Ladders and Towers

[SGD2C]

For sieges, i was the guy who just relied on the rams. I have seemed to notice that a lot of people use ladders and towers effectively. What units do you use on the ladders and towers, as well as the rams?

[Viking Prince]

The computer allocates based on social standing. This is why often the computer decides to let a peasant archer carry a ladder since the other units available are not peasants.

For me, there are two main purposes for ladders. One is for the the inner walls of the bigger defenses. The other is to distract flaming arrows from the rams and towers.

The seige towers should moved by a unit a bit more stout than a peasant. They will need to assault and not break. Keep in mind that the tower may go up in flames with the unit inside just before the ramp drops.

The ram can be manned by lowly peasants. I have always wondered if a peasant unit in front of the ram would absorb flaming arrows, but that would be tacky and not in the true spirit of things.

Also, remember that you have additional gates and walls to assault. You do not need to only go headlong into the one wall facing at set up.

Good luck and make those peasants earn their keep!

[SGD2C]

Thanks for the basics.

[wearycelt]

I just want to comment on the idea that putting peasants in front of the ram is tacky and not in the spirit.

Last night I was being sieged by the HRE and my ballista towers destroyed there tower and one of their rams. My walls were filled with archers and were decimating the approaching would-be siegers. So, oddly, they sent all of their troops up to form a column in front of my gate. Then they sent their ram up through the column (literally splitting units on its way to my gate.) I can only assume that they were "rolling to soak" (yeah, D&D) all the missle that I was hurling at them. Otherwise, this tactic would be suicide.

In fact, it was suicide. I had too much missle for them, but their column strategy did work... the rams moving through it lasted a lot longer than the ones that were just coming across the field by themselves.

So, the idea itself does not work against Medieval battle theory, and thus should not be discounted as anti-immersion (Another good example are english kings who would happily have English archers fire into melee situations being fought by their own mercenaries i.e. King Edward in Braveheart.) However, it may not work for you.

[townie33]

I hate using towers because they are way to slow. I have had too many of them burst into flames and kill half the unit. I prefer the ladders because you can have them run up to the wall and assault quickly.

[RantingHeretic]

In fact, it was suicide. I had too much missle for them, but their column strategy did work... the rams moving through it lasted a lot longer than the ones that were just coming across the field by themselves.

Thats an interesting tactic...I always just assumed the ram would soak up the most fire and the arrows that missed would kill whoever was unlucky enough to be there, but if you can meat shield it they I have all sorts of new ideas I want to try.

But..since the ram is bigger then the peasants, and the archers are firing from above, in terms of game mechanics I can't see how this would work- the peasents would not block the arrows, only soak up the arrows that missed the ram, making their presence completely irrelevant. So does the AI switch it's fire from the ram to the peasents? Or do the peasents somehow, literally, block the arrows from hitting the ram?
I won't be able to test this for a few days...grr.

[Theseus1234]

usually you want to send some medium infantry (like some good spearmen) on ladders towards lightly defended walls, because they deploy one at a time

for siege towers, send your best units (high defense and attack) onto heavily defended walls, because they deploy in a large group upon reaching the wall. watch out, though, if your tower takes damage, because it will take a lot of good units out

[Viking Prince]

Wearcelt - well stated!

[RollingWave]

basically

Ladders should only be used when

1. the wall section is undefended

or

2. your breacher is better.. by A LOT in quality. don't think that your town milita will beat those peasents... or hell don't think your spear milita will, you probably need to be at least 2 level higher to stand any chance. and if you see even something like a dismounted feud knight up there on the wall you can forget about it

the advantage of Ladders is that you can move it around quickly and effectively, they can go through gate houses. you can run while carrying. and they build faster.

If your seriously thinking about dealing with any wall section that actually have a half decent melee unit on it. seige towers are the only way to go.

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personally though. after the early stages your much better off just taking down the walls and avoid the fight there all together.

one of the trick you could do is to assault the main section where they are stationed at with towers, and then have a second unit come quickly after the towers are there and use a ladder. that way you could create a sort of box in on the walls. still though. this only works against the AI.

Ladders are pretty useful for taking down higher level castles though. espically those with some really tricky turns that prevent your artilery for hitting the inner walls effectively. since it's pretty close to impossible to use get a tower that far in (and if your cannons can't get to the walls I highly doubt you could actually push a tower up there without massive damage.

in short. you need both. Seige tower for strait on assault. ladders for quick reinforcements and second waves.

another thing. Ladders are much harder to burn. so if say... your facing nothing but mass mass archers on the walls. you might consider going with ladders instead (still build a tower to attract the flaming missiles though. but don't actually commite troops into assaulting with it.)

[Sokar Rostau]

I tend to use a combination. I have a set up of Ladder, Tower, Ram, Tower Ladder for the two stretches of wall either side of the gate. The Towers, Ram, Peasants and Archers all advance at once. The Peasants and Archers are there to provide targets for the defenders and soak up some arrows. When they are a bit more than half way to their destination I send the ladders. The Ladders reach the walls at a point furthest from the Gate and engage the wall defenders. The Towers then deploy troops on top of, or behind, the already engaged defenders often causing a rout.

Of course, this doesn't work all the time...

I've frequently had the AI send a column to protect their Rams. The reason it works is because the defenders have more targets to fire at when they are on auto-fire. It's the difference between five Archer units all firing on one Ram or five Archers firing on five different targets. Of course, taking your Archers off auto-fire, and aiming at the Ram (not the unit pushing the Ram) defeats the tactic because you're still concentrating fire on the Ram but causing carnage with every miss.

I had four Militia Archers and three Militia Spearmen hold off an entire Polish stack (1200+) at Frankfurt for long enough for the half stack of my cavalry and spear reinforcements to arrive when the Poles did this. Looking at the battle report the archers killed about 700 Poles by themselves and the three Militia Spearmen, in Schiltrom meat-grinder-at-the-gate formation, killed another 250 (suffering 90% casualties). Lucky for the the Polish General was an idiot and didn't use his Ladders or Towers...