put up a heroic defense, but lost because the enemy occupied my city center for 3 min.

After that I changed the timer to 30:00 and have been playing that way since.

I forgot how to change the timer but I asked it here on SS forums if anyone is curious and wants to search. This timer helps the player as well as the ai defender. From what I have seen, the ai will put up more of a fight on the streets and walls of its settlement, disregaurding the center square. This makes it harder to take an ai settlement.

**Ichon** · August 16, 2009, 07:21 PM

Originally Posted by Vae victis

Lol, I have got another fix that I did more recently that works better with the current SS. (I installed it with 6.3) If you are having trouble with being vastly outnumbered and having too many cavalry heavy armies besieging you, change the timer for the castle/city center to a higher number. I set my timer to 30:00. I made this change after losing a siege battle against 4 full french stacks. I was playing as Aragon and defending Toulese castle with 8 units. I didnt have the men to fight them all at once and I needed more time to defeat the units. I knew that the enemy mass in SS would crush my units on the ground so I wanted to fight the men on the walls. I put up a heroic defense, but lost because the enemy occupied my city center for 3 min.

After that I changed the timer to 30:00 and have been playing that way since.

I forgot how to change the timer but I asked it here on SS forums if anyone is curious and wants to search. This timer helps the player as well as the ai defender. From what I have seen, the ai will put up more of a fight on the streets and walls of its settlement, disregaurding the center square. This makes it harder to take an ai settlement.

That could be useful I suppose the the AI tends to react rather quickly if it even see you move men toward town center right now. I've never had victory by occupying the square though I have tried it a few times. Even with 3 min timer it is reset by a single AI unit getting close to the square. Is the wall bonus that large you can have 8 units defeat 80? My sieges are usually 2 units vs a full stack.

**Warmaster Tibs** · August 16, 2009, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by Ichon

That could be useful I suppose the the AI tends to react rather quickly if it even see you move men toward town center right now. I've never had victory by occupying the square though I have tried it a few times. Even with 3 min timer it is reset by a single AI unit getting close to the square. Is the wall bonus that large you can have 8 units defeat 80? My sieges are usually 2 units vs a full stack.

Try and hold the battlement always. Use their advantage of towers and close quarters to win. Of course dont forget about the oil in the gate. It will cause massive casulties. If its 2 units vs 5 units your going to lose usualy. Theres nothing you can do with that amount of soldiers.