Can someone please give insight into Sieges?

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Is there anything I'm missing or can be done to counter the terrible siege AI? I saw some patches on the siege AI, but it's just as horrid as ever. I was having so much fun, but immediately I just want to stop playing again because I refuse to lose battles to my own AI being a failure at its functions.

I see other threads so I know this isn't repaired, but has anyone figured out tricks or something that can win without losing to your own AI's incompetence? I tried Battering Rams but they honestly just fall immediately to catapults, they suck, they don't even move for more than a minute before being destroyed. Ladders sort of work, but it's the death funnel I'm trying to avoid. Even with me machinegunning arrows at the top to give them an opening it's still a lot of losses.

If I can get the catapults destroyed before I head in, then maybe I can make this tolerable, but honestly the accuracy sucks and they are destroyed by enemy catapults, so it's a never ending rebuild and get destroyed scenario.

Any suggestions would be appreciated or I just have to quit again like I did last year, because it's not fun anymore.
 
They are broken since day 1, but this mod does improve them:


Also you can build siege stuff and put it in your "inventory", this helps too. Like build 1 catapult/trebuchet, put it into your inventory as soon as it is build and place them when you have 4 of them. Does this make sense, no! Does it work, yes!
 
The town I'm assaulting the catapults construct far faster than I can destroy them because of the accuracy. Also how do you construct in your inventory? I only figured out a way to build and then quickly pull them, but the problem there is the game already hurls an attack and damages them before I can pull them.
 
The town I'm assaulting the catapults construct far faster than I can destroy them because of the accuracy. Also how do you construct in your inventory? I only figured out a way to build and then quickly pull them, but the problem there is the game already hurls an attack and damages them before I can pull them.
Usually it is possible to put them in your "inventory" before they get destroyed. You have to be fast, the game needs to have some challenges :wink:
 
has anyone figured out tricks or something that can win without losing to your own AI's incompetence?
There's a video in my signature, you can just kill them all yourself. If that's too much, just bringing all ranged party, killing all infantry solo like I do in the video, then parking the ranged in front of the ladders works very well, though still frustrating to get 1 group to stand the way you want sometimes.

The town I'm assaulting the catapults construct far faster than I can destroy them because of the accuracy. Also how do you construct in your inventory? I only figured out a way to build and then quickly pull them, but the problem there is the game already hurls an attack and damages them before I can pull them.
Sometimes they miss, you can even save-scum before each treb is finished. Although I feel siege gear (or walls down) isn't much of an advantage, I never build it unless I'm just ****ing around and want to.
 
The town I'm assaulting the catapults construct far faster than I can destroy them because of the accuracy. Also how do you construct in your inventory? I only figured out a way to build and then quickly pull them, but the problem there is the game already hurls an attack and damages them before I can pull them.
Use trebuchets. They both take and do more damage, with the downside of taking longer to construct. "Abuse" the reserve to get all 4 out at once. You will then take out the cities siege engines faster than they can replace them.

Note that the abuse is in scare quotes because in reality you would construct them outside of the cities range and then move them all up at once. Just view the one unavoidable shot on each before you can reserve it as representing incoming fire when you are moving it into position.
 
Usually it is possible to put them in your "inventory" before they get destroyed. You have to be fast, the game needs to have some challenges :wink:

I had no idea this was even possible ! The strategic aspects of sieges is lame as lame. They should be removed and replaced with tactical catapults moved up to shoot out with defending wall artillery.

.
 
Note that the abuse is in scare quotes because in reality you would construct them outside of the cities range and then move them all up at once. Just view the one unavoidable shot on each before you can reserve it as representing incoming fire when you are moving it into position.

You're right about that, thanks! Been using this technique for a couple of weeks now but always felt a little like I was scamming the system. Cheers Zyffyr
 
It's been broken since the dawn of time. Your best hope is to try and mediate some of the damage done by the game by installing mods, like Realistic Battle Mod for example.
 
Any suggestions would be appreciated or I just have to quit again like I did last year, because it's not fun anymore.
you can break down the walls with trebuchets which will do the trick for most of the sieges. it wont help at pravend, ostican and galend as there are overall pathfinding issues on that particular map. for all the others it will do the trick. had no issues with that so far in 1.6.1 and 1.6.2. i think its the most efficent way to siege, at least on vanilla on the recent update.
first you give the order to build trebuchets at the campaign map on all slots, once one is buildet, stash it in the reserve by simply clicking on the trebuchet. do that with every single one until every siege engine has been build. you can use them by clicking on the siege engine slots again.
you can also check out several sieges if you skip through some of my vods on twitch.

you can also roll back to 1.5.7
by any means, the sieges are not running perfectly there, but they were in a better condition as they are right now as troops where able to climb up sieging towers(sometimes) and breaking to the 2nd gate after the ram.

and of course, the already mentioned battle ai mod can help a lot too.
 
i have made a quick video about an easy and effective siege tactic, it's on YouTube and it should keep the numbers very low especially in most castles and towns.

In the other castles you are simply going to take more casualties then just 50 and you may end up needing to charge trough the gate as soon as the ram breakes the door.

Simply get some good archers or crossbowmen and let the infantry tank the arrows. The entire process is better explained in the video and doesn't cheese the Ai all that much. and it's one of the fastest, in terms of map days, to do
 
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If I can get the catapults destroyed before I head in, then maybe I can make this tolerable, but honestly the accuracy sucks and they are destroyed by enemy catapults, so it's a never ending rebuild and get destroyed scenario.

Any suggestions would be appreciated or I just have to quit again like I did last year, because it's not fun anymore.
first. you need a lot of men when sieging. so you can build the camps faster. also appoint an engineer

then, when you build siege equipment against the enemies. always start with trebuchets, and once it's complete. click on it and move to reserve so it doesn't get focused down. once you have 4 built, you can start bombing them. but if the enemy has lots of men and fast build rate. you'll need more then just 4 in the reserves.

after destroying the enemy defense. theres no need to demolish the walls, just go in. you already have the siege weapons advantage.

now the army composition matters but the more archers you have the better. the more men the better also. i found the best strategy is just raining arrows on enemies while bombing them with siege weapons. never auto deploy, set your men in position yourself.
once in there, out your melee groups in shield wall right below the ladders (no need for siege tower, but ram is good)
then set your archers in loose formations behind the melees so you can shoot at their walls.
if you wanna be more cheesy, don't send in your men in the start and let the siege bombard their walls until you are out of ammo. then start sending men in there

if your army out number the defense 4 to 1 and you have decent amount of archers, you'll take almost 0 casualties and destroy all the enemies without even needing to engage in melee.
 
i have made a quick video about an easy and effective siege tactic, it's on YouTube and it should keep the numbers very low especially in most castles and towns.

In the other castles you are simply going to take more casualties then just 50 and you may end up needing to charge trough the gate as soon as the ram breakes the door.

Simply get some good archers or crossbowmen and let the infantry tank the arrows. The entire process is better explained in the video and doesn't cheese the Ai all that much. and it's one of the fastest, in terms of map days, to do
Did you mean to link it?
 
destroy enemies siege engine, have a least half shooter and place them in front of the wall in loose formation, wait, gg
Don't send your melee to the ladder or to the door, just have them stand and tank arrows with their shield, help with your own bow if you use one.
When their is no more enemy bowman climb half a ladder yourself and watch the remaining enemy stack and die to your archers.
 
Did you mean to link it?
only if someone asked, i don't want to put personal links on threads unless it was created by me. (that's a me thing)

Anyway, there's the link, there is also a comment i added after some further testing providing some extra info on how to make it more effective

Video Link here:

Let me know what you guys think of it, and what could be improved, other then my mic.

I feel like a lot of new guys don't know this can be done this effectively, that's the main reason i made it.
 
Let me know what you guys think of it, and what could be improved, other then my mic.

I feel like a lot of new guys don't know this can be done this effectively, that's the main reason i made it.
this is exactly how i siege. except i always bring a lot of men, so my army overwhelms their defenses and i lose almost no guys.

in the siege of 1000 battle size it's like 500 of my archers + 350 infantry vs 150 enemies half of them archers. and on top of that i have 4 catapults bombing them
 
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