Sieging Tactics

[Armoured_Crusader]

I have always had problems figuring out tactics when sieging a settlement. Can someone give me a few please.

Here is one: When attacking a castle with multiple walls just tell your infantry to march along the walls. It gets you past everything and you don't have to destroy the wall.

[Real]

Wow, 24 views and no response...

Sorry not to answer your question, but do you mean attacking or defending?

[Demon]

When I siege, I'm very very conservative - meaning I know it's going to be dangerous especially against Castles, so I hold my men back until I feel it's the right moment to attack.
I only send my men in when there is multiple entrances to the Castle, this is because your men are charging through a Gate, like 10 men at a time into 150 Spearman already in formation. So I try to out flank the enemy by opening holes all over the place for maximum mobility.

I hate losing men, I especially hate losing battles, so I take my time in sieges. Longest one so far is around 50 minutes long. That's long enough for me ^^

[Kratos]

I prefer attacking with towers and ladders since breaches in the wall easily become deathtraps if the enemy rush in reinforcements.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

use catapults and cannons to destroy towers ... maybe make some holes in anemy defence and so on. then attack.
Don't rush into attack as soon as possible, seek the weaknesses in anemy formations and defence!

[Kesxex]

Once I have ballistas I have 2 in every siege army just to knock down the gate.
It is inevitable to loose men in a siege but one way to reduce this is to put xbows in loose formation to shoot at manned walls. There is a small gap in range where normal archers (not longbow or extended range archers) can't shoot back.
This will over time thin out the ranks there but it is not a winner in itself.

Once the gate is open I tend to move in two spear men units up to the gate, form them into shiltroms and move them slowly in. In this formation they tend to take less losses, especially against cavalry charges.
After the initial clearing of the gate I also send in more infantry units in to clear the walls while the cavalry charges in to mop up the rest of the units.

Once the walls are clear the next step is to take the center. If there are units left then moving xbows behind an infantry unit to whittle down the defenders is a nice move.
The cavalry at this point goes around the flanks and waits to charge in.

One way to minimise losses (or take acceptable losses) is to use mercenaries to do the dirty work, especially in the first 50 to 100 turns.

With cannons later it is a good idea to take down the walls first, especially if manned. This results in pretty heavy losses on your enemy's units.
Granted, this results in some repairs afterwards but this just takes some money and keeps your army losses down.

[DarkLordSauron]

One way to do it is use Trebuchets, Ballistas and those Ribault things. I use the trebuchets to pound a few holes in the wall and then fire on any troops behind. The ballistas I use to destroy the gate and then pin any troops they can see through the gaps in the wall. Now using Longbows I cover my ribaults until they have reached the gap in the wall and from whence they can cover and shoot at the enemy until the men are safe to walk through the wall.

[wkndwrrr]

When I seige anything but the most heavily defended settlements, what I do is:

Build 3 seige ladders, and give them to 3 units with very good defense.

Build 3 rams, and give them to missile units

Have cavalry at the ready

Move the seige ladders to flank the city gates, and move them in slightly ahead of the rams

For two of the rams, click near to, but not actually on, the gateway, so that if the 3rd ram, which I DO tell to attack the gates, catches on fire, one of the other two rams can immediately attack the gate; The arrow towers around the gate will usually ignore 2 of the rams and focus on the center one.

Once the gate is down, I have the now-free missile units assist my men on the walls, who are probably suffering badly (it seems like any unit defending a wall gets some kind of bonus, to me, or maybe the attacking units get a morale drop from being pelted with fire arrows on the approach)

At the same time, I send all my cavalry units into the gates to flush out the enemies on the walls, who will usually try to get off them to fight the cavalry

Finally, I push all melee units to the city center, find another path to the center and use the cavalry to flank the enemy, and have the missile units assist the assault

Capture the city center, and win

Variations of this worked quite well for me in most cases

Oh, by the way, always keep reserve melee units that are NOT assigned to help the ladder-troops, who will suffer the most casualties of any group in my army, in most cases. That way, you have fresh troops to help the ladder-troops once they get off the walls.

[Naja]

Here is one: When attacking a castle with multiple walls just tell your infantry to march along the walls. It gets you past everything and you don't have to destroy the wall.

The castle wall exploit is a bug. It will be removed in the 1.2 patch. Thank ****ing God.

[Ketchup]

Didn't know it would be fixed with the patch but thank god it will be!

[UhOhIt'sAnArrow]

Only send a few in at at time, there is really no other way than to make your way in through brute force. But however you can use tactics to save your army. Keep you general up close, and send in about 2 infantry at a time. I like to put archers up on the wall as I take htem, and then maybe send cavalry to outflank around to the back of the settlement. The key way to a siege is to conserver your men so they don't get tired and route.

[Naja]

Didn't know it would be fixed with the patch but thank god it will be!

• Citadel and Fortress paths fixed so that units can avoid assaulting inner walls

Imagine that: with this bug fixed, and the ladder/siege tower bugs fixed, we might have authentic medieval seiges on our hands!

[Vulfgar The Viking]

A horde of infantry using ladders and archers/xbows in loose formation in front of them to attract missile fire from the defenders.

Death rate? High
Effective? No
Fun? Yes

[Spartan 043]

Well the best way to absolutley destroy your enemy, and not suffer high casualities is to reinforce your sieges. i usually have three armies assualt the city (usualy only Citadel's and Fortresses) and space them on different sides, this spreads out your enemies forces, and keeps yours strong. Since my army always breaks threw the gates before any reinforcements do, I bomb the heck out of enemy units. Destroy the walls and utterly kill any morale left in them. When I get the message that others broken threw, I charge my cavalry into the city and win the battle. Unless they have some uber soldiers waiting for my cavalry, then they either get pinned in, or charge into spears and die. If they get piinned I hurriedly bring in some LI and they act as a rescue group for them. I form spear walls on each street I go to, preventing any flanking from the enemy, and slowly battle my qway to the square, or cause enough ruccus that the enemy forgets about my reinforcemnts and come to kill me, either way, i have never lost a siege battle. (excpet one I cheated in......ohh the carnage! hundreds of elephants dead, hundreds of horses throw in such a mess, and atleast 500+ infantry slughtered)

[Mythlacar]

I send in Heavy Infantry with a ram (Armored Swordsmen or the like) and charge the gate with my Spearmen in front (Schiltrom) and heavy infantry behind.

Then while they're fighting the huge mellee battle that will probably ensue, I send all my archers to the walls with Ladders, by this time the infantry almost always leaves the wall to help defend the gate.

Now, rout the men at the gate (Easy to do, just run a group or two of heavy infantry to a point behind the enemy forces, then attack them. It routs them almost everytime) line your archers at the wall nearest the gate, and line your heavy infantry infront of the gate. Fire on the routing men (Fire Arrows if you havem), they'll get to a certain point then reform and charge your infantry in front of the gate. By the time they get back to your infantry the archers fire arrows will rout them again.

Lather rinse repeat, you will lose a small amount of men in the initial charge, but thats about it ^_^

[sinosleep]

I usually just break down the gates with a ram, and if any unit other then spearmen are at the front of the gate I make a quick charge with a calvary unit pull them back out immediately after impact then send in the infantry to mop up what's left after which I just pick off the wall defenders as with calvary charges from the sides while they try to make it back off the walls to defend.