Best siege weapon in siege defence in SS

[bɑne]

Hi all,

is there any good way to use siege weapons from inside a keep/stronghold/citadel to attack siege towers and the like? Or as a alternative for decimating the food soldiers?
I did some testing with trebuchet and mangonel in custom battles but it didnt really work. So far I've read that siege weaponry inside a keep can't fire out but there are also those who say that trebuchet und mangonel work...
If anyone could shed some light on this I'd really appreciate it.

[cunhaBR]

When defending a castle I always have spearmen, and swordsmen for wall defence, archers with stakes and a siege weapon. I deploy one archer company in front of the gate and plant stakes and the rest of them lined to the gate, spearmen defeding the gate and swordsmen in the walls. As AI is dumb they will rush almost everything in the gate so the fight will be mostly at it. Cavalry with die in the stakes and my units will push the enemy back making them get burned by the oil. Then after a while I order my archers to fire at the enemy in the gates. Using this strategy you can make a good use of a trebuched or a catapult, the balls will hit the mass enemy army killing a lot of them and make then waver.

[hull19]

Mortar is the best weapon used during sieges. Cause it will fire over the walls without hitting your men deffending the walls. Trbuchet or mongonel fire could quite possibly hit men deffending the walls. So mortar is the safest bet when defending your land in a siege.

[Darioos]

The best strategy I find especially when I'm really outnumbered is place a mangonel a bit in front of the gate thats getting attacked and command it to fire as soon as the spear militia placed in front of it starts getting overrun.

The mangonel will generally make one huge explosion that can take out over 300 guys in one shot, generally causing most everyone but the general to rout . Then just finish off the general and any stragglers that remain. Il probably lose some spear militia doin this but not like theyre hard to replace.

[Goofy]

The best strategy I find especially when I'm really outnumbered is place a mangonel a bit in front of the gate thats getting attacked and command it to fire as soon as the spear militia placed in front of it starts getting overrun.

The mangonel will generally make one huge explosion that can take out over 300 guys in one shot

That's what I'd have said, although I don't agree with that men death number (The biggest explosion I've seen was 64 men).

[emzu]

I rarely have the chance to defend a city with siege equipement because I rarely use those.
But I have 1 tactic that seems to work pretty well.
Walls are walls - it is a totally separate fight. But if I have (preferably a Ballista) a siege unit and 2 infantry (can be spearmen) units to spare, I do something like that.

|xxxxxxxx
|xxxxxxxx soldiers
|xxxxxxxx
=____________________________________________________
=...................................................................................o
=gateway.......................................................................o
=...................................................................................o
=____________________________________________________
|xxxxxxxx
|xxxxxxxx soldiers
|xxxxxxxx

o - siege unit




So I basically wait for the enemy to ram the gate, pour in and start fighting the baits, the two units of infantry standing on the two sides of the road. Meanwhile (this is usually possible because of the settlement's plan, very often there is a straight road leading from the gate to further streets) the siege unit unleashes its potential causing substantial damage to the enemy's units pouring throught the gates.

The only problem is when the enemy has maaaany units and tries to go for my artillery unit standing far away, at the end of the street. But still it does some damage so I consider it successful

And yeah, putting stakes in the gate is an EXPLOIT and thus should not be used by fair play players! ^^




PS. Huzzah! Text-editor-drawing for teh win!

[hull19]

That's what I'd have said, although I don't agree with that men death number (The biggest explosion I've seen was 64 men).

When i was playing SS 6.2 .... with the huggest unit mod

First mongonel shot: the barrel didn't explode until it was just over a group of 4 units of peasants trying to cross a ford.

I ordered the mongonel to stop. At then end of the battel, i checked the kill total for the mongonel. 400 kills.

[betto]

The best strategy I find especially when I'm really outnumbered is place a mangonel a bit in front of the gate thats getting attacked and command it to fire as soon as the spear militia placed in front of it starts getting overrun.

The mangonel will generally make one huge explosion that can take out over 300 guys in one shot, generally causing most everyone but the general to rout . Then just finish off the general and any stragglers that remain. Il probably lose some spear militia doin this but not like theyre hard to replace.

It worth 4 stars of dread lol

[crsutton]

I don't do any cheesy stuff and most of the above might be considered gamey. (although effective) In a siege, a mangonel will fire over the walls and do a lot of harm to units moving up. Once they are at the walls, I turn the mangonel off as it will do just as much damage to your own units. The trebechet can be very useful. Usually you can predict where the enemys siege towers will come up to walls. I hold my trebechets back in the city where they have a clean line of sight to the wall. Then target them to fire flaming shots into the mass of enemy infantry as they come off the towers. This also serves me well as some missed shots might hit the tower, setting it afire. I almost always place one trebechet or mangonel in a city I expect to see attacked. Lately I have been using the treb over the mangonel.

Mortars are nice but not many factions get them.

[Gogolometro]

Are some difference in defending a city and a castle.A low level city without huge walls can be defended well by trebuchets and magdonel.Always will work any siege weapons but trebuchets are very good, especialy in a good combo.
I defend the target citys in many campaigns like Bruges, Bologna, Milan, Constantinopole.Trebuchets from very big distance can destroy the enemy siege towers.Are usefull like generals killers too.Magdonel is weapon of mass-destruction killing well at huge areas.Always keep them last shots for anihilate the gate strike force.If you dont have these siege weapons, can handle well with balistas and catapults too, just use them for gate defence, moral strikers.If you get gunpowder and can build even the primitive bombards will be an extraordinarey weapon for killing the atackers too.
You will experience problems to use these huge siege weapons in huge citys and fortress because size of wall make harder the high trajectory, the small size of streets caused by overcrowding will make a problem for dispatching too.
Very important if you play RR and not regular SS will discover trebuchets and magdonels became less efective like balista towers too but catapults and balistas became more effective.

[Darioos]

Another good strategy I've used recently is placing a group of pikemen in front of the gate with a ribault. Pikemen keep ribault from gettin destroyed by horsemen while the ribault destroys and demoralizes a line of infantry charging into the base. Ribaults can utterly wreck large groups of units massed together.

[SirKoskelot]

Even ballistas can be very effective, if placed behind a spear unit that stands in guard mode behind the gate. Firing those flaming bolts to massing enemy is effective. If there´s a small elevation where you can place your ballista, so it can fire right over the spearmen, all the better. Just make sure the ballista is far enough from the skirmish, or the enemy may reach it by massing its troops trough the spearmen.

Offcourse a catapult is often more effective, but even ballista can kill several hundred soldiers in one battle, if placed correctly. This is usefull in early campaign, as sometimes it takes ages to get catapults.

Oh, and don´t worry about few friendly casualties the ballista may do to the defending militia. They´r just cannonfodder.

[Gorrrrrn]

A lot depends on the type of settlement / castle.

Ones with buildings closely packed and with narrow streets are going to be awkward for placing siege weapons inside the settlement where they can be used effectively.

A castle / settlement with plenty of space inside should allow for catapults etc to be deployed some where useful.

If the enemy is attacking with 2 armies and the second has no siege equipment (ladders etc) then sally forth with siege weapons and use the second army for target practice. (If you are doing this have a couple of units of archers on the walls to give covering fire in case the artillery is attacked. And a units of spears (or similar) by the gate in case the artillery is attacked and they rout.)

One can even run out siege artillery to defend against the first (or only) army if they also have siege artillery as the AI likes to use up its ammunition before launching its attack.

[Valdamar]

If you have at least one catapult in your settlement you'll never loose a siege defense. Switch to flaming projectile and set it up to fire directly into the kill zone directly after the gate. Most of the time all you need to win are two spear units and one cat.

[Zaratt]

Place a catapult to the right of the gate so it can fire diagonally at the discarded ram, the flaming projectiles will kill a lot of attackers in the entrance tunnel with very little friendly fire casualties.
As long as the ram is not completely destroyed, you don't have to change targets, which is good for your rate of fire. This does not work so well with some city entrances with long and narrow tunnels, but it is just perfect for castles.

[Zaratt]

With a mortar, aim at the siege tower AFTER is has reached the wall. In the meantime, concentrate on the ram.
If a ram is nearly destroyed (80% or more), don't finish it, let the boiling oil do its job.
Also against ladders, aim at the ladders themselves, your shots will land at the foot of the ladder where the enemy is closely packed and from time to time destroy the ladder loaded with enemy troops.
With trebuchets, don't forget to use the cows.

[bɑne]

Thanks for your input, much appreciated

[Burrich]

Ballista's and bridge-battles, now thats a lethal combination....

[crsutton]

Even better yet is the monster ribault or the merc rocket launcher. Usually, in a siege defense my goal it to not allow the enemy to breach my gate. If it can't be helped then I place spear units at the game but try to leave one side a bit open. Set you monster ribault on volley fire and pour it into the mass of enemy. Works with any weapon but I like to see the ribault in action. Best visual is when the rocket launchers fire.

I never have used ballistias. I will have to try them some more.

[bɑne]

Gets really interesting if your the one without ballistas Burrich