Siege weapon (Chronicles)

This article is about the siege weapons in Chronicles. For the armor class, see Armor class: Siege weapon. For siege weapons in other games of the series, see Siege unit.

Siege weapons or siege units in Chronicles are one of the four combat forces on land, the other ones being archers, infantry, and cavalry. They are powerful units that excel at destroying enemy buildings or massed/bunched-up units.

Siege weapons first become available in the Classical Age, and most upgrades are only available in the Imperial Age. They are mainly built at the Siege Workshop, with the exception of the Palintonon, which is created at the Fort.

The Incendiary Raft, Catapult Ship, and Leviathan lines are considered siege ships due to their blast attack and/or anti-building roles. However, despite the latter two benefiting from Siege Engineers, they are not usually included under the term siege unit, which generally refers only to siege weapons or organic siege on land. All mechanical weapons or ships cost wood and gold, and can be repaired by Villagers, whereas organic siege units cost food and gold and are healed by Priestesses and can be garrisoned in Forts, which also heals them.

Tactics

Depending of their use, siege weapons can be broadly divided into those whose main purpose is to destroy buildings, and those that excel against enemy units.

Anti-building weapons

• Rams have high pierce armor, attack at close range, and deal great damage to buildings, but their attack against units is negligible (excluding other siege weapons). Rams can improve their speed and anti-building attack by garrisoning infantry units.
• The Armored Elephant line is very similar to rams, but fares better against Villagers due to higher possible armor from Blacksmith technologies, and innate trample damage. It cannot be garrisoned with units and is very vulnerable to anti-cavalry units. A civilization can have either the Battering Ram line or the Armored Elephant line.
• Palintonons shoot powerful projectiles at very long distances. Though they may kill individual units in one hit, they are unlikely to because of their missing rate and slow Rate of Fire (excluding, to some extent, other Palintonons). They also have to be packed to move and unpacked to shoot, and have a minimum range.
• The Leviathan is a ship with massive range and a huge attack bonus vs buildings, but almost useless against units due to their slow projectiles. Since it has a minimum range, it is vulnerable to other ships; however, its aura boosting the attack speed of nearby friendly ships makes it valuable in naval combat as well, and somewhat easier to defend when escorted by other ships.

Anti-unit weapons

• Scorpions shoot projectiles with the ability to damage several units in a line, but cause little damage to buildings.

Mixed weapons

• Mangonels shoot projectiles at mid-range that cause area damage, allowing them to hit several massed units at once. They are less effective against buildings than pure anti-building units because they are outranged by all fortifications except garrisoned Town Centers and do not have high pierce armor, but they are not ineffective either. They can also damage units belonging to the same player or an ally (for example, rams and other melee troops attacking the same enemy as the Mangonel).
• Siege Ballistae are good against buildings, ships, and other siege weapons due to their long range and mobility.
• Incendiary Rafts have a large blast radius and good attack that they can kill many weak many units at once, and destroy weak buildings too, like foundations.
• Catapult Ships function much the same as Mangonels on land, dealing splash damage and being more effective against units than buildings, with the role of the anti-building siege ship being largely superseded by the Leviathan in the Imperial Age.

Others

• Siege Towers have no attack of their own, but have high pierce armor and can garrison foot units, then unload them on the other side of a wall. As the transported units will be used to attack units or buildings behind the wall, Siege Towers can be considered indirectly useful against both.

Special commands

Palintonons, Mangonels, Catapult Ships, and Leviathans can be ordered to attack ground, even when there are no enemy units in place at the time. This makes possible to hit units arriving later at a spot (for example, after being lured there or while in patrol), and (excluding Palintonons) to kill units belonging to the same player or to an ally without having to change Diplomacy first (for example, if they get stuck in a bottleneck).

Palintonons and Onagers can also be ordered to destroy trees, making them the only units able besides Villagers to have this ability. This can be of high strategic importance in maps with dense forests, e. g. Black Forest.

List of siege weapons

Regional units are marked with an orange background.

Siege unit	B	Age	HP	Ar	PA	At	Min Range	Max Range	RoF	LoS	Sp	Wood /Food	Gold	TT	Civs
Mechanical
Battering Ram	Siege Workshop		175	-3	180	2m	Melee range		5	3	0.6	160	75	36	All except Puru
Capped Ram			200		190	3m
Siege Ram			270		195	4m									Achaemenids Macedonians Spartans
Mangonel	Siege Workshop		50	0	6	40m +5	3	7	6	9	0.6	160	135	46	All
Onager			60		7	50m +7		8		10					All except Puru
Siege Onager			70		8	75m +9									Macedonians Thracians
Scorpion	Siege Workshop		40	0	7	11p +0m	2	7	3.6	9	0.65	75	75	30	All
Heavy Scorpion			60	1	8	14p +0m									Athenians Macedonians Puru
Siege Tower	Siege Workshop		220	-2	100	N/A				8	0.8	200	160	36	All
Siege Ballista	Siege Workshop		80	2	5	40m	5	12	6.5	14	0.7	225	225	56	Macedonians
Palintonon (packed)	Fort		150	2	8	N/A				19	0.8	200	200	50	All
/ Palintonon (unpacked)				1	150	200p	4	16	10		0
Organic
Armored Elephant	Siege Workshop		180	-2	140	4m	Melee range		3	4	0.6	120	95	36	Puru
Siege Elephant			220		150
Ship
Incendiary Raft			45	0	2	70m	Melee range		N/A	6	1.5	70	50	45	All
Incendiary Ship			60		3	80m					1.6			31	All
Heavy Incendiary Ship			70		5	100m					1.6			31	Athenians Puru Spartans
Catapult Ship			140	1	6	35m	3	7	7	9	1.15	140	140	42	All
Onager Ship			150	2	7	50m		8	6	10				36	Athenians Macedonians Spartans
Leviathan			180	2	8	60m	3	13	8	19	1.1	250	225	60	All

Scenario Editor

The following siege units are available in the Scenario Editor but not in standard matches:

Unit	Trait
Helepolis	Anti-ship; constructed as a building

Technologies

Listed below are all technologies that benefit siege weapons with effects mentioning only siege weapons. This list does not contain unit upgrades.

Technology	Researched at	Age	Civilizations	Effect
Target Practice	Academy		All	(Heavy) Scorpions can track moving targets
Siege Engineers			All except Puru and Thracians	Increases range (except for melee units) and Line of Sight by +1 and anti-building attack by 20% (40% for Incendiary Raft line)
Flaming Arrows			All	Increases attack of Mangonels, Scorpions, and Palintonons by +1 and enables creation of Leviathans
Hypozomata	Shipyard		All	Increases pierce armor of siege ships by +1
Drums	Port		All	Increases movement speed of siege ships by +15%
Shipwright			Achaemenids Athenians Thracians	Increases creation speed for siege ships by +15% and decreases wood cost by -20%
Hemlock	Temple		Athenians Spartans Thracians	Converted siege units are destroyed instead of falling under enemy control
Exorcism			All except Thracians	Increases conversion resistance
Conscription	Fort		All	Increases creation speed for Fort and Shipyard units by +33%

Note: The Incendiary Raft line does not benefit from Drums.

Civilizations

Considering only land siege weapons, the most prominent siege civilization is the Macedonians, as they lack nothing in this regard, have a civilization bonus benefiting all siege weapons, and are also the only one to have access to Siege Ballistae. They are also notably able to passively heal their siege units with Fortified Outposts if Ends of the World is researched, while the Achaemenids can do the same with their Military Town Centers. The Thracians and Puru have the most limited options, with only two Imperial Age upgrades available and lacking Siege Engineers. This means that their siege units will fall short of those of other civilizations, and significantly restricts their viability in the late game.

When considering siege ships, the Achaemenids are tied with the Thracians in having the fewest options, lacking the Heavy Incendiary Ship and Onager Ship upgrades. However, the former still have Siege Engineers improving the damage output and range of siege ships.

Availability grid

Units which are available to all civilizations are not shown here. The Siege Elephant is shown as a stand-in for the entire Armored Elephant line in the Siege Ram column indicating replacement.

	= Available
	= Unavailable

Civilization
Achaemenids
Athenians
Macedonians
Puru
Spartans
Thracians

Civilization bonuses

• Macedonians: Siege weapons have +1 pierce armor and +30% anti-building damage.

Trivia

• At the release of Battle for Greece, there were no organic siege units in Chronicles, and the only suicide units available are the Incendiary Raft line.
  • The Armored Elephant line was introduced in Alexander the Great as organic siege units.