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This article is about the unit in Age of Empires II. For other uses, see Siege Tower. |
| “ | Quick land transport used to unload units over enemy walls. Resistant to archer attack. Cannot be used by mounted units | ” |
| —Age of Empires II description | ||
The Siege Tower is a siege unit incapable to attack enemy units or buildings introduced in the Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms. It is trainable at the Siege Workshop. Its purpose is to unload foot soldiers beyond enemy walls, enabling troops to quickly penetrate an enemy settlement. A scenario editor variant of this unit existed in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten, which functioned entirely differently.
Ability[]
The Siege Tower can unload garrisoned foot units on the other side of a wall. It can help bypass base fortifications, avoid raising enemy suspicion too quickly, and reduce the time spent on destroying walls for entry during a siege.
Once a Siege Tower is assigned to a wall section, any units that are subsequently garrisoned into the Siege Tower are automatically dropped off on the other side of the wall if there's sufficient unloading space.
To make the Siege Tower unload troops over walls, it must be instructed to 'attack' the wall section that the player wishes to unload over. This is opposed to simply ungarrisoning the troops, which will merely make them reappear around the tower. This behavior is in some ways counter-intuitive due to Siege Towers having a unique mechanic, without it being explicitly explained in-game.
The Siege Tower cannot unload if there is not enough room on the other side, or if there are multiple layers of walls blocking it. As soon as the space is clear, the Siege Tower unloads its content automatically. As it cannot attack, the Siege Tower is highly vulnerable to melee attackers and should be escorted until contact with an enemy wall is made and the troops inside are deployed.
Another factor that makes Siege Towers difficult to use is the way that unit pathfinding works in Age of Empires II. Oftentimes, the Siege Towers will not move in the way the player intends, especially when trying to position the Siege Tower next to a wall.
Tactics[]
The Siege Tower's ability is of limited use due to requiring an opponent to have fully walled off their base with Walls to be worth using. Even then the Siege Tower's ability will not work if the opponent built a second layer of walls behind the first layer.
A Siege Tower can absorb pierce damage to an exceptional degree, comparable to the ram line. They also have more garrison space and a higher base movement speed. A fully garrisoned Siege Tower has a speed of 1.3, as fast as an Elite Eagle Warrior without Squires. However, the utility of this in a real game is questionable, as it requires a high degree of micromanagement. Additionally, Siege Towers are more expensive than rams and cannot attack enemy buildings.
Further statistics[]
| Unit strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Archers, Walls |
| Weak vs. | Melee units, especially Magyar Huszars and Eagle Warriors, Mangudai, Mangonels, Bombard Cannons |
| Upgrades | |
| Hit points |  Furor Celtica (+40%, Celts only)
|
| Armor |  Ironclad (+4/+0, Teutons only)
|
| Speed | Drill (+50%, Mongols only)
|
| Line of Sight |  Siege Engineers (+1)
|
| Conversion defense |  Devotion (+1 min, +1 max) Faith (+4 min, +4 max) Heresy (die upon getting converted) First Crusade (+4 min, +4 max, Sicilians only)
|
Civilization bonuses[]
Aztecs: Siege Towers are created 11% faster.- Burmese: Researching Devotion and Faith is 50% cheaper.
- Celts: Siege Towers can convert herdable animals even if enemy units are next to them.
- Chinese: Researching Devotion and Faith is 15% cheaper.
- Dravidians: Siege Towers cost -33% wood.
- Georgians: Siege Towers receive -20% damage (-40% instead of -25%) when fighting from higher elevation.
- Portuguese: Siege Towers cost -20% gold.
- Slavs: Siege Towers are 15% cheaper.
- Spanish: Researching technologies that benefit Siege Towers provides 20 gold each.
Team bonuses[]
- Celts: Siege Towers are created 20% faster.
- Lithuanians: Researching Heresy, Devotion, and Faith is 20% faster.
- Portuguese: Upgrades that benefit Siege Towers are researched 25% faster.
- Teutons: Siege Towers are more resistant to conversion.
Changelog[]
The African Kingdoms[]
- Siege Towers are available in Siege Workshops.
- Siege Towers initially cost 300 wood, 160 gold. With patch 4.8, Siege Towers cost 200 wood, 160 gold.
Definitive Edition[]
- Portuguese: With update 42848, as a civilization bonus, technologies that benefit Siege Towers are researched 30% faster.
Dynasties of India[]
- With update 61321, Siege Towers are now resistant to armor-ignoring attacks similarly to buildings. Siege Towers were reworked to unload units more consistently.
- Portuguese: With update 73855, as a team bonus, technologies that benefit Siege Towers are researched 25% faster.
- Dravidians: With update 81058, Siege Towers cost -33% wood.
Trivia[]
- Since The African Kingdoms, the Siege Tower is the only military unit incapable of attacking any enemy unit or structure.
- With Drill researched, Mongol Siege Towers fully loaded with infantry move at the speed of 1.7, making them one of the fastest land units in the game, outsped only by Shrivamsha Rider and Scout Cavalry with Husbandry researched, and by the Cuman Scout Cavalry line in the Imperial Age.
- On the release of The African Kingdoms, Siege Towers became a center of a huge debate within the Age of Empires II: HD community due to its inability to attack. It has been described as being the "most useless" and "weakest" unit due to its very limited use of tactics, being a 'one trick pony', and high price.
- In addition to all infantry and foot archer units, Siege Towers can also be garrisoned with Villagers. Further, they can be garrisoned with the unique Scenario Editor units Photonman (internally a Hand Cannoneer) and Penguin (internally an infantry). They can never be garrisoned with Petards (Saboteurs and Flaming Camels included), Kings (Queens, Merchants, similar Hero units), Monk-like units, or animal units like Alfred the Alpaca and Hunting Wolves (despite both being infantry internally) or Furious the Monkey Boy.
- Siege Towers also provide protection to allied units behind them from arrow-fire of enemy fortifications (but not from projectiles of enemy units or ships). As long as the projectiles from the enemy defenses hit the collision box of the Siege Tower, it absorbs all the damage and the units behind remain safe.
- Siege Towers can also unload over Fortified Palisade Walls but not over any type of Gates.
Siege Tower in The Forgotten[]
Prior to The African Kingdoms, an entirely different and unrelated variant of the Siege Tower was introduced in The Forgotten. This variant can garrison units like a ram but is completely unable to overcome walls. The Siege Tower has a high amount of hit points and pierce armor for a siege unit, and is capable of firing volleys of arrows at nearby enemies for defense. Despite this, however, it is almost useless against fortifications, even losing a one-on-one battle against a Watch Tower, but rather shines as a decent armored troop transport similar to the Battering Ram.
Garrisoning infantry inside the Siege Tower will increase its speed, but garrisoning foot archers or Villagers will not influence the statistics in any way.
A new variant of the Siege Tower was introduced in The African Kingdoms. This variant is hidden in the Scenario Editor, but still exists in the game files.
Campaign appearances[]
- In An End and a Beginning, the first level of the Sforza campaign, there is a Siege Tower standing around in the camp of Captain Luigeusi.
- It also appears in the second level O Fortuna at the very end, where Malatesta's troops destroy the attacking Siege Tower of Carmagnola.
- In Arrival at Bari, the first level of the Bari campaign, there is a Siege Tower being part of the player's troops to be landed at Emperor Louis II's port.
Trivia[]
- This Siege Tower is also classified as a Ship unit by trait.
- This Siege Tower uses Transport Ship unload mechanic.
- This Siege Tower uses the graphics of the regular Siege Tower.
- This Siege Tower uses the Ungarrison button like those of buildings to unload units.
- Chemistry does not provide an attack boost, but sets the arrows on fire.
- Along with Genitour and Flaming Camel, the Siege Tower also became a regular unit. However, unlike the other two, the concept was entirely different. It can be said that the two units share name and graphics, but are different units.
- Despite being introduced in The Forgotten, it is shown with a The Conquerors icon in the Scenario Editor of the HD Edition.
Upgrades[]
| Range and Line of Sight |
 Fletching (+1 range) Bodkin Arrow (+1 range) Bracer (+1 range) Siege Engineers (+1 range)
|
| Attack (main projectile) |
Fletching (+1 attack) Bodkin Arrow (+1 attack) Bracer (+1 attack) Siege Engineers (+1 attack vs buildings)
|
| Accuracy |  Ballistics (hit moving targets)
|
History[]
The Siege Tower or belfry was a wheeled wooden structure used to get over the city walls. The outer part of a Siege Tower was often covered with animal hides to make it fireproof. For further protection against hostile troops, Siege Tower carried archers who fired from inside and the top.[1]
Gallery[]
Video[]
