[R&F] Siege Tower Effectiveness -- Which Wall Types?

[Lost Soul 1]

A quick question or two about "walls" and what effect a Siege Tower has on them.

A bit of background info: I'm only playing R&F (so if something changed for GS or NPF, I'm only looking for what rule/tip is in operation for Rise & Fall play). In my last couple of games, I approached an AI (single player only) with Infantry linked to a Siege Tower. In fact, for several of the cities, I surrounded the AI city center with a mix of Musketmen (CS - 55) and Infantry (CS = 70) and a least one Siege Tower. These cities all had walls -- some with Ancient Walls, others with Ancient + Medieval Walls.

For the cities with Ancient Walls, the Siege Tower seemed to work as expected by making the city takeover pretty normal (for a city strength of 55 - 65). Of course, the AI could fire off a shot at my surrounding Musketmen and Infantry, but not much damage is done to me.

For the cities with Medieval Walls (again, similar city strength of 55 - 65, definitely none that were 70 or above), the Musketmen + Siege Tower or Infantry + Siege Tower didn't seem to affect the overall wall strength or lead to a faster killing of the defender inside (i.e., there are two "strength circles" for a city center being attacked: the outer ring is wall defense strength, the inner one is defender unit strength). It was a very slow process taking several (4 - 5) turns and alternating attacks with the surrounding Melee units (probably 5 or 6 units around each city) to get the city to submit. In another game, when I tried to attack a couple of cities with defense strength of 62 - 68), this time surrounding with Infantry + Siege Tower and a second row of Bombards, after a few rounds of attacking the city's defense hardly took any damage while my Infantry were severely damaged due to the attacks. (And, I was directly on land -- not attacking over a river or from the water).

So, my question(s) concerning AI city walls and defense when using a Siege Tower + Melee attackers (R&F):

(1) Are Siege Towers really only effective against a city with Ancient or No Walls?

(2) Why didn't my Siege Tower basically bypass the AI city's Medieval Walls and allow Melee units to directly attack the defender (real or surrogate)? (Instead the outer ring -- along with the inner city strength ring -- barely decreased after each Infantry hit.)

(3) And, finally, are Siege Towers useless again Renaissance Walls (as was my experience on a couple of AI cities) OR is a Siege Tower supposed to negate all wall defenses other than "Urban Defenses?" [None of the games I've mentioned above involved the AI getting to the Urban Defenses (Steel technology) -- I'm positive, since I was pretty far ahead of the crowd Science-wise.

Any and all 'wall defense vs. siege tower" input/advice/rules of play' would be greatly appreciated.

(If Siege Towers are not effective -- at all or very minimally -- for Medieval- or Renaissance-Walled cities, I'll probably have to wait to produce Bombers to actually take the AI city, even though this "I can't get directly to the defender" is happening in 1000 AD or shortly thereafter when I have attacked these AI cities.)

 

[kaspergm]

Siege Towers should work against medieval walls. However, they don't work against Renaissance Walls. Are you sure the city didn't have Renaissance Walls? You can see what walls the city has by hovering the mouse over the city centre.

 

[Lost Soul 1]

For the cases (cities) cited in my original message, I'm positive the AI cities only had Medieval Walls (by mousing over the city center) -- or less (Ancient Walls). Interesting to find out about Siege Towers having no effect on Renaissance Walls (which was my experience in a former game) -- that will definitely alter my approach about what to bring to siege AI cities during mid-game and beyond. Thanks for the info.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

@Lost Soul 1 - Just for your future reference, this mechanic was changed clear back in the June 2019 update.

• Update Battering Rams and Siege Towers to only work with Melee and Anti-Cavalry units.
• Medieval and Renaissance Walls are immune to Battering Rams. Renaissance Walls are immune to Siege Towers. Battering Rams upgrade into Siege Towers.

 

[kaspergm]

Yeah, cavalry units don't benefit from siege towers (which sort of makes sense ... good luck scaling a wall through a siege tower while mounted on a horse).

As for renaissance walls ... they are basically impenetrable until you get either artillery or multiple multiply upgraded bombard corps (corpses? eh, that sounds wrong).

 

[GinandTonic]

Hard nurf on mongolia.

 

[HiRezAudio]

Hard nurf on mongolia.

But reasonable enough.
Horses v Masonry almost inevitably ends up being hard on the livestock. People stood on the top with the hot oil etc did not help much either, making it a hard call for cavalry to swarm medieval walls under

 

[Timberdoodle]

I'm not sure if it's relevant in this case, but it's also worth noting that once a civ has researched steel, then all of it's cities receive Urban Defences (Which act as late game walls). Urban Defences grants a 'wall' with 400 HP that is immune to battering rams and siege towers.

Each level of walls adds 100 HP to the cities outer defences (The blue health bar on the city), so if you mouse over a city and it has 400 HP walls, then it has Urban Defences unlocked. For example, in the late game you may mouse over a foreign city that has only ever built ancient walls, but if the civ has researched steel then the city will actually have Urban Defences and 400HP walls. If you want to conquer it quickly you'll really need artillery, bombers or GDR's.