Siege Towers and Ladders?

[henyo10]

I find siege towers inferior to ladders since the ladder men can run and ladders can't be destroyed and men traverse faster up a ladder. So what are siege towers for?

[Royalark14]

I actually can't stand ladders. Granted, they move fast and towers can be destroyed. However, ladders can only put a few troops at a time, so if you have a well placed enemy they can almost completely pick your troops off three at a time. With towers on the other hand, if they get to the wall ok, they can place an entire group (60-75, w/e) on the wall at the same time, making them more deadly at the end of the day. The trick with towers of course is just putting them in the right area, certainly helps to place them in an undefended area or at least an area without being hit by flaming arrows.

[PhallosMaximus]

Yeah, siege towers are pretty useless in this game without the missile capability from RTW.

It does not matter if your men are climbing the ladders or unloading from a tower, if the garrison are waiting for them on the wall, they WILL get slaughtered.

I use 2 ladders on each side of the settlement and then enter from the front every time, either through the gates or a breach in the wall. The AI will deploy units to cover my ladders BEFORE it place any troops at the gate.
In that way, good enemy units that could have made my attack costly, are placed a long way from the real action and will be useless before it's to late. And I will just let my cheap, understrenght ladder-units stay outside as decoys as long as the AI keep units on those sectors of the wall, and that is until my other units is marching up to the square inside the settlement!

Only if the sector of the wall is free of enemy troops will I actually use the ladders, but by then they have served their purpose and tied a lot of the garrison up at a critical time.

Cheers,

[Celsius]

I use alot of battering rams

[Sorkenlol]

I've found siege towers to be quite buggy, sometimes the men get stuck on the bridge from the tower to the wall. Rams are like tanks, almost indestructable unless your castles ballistas/cannons hit it.

[Celsius]

yeah. just get alot and send them all at one time. One's gotta get through.

+rep for agreeing

[zligor]

Battering rams are most useful unless city is defended by cannon towers. Ladders are the only piece of siege equipment that won`t be destroyed immediately by cannon fire. Siege towers are nice but useless because units tend to get stuck in them. And units equiped with battering rams and ladders usually are either fresh or warmed up by the time they get to the other side of the walls. Units in siege towers are very tired or exhausted after towing that towers and fighting their way over the walls.

[Quink.NL]

I prefer to breach the walls.

When an army doesn't have any artillery units, and the wall is to high for ladders, I make something like 8 to 10 siege towers, always bearing in mind that probably half of the towers don't get any men up the wall because of that bug that was there in RTW, RTW BI, M2TW and still ever present in M2TW Kingdoms.

I know buggy siege towers can work when you give a halt command and then a move command, it will get around half the unit up in the tower each time you do that. But I can't be bothered with micromanagement like that in the midst of a battle. So quantity prevails over quality in this case.

[Hungary Horace]

Artilley is your best bet when sieging. You can kill loads of geezers if they are sat on the walls when they crumble. Or a least force them off the wall. Then it is a good idea to use your ladders if you have any. Cannons can waste walls well quick so I always go for them over anything else if available. Otherwise Trebuchets are a good bet. Ballistas and catapults only good against wooden walls and gates.

[zligor]

Even better than artillery are the spies. Simply put three or four of them into your victim`s ( err I mean enemy`s) settlement and they will open gates for you. Then attack from all three sides at same time. Confused enemy cannot defend all gates at same time

[TheTrueGreek]

spies are better if you get really good ones, arts slow to bring to the front, but if you get a ballista in the first few turns no other faction will be able to match that for a long time and your campaign is a whole lot easier to start off with.

if i have art i open the gates with them, send my cheap units with ladders to scale the walls, and have my good inf push thru the gate, once i get the gate defenders i flank the men on the walls
this works pretty well if you can expend the few peasents that man the ladders