Onager city assault

[Celtic Warrior]

During a city assault I usually set up my onagers infront of the city and set them to fire at will mode. They usually destroy lot of buildings (with minimal amount of enemy casualties )

Is there any benefit to destroying the buildings during a battle.

Is there any benefit during or after the battle?

One disadvantage is after you take the city you have to repair the buildings. (Although I usually destroy alot of the enemy culture buildings anyway.)

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I like to burn the cities because IT LOOKS REALLY COOL.

I'm also very angry at the lack of Onagers in RTR.

 

[Celtic Warrior]

Are there no onagers in RTR at all? Strange.

Next post is the 100th

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Nope, just Scorpions and Ballistae.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I used them just because I wanted to see what kind of damage those things could do. Lets just say a major Macedonian city had about half it's buildings destroyed (I have about 5 units of onagers). I undermined the walls, and in flowed the Thracian mercenaries first, followed by Legionary Cohorts. While I had yet more legions (just old Hastati I wanted to get rid of) scale the walls via ladders and hack the Macedonians to pieces. This was a mistake, they had some unit (I forget which) on each side, and my Hastati were hacked to pieces. When they were a little less than half strength, I ordered all my onagers to attack that section of wall.

It's fun to see little men falling from huge walls (the best ones you can have, I forget the name, haven't played in ages).

Do you make your onagers set their projectiles alight?

Spoiler :

Let their be light indeed.

 

[Celtic Warrior]

Do you make your onagers set their projectiles alight?

I set all my projectiles alight, including my archers. Flaming arrows can be quite effective.

Sometimes I get friendly fire situation (literally ), but I feel the enemy losses always out weigh mine own.

100th post.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

It varies with my archers. If I really want to mow'em down I tell them not to light their arrows (they fire faster). But if there are elephants or enormous numbers of enemy troops, I may switch to fire to drop their morale or scare their elephants.

 

[civverguy]

I set all my projectiles alight, including my archers. Flaming arrows can be quite effective.

Sometimes I get friendly fire situation (literally ), but I feel the enemy losses always out weigh mine own.

100th post.

I don't recommend using fire arrows for archers unless the enemy is close. They are not accurate enough.

 

[Traitorfish]

I usually use them on wavering enemy's because of the morale effect. Normal arrows tend to be more effective at causing actual damage.

 

[Celtic Warrior]

You would think that flames would be more damaging. I don't know what it was like in real life ( having never been in ancient roman army), but I thought flames would be more lethal with extra damage on the units surrounding the guy who is hit by a flame arrow.

 

[psweetman1590]

Well, to set an arrow on fire, you need to have something the fire can burn... oil or pitch, or whatnot. This makes the arrow heavier (harder to aim well). Then there's the airodynamic properities of the fire on the arrow in the air... again, less accuracy. In the end, the individual arrow can't kill more than one person, so, given the lower accuracy, fewer people will be hit with flaming arrows, and thus fewer people will be killed.

 

[Ofuh]

Onagers are my preferred method for city assault. I can't use them all the time though, as for starters they need a relatively advanced building to be recruited secondly, they slow your troops down considerably, and thirdly your faction may not even have access to onagers in the first place.

What I usually do when assaulting with Onagers is first, look around the city to find where I can makea breach in the wall that gives the most direct access to the town center.
I will then deploy the onagers in that area with the troops behind. I begin by ordering the onager(s) to attack the wall, which is the highest priority to get down. I leave them on standard firing mode for this; flaming projectiles are much too inaccurate. Secondly, I will take out the towers near the breach I have created. Third with any ammunition I have left, I put the onagers on flaming projectiles and toss the rest of my rocks at the enemies on the wall. For this I use flaming projectiles, as in my experience although standard missiles are more accurate, they seem to only kill one man when they hit. IIRC flaming projectiles kill around 8 men a hit (provided there are enough in the area)
Next I storm the breach with my men. Now the enemies may or may not have come down from the walls to meet you at the breach. If they have, I will fight them there. If they are still on the walls or just starting to come down, I will make a run for it to the town center and try to capture it while preventing the enemy from saving it.

 

[civverguy]

You would think that flames would be more damaging. I don't know what it was like in real life ( having never been in ancient roman army), but I thought flames would be more lethal with extra damage on the units surrounding the guy who is hit by a flame arrow.

There is no extra damage.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

There is no extra damage.

But there is the psychological advantage for you seeing your enemies burn to death, which may just prompt you to be more daring in your assaults.

 

[civverguy]

But there is the psychological advantage for you seeing your enemies burn to death, which may just prompt you to be more daring in your assaults.

I don't gain any psychological advantage (other than being happy that some enemies are killed)

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

But there is the psychological advantage for you seeing your enemies burn to death, which may just prompt you to be more daring in your assaults.

I think it looks cooler, too. But not RTR's, for some reason I just don't like them in there.

I also find it puzzling that flaming arrows cannot set siege engines on fire.

 

[Ofuh]

I also find it puzzling that flaming arrows cannot set siege engines on fire.

I thought they did? Eventually.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I thought they did? Eventually.

Best I can tell, only flaming shots fired from towers and gatehouses can do that. I might be wrong,but this is only what my experience suggests.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah I've been wondering about that too in RTW, in M2 I've set them on fire with archers though.

Ballistaes take too lnog to load and fire too be effective in RTW it seems to me, I never use them or catapults. I'd rather have another unit of calv or infantry.

 

[civverguy]

Best I can tell, only flaming shots fired from towers and gatehouses can do that. I might be wrong,but this is only what my experience suggests.

I think flaming arrows can (I experience this once) it might be only battering rams though.
I use ballistas to take down wooden walls (they're cheaper for that and I can get them earlier)