On siege battles and forts

[The Kybrothilian]

A thing I'd like to know...

How do you effectively attack in siege assaults?

When I make the asault, I often launch a simultaneous attack at both walls with ladders and towers, and to the gates with a ram. After I have driven the enemy from the entrance and walls (which is long and bloody) I march my infantry straight at the town center, while I bring in the cavalry to attack from other directions.

The problem is, that I take very heavy casualties in process, sometimes so much, that auto resolving would have brought me victory with lesser losses. Are there any ways to win siege assaults without losing too much troops?

On the forts then. What factor decides if the fort is wooden or stone fort. I have never seen a wooden fort in my own games. On the other hand, I've seen different types of stone forts (there was one fort I had, which had inner platforms around the fort center).

[The Kybrothilian]

Yes, I have Stainless steel 6.4 with Real Recruitment on and I'm playing early campaign with Hungary, so the only siege artillery I have for now is the catapult. I think I'll start creating armies designed for siege assault, with plenty of light MAR and croatians.

While playing SS, I've always ran into stone forts (there's no permanent forts in this mod though), so perhaps wooden forts are mostly in vanilla.

Thanks for all your advice :

[EncryptedToast]

Waiting out a siege has never, ever worked for me. Sooner or later the AI just magically produces a stack of units that come to the rescue so it's just a waste of time.

[Sylphides]

I needed a place like this - where I can discuss my tactic and get a good critique out of it.

I've been working on the offensive side of the siege warfare, and the following is the tactic I have come up with for now.

First, to attack any well-guarded town (or castle) I need a good set-up of army. I am more of infantry leader than cavalry leader, and my set-up is heavily featuring good infantry units.

When I attack, I usually go with: 4 armored spearmen (like Armored Sergeants), 4 swordmen type (Dismounted Knights), 7-8 Archer units, 3-4 Cavalry units and 2-3 siege weapon. (Catapult at early stage, and then trebuchet at the later phase.) Siege weapons are of prime importance in my tactic.

Now, onto the assault itself. I never - NEVER - attack the town from the front. That is about the most foolish thing you can ever do as a siege attacking general. I do not even make a ram unless in the very early phase of the game, where the ram can actually take out the wooden wall. Other than that, I don't bother with the rams, towers or ladders. Catapults are of prime importance for that.

At the unit placement, I send all of the units to either left or right side. I smash the wall with the catapults first, (this part is of prime importance.) then move my spearmen into the breached wall. I usually place two spearmen in front, and leave two as a reserve behind. The two spearmen group in front will form Schiltrom formation, closely followed by two swordmen group. (Again, two swordmen groups are in reserve). Chances are, they will be massacring from the side they made their charge. Let the infantry group march in slowly, and back them up with archers. Also, since the infantry group in front will be taking arrow barrage, I try to hit the enemy archers with my archer group as much as possible - to minimize the loss from arrow hits. Also, the archers must do the most damage from the range - this is why I am filling almost half of my assault group with archers.

About half way through the march, I change the group in front with the reserve group, so the front men can get some rest along the way. Also, by this time, more often than not, the enemy general should have fallen. Then I keep marching on, killing the enemy along the way. By the time I reach the central square, I charge all the infantry men. If the enemy routs, I release the cavalry on them.

I don't know if this tactic will work against human player, but against AI, this tactic has given me very good results - at times routing 1:3 or better in numbers. If there is anything you'd like to point out, or improve, please let me know. I would appreciate any input as a matter of fact.

[Aeratus]

Smashing the wall first is a good idea because it kills the units on the wall. If the wall section is large, and you destroy both ends of the wall section leading to the tower, you kill all units standing in between. Sometimes the AI will let you do that.

As to attacking the gatehouse vs. attacking another part of the city, if you have enough siege weapons to destroy all the towers, there is no advantage not attacking the gatehouse. Attacking the gatehouse is advantageous because once you're in the city, you can place archers on top of the gatehouse and shoot into the street. In Kingdoms, you have to be a little more careful because of the boiling oil (so you would need to rout the units on the gatehouse before putting men through).

[MooseUpNorth]

Cities: Catapults are great in sieges. I tend to use 2 or 4 units. Drop at least four sections of walls, and try to do it in a way so as to trap units on the walls. If you can hit the wall hard enough, quickly enough, you can decimate several units at once. Once you make four breaches, start dropping towers. If you position your catapults right, you can often hit clumped defenders by _missing_ the gate towers with fire.

Bring your catapults, and aim for clumps of defenders in the town square. Try to hit the square from at least three sides with infantry.

Forts: There are places in each type of fort where you can hit the square with archers. Try to pick a section of wall close to those areas, and you can save enough time to let your crossbows thin out the remaining defenders. I routinely take forts without a single loss.