Boiling Oil pwnage (against me)

[burninglegionx]

So, as spain (well, leon castille) I'm enjoying the SS 5.1 but there's one thing that's pain in the ***.

Anyhow, I'm on war against France, am seiging a city with two layers of walls. France has only one-full stack garrisoned and i have 2x full stack (made up of sword&buckler men, spear militia, 3~4javelin men, crossbow militia/peasants, and a couple of merc. spearmen)


I assaulted with rams&seigetowers&ladders.

On the walls, my sword&buckler men+spearmilitia loses against France's spear militia (which pisses me off..) so i tried to breach thru the gate, then the boiling oil owns my units b/c the French spearmen runs out to greet me at the gate.

Boiling oil annoys me more when I order my AI reinforcement to attack, the stupid general always tries to go thru the gate first, and turns into a fried human so I tend to breach with the army I command first and order my AI's fullstack to enter the gates after i secure the walls.

by then, my army is already 70~80% dead and I can't take down the 2nd wall (spearmilitia routs away when they get close to 2nd wall to ram the gate), and if i allow my ai reinforcements to attack, their general gets boiling oil'd to death on the 2nd gate..


any ideas to go around this problem? (eg: limiting boiling oil's ammo / longer delay before 2nd boiling oil / general stays away from boiling oil / etc?)

[delra]

Bring a trebuchet. Wait it out. Get the city in peace agreement. Get better units to storm walls. Resign. From the top of my head.

[the42up]

be smart, blast a whole in the wall.

[HaveFallen]

Yeah, sieges weren't always a "Frolic through a meadow" you know.

[*Atlas*]

then the boiling oil owns my units b/c the French spearmen runs out to greet me at the gate....

....spearmilitia routs away when they get close to 2nd wall to ram the gate

LOL! Your spear militia were pretty clever guys.

[Fenix_120]

I remember the first siege I played in 5.1... I had a three stack army and the enemies had some 9 units of body guards protecting their city.



I can still hear their cries at night...


I can also still sometimes see me screaming at the top of my lungs "What the ****!!!! IS THEIR ENTIRE ****ING FAMILY TREE + DEAD BEAT RELATIVES GUARDING THAT ONE ****ING CITY!!!!!!!!"



Good times.

[delra]

Be happy it's 5.1.

In previous SS versions such a stack would slaughter your whole army. You should be glad this was fixed. :-)

[Fenix_120]

They DID slaughter my entire army.


It is the cries of MY men that I hear at night

[delra]

Hahah. :-)

[Hospitallar_Knight]

Boiling oil can account for HUGE enemy losses if you can keep them under your gate house for the longest period of time possible.

You can destroy the gatehouse to disable the boiling oil and disable the murder holes.

[delra]

It would be even more fun if we had moats around some castles and cities. Maybe in ETW?

[kelvintyk]

It would be even more fun if we had moats around some castles and cities. Maybe in ETW?

Were moats used during the ETW period? Sorry but i'm not good in the history of that period.

[Inhuman One]

they where used in the medieval period and its a shame they arent in.

But to get back to the boiling oil, secure the gatehouse and they cant pour it over you, thats what I usually try.

You need to send about double as much men at the walls as the enemy has on the walls, or just good quality troops if the enemy has poor troops.

Why attack such a well defended city to begin with though? I never attack a city that has a full stack guarding it. Too much losses on your part no matter what way you do it.

[hellfire15]

You need to send about double as much men at the walls as the enemy has on the walls, or just good quality troops if the enemy has poor troops.

the "oficial" rule was 10 men of you for every 1 man the enemy has on the walls. do not know if this applies on multtiple wals castles though....

[delra]

In Lusted's CAI #4 AI has very nice behaviour of going outside of the city and fighting a normal battle. I really enjoy it because I don't have to sit and watch for half an hour my archers bombarding those losers at the plaza.

[delra]

It's so much easier with artillery... You just keep crushing the walls they are sitting on and see them die there. Fun fun fun. :-)

[Edi Birsan]

When you greatly outnumber the defenders use auto resolve and it solves the boiling problem.

[burninglegionx]

When you greatly outnumber the defenders use auto resolve and it solves the boiling problem.

I still lose one of the generals.



Well, let me explain my situation first.

I started out fine, allied with aragon (1 marriage alliance) to have a safe 'border' against the French and i expanded South toward the Moors and was thinking about hitting the Portugese soon (around 20~ turn), but then aragonese allied with portugal so.. i decided to ally with portugese so that i don't have to break up with aragonese (perfect relationships, everything's peaceful, we both have military accesses)

(Around turn 50) Portugal's capital 'Oporto' was something too good not to be a part of my empire so I requested crusade (portugal got excommunicated few turns ago) on Oporto AND I paid french some gold to attack portugal. French came and took over Oporto and crusade ended like that. Then I sent a deplomat to Portugal and asked them to pay me some tributes and I'd attack france. Portugese agreed and i attacked Oporto and it became a part of my empire, but b/c of that i'm on war against France, but lucky for me France was on war with England, scotland, Portugal, and Milan (HRE is France's ally), so i loaded 2x full stack armies on boats, sent them to france and thought that'd be enough to take down the french (b/c my spy saw other faction's armies seiging multiple french towns and castles). But then France somehow managed to garrison their cities and castles with fullstack army when i landed and there are 4~5 more fullstack armies running around killing all the English and Scottish forces. So I'm now getting worried b/c France's 2x fullstack army is marching back to save the city i'm seiging...so bringing seige machines are outta question X_X



maybe i should just stick to my Blitzkreig tactics (eg: maintaining alliances with Aragon and portugal).. playing too peacefully seems to make things harder in SS. (turn 70 atm, and only 16 settlements.. i usually have like 50 by now when i play offensively, though it's fun to use politics to backstab allies without getting any penalties)


one more thing, is it just my campaign OR is Aragon such a peaceful country. (Aragon still only has 2 provices that it started with, never went on war NOR no one declared war on them, even the moors are peaceful with them.)

[Inhuman One]

I usually only use auto resolve when the battle wouldnt even be fun to fight, like when I attack a fortress with half a stack or more, and they only have a general there.