Is Building Siege Equipment A Waste Of Time?

[Good Night Owl]

For so long I thought I needed Siege Equipment, but I have found that if you outnumber the enemy, it is so much more efficient to just use ladders. In the time You can take one town or by building equipment, you can take two of them if you don't bother with siege stuff, so what's the point?

Literally just issue a command for you troops to follow you to the walls, and you've destroyed the enemy castle siege equipment without actually destroying it.

[Azunai]

If it's weakly defended, I use ladders. If there are lots of defenders, I build trebuchets and raze the walls. Rams and towers are never useful, imo.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Wulfgar:

I thought if the town or castle walls are build up to level 3 ladders are not available as the walls are too tall. So I check the level of the town if only level 2 I use the ladders. If level 3 build the siege towers and ram. If there are ladders I use them, to quickly take the wall.

I have never seen a case where there was no ladders, Tier 3 walls or otherwise. Any place in particular where you have encountered this?

[Good Night Owl]

Originally posted by Azunai:

If it's weakly defended, I use ladders. If there are lots of defenders, I build trebuchets and raze the walls. Rams and towers are never useful, imo.

Towers are good if you want an extra ladder, I guess... And *would* be more useful if the AI was better about the timing when dropping the bridge down. Otherwise, it really only seems slightly better than just going up the regular ladders. I say 'slightly better' because your troops being shoulder to shoulder is better than them being separated.

But even then, the losses to get the tower to the walls don't seem all that worth it. Sieges aren't long enough to get good use out of them.

[GIJoe597]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

There is no point;)

You are infinitely better off just taking fiefs by storm, rather than using lengthy sieges.

There is simply no contest between those strategies.

I disagree fully. When using the destroy all enemy siege equipment tactic you can then take fiefs with smaller forces as 25% of your units are not wiped out by hostile siege engines.

Furthermore, if you combine that tactic with raiding the attached villages to stop food production you can then starve the garrison before you attack. A fief with 1000 defenders (500 militia and 500 garrison), becomes a fief with only 500 town militia once the garrison is starved.

Using this method allows for fewer losses and longer sustained attacks. You do not need to stop after 1 or two attacks because half your force is gone. This is very good mid game.


The massive army method is also valid late game when you have max companion/party slots and units galore but to suggest the above method is pointless is a tad shortsighted and limiting.

[Beornegar]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

Originally posted by Wulfgar:

I thought if the town or castle walls are build up to level 3 ladders are not available as the walls are too tall. So I check the level of the town if only level 2 I use the ladders. If level 3 build the siege towers and ram. If there are ladders I use them, to quickly take the wall.

I have never seen a case where there was no ladders, Tier 3 walls or otherwise. Any place in particular where you have encountered this?

Interesting. I've had it several times hence my assumption but I don't remember what towns they were. So maybe a glitch then I don't know. I'm playing on the latest beta branch.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by GIJoe597:

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

There is no point;)

You are infinitely better off just taking fiefs by storm, rather than using lengthy sieges.

There is simply no contest between those strategies.

I disagree fully. When using the destroy all enemy siege equipment tactic you can then take fiefs with smaller forces as 25% of your units are not wiped out by hostile siege engines.

Furthermore, if you combine that tactic with raiding the attached villages to stop food production you can then starve the garrison before you attack. A fief with 1000 defenders (500 militia and 500 garrison), becomes a fief with only 500 town militia once the garrison is starved.

Using this method allows for fewer losses and longer sustained attacks. You do not need to stop after 1 or two attacks because half your force is gone. This is very good mid game.


The massive army method is also valid late game when you have max companion/party slots and units galore but to suggest the above method is pointless is a tad shortsighted and limiting.

1) The Ai still need to build siege gear. They cant very well do that when you are not.
2) Your own men or parties are not essential, numbers primarily come from vassals.
3 Trying to take anything with a small force is just wasting time.
4) I have never seen a 1.000 man garrison:)

[AfLIcTeD]

Originally posted by Clovis Sangrail:

I used to build a ram and a couple of siege towers. But I am often outnumbered, and when
that happens, the seige towers don't get manned. I quit building those.

And the ram is so slow, you take a lot of casualties before it gets to the gate.

So most of the time -- no seige engines. Just hit the ladders and establish a beach head, then start pouring in your troops.

This usually works, and when it doesn't, it's so close that it merits a reload. There is usually more than one pair of ladders. Time to try another one.

The ram is still good to build as it will put some of the defenders at the front gate making the walls easier to assault. If you don't build the ram then all defenders will man the walls making it much harder to assault. So I always at least build the ram.

What I do is get on the walls asap and head to above the gate. Throw their stones at the inner gate then drop down and open the outer gate. Easy win.

[ShadowFox]

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

For so long I thought I needed Siege Equipment, but I have found that if you outnumber the enemy, it is so much more efficient to just use ladders. In the time You can take one town or by building equipment, you can take two of them if you don't bother with siege stuff, so what's the point?

Literally just issue a command for you troops to follow you to the walls, and you've destroyed the enemy castle siege equipment without actually destroying it.

do you value your peoples lives or your time more, what difficulty are you on, are you sieging with and army or just your troops etc etc etc there are pros and cons to everything but like you said you can just meatball a siege if you want to but in the long term its really not the best idea

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Cheeseburger:

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

For so long I thought I needed Siege Equipment, but I have found that if you outnumber the enemy, it is so much more efficient to just use ladders. In the time You can take one town or by building equipment, you can take two of them if you don't bother with siege stuff, so what's the point?

Literally just issue a command for you troops to follow you to the walls, and you've destroyed the enemy castle siege equipment without actually destroying it.

do you value your peoples lives or your time more, what difficulty are you on, are you sieging with and army or just your troops etc etc etc there are pros and cons to everything but like you said you can just meatball a siege if you want to but in the long term its really not the best idea

Its basically the other way around.

In the long run building siegegear is a terrible idea. The math is just brutally against building siegegear.

[Good Night Owl]

Originally posted by Cheeseburger:

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

For so long I thought I needed Siege Equipment, but I have found that if you outnumber the enemy, it is so much more efficient to just use ladders. In the time You can take one town or by building equipment, you can take two of them if you don't bother with siege stuff, so what's the point?

Literally just issue a command for you troops to follow you to the walls, and you've destroyed the enemy castle siege equipment without actually destroying it.

do you value your peoples lives or your time more, what difficulty are you on, are you sieging with and army or just your troops etc etc etc there are pros and cons to everything but like you said you can just meatball a siege if you want to but in the long term its really not the best idea

The hardest difficulty, for the record.

And whether or not it is bad in the long run entirely depends on how you do it. Expand too quick, and in the wrong direction, you can unite the entire map against you, but that hardly depends on whether or not you used siege equipment. Otherwise, it is only beneficial in the long run. Real life? Of course not. New recruits don't appear out of this air, but in this game, they very much do.

[Restaldt]

Depends on what you're sieging but if you outnumber the defenders and its just militia then yea. just use the ladders. If youre outnumbered but have high tier troops then build catapults to kill the defenders catapults and maybe a battering ram. If you're way out numbered do all the above but after you break the defense catapults build trebuchets and crack the walls

Dont leave your catapults out one by one as they get built. Move them to reserve as soon as they are done and put all 3 or 4 out at once

[Dunadd]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

For so long I thought I needed Siege Equipment, but I have found that if you outnumber the enemy, it is so much more efficient to just use ladders. In the time You can take one town or by building equipment, you can take two of them if you don't bother with siege stuff, so what's the point?

Literally just issue a command for you troops to follow you to the walls, and you've destroyed the enemy castle siege equipment without actually destroying it.

There is no point;)

You are infinitely better off just taking fiefs by storm, rather than using lengthy sieges.

There is simply no contest between those strategies.

Rapid conquest is all about numbers. The more men you can bring, the faster you can set up your siegecamp and the less time the AI has to build defensive equipment.

Storm them, move on to the next, repeat.

Game must be a bit unrealistic then because attacking fortified towns without siege engined historically meant heavy casualties for the attackers usually, if it succeeded at all. Which was why long sieges were the norm

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Dunadd:

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

There is no point;)

You are infinitely better off just taking fiefs by storm, rather than using lengthy sieges.

There is simply no contest between those strategies.

Rapid conquest is all about numbers. The more men you can bring, the faster you can set up your siegecamp and the less time the AI has to build defensive equipment.

Storm them, move on to the next, repeat.

Game must be a bit unrealistic then because attacking fortified towns without siege engined historically meant heavy casualties for the attackers usually, if it succeeded at all. Which was why long sieges were the norm

Its a game.

Its no more unrealistic than so many other aspects of the game (or other games for that matter). Slaughtering enemy parties with no losses, the commander of the army (you) going full moviestile murder and mayhem, smiths being the riches people in the universe etc.

The reality is that, if you commit to building siegegear, then you need to commit to building at least 4, then deploy them and spend additional time waiting for your siegegear to take out their siegegear.

That takes a lot of time, especially when you have a relatively small army.

If instead you bring a good large army and just settle with building the siegecamp, you can cut the amount of time you must spend, on each siege, down to as little as half a day. Thats the difference between spending a few weeks on wiping out a faction and spending months on it. You and yours will have plenty of time to spare to recover.

[Azunai]

Originally posted by Good Night Owl:

Originally posted by Azunai:

If it's weakly defended, I use ladders. If there are lots of defenders, I build trebuchets and raze the walls. Rams and towers are never useful, imo.

Towers are good if you want an extra ladder, I guess... And *would* be more useful if the AI was better about the timing when dropping the bridge down. Otherwise, it really only seems slightly better than just going up the regular ladders. I say 'slightly better' because your troops being shoulder to shoulder is better than them being separated.

But even then, the losses to get the tower to the walls don't seem all that worth it. Sieges aren't long enough to get good use out of them.

Fair enough, but the point of ladders is the speed. If you have a good engineer, you can sometimes have the siege camp up faster than the defenders build their first catapult. If you charge them right away with the ladders, that minimizes losses.

If there is enough opposition to turn the battle jnto a bloody mess, it's better to just tear down the walls and then attack through yhe gaps.