attacking the city

[Ayanami030]

Does the ladders and the siege towers still useful if you have the onargons on your hand? I tend not to use those things. They can destory the walls in a short time, but if the enemies blocked the gap, so you have to battle it thourgh, it will take a lot of time, and in the mean time the arrows from the enemy tower will start to shoot you which will cause many casualties for my troops.

But if I use the ladders and siege towers, my troops will be relativly unharmed to the wall and capture the tower to prevent any arrow damages, although I have to fight on the wall which is not easy either.

So what are your tactics for attackting the city?

[Praetorian_BGX]

Onagers or Digging the tunnels..... i dont use ladders, siege towers or rams... to many casualties.

[cnaeus]

siege towers if possible and if not: ladders. because my hoplites are unable to stay in formation when walking through the holes in the walls so why bother.

cnaeus,

[stanley86]

I mainly use onagers. That's how I do it: first I make a hole(or holes) in the wall, then I destroy the tower (or towers) that is next to the hole, so it won't shoot at my soldiers. Then you can send peltasts to harass enemy units trying to fill in (fill up ?) the gap in the wall. Then the archers start shooting providing a back up for advancing heavy infantry. And so the real battle begins: weakened defenders, javelins and tough sword to sword/spear combat It needs some practice, and remember to find a good point of entry, so you can follow the shortest way to city centre.

[Hunterbear]

I like to use siege towers and sometimes sap points (if they are at strategic location to kill units stationed on the wall), if possible.

They may be slow but by choosing the right gaps in the wall defenses (don't send them right up next to a tower or where enemy missile troops are manning wall defenses) you can take the towers to inflict some casualties on the defenders on the inside of the wall before main army enters.

Taking the wall towers rain arrows down on the defenders inside the city and sometimes can clear them from waiting right behind the wall, and your army can enter the gate without coming under fire or boiling oil attack.

Also, if unit manning siege tower has spears, park siege tower close to the wall (select area on the ground,not selecting wall) the units inside will throw their spears at wall defenders (helps a little before melee combat on the wall), when they run out of spears then I click on wall to allow siege tower to continue to wall to capture towers.

Another tactic that has been working well for me with siege towers is to deploy it so that the troops unload right in the 'middle' of enemy unit on wall (not between 2 enemy units). It sounds like suicide, but every time I've tried it, my infantry decimated enemy units faster. Just don't select your unit and click on enemy unit to attack. If you do your unit will fight in one direction and expose their backside which equals quick death for your unit. Just let them spill out onto the wall and they will attack in 'force' in both directions (don't use guard mode either).

Attacking with siege towers is slow but I sustain far fewer casualties if I take the wall first than if I punch holes and run troops through. Its just my assault force on the wall that bears the brunt of casualties. The rest of my army marches in unmolested most of the time and they easily overpower the remaining defenders inside. It takes time and practice to figure out what works best for a particular situation.

If there is less than half stack defending I may send only 1 or 2 siege towers and capture gate quickly to get the rest of the army inside quick. But if its close match I use 4 siege towers deployed on flanks of where I think wall defenders will be and let my men march to them and fight for control of the wall.

[Brusilov]

I rarely use onogars for sieges. I prefer to use towers and rams. I will send a ram against the main gate flanked by two towers - the ram is to draw the defense fire. As soon as the ram is destroyed I run my unit out of range of the defenders.

I will attack from multiple directions - as many as three if possible.

With larger walls there is a known bug with not being able to enter all the towers. I usually manage to get a couple of towers to work OK. I will then resort to sapping - but you have no control where the sap point is during set up.

[cnaeus]

hmm, i have a question regarding sieges: how can you move sapping points to other wall section?? because i hate to use the apointed locations to breach the defenses.

cnaeus,

[ISA Gunner]

With the bug that prevents multiple siege towers from being used on larger walls, is there any known why to fix it?

[Brusilov]

hmm, i have a question regarding sieges: how can you move sapping points to other wall section?? because i hate to use the apointed locations to breach the defenses.

cnaeus,

There is no way - see my previous post.

With the bug that prevents multiple siege towers from being used on larger walls, is there any known why to fix it?

It's not a bug that prevents multiple towers being used it's just a bug getting the unit to climb the tower. Once a unit enters the tower that's it they are stuck. I've managed to get a unit out of the tower but they won't move away form the tower - so they can be shot at by the towers. I've not tried causing the unit to rout yet. I presume once the unit starts to rout it's possible to get them to rally themselves (I've routed units by mistake before and been able to do this).

I've managed to get two towers to work on the same section of the wall.

It's only the settlements with very large walls that the game has a problem with.

[Redolegna]

I use onagers. First I crush the gateway, then the gates. With the gateway destroyed, no oil. I then take out the closest towers, to prevent them from shooting at my soldiers. Then, if there is still ammunition, I punch some walls down and I go into the gaps. If there are enemy troops present, I use my bowmen to make them fall back.

One thing that bugs me in siege is that for some reason, my troops can't move logically. My bowmen seek to go through an enemy unit rather than withdraw if I asked them. My horsemen thinks it's a good idea to ride one at a time into the central square when I want them to circle around it by using a street... That's why I generally wait out strong armies in cities and only take out small stacks.

[Praefectus praetorio]

Also troops tend to get stuck in those large siege towers sometimes, wich is annoying. As you cant get them out and they just die if under missile fire.