Fighting defenders armed with artillery

[D.B. Cooper]

I'm wondering what you guys use to fight defenders who are armed with artillery, namely catapults or ballistas. I recently fought and lost a siege to an army who I greatly outnumbered, because they kept hitting my infantry with flaming shots in a battle for the plaza. Flanking the defenders from another street with my cavalry didn't work, their general covered their rearguard and I couldn't break through. One fleeing unit turned into a mass rout and just like that a unit of Saracen militia, a general, and a pair of catapults defeated 6 units of armoured Sergeants, 2 more units of Sergeant spearmen upgraded with mail, a general, some Armenian cavalry and mailed knights. Ugh.

I was going to wait out the siege but I feared a reinforcement army on the way, which indeed arrived later and forced me back again when I tried to re-establish the siege.

[Reynolds]

It is difficult to fight when the AI is acting intelligent as it seems to have been in your case, i don't really have a strategy as such i just accept that i will lose alot of soldiers (i.e never stop advancing no matter how much casualties i sustain) and i prepare accordingly by trying to use a full stack

It seems like you were just unlucky as a rout snowballed and caused a mass rout, unfortunately such happens, just dust yourself up and try again

[Ric_English]

i find that a lot of the time the enemy keeps its ranged troops sort of distributed around the city right up until your troops come throught the walls. try running with cavalry to get them before the rest of there army can protect them. i like to cut off as many as i can. unless the AI is keeping them in the middle anyway.

[claudius2007]

In such cases you need to encircle them especially if you are outnumbering them. Send units on all the streets around the center and eventually one of them will make it to their catapults and kill it. Their only choice is to spread out and face your incoming units (which is a poor choice when outnumbered) or turtle in the city center in which case you just literally storm from all directions.

[iamdno]

(before you enter the walls)

get some artillary (namely cannons), the defenders artillary will most likely be behind the walls, smash the walls with your cannons to get to the good stuff, then direct your cannons to destroy the artillary, if that does not work use cavalry to harass the artillary and hopefully crush the enemy.

(if your in the walls)
use cavalry, light cavalry with the "fast moving" is best, but heavy knights will sometimes do, the trick is to use hit and run to destroy the artillary.

[Ric_English]

(before you enter the walls)

get some artillary (namely cannons), the defenders artillary will most likely be behind the walls, smash the walls with your cannons to get to the good stuff, then direct your cannons to destroy the artillary, if that does not work use cavalry to harass the artillary and hopefully crush the enemy.

(if your in the walls)
use cavalry, light cavalry with the "fast moving" is best, but heavy knights will sometimes do, the trick is to use hit and run to destroy the artillary.

i think he said that cavalry doesnt do him any good once the enemy has already reached the center. which is why i suggested he rush with them. just in case that doesn't work though i guess just overrun the deffenders by running to apoint beyond them. you will take casualties but as long as you outnumber the enemy it beats standing in front of their artillary and fighting it out. this is a fast way to rought them. plus some types of artilary depending on the situation wont fire at their own men so if you overrun them they might stop shooting.

[Conquistatore]

Try ordering your units to a place behind the annoying artillery. This will cause your units to storm forward. If you greatly outnumber your enemy there is no way that they would be able to stop you before you got to the artillery. The only chance they would have to win is if their artillery can scare your troops, like they did. Take away their artillery with a rolling sea of your men pushing forward and they have no hope in hell of beating you.

[Muagan_ra]

You either need to target them with "lobbing" type artillery (Trebuchet's, Mortars) and hopefully destroy them, or simply close with them fast. You could also try targetting their crews with massed missile fire, though it can awkward doing this in a city.

[Ric_English]

good idea, especially the mortar one. I don't know if he's up to gunpowder yet but if he had that he could either destroy the arty or at least disrupt its ability to fire while he overruns his opponent.

[Nazgûl Killer]

My advice, which never failed me, send your cannon fodder in first, as in, Light Infantry or the least useful unit you have, charge them right up front and make them take all the casualties, however! Make sure they have enough troops to hold out the enemy at the plaza long enough! Send your strong/valuable troops from a side street to attack the flank and the cavalry from the other flank, while doing that, deploy your archers at the corners of the plaza near you and let'er rip! Make them fire, of course hitting your cannon fodder in the process but also causing massive damage to your enemy, once your flanking troops arrive, hold your fire and let them do their job.
Cannon fodder units - ANY unit you can replace easily and won't cost you too much or you just hate, but they should be supported by, at the very least, one expensive/good unit to help them hold off the plaza troops.

Flanking infantry - Preferably spearmen at the front of the column and heavy infantry/infantry at the rear, spearmen for the general/any cavalry there and the heavy infantry/infantry to mop up.

Flanking cavalry - ANYTHING aside from light cavalry, light cavalry are useless in flanking because the enemy just needs to spit on them and they die. Missile cavalry can be good, killing them from afar and afterwards charging in when they run out of missiles, and heavy cavalry is like a bulldozer. I don't think I have to say any more.