Winning a siege

[sharky4u]

Has anyone noticed that when repelling a siege whereby the enemy has ladders and a ram, the enemy tends to always load the ladders with its archers? I have never lost a fight on the walls to a ladder attack and unless the enemy has artillery of some kind, I never lose a siege.An example happened last night; I am holding Caen with nothing more than 3 Levy Spearmen, 1 unit of Long bowmen and my general. Assaulting my pad was a full stack of mixed infantry, archers and horse; they had two ladders and a ram and to be honest if I didn’t know anything I would say I was stuffed.Instead the AI sent its archers manning the ladders ahead to either side of the gate at speed while everyone else queued up to the slow moving ram that was also loaded with archers. I put one unit of Levy behind the gate and two on the walls to block the ladders and the long bowmen up the road to the castle square; my general hunkered down behind the wall.The French archers got wasted on the walls long before the ram even got to the gate, then as always the enemy just queues up behind the ram for my archers and wall defences to pick at while the ram does its stuff. The AI never sends anyone up the ladders while the ram still works, sense would say that he would want to tie my units up on the walls for when the gate gives, but the AI never does this.All I had to do was move one unit off the wall to support the gate unit and wait. The gate pops open and in rolls the French horde; I am clicking the rally ability on my general like mad but apart from spreading out into a horseshoe the Levy spearmen are doing their job.All I had to do now was send my remaining unit of Levy over the wall and down the ladder. Once on the ground and unopposed apart from some crossbowmen far off, I rolled them up in front of the gate facing inwards. Carnage follows lots of flashing red ‘fight to the death’ banners and a heroic victory, plus my general finished off the crossbowmen.Now I have found that trick its hard to avoid, if they have artillery they tend not to bother with ladders. In this scenario I have found it is best to simply pull back from the walls, let the gate fall and after everyone rolls in take what ever cavalry I have and go for the guns, before doing the same as before. It’s always more of a close run thing this way but it’s still a win. BTW, I do know what a paragraph and a half this is, it is not done on purpose my browser simply won’t let me add paragraphs. It bunches everything up, so sorry if your eyes are bleeding, at least you can claim a day off work for having stigmata!

[Trajan]

Moved to Battle Planning.

[Aedan2812]

isn't stigmata where ur hands and feet bleed like christs did...lol?

Yeah the AI is stupid but have you ever tried using ur archers on the walls?
Sometimes when i besiege a settlement i just use archers as fodder because they are pretty useless at close range.

Say my stack has 5 Archer units, 10 Infantry and 5 Cavalry. I attach 3 units of archers to a ram and 2 ladders, i send these guys in i usually get the gates down and the ladders to the walls, but those 3 units get obliterated.

then i send my infantry through the gate. While they occupy most of the enemy on the streets i leave my two units of archers well away from the action. Also i leave my cavalry.

Eventually the enemy infantry remaining on the walls go down to join the fight and their archers begin to retreat to the town center. At this point i end my 2 units of archers to the walls, one on either side of the gate.

if all is going well my archers begin to pick apart routing enemies and reiforcements from the town center. Then after a little while the enemy begin to rout back to the town center. My infantry chase them and my archers remain on the wall to get routers in range and units that attempt to flank my infantry.

then i send my cav to the several other entrances to the town center where they surround my enemy win me the battle...usually.

This may sound like a rather brutal and sacrificial strategy, however, provided that my infantry is on the strong side i don't lose much more than the archer units at the beginning.

This could be what the AI attempts to do but fails because, let's face it, it's a bit thick.

[Orcs_Forever]

The AI is stupid enough to send a small force of peasants to the walls to attack my swordsmen i was picking them off all the time!

[Bob The Fearless]

If you have taken control of the settlement ie gate and walls, is there any way of closing the gate.

Reason for asking, the last seige that I won had enemy reinforcements arrive from off the battle field. I managed to control the gate & walls way before they showed up.

However fighting could of been stopped if I could of closed the gates, but didn't know how to.

When the reinforcements finally routed they ran back to the town square when really it made sense for them to disappear back over the horizon.

[Aedan2812]

i don't think there is, its up to the AI, if they haven't been battered down you may be able to close them if you have a unit on top of them and the enemie draws in but i doubt it...

you should be able to though

[Comrade223]

Jesus christ, man. Use paragraphs!

[HANDsolo]

I took Antioch (not sure, it was a fortress) from the Mongolians using my 1 stack against their 2 1/2 stacks. Their faction leader and 1/2 stack was in fortress and the other 2 stacks coming in as reinforcements. I infiltrate with 2 uber spies, attack, gates open. I piledrive my entire army through the gate (can you say lag). I break through their wall of bodies. Their routing troops kindly open the inner gate 4my general. I capture the square. The reinforcements werent even at the walls. They were taking a Sunday stroll. When they do get there I hold them at the gate with my entire army just praying that none of them get the bright idea to enter through the undefended gate around the corner. Ofcourse they didnt. Stupid AI.

[sharky4u]

I took Antioch (not sure, it was a fortress) from the Mongolians using my 1 stack against their 2 1/2 stacks. Their faction leader and 1/2 stack was in fortress and the other 2 stacks coming in as reinforcements. I infiltrate with 2 uber spies, attack, gates open. I piledrive my entire army through the gate (can you say lag). I break through their wall of bodies. Their routing troops kindly open the inner gate 4my general. I capture the square. The reinforcements werent even at the walls. They were taking a Sunday stroll. When they do get there I hold them at the gate with my entire army just praying that none of them get the bright idea to enter through the undefended gate around the corner. Ofcourse they didnt. Stupid AI.

Stupid AI, but it sounds like a real good fight.

[Bob The Fearless]

But the stupid thing is if they decide to route where do they go ???

I'll tell you, to the square you have already taken.

Old Numb Nuts here forgot that in the above post I had used a Ram on the gates to open them.

So how was I expecting to close them :wstupid:

[Viking Prince]

I am not wanting to start a new thread, so I'll add on here.

Does the AI assign units to seige equipment based on social rating? Peasants (esp archers) first, Militia second, professional units last.

Just a thought.

[Kermit4Prez]

Man, I wish my laptop could handle siege battles. It sounds violent and gory, and oh so tempting.

[HopliteLysander]

I don't really have this problem at all . I find the AI usually sends tough troops up ladders and siege towers. They will even reinforce troops that are already up on the walls fighting.

Just recently I had some armoured spearman holding the wall against a small force of DFK who had climbed ladders. My archers had shot them up on the march in so they were down to 20 men or so vs my 65 spearman so I thought I was ok. Wrong, AI sends up a unit of spearmen, another unit of DFK and even some crossbows to shoot down on my guys defending the gate. tough fight!


they do tend to line up within bowshot of the walls while waiting for the ram though...

I have Vanilla 1.2 btw

[homefry]

Paragraphs MAN.