Macedon - Siege Battles

[Caesar Augustus]

Hi All,

I had a go at a few turns of the Macedonian campaign last night, and needless to say, I really enjoyed it. It provides a good strong challenge at the beginning, and then once you've taken back Macedonia proper you have a strong base to begin expanding from.

However, I had a bit of a problem with siege battles. It could be that I was approacing them the wrong way or something, but I couldn't work out what the most appropriate troops would be for assualting the walls with ladders and towers are.

I initially used the hysapists and Thracian troops when I attacked Pella, but they almost got wiped out by the slingers and mercenary hoplites on the walls. In the end I had to get my peltasts up there to balance things out and capture the gate. So I got the rest of the army through the gate which was then taken back by the slingers, who promptly routed and started "fighting to the death", despite me not having a unit anywhere near them on the walls. I then decided to check on my peltasts, hysapists and Thracians, and they, along with the mercenary hoplites and other unit of slingers were all "fighting to the death". Any ideas what could've caused this to happen?

Also, does anybody have any suggestions about different troops to use when assualting stone walls as Macedon, or should I try sapping the walls instead and see how that works out?

Cheers,

CA

[AtlasGR]

Although its not realistic, you could use phalagites.

[Mogan]

Stonewalls have always been the place for heavy casualties when scaled. I'd suggest you get som cretans to soften up the wall defences while you're advancing with either a tower or ladders. Either way, you should recruit som gallic mercenaries to send up as a sort of cheap meatshield to soften the defenders up (unless it's hoplites, which in case, the gauls are screwed).

Falangites will swap to swords when on the walls afaik, but recruiting mercenary hoplites definitly does the trick, with low losses. Unless, of course, they're all butchered by the towers.

Oh, and flanking units (especially hoplites) on the walls are funny. If you rout them, they'll start jumping off.

Hope this helps a little.

[Quinn Inuit]

Where did you get most of your casualties, on the wall or from missiles? Merc hoplites are pretty tough cookies, but I'm still surprised your Thracians and hypaspists didn't do better. How did the numbers match up? Merc hoplite units are the size of a unit of Thracians and hypas combined.

[Carados]

You need to draw the fire away from those two units and overwhelm the defenders. Make sure you screen your heavy infantry with skirmishers and the like as you advance on the walls. Otherwise you risk exactly what happened to you - losing the vast majority of your combat infantry before they reach combat! Remember, your troops are at a seriously disadvantage in the early stages of an assault using ladders due to being totally outnumbered (each attacker has to deal with 4+ defenders). If you've taken damage already then the defenders will kill you faster than your assault can sustain. If you can, send a few units with ladders at other parts of the walls in order to spred the defenders thin.

As the others have said, mercenary hoplites are pretty good with walls too. Missile units aren't particularly good with dealing with stone walls I find, defenders have too much protection. You are best off flanking with them.

[Caesar Augustus]

Where did you get most of your casualties, on the wall or from missiles? Merc hoplites are pretty tough cookies, but I'm still surprised your Thracians and hypaspists didn't do better. How did the numbers match up? Merc hoplite units are the size of a unit of Thracians and hypas combined.

I think the Thracian casualties prodominantly came from missile fire. Seriously, the unit was almost halved in size by the time they scaled the walls. It feels a little unbalanced - I can see why some players choose to disable missile fire from the towers.

The hypas' casualties were from a mixture of hand to hand combat and missile casualties. There were two groups of slingers behind the hoplites, which is why I sent my peltasts up on to the walls.

That reminds me, I should probably clarify how I used the peltasts. I had them fight hand to hand against the slingers until the slingers broke, then throw a couple of volleys of javelins into the hoplites before charging in hand to hand.

You need to draw the fire away from those two units and overwhelm the defenders. Make sure you screen your heavy infantry with skirmishers and the like as you advance on the walls. Otherwise you risk exactly what happened to you - losing the vast majority of your combat infantry before they reach combat! Remember, your troops are at a seriously disadvantage in the early stages of an assault using ladders due to being totally outnumbered (each attacker has to deal with 4+ defenders). If you've taken damage already then the defenders will kill you faster than your assault can sustain. If you can, send a few units with ladders at other parts of the walls in order to spred the defenders thin.

As the others have said, mercenary hoplites are pretty good with walls too. Missile units aren't particularly good with dealing with stone walls I find, defenders have too much protection. You are best off flanking with them.

The problem I find with screening my wall assualt units is the damage:time ratio. In my Roman campaign I was using velites and italic skirmishers to soak up the pain before I got troops onto the walls. However, these guys were almost killed to the last man before my assualt units were in position.

So if I try again, and recruit a couple of units of merc hoplites as assault troops I should have better results when fighting on walls?

[Carados]

The problem I find with screening my wall assualt units is the damage:time ratio. In my Roman campaign I was using velites and italic skirmishers to soak up the pain before I got troops onto the walls. However, these guys were almost killed to the last man before my assualt units were in position.

That doesn't sound right. Did you have them on loose formation and put them just in front of the ram/ladder (I find towers are a lot more protected)? You need to have them run back outside of tower fire range when your seige equipment are close enough.

If at all possible, observe where the defenders have put their missile units. Don't commit yourself straight away. Move your ladders and towers around so they get to walls with no or very little missile infantry on them.

By the way. At the moment you should ideally be wanting to tempt the rebels to attack you from outside the walls so that you can make best use of your phalangites. They are a lot weaker taking walls.

[Mogan]

Missile units aren't particularly good with dealing with stone walls I find, defenders have too much protection. You are best off flanking with them.

The morale penalty from flaming arrows do still apply on the entire unit, even though only one or two die per volley. Useful for routing and gaining control quickly.

I can only think of hoplites and falangites for wall scaling. Chalkaspides should do the trick. Build 3 ladders (or 1 tower and 2 ladders) and approach from different directions, as already mentioned. Sieges should be quite easy that way.

Oh, as to clearify a couple of things, I play on Huge unit scale, where 10 dead men from missile towers doesn't matter at all for my overall tactics.

[Quinn Inuit]

Odd. I almost never have problems getting up to walls with three siege towers. Occasionally I lose a tower, but I've only been kicked off the walls once with that tactic in any mod (as long as I had a decent-sized army to start with).

The trick there is that towers concentrate their fire on the siege towers, rather than the men. You lose very few from tower fire unless your siege tower is destroyed. If it is, run away.

[Caesar Augustus]

Ah right I see. My problem is probably that I've been using ladders rather than siege towers.

I was just sticking my skirmishers in front of the groups bearing ladders to soak up the fire in loose formation, and then running them back to my main line, but it could be that I had them out too long.

So for now I'll go for seizing the gate with a cavalry unit, and when I have more money I'll go for merc hoplites and siege towers.

Do you have any more suggestions for infantry that would be good for attacking walls by the way? I know you've suggested merc hoplites, but I prefer using "home grown" troops where possible.

[Irenaeus]

Ah right I see. My problem is probably that I've been using ladders rather than siege towers

Ladders are not great for attacking walls anyway, as (a) nothing protects the troops as they march to the walls, whereas a siege tower attracts the majority of the attacks when it advances, and (b) very few troops get to be released on the walls at a time. Siege Towers release about 13 men at a time in one spot, whereas ladders release about 6 men at 6 different spots - they are completely surrounded and die quickly, often before a replacement has come off the ladder, who then has the same problem.

This way I have managed to hold off large numbers of troops when they attack. The AI only seems to build siege towers when it has a large number of infantry. The only way it seems to be able to do well is if the troops coming off the ladders are much better than my defending troops (e.g. Principae against slingers), since the invaders survive long enough to be supported by new troops off the ladders, giving them a critical mass of men.

One other thing I would recommend when attacking a city is to RUN any troops you wish to scale the wall (with the exception of those carrying the siege equipment, obviously) to the wall inbetween the towers - that way they are safe from tower fire while they wait to climb the ladders/siege towers.

[Quinn Inuit]

Phalangites in our time period aren't really trained for siege ops (Alexander's appear to have been, but such training wasn't kept up for most phalangites). I recommend hypaspists, guard phalangites (agema), thureophoroi, and your faction's standard merc(s). (Seleucids: Galatians, Kurds, Hebrews) (Ptolies: Hebrews, Galatians, merc hoplites) (Macs: Thracians, merc hoplites, Illyrians) (Pontus: Galatians) (Bactria: merc thureophoroi and Indian bowmen)

Those merc lineups will be expanded in the next version. We're adding Cappadocians, hopefully some Persian mountaineers, some Bactrian mountaineers, and maybe some other stuff.

[Caesar Augustus]

Awesome, thanks very much Quinn!

I was kind of hoping to see some Agrianians, but they may be a bit too early for our time period?

[Quinn Inuit]

No problem.

Sadly, yes. I've done a lot of research and the Agrianians seem to have a bad time during the various wars in Thrace and then completely disappear from the historical record after the Celtic migration.

[Quinn Inuit]

Hamilcar Barca has corrected me: they do show up once more (Polybius mentions them). Therefore, I'm going to try to slot them in. They're only mentioned once, though, so I may not be able to afford a special slot for them. I'd like, though, because they were awesome.

[Caesar Augustus]

Awesome, the Agrianians rocked

Thanks for the tip Irenaeus! I've been using siege towers now with much greater success!

[Carados]

Ladders are still useful, your men get up the wall faster than with seige towers. I'm not recomending you attack predominantly with ladders but that they have some advantages over seige towers that are rather effective at times.

[Apex]

Nice to see different tactics at siege battles. As mentioned before fighting on wall always brings a lot of casualties. For me it's the matter of money. I am not willing to waste my expensive heavy infantry, instead I use several times cheaper missile troops (velites, peltasti,...). I always get on walls far away from enemy. Don't has to be close to gates. Keeping portion of my army in front of a gate will hold the AI at the gate. I use only 1-2 siege towers to get first unit on the walls and capture towers. The rest use ladders. Since it's far away from enemy I manage to organize my troops on walls. I usually get up several velites units, 1 archer for incediary fire and 1 heavy infantry. I slowly approach foes. When they start to rush towards me I pepper them with incediary arrows to demoralize them. I set velites on Guard on mode and when they get close, crowdy and start fighting I throw all javelins, 1 unit after another. They always cause many casualties even against heavy infantry. Then engage foes in hand to hand combat with velites to tire them down. When velites spent, remainings AI unit are tired and easy meat form my HI. I actually rarely have to use them.
So javliners really do the bussines on walls. They are cheap and those 960 javelins per unit make a punch in crowdy units. (VH/VH)

[leemyster]

You want to scale the walls where there are no enemy units near by (on the walls that is) and just run around the town as much as possible without making the enemy engaging you.

Typically the enemy will put troops on the walls at the front of the city (where the bulk of your army is). You then want to scale the walls from the sides with about 2-3 units on each flank. Then proceed to capture 3/4 of the walls and move your flanked units into the city through the gate. Then go about moving them around (typically the enemy attacks) and proceed to the centre of the city. If the centre of the city is lightly defended you can often get away by capturing it by holding the plaza for 3 mins if your lucky. Either way at that point all the troops will leave the walls, those in turn can be captured and you can allow any of your own missile troops to fire on the fleeing enemy (aswell as allow the bulk of the army to charge in).

[Apex]

You want to scale the walls where there are no enemy units near by (on the walls that is) and just run around the town as much as possible without making the enemy engaging you.

Typically the enemy will put troops on the walls at the front of the city (where the bulk of your army is). You then want to scale the walls from the sides with about 2-3 units on each flank. Then proceed to capture 3/4 of the walls and move your flanked units into the city through the gate. Then go about moving them around (typically the enemy attacks) and proceed to the centre of the city. If the centre of the city is lightly defended you can often get away by capturing it by holding the plaza for 3 mins if your lucky. Either way at that point all the troops will leave the walls, those in turn can be captured and you can allow any of your own missile troops to fire on the fleeing enemy (aswell as allow the bulk of the army to charge in).

True. And clever as well.