How do you seige?

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

How do you siege settlements?

For me, truth be told, mostly auto-calc with towers and rams. Yes I stuff my stack with auto-calc friendly units most of the time... Sometimes I fight the siege if its an important one for the AI or me.

I rarely carry catapults or trebuchets because they really slow me down. I always play early era and rarely stick around til the gunpowder age.

What's your best combo and why?????

For you auto calc fans: A second stack always makes sieging alot easier. Local superiority for the win.

For those that choose to fight, load your second stack with all mêlée to avoid friendly fire issues. Betcha your 2nd stack will beat you to the Town square. Betcha you watch...

[Neptune7]

I maintain seiges for the duration until they come out behind those walls so I can fight then in the fields in front of the settlement. Then I can use my archers, and cavalry for the win.. When they are inside the walls, my archers and cavalry don't do well, and it just turns into a long infantry slug fest with high casualties.

[bɑne]

I use rams and towers as a diversion at the most.... my prefered tactic is to hit them with ladders in as many places as possible either opening up the settlement for the heavy cavalry, to deploy archerpockets on the enemy wall or to simply bring infantry from inside the keep into the back of the enemy. I like to take the walls as intact as possible as I never know if I'm able to make the repairs. Ladderrush for the win.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Ichon]

Sieges are the only battles I fight out every single time unless I have a full stack and 1 single enemy general is the garrison. No auto-calc gives me even close to the correct outcome. If I use auto_win I get a little too good results usually(depends on units which are auto-calc friendly? no idea what they are but sometimes I've gotten better results than even auto_win, when I first started playing VH always I would save before a siege and then fight it over and over until my results were close to the auto_win) but if I just use auto-calc it is usually off by several 100 in a siege between full stacks not to mention the auto-calc almost always harms my best units disproportionately where if I am in control I sacrifice cheap throwaway units. When I am defender it works about the same if not worse for me even using auto_win if I have a full stack. Of course almost always as defender I have much less than a full stack and so can't use auto-calc. Besides despite many bugs sieges can be some of the most fun battles.

Early game if I am blitzing I send 2 generals and get the AI to sally. Have a small army of militia nearby to use as garrison. No stupid run to the corner and let timer run out or anything either. Early era generals are superior to almost anything your enemies will have except other HC. Only a few cities start the game with HC in rebel garrisons and usually any HC in a faction army will not be sitting in garrison in a castle though it does happen occasionally.

Later in the game when I've had time to develop cities and economy a little I ALWAYS siege with spies. By far the best method. Every army travels with at least 4 spies. 2 skilled spies and 2 in training. That way even if 1 dies occasionally should usually have enough to open gates. I've tried many different siege tactics but spies are the most reliable low casualty way.

If for some reason I have to siege and am without spies I prefer to to concentrate majority of my army out of arrow range by front gate and send 1 ladder party as far away as possible in deployment phase and then quick march them to wall and capture gate. 1 cavalry, 1 archer/crossbow, and 1 infantry unit accompany the ladder carrying unit. Cavalry rushes square, missile unit climbs up wall or follows other 2 infantry units who either defend on wall or if AI rushes back to central square try and cutoff the enemy units running back to square using archer and cavalry for support. My main army can then enter thru front gate and defeat the mass of enemy units in the streets before reaching central square or having to fight on the walls and lose lots of men.

My most difficult siege battles have come early game against superior garrisons or invading a fortress/citadel with low armor units and no spies to open gates. High dread generals can also be annoying. Often arrive to the central square and enemy only has 2 units alive, 1 dread general and 1 infantry unit. Most of my units by that point are tired or worse(although I try to always keep 1 or 2 units warmed up/fresh) and sometimes break and rout as soon as they enter the square and enemy general turns towards them. I remember 1 battle almost lost due to having to wait almost until timer gone to get a couple units from exhausted to merely tired so they didn't break instantly.

I also love attacking the unit AI often leaves as perimeter guard or whatever as it draws garrison out as reinforcements and if I have enough cavalry 0 men escape leaving an empty city for me to occupy.

[Caesar Clivus]

I use rams and towers as a diversion at the most.... my prefered tactic is to hit them with ladders in as many places as possible either opening up the settlement for the heavy cavalry,

Same here. Siege towers are too much of a liability.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

LMAO!!!

[Gogolometro]

The zergling rush is no more!

[Galain_Ironhide]

I mainly use ladders and rams myself, however will use one or two towers in big sieges as well.

I do like peppering the enemy with catapaults and trebuchets (usually always will have one or two in a stack) however I don't like taking their walls down using them, seems to make less of a sport of it.

[cuo]

We need some 'ladders only' in the poll.

[midget_roxx]

My tactics are terrible . I hate the siege battles and so I just go for 4ish siege towers and a ram and hope for the best. If there are 10 enemy units or more I tend to just seige till the surrender, or auto-calc if I have enough troops

[Xanthippus of Sparta]

I tend to ladder rush as well, siege towers are destroyed too easily.

Since Rams are nearly indestructable in SS unless you're facing cannon towers, I always use one as well.

Facing a smaller garrison, I auto calc a lot as well. The auto calc doesn't take into account the city's defenses and that's useful sometimes.

[hippacrocafish]

Blech, I hate seiges. The A.I. pathfinding gets all mucked-up and it gets really annoying. I prefer to starve them out of their settlement then finish off their weakened remnants.

But when I do have to seige (I'm not waiting eight turns for their supplies to run out, that's just a waste of time) I prefer to use seige weapons to break down their walls, then use archers/crossbows to weaken their defenders from afar, then send in the heavy infantry. I also usually send a unit around the side to hit the defenders from the rear if they leave one of the destroyed sections of wall unattended.

[Kulgan]

Pre gunpowder :

- Main assault goes through the breached gate, mercenaries and militia in a first wave.
- Towers and ladders commit when the gate is almoast breached, their role is to keep the walls troops from aiding their comrades defending the gate.
- when the enemy has a lot of ranged troops on the walls, ladders and towers commit earlier.

Gunpowder :

- Knock down walls, send in elite melee troops ( from different sides )

[JorisofHolland]

I always use many, many pieces of artillery (especially in Gunpowder timeframe). Break down the walls and hit them with the point of a lance!

When that's not possible - either due to lack of artillery or lack of heavy cavalry - I use a lot of ladders. I'm everywhere, killing everyone, all at the very same time. My most liked trick is to hire a lot of crusader mercenaries, and let them do the fighting. After the crusade is over, I disband them and use my soldiers to keep up the walls.

[Gromovnik]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I fought a siege battle and the loading screen before it had this same pic. (altough just a detail)
Regarding sieges, I use cannons when they become available, otherwise ladders, rarely rams. I try to avoid towers, they get destroyed far too easily.

[Navajo Joe]

I generally build 3 rams and 3-4 sets of ladders. I then assault the West, South and East walls at different times. The AI sets itself up to counter all three walls initially, as i launch my first attack the AI drags away defenders, to re-enforce that wall. Then my other attack forces attack the other walls, generally lightly guarded or not at all. Usually a unit of Light Cavarly will get to the square first. The AI trys to get back to the square and dies in the process. This works very well with cities and castles, never auto resolve a siege unless odds are 3:1 or greater. I like to fight my battles and experiment with units

[MetalPaladin]

I just noticed that when you are being sieged you lose men every turn you wait it out (starving to death?). While this does seem more realistic, doesn't it chip away at your advantage of having a castle? I just figured out this was the case with a battle today where my men were being sieged for 4-5 turns before the AI just decided to attack. My men were at about 3/5 manpower and it ended up being a very tough fight. And if my men were starving shouldn't the attacking army lose a few guys too? I mean it's not like they have a castle full of food stores

[Ichon]

I just noticed that when you are being sieged you lose men every turn you wait it out (starving to death?). While this does seem more realistic, doesn't it chip away at your advantage of having a castle? I just figured out this was the case with a battle today where my men were being sieged for 4-5 turns before the AI just decided to attack. My men were at about 3/5 manpower and it ended up being a very tough fight. And if my men were starving shouldn't the attacking army lose a few guys too? I mean it's not like they have a castle full of food stores

Given the time scale it makes sense. The first turn .5-2 years timescale of a siege the defenders suffer nearly 0 losses. The 2nd year food stores are low and some losses start to occur. The longer the siege the more losses.

A castle is still valuable because-

1. It allows preservation of your forces and is a strong point that stops enemy forces giving you time to organize reinforcements.
2. It produces military units
3. Higher level castles are quite expensive for an attacker to capture and can be made a center of your defensive strategy.

If an AI attacker waits more than 1 turn to attack in a siege you can probably sally and win so there is seldom any good point to waiting more than 1-2 turns as a defender unless your forces would definitely lose due to force composition(IE- 4 archers and 3 swords vs 4 HC, 1 archer, and 4 AP infantry). Then you just have to get reinforcements there as quickly as possible.

[fumle]

hmm...you forgot to add "spam ladders" in your poll. Thats my tactic, i usally buy a single ram just for the sigth of it, and maybe a tower or 2 to tank some arrows.
Else i just spam ladders so i can assault the castle from every side, however i don't do it at the same time, i keep some units away, so when the figthing starts my reinf. join in and surrounds the enemy or take a gate or something..

[Sir Wem]

I rather attack with ladders because they can´t be destroyed but i prefer to knock down the walls with my trebuchets or cannons. In the end i don´t like sieges that much because most of the time you get stuck in hand to hand street fights with many casualties as a result.

[jogamen]

im sieging always with any kind of arty i can get. i destroy the walls so no shooter can be placed on walls, then towers and just after that i move my archers to breaches in walls and shoot down as many as possible of the enemies. after they are out of ammo i just attack the rest of the enemies sending first mercenaries, then militia and at the end strongest units + cavalry to finish the rest.