How useful are catapults, trebuches really?

[moby323]

I mean, first of all is it that harder to concqer a castle with a ram and a few siege towers?

And you can't use them to DEFEND your castles right?

So whats the point of making them except later in the game when you are fighting huge fortresses?

[DavidtheDuke]

I use them to capture settlements with high garrisons, but really the AI many times doesn't have anyone in them, so usually they are almost useless. Not to mention if you have a spy you can just have a "busted wall" right from the get-go

[kuningas]

killing stuff

[C19W83]

When considering you want to take a settlement with minimal losses, trebs, catapults, and cannons are quite useful.

[chris watton]

Archers and trebs always make up half of each full stack - both work well, most of the time!

[SPARTAN VI]

Invaluable. No better way to take out sections of defensive wall and towers without suffering a single casualty. Even makes for a decent anti-personal weapon; those firey missiles have a generous splash damage radius!

Catapults on the other hand quickly phase out as bombard towers magically appear, even before gun powder was used. :hmmm:

[Wurfspiess]

Invaluable. No better way to take out sections of defensive wall and towers without suffering a single casualty. Even makes for a decent anti-personal weapon; those firey missiles have a generous splash damage radius!

Catapults on the other hand quickly phase out as bombard towers magically appear, even before gun powder was used. :hmmm:

i agree with everything here + its indeed strange that you can field fullscale Renesaince armies in 1280

[GODzilla]

Invaluable. No better way to take out sections of defensive wall and towers without suffering a single casualty. Even makes for a decent anti-personal weapon; those firey missiles have a generous splash damage radius!

Catapults on the other hand quickly phase out as bombard towers magically appear, even before gun powder was used. :hmmm:

Mhm....isn't it possible to disable cannon towers with the recently released text files? :hmmm:

[the_mango55]

Catapults can be devastating in the open battle if they are given time, even more so than most cannons IMO.

Especially if you are trying to defend a bridge and the opponent has brought along some catapults.

[Pfundner]

Catapults can be devastating in the open battle if they are given time, even more so than most cannons IMO.

Especially if you are trying to defend a bridge and the opponent has brought along some catapults.

i disagree. i was facing a spanish army twice the size of mine, full of bombards, catapults and the odd trebuchet. i kept my infantry in loose formation and far away, so they suffered about 10 casualties ,directly frm the artillery, in the entire battle. i sent in some light cavalary (hobillars and mailed knights) and munched their artillery before they could even open fire on my horses. keep them firing at stationary things such as walls. the cant move out of the way

[sporkyness]

single catapults and trebuchets arent that affective in open battle. but have a battery of them and they can literaly wipe out an enemy army in 3 rounds of shooting

for sieges. using siege towers will result in a low chance of your troops getting the wall cos of the high defence bonus the defenders have resulting in alot of casualties

using battering rams will also cause casualties. they also can only attack the gate so the enemy knows where to defend and concentrate his troops

[Lubeck]

Ladders and siege towers do not work well at all. If I am going to assault a settlement and not just siege it out, I always bring along at least 2 trebuchet batteries to take out towers and sections of the wall. Makes for a less costly battle for the city.

[Tom Servo]

I havent used trebuchets much but i love ballistas, they rock for tearing down walls and for sniping enemy generals in bridge battles.

[Voyager]

Catapults and trebuches are good if you want to assault a settlement in one turn and not impose the Pope's "Stop attack or I'll Excommunicate" and still get the city.

I almost always use them. Postion two different armies around two cities, and swoop in and attack - taking the cities in one turn before the excommuincation threat.

[Inhuman One]

I agree with Voyager, trebuchets and catapults are great for such one turn attack. if you play it right you can capture several cities of one faction in one turn.

I usually get armies ready to do this when I can see that a faction is going to start a war with me.

I am HRE right now and the french started marching through my land with a full stack. I reinforced defences and started building up a second army at the french border and when the french stack was defeated by the defence of my city I took one of their cities in one turn and another one the next turn.

Right now they have a big garrison in Paris which is cut off from the three lower regions of france that they controll as well. these three dont have much defence so they will be defeated soon as well.

It worries me though that they have a full stack in germany somewhere that went into hiding. the danes are fighting me there too and took a town so I might get into some serious trouble.

[Endeav]

You can use trebuchets to defend, they just don't hit anything. They work right in front of the wall, as the sling goes over top. The Moorish Defenders do this in one of the Spanish historical battles. I guess it gives a little extra epic feel to some sieges, even if they don't do much

[GODzilla]

You can use trebuchets to defend, they just don't hit anything. They work right in front of the wall, as the sling goes over top. The Moorish Defenders do this in one of the Spanish historical battles. I guess it gives a little extra epic feel to some sieges, even if they don't do much

In fact they hit me many times in that historical battle, but I simply withdrew my troops to a higher position. But then the AI starts to pull the trebuchets out of their city...trough the hole I shot into their walls! One after the other went trough that hole and one after the other was killed from my cannons. It was really funny.

[scottishranger]

Catapults are not that great in the defense of a cityt but mortars are great. A mortar destroy most any seige weapon, especially seige towers.(sorry to get off topic.)

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Trebuchets are good for defending as well if you can fit them close to the walls that is.
They have no trouble throwing stuff over the walls.

[mr_poopyhead]

i think they should let you build trebuchets when you siege a city, the same way you build rams and ladders.

as is my (faint) understanding of medieval warfare, armies didn't wheel trebuchets halfway across the continent to siege a city. rather, they built them on the field with whatever trees they could cut down... same goes for pretty much all the siege machinery in the game. actually, it would make it a little more realistic if armies had to spend build points on siege machinery instead of being able to show up at your walls with them and smash you immediately...

can any history buffs dispel my delusions about siege machines?