How to Attack in Siege/City Assualt Multiplayer

Overview

All you have to do I get a bunch of men and burn down the gates. 100% effective, works all the time.

Prebattle

• Make sure to focus on infantry
• invest into 3-4 bow units and maybe some javlinmen if you have extra
• Bring 2 units of giant ballista. The movable artillary is a waste, don’t bring them. The extra cost is the fact that you can move them. That’s the only advantage but fixed giant ballistas can hit the wall anyways so just don’t bring the expensive movable artillary.
• Don’t Spam pikes because they are slow and will be shot up if the defender brings a lot of missile units. Also, for their price, they don’t ususally have as much armor as hoplite or swordsmen, which once gain, makes them vulnerable to missle fire. It might still be a good idea to bring 1 or 2 pike units though since they are dominate in inner city battle.

Wait, don’t Ready Up Yet!

Siege Equipment

I dedicated a whole section to siege equipment for attackers since they are paramount in a good attack.

You get to select siege equipment after you select men in your army.

• Bring Siege towers
• Bring Tortoises (people don’t bring these enough)
• Bring 1 Battering Ram
• Mostly bring medium versions when there is an option. Heavy are less prone to burn but they are slower and medium almost always has enough to get to the wall before even geting 50% fire damage even with a unit of bowmen firing fire arrows at it.
• Bring a variety because it keeps your opponent busy and not able to tailor his tatics agains just one thing.

• Bringing galleries is a waste because siege towers protect your men 100% and they are less offensive compared to the ones listed on the do’s list. You want to be as offensive as possible.
• This is more preferance but ladders don’t offer enough protection compared to siege towers. Plus they can have fire damaged easier. The advantage is that men get up faster on the walls, but siege towers have a scorpion mounted on top. That scorpion can get 10 kills a piece usually if there are enemies on the wall unlike ladders. If you have 4 siege towers you can get around 30-40 kills before your men are even on the wall!
• Bringing only one type of siege equipment. I know I said this eariler but it it important so I listed it twice
• Bringing only some of your siege equipment but not all. I actually asked an attacker once why he didn’t bring siege equipment when I was defending. He said he didn’t need it. He then tried to burn down my gate with his men. He lost.

Video

This is a city assualt battle as an attacker. I thought some of you may want an illustration and what better way than a video?

All of what is in the video is already in the guide though except the prebattle section. So if you find me going too slow or fast in the video or you get too excited when you hear my beautiful voice or you just simply prefer text, you can just look to the rest of the guide.

Positioning of your Army

• Pick a wall with as view of bends as possible. This will make your life easier since it will be as linear as possible.
• Put your siege towers on the flanks of your army since they are the easiest and most assured to function correctly thus putting pressure on the defender. Put them in clusters so 2-3 on each flank. They will be more effective in taking the wall in one section just like in land battles where your units support each other. Have Swordsmen or hoplites in them. Don’t put Pikes in them.
• Have your tortoises in the middle and pick adjacent wall sections so the breech is twice as big and less likely to be bottlenecked. Have hoplites manning them if possible.
• Send your battering ram, of course, at the gate. Have hoplites manning them if possible.

• Put them in the middle of where you plan to attack.

• The rest of your men who aren’t manning siege equipment should follow those who do have siege equipment and not get close enough to get shot by bowmen until you are ready to go through a breech in a wall.
• When you are ready to go through a breech, sprint to to minimize casualties.
• Let your siege equipment get shot up by missles, not your bowmen.

Breeching the Walls

• Attack adjacent wall sections to minimize bottlenecking.
• If you bring 2 units you can destroy and third wall section together.
• In this case more is more, instead of less.

• Attack adjacent wall sections and let them push the siege equipment out of the way (they do this automatically).

You’re Not Done Yet!
Just because you made hole in the wall doesn’t mean you’ve breeched them succesfully.

• Have your missile men attack his melee units, not his ranged units.
• Try to have them use most of their ammo before you charge you melee units in.
• If you have pikes, try to have them lead in the middle and have swords or hoplites on either side of them.
• Don’t Charge all of your ground forces in at once. Really, only 3-4 units can actually hold a front line. All of the units behind them are just exhausting themselves so just have them in reserve waiting to charge in when one of your units routes.
• If you’ve succesfully destroyed their gate, that is just another option. Have one unit push through there to either get a good flank or at least occupy an enemy unit, but your whole army shouldn’t try to get through just one breech.

Using Siege Towers

• Have 2-3 siege towers in close proximity to each other.
• Climb down off the wall if there is no resistance on the ground and support your ground troops
• Use the walls to flank around superior ground forces
• Reuse the siege tower and bring a javlin unit up on the wall after you already have your melee unit has completely gotten off of the siege tower and clear the area.

• If you see he has superior infantry on the wall sending your men off to attack will just cause them to die. Instead, just have your siege towers stop just short of the wall. This will force him to keep his men on the wall. Have your bow men shoot at them on the wall while they wait for the tower to engage with the wall. This will wittle his superior infantry and allow you to attack and win the wall with your more populated units.
• rush your men to the ground if you can see he has good infantry to intercept. Instead, if they are swordsmen, have them throw their javlin first the go down. If they just not good enough though, have them run on the wall to get to a better position where they aren’t ready to intercept.

Getting Past the Walls

• You will probably dominate either on the ground or on the walls if you correctly make enough breeches and have your siege towers work well together with the tips I gave you earlier.
• You will need to support your wall forces with your ground forces or vice versa, which ever you win out with.

• You may want to go forward into the city if you wall forces look equally matched with his.
• If not, have you missle units come inside the walls and shoot at his men on the walls. This will be more effective then sending melee units up since the walls will probably be conjested anyways.
• Be wary of traps or ambushes as you go forward. You may want to wait for your forces on the wall before you proceed.

• Have them help the ground forces. They will have to become ground forces anyways when they do get off the wall anyways, but if he has some units waiting to intercept at one set of stairs or ladders (I’m not sure which it is) have your men simply go to another place where they can get down without being attacked as they are getting off.
• Throw Javlins from the wall if they have them too.

Once one of your forces helps the other out, bring them all together and get ready to take the City!

City Combat

Once you get past the forces defending the wall, it’s time for City combat. This can be the easiest part or the hardest part depending on what the defender decides to do.

If he tries to defend the wall with most of his army and you win out there, you will probably have an easy time in the city.

If he doesn’t have any or a few units defend the wall then this part may be harder, but don’t worry, as the attacker, you have an advantage due to the fact that you get more funds.

• You may want to rush for the city square before he get to collect there, but be careful for spike traps and ambushes.
• If you don’t want to rush, consolidate your forces, then push slowly towards the center and use tatics that you already know from land battles.
• Spread out and surround the center but don’t spread yourself too thin.
• Have pikes lead, but if he has a lot of missile units, use your missle units up then go forward and make contact as quickly as possible so that his missile units aren’t as effective.
• If your ranged units are out of ammo, have them try to make his ranged units waste ammo or have them set off spike traps in streets that you want to march down.

• Take your time and surround his forces.
• Take sections of the city and try to split his forces up.
• You should have advantage due to more funds.

Closing

I find that just like Chess, the opening moves in a siege battle usually can spell a win or a loss. Keep these things in mind and you’ll sure to win some siege battles.

Did I miss anything that you think should be in this guide? Tell me in the comments section

Are there any grammar or spelling errors? Go ahead and point them out. I’m lazy with consistancy though.