I keep getting crushed by siege weapons

[DerekTheGeek]

I was hoping other might have some advice for me. I am a casual BTS player. I play at Warlord level and I find that even though I build up a huge army it keeps getting crushed by my neighbors siege weapons (namely the Hwacha). Any suggestions on how to defend against the siege weapon? They whittle my stack down to nothing which allows the enemies weak units finish of my veterans. Any suggestions? Thanks.

- Derek

 

[Chiyochan]

mounted units.

BTS's seige weapons have been nerfed heavily from vanilla, you really should be fine.

 

[IAM]

Hit them first with your seige weapons. If you are declaring war wait for them to enter your borders then hit them. AI will send a stack of units in within a few turns of declaring war.

 

[PureE]

If you get tossed around by enemy siege when attacking, make sure to have a team healer in your group. That way you can weather the siege attack, and have your troops on decent health again in 1 to 3 turns. What also helps is spreading out the whole army, though I'd leave some units with your own siege or they're going to get busted. Spreading out also blocks tiles from enemies, and will hamper the city.

 

[Willem]

Also the Drill promotion can help. Getting a few ranks in that line reduces the amount of collateral damage the unit takes. That starts kicking right from the second rank and increases as you add more. But your best bet is to have enough mounted units so they can Flank your opponents siege units. You can sometimes eliminate all the siege units in a stack with enough horse units attacking his/her stack.

 

[Bostock]

Siege weapons crushing you? You should ride on siege weapons, not carry them.

Wait, what was the question?

 

[Cashew]

You're hilarious, Bostock.

Derek, there are a few ways of dealing with seige:

1) Attack with such a vast numerical superiority that the seige weapons aren't enough to severely damage most of your units. As long as your stack keeps to hills (or trees if they're available) then you should be able to survive. It is good to have a medic 3 unit on your stack when doing this so that you can heal in 1 or 2 turns while your own seige takes down the target city's defenses.

2) Attack with militarily superior units. For example, if your target has no war elephants and you do you're going to have a much easier time surviving an enemy bombardment. Or if you have maces vs their axes etc.

3) Attack before seige units become available. If you do this you can usually take enough land to get yourself an advantage so that you can then do 1 or 2.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Also the Drill promotion can help. Getting a few ranks in that line reduces the amount of collateral damage the unit takes. That starts kicking right from the second rank and increases as you add more. But your best bet is to have enough mounted units so they can Flank your opponents siege units. You can sometimes eliminate all the siege units in a stack with enough horse units attacking his/her stack.

Drill line can be awesome for stack defenders. X-bows are especially good since they start with 1 first strike.. having Drill I/II increases it to 2 guaranteed first strikes and reduces collateral damage. Since they're rarely the strongest defender, they won't be attacked by initial siege and collateral damage will be minimal from Drill promos.

 

[ventrue]

Nice advice guys. I never thought much about the using the drill promo. The healer is always something I like to have in my cities.

It's tough when guys like Toku bring an assorted stack of pikemen, trebuchets, knights and samurai. If you try to attack with mounted units, the pikemen will kill the mounted units. You can use cats or trebs against the stack, but they will also have a healer and the damaged units will just go back to their borders and new ones will replace the damaged ones. You just have to build a lot of units to survive the attack and possibly counter-attack if the situation presents itself.

 

[Willem]

If you try to attack with mounted units, the pikemen will kill the mounted units.

The thing with mounted units is that they get a chance to retreat if they lose the battle, and if they do they get a chance to damage the siege weapons in the stack. It's definitely worth it to attack with them even if they're going to end up suiciding themselves. If you have enough horse units, and you get lucky, you can destroy all of an opponents siege weapons even after losing thier particular battles. Horse units are pretty much another throw away unit, just like Catapults.

 

[ventrue]

Thank you Willem for the advice. I will definitely make some more mounted units and promote some of them for flanking 2.

 

[TheOgre]

dont forget healers and smaller stacks. if siege is a major thing for the AI then stacks of-

2 horse archer
2 axeman
2 spearman
3-4 catapault
1 unit as a healer

in 4 stack of this is better than 2 stacks of

6 horse archer
8 axeman
8 spearman
18 catapault

 

[Lord Parkin]

dont forget healers and smaller stacks. if siege is a major thing for the AI then stacks of-

2 horse archer
2 axeman
2 spearman
3-4 catapault
1 unit as a healer

in 4 stack of this is better than 2 stacks of

6 horse archer
8 axeman
8 spearman
18 catapault

I don't really agree with this, sorry. You'd be hard pressed to get a good (Medic III, ideally) healer for 4 separate stacks. In my opinion, it's better to have a colossally large stack with just one (Medic III) healer. As long as you use terrain to your advantage (remember the value of hills and forests), once a stack reaches a certain critical mass it's effectively almost invulnerable to siege (assuming your opponent's army is not much larger than your own).

 

[TheOgre]

I don't really agree with this, sorry. You'd be hard pressed to get a good (Medic III, ideally) healer for 4 separate stacks. In my opinion, it's better to have a colossally large stack with just one (Medic III) healer. As long as you use terrain to your advantage (remember the value of hills and forests), once a stack reaches a certain critical mass it's effectively almost invulnerable to siege (assuming your opponent's army is not much larger than your own).

because the AI is dumb and will chase decoy stacks while you lure them into traps. nomally your right but when numbers are against you -- divide and conquer.

 

[S.ilver]

Beat down the enemy's stack first before it gets the chance to wail on you. If you wait to be attacked, you'll lose, equal forces considered. Note that waiting to be attacked isn't the same as declaring war and waiting for the enemy stack to enter your territory so you can tackle them with greater maneuverability.

Splitting your stacks and sending them into enemy territory is usually not the best idea. Siege is limited in the amount of units it can collateral, so if your stack is bigger, the wounded units will be covered by healthy ones after the siege is done. Stick to favourable defensive terrain as well. I notice the AI rarely likes to attack mega stacks.

 

[Lord Parkin]

because the AI is dumb and will chase decoy stacks while you lure them into traps. nomally your right but when numbers are against you -- divide and conquer.

No, when numbers are against you, most of the time you should wait and attack the enemy from within your own territory. (Unless they are on another continent and pose little to no threat.) Then once their main force has been obliterated, you can move in and start taking their cities.

Dividing your forces is probably the worst thing you can do when numbers are against you. You can't afford to have "decoy stacks" to take flak when you need to keep as many units alive as you can.