If you aren't any good at sieges, just auto-resolve. It will be your worst battle in the game, but still, you might lose less.

I can give you no tips for if you do plan to actually attack. My Nvidia Vanta won't let me play battles .

hmmmm I have enough trouble with Stone walla but these walls just don't wanna budge.

In my Carthaginian campaign I brought along 4 onagers, war elephants, lots of Longshields and some inf.

1. Romans deploy all their infantry on the walls.
2. My onagers shoot the gate.
3. I charge through the gates and through some troops in the streets with my cavalry and elephants and head straight for the town square.
4. Roman infantry stays on walls, there are only 2 generals in the town square.
5. The two generals get charged by Longshields with silver chevrons and war elephants. They are slaughtered.
6. Roman infantry won't budge. Three minutes later I win.

I'm not saying this is the optimal strategy, but it worked. If you want to do it "properly" you should build sap points and siege towers. Send your most expendable units into the sap points. And do bring along some onagers if you can.

Lol, I'll try it, but those walls omfg there so big and strong! HOpefully iI'll find a way :P

Rain death down upon them from afar. I prefer to utilize my onagers to tear down a few holes in the walls. Perhaps try and distract their main gate defenders with some fast cavalry, and if they do take the bait, attack the gates with elephants or heavy cavalry.

Pull the SPQR army out of the city by threatening to take another Roman city, or by just dividing your forces and looking like a sitting duck. Then you can just destroy the SPQR force on an open field of battle with your cavalty power.

Alternatively don't try to take Rome by assault at all. Make sure your army has several units of onagers and several units of balearic slingers in and whenever they sally out pound them, and the walls with onager fire. Their army will be weakened by the battles, as they will not be able to reach your forces without heavy casualties. Then, either they are far away from the walls so you can crush them in a field battle. Or they rout and run back into the city, in which case you can repeat the process. Eventually the city will fall even though you haven't taken it by storm. It saves a lot of men, but make sure you've taken all the other Roman factions out first to prevent relief armies. However the best of all is what Americ suggested-destroy their army on the open field.

Well in my last campaign I had gotten pretty secure and sicily was mine. So i invaded with a few ele's some cavalry infintry and i picked up some emrcs in italia, well i got extremely lucky, i had a battle outside Rome against this tiny tiny force of 1 town watch, the garrison joined hte battle (this is a garrison of about 3 units because there main garrison was chasing me, first time thats ever happened to me) so i slaughtered both. took rome WITHOUT a fight and then slaughtered the really big unit of garrison which had become a rebel.

See if you can force a battle outside the walls, preferbally in a real battle with another force OR even with them sallying. Is it there really big garrison there? also i agree with mr adropov, do not assault it, you dont have to. And every year there under siege theyl lose alot of men.

which brings up a ?. How do they decide how many men die in a year of seige. Do they just vary or is it like a percentage of the men inside? thanks for answering

Autoresolve as the calcuation does not (unless it has changed) take account of walls. Someone from CA said so at the .org, I think.

Where's the fun in auto resolve?
Just either use towers to the walls or destroy the gatehouse and gate, depends on where the enemy has its troops.
Never use incendiary pots on gates/walls as it doesn't do more damage and is only less accurate

I siege almost exclusively with ladders, although obviously with the epic walls, you must use the siege towers. Build as many of those as you can, and when you deploy have your main force sitting in front of the main gate, and you siege towers around the corner, for instance, if your main force is sitting in front of the south gate, have your siege towers deployed in front of the west and east walls. The AI will deploy (most of the time) the majority of wall defending troops on the south wall, since that's where your main force is. You can then take the undefended parts of the walls without actually engaging the enemy. When your troops are on the wall, if they stay far enough away from the enemy troops (maybe like the distance between 2 towers in an epic wall, the distance between 3 towers on the first level stone wall), the wall defenders will just sit there, and never actually move along the wall to attack you. You can then move along and capture the east/west gatehouse without any fighting, which would probably be difficult for you to win any wall fighting as Carthage vs. the Senate. This is kind of a cheap trick against the AI, but it is very useful for civs that have trouble fighting on the walls. Another thing I do in these sieges is bring my archers onto the walls following my initial siege tower troops, in order to rain arrows down on the idiot AI troops that like to run around next to the walls that you've just taken. If you use this strategy, be sure to keep an eye on the clock (if you have timed battles), as I have lost a couple because I just didn't get to the town square soon enough.

If time is an issue in specifically the siege of Rome, remember that you can disable the battle timer from the game options menu (on the campaign map), then turn it back on after the battle. I seem to remember the amount of time you get to take Rome being quite small.

[This message has been edited by Zygodactyl (edited 11-09-2005 @ 07:58 PM).]

Against initial common sense when I began playing, ladders are good. They are now generally my preferred option, too. I have never faced Epic walls, however, since all of my patch 1.2 campaigns were over with long before anyone could build those.

However, I often (very often) find that I can attack a unit which is attached (next to) the walls, resulting in the occupants coming out for a little (big) party. Since all units are annhilated by my glorious ______ (fill in the blank) civilization, I take the city without facing the walls.

However, I regularly must take places like Syracuse, Athens, and Carthage by assault, and that's when ladders and sometimes towers do the trick.

I just repeatedly hit the besieged with numbers, kind of like in LOTR or Kingdom of Heaven. You're losing more but it's also more of an epic fight. Just keep throwing as many men in as many different palces as possible.

Jest put your army by the ford next to rome. You have both the benefit of them attacking over the ford so you can just sit there, pound them with onagers and arrows, and then massacar them with infantry, and also there's a second ford up the river so you cavelry can come from behind. I did this with the julii, and the only thing that was scary was that they bought an onager, so i sacrificed my equites

Most of the time they sally, and I can meet and defeat them on the plains outside the city.

Because I have no stomach for assaulting walled cities, I usually besiege them until the enemy sallies or the city falls. It's the same for Rome.

Mmm... I didn't know you played RTW, Gaisy!

I either battle their large army outside of rome or I starve them out. It may take longer but it saves men.

I just look at the enemy army. If it's big and strong I lay siege and wait for them to sally out. If it's weak and small I just storm the place.

If you are going to wait for the Romans sally out of the walls then ateast build some seige towers. This may sound a bit lame but they make awsome archers. put a unit on them and select the fire at will option. The towers will shoot down enemys when they get in range. a few towers should do.
Position them behind your line of spearmen and archers and onagers. Then they act as something to kill units that get past you first line of defence. It works, i used that tactic (on a smaller scale) to take back syracuse from the scipii once the greeks had lost it (the army was atleast twice the size of mine).

EDIT: ohh yeah, i started a carthage campain today. ive taken the Numidian Capital + Syracuse and lost /Corbodua(?)

[This message has been edited by blockeyking3 (edited 11-23-2005 @ 03:35 PM).]

Quote:

I've had the game since I got a new computer in April. I play Version 1.2 with MM. I read here fairly often and post now and then.

If you've got tons of build points, a really nasty thing to do can be to build tons and tons of sap points and assault early. Don't actually complete the mission, just sap the walls ten ways to Sunday.

Sure, the computer can repair things without worrying about time or money, but the more sap points you have, the more chances you have to get free kills from the infantry on the walls. Nothing more satisfying than watching walls fall out from under them. This could be a good softening strategy if you're waiting for them to sally out.

LordDragatus ::: Thats a good way to do it. Good advice! I agree totally.

bring missle units with you. and attack. simple but works.

When I get to Rome with my Carthaginians, I plan on having at least 3 armies, each with at least 1500 - 2000 assorted men and siege equipment. I plan to surround it and attack using my army of choice. The other two armies will also have siege equipment, and the CPU will controll them and move in from the back and sides.

Its not going to matter about too much tactics, a little but nothing crazy cause Im going to overwhelm them immensly!