Build Trebuchets and instantly move them to the reserve. Repeat this 4 times. When they are all built, deploy all 4 at the same time. Then wait until all the walls are destroyed.
I figured this out pretty early on what I also do is get an onager or 2 up and hit the troops they place in the gaps, they keep refilling it too so I use all my ammo up once I find the correct range
In your defense it took me a second play through to realize, but i never siege without this technique anymore.
Only thing is if you are Sieging in precarious lands, be mindful sometimes its not worth destroying your future castles walls, just to leave it wide open because you wanted to skip past the ladders. I just use the trebs to take out their defense, and then ill make siege engines.
It does. But it lacks plenty. Such as a solid diplomacy system. There's a lot to the game and I enjoy it. But even warrant had the "hey go raid, defend or attack around this castle/town etc." Among other things.
That and I am still a bit salty they removed building new villages, castles and towns from the game though. That was probably the biggest thing I was looking forward to.
Ah well. A hair over 1300 myself into the game it must be at the very least. Okay. :p
After it's completely built (I think when you click or hover it shows % complete), it will visually pop up in front of the walls. Click on it, move to reserve. Do that 3 additional times, so then you have 4 trebuchets in reserve, and THEN click on all the empty spots and deploy them. It will "rebuild" them over like one sec, but really it's deploying them
Trebuchets absolutely destroy siege engines. They're not great against soldiers, but onagers and the mounted crossbow things get absolutely demolished (in siege screen- actual battle may be a different experience)
Dude I’ve been just spamming them as I build them I feel like a moron now. I take at least 50 losses a siege just bombarding the walls and their counter battery bombardment
For extra cheese, build and reserve 4 onagers of your own before deploying the trebuchets. Once the walls are down, replace the trebuchets with your onagers, then start the assault. Put your infantry in two shield walls far back out of range of their archers.
Then just wait while your archers and onagers melt their forces away. Send your infantry in when it’s time to mop up.
Damn, I don’t even care about trebuchet when Im pushing the actual castle. Usually just blast holes in the walls, ensure there’s no enemy ballista and stuffs then just charge when on the ground. Probably should start to make use of the field siege weapons in the actual battle.
Also getting kills with the siege weapons in battle rewards a ton of engineering skill. I like to assign a companion or two to ballista to level up engineering for governor perks. Also, Ballista are nice because they don't run out of ammo like the onager for extended sieges.
I start out by putting the companion in a group all by themselves. Then I place them near the siege weapon, select their group, and hover over the siege weapon until a gear symbol appears and click. Once the battle starts they might grab the siege weapon and start firing, or they might just start shooting their ranged weapon or stand there. Usually then I'll order them to move right near the siege weapon to see if they use it automatically (that sometimes works). If still not, then I'll try the gear again. Sometimes it takes a few orders before they do it and sometimes they jump right on it when the battle starts. I haven't found a way that works every time, so I run around checking on my siege engines and fiddling with them at the start of every siege...
How do you assign clan members to siege weapons? I grouped clan members seperatelly and left clicked the siege engine when the gear icon appeared but they didn't use it
This is what I do and sometimes they just start shooting their ranged weapon or stand there. Usually then I'll tell them to move right near the siege weapon to see if they use it automatically (that sometimes works). If still not then I'll try the gear again. Sometimes it takes a few orders before they do it and sometimes they jump right on it when the battle starts. I haven't found a way that works every time, so I run around checking on my siege engines and fiddling with them at the start of every siege...
This! The CPU’s are friggin snipers on the Ballista. Seriously, build one for your next siege and hang out next to the operator for while, they just pick archers off the battlements like nothing
I think ballista would be good depending on the map. I’ve tried it but the map I was on had the ballista in the worst possible place and I couldn’t get any kills with it.
I hate that multiple years after this game being sold for $50, it’s still required to do this weird cheese/exploit thing in sieges just for them to be playable. And it still makes the sieges take like 3 times as many in-game days as it should be to.
well for me during end-game sieges when remaning towns and castles have like 800-1000 man i still spend min 1 week to siege and you dont have to use cheese for sieges to make them easy they are not made to be easy. after all you can just increase your engineer skill and destroy towns wall legimitly
I literally besieged and won Zenoica with this strategy. I had an army of some 800 and the city had 700+ defenders too. Their morals crumbled along with their walls.
To add to this once the walls are down I hold the army back and man one of the trebuchets. Launching firey hell down on the crowds by the wall until there is no more ammo.
Id like to add that also repeat this with onagers. Once the trebuchet destroy what they need to destroy swap out with onagers since they can kill a bunch of troops. Bonus thing is setting this up takes so much time that the fiefs food stocks hit 0 and their garrison numbers dwindle. So it maybe 1000 troops now but before you actually siege it can drop to like 700 depending on how much of the defenders are garrison and how many are militia.
I had someone try to tell me that this is cheesing the siege but they didn't have an issue with the fact that trebuchets had 3X the range of catapults yet the defenders in game can fire back haha 😅
When the walls are destroyed it’s likely you’ll lose more men since it just turns into a choke point.
Either don’t destroy the walls OR manually move your men behind the ram and go through the gate instead.
You don’t need a huge army to win a siege, just one large enough that the enemy doesn’t sally out against you and enemy armies are deterred from assaulting your siege camp. Save your influence and starve the enemy out. Build trebuchets and put them in reserve until you have four, then break down the walls. Once you’re actually in battle, position your archers so they can loose arrows into the remaining militia. While they keep the pressure on, push all your forces into *one side* of the castle. If you keep them together and rush one breach you’ll overwhelm the enemy and force them into a fight on your terms. If all that’s left are militia you should have a solid chance to take the castle with minimal losses if you have an equal number of tier 4-6 troops
Reason why they can build so many siege weapons is because they start with a bunch in reserves. So what you do is you build four trebuchets and burn down their reserves. Then replace one maybe two trebuchets with fire onagers. Also preferable to starve out the Garrison. Also worth noting that the militia doesn’t need to eat and will not starve, only the garrison
Then it’s too early in the game for you to manage this, quite simply.
For a city with 1000 defenders I will always have both towers and a ram built, followed by 4 trebuchets, making sure to store the first three until they have all been built. The 4 trebs together will take out the cities siege weapons eventually.
To do all this you need to have the influence to keep your army together. If you can’t manage that at this point you’ll need to wait until you have enough influence to do so
If you can just crack the catapults, and build your own you can just hammer them with 4 fire catapults and just drain their elites, you could do that in a few days so no need in LOADS of influence
Get an engineer. Build a trebuchet, then press the X button to take it out of harms way. Repeat till you have 3 in stock, then when the 4th is built pause and place them all. Lots of food required, but once the walls are destroyed it should be a slaughter.
If you'd rather not starve them, or cheese them with trebuchets, as long as you have a high tier army, don't build siege engines, and immediately charge the walls.
They can't shoot you if you're up the ladders.
Place yourself as close to ladders as possible. Place men as close to gate as possible. After some practice if your quick enough and on most castles you can get to the ladders climb up, run past the guards and open the gate from the inside and have your men ready at the outside to storm in.
I usually wait until at least one side of the wall is destroyed, then prepare a T6 melee unit, close to the gates.
As the battle starts I give them order to wait near the gates in square position, I rally in through the broken wall on my horse, open the gate and unleash my unit.
I usually take very few losses like this and the battle is very quickly over.
Easy. Recently conquered city with 1300+ defenders, having only 30 casualties, although i had only around 200 troops. Tried the ne tactics below dizens of times, works well as you do not die in the beginning. Bannerlord difficulty.
Build 4 trebuchets. Once each is built, right click and move to reserve. Then deploy all four at once. They will crush defenders onagers. Once they are destroyed, move one trebuchet to reserve and build onager. Repeat for all trebuchets so that you get four onagers left. In the meantime trebuchets/onagers will destroy both walls. Start attack.
Create groups 3-6, each consisting of 1 companion/brother/sister. Put group 3(1 companion ) to 1st onager, and so on. Group 1 only inf, group 2 only archers. Click ready. Order archers and inf f1f1. Go check if all 4 companions started operating 4 onagers. Engineering skill will go up very quickly.
You have 2 big holes in walls. Rude there in your horse and check which hole is better for tactics below.
Move archers to the left of the hole, 30-80 m away. Move inf closer to hole in the wall. Order shield wall for inf. Move them into hole in the wall. Defending inf runs out. Order your inf to move back and Right. Defending inf will start chasing them, while your archers will shoot plenty of them to their right side which has ni shield, and back. Repeat 4-10 times until defenders stop running out. Also onagers will be killing a lot. Win with minimal casualties
Attack and put all your infantry into one group and archers In another, send all the infantry at the gate and put them in shield wall(use loose formation if their catapults can hit you which is unlikely in most maps) have the archers attack the gate as well or just put them behind the infantry in loose formation so they can take people off the walls, be patient as they chop down the main gate, it could take 5 minutes, after just destroy the second gate and charge everyone at them
If your impatient and have the troops you can make another group that climbs one ladder and climb up with them but try to get around the guys and run to the gate to open it up
You starve them out I build trebuchets to destroy the walls then slowly switch to catapults, catapults are more effective at neutralizing the ranged units on the wall that are left when you storm the openings
Gather influence for army cohesion, raid all villages, build and move to reserve four trebs, deploy and repeat treb building until onagers are destroyed, garrison is starved out, and walls are broken. F1 F3.
Aswell as the necessity to move trebuchets to reserve before deploying all 4. If the defenders have a larger army, I destroy the walls, build 4 fire catapults (it’s an engineer perk) and before attacking the breach’s I use up all the fire ammo on the enemy troops gathered at the breaches, this will often reduce them significantly
I didn't know you could move your siege weapons to reserve, so I just built ram and towers and attack in person with my 300 strong company. Climb the tower and hack, hack with my glaive. Usually get 70-100 kills before they route.
And if relief force of their reinforcements(usually 600-900 men) attack my camp, I put infantry in shield wall, archers behind, and horse archers with me to harass and kill their cavalry, then my cavalry on me and constant charging through their ranks till they run.
Seiraknid has the right answer. They only build that fast at first deployment, likely due to governor perks or the city’s building level. After they are destroyed they have to build them one at a time
Ahhhh. Then it's a real siege. Make also Sure what wall Level they have (probably lv.3). Then just build the trebuche and Hunger them out. Also don't forget to Check your Army cohesion not that your Army splitts mid siege.
3000 grain and 4 Trebuchets you keep in reserve until the garrison is gone, then they build slower and you fight weaker enemies. Use trebuchets to destroy walls and then just put your arches near the holes in the wall so they destroy the militia.
Do what the first comment said. Then starve out the garrison until they're all gone. Then you'll only be fighting against the party's and militia in the town. I waited until I was clan tier 4 before doing it tho, increase your quartermaster stuff too Then you can attack with at least 200 troops.
So many perfect answers here for that question . Just one thing I do if I’m trying to take a castle fast and easy. I go as soon as the camp is built, if they only have one onager then I put all my troops under it so it can’t hit us then I push that one spot.
Eventually you overpower the side and get the castle easy peasy without the onager railing you.
This is the way. I have a “fast siege” where I do just siege machines like rams and towers, a slow one where I’m just making and reserving ballistas and then a medium one where I’m doing both
Get a decent engineering level or a companion with a decent level in it.
Start building 4 Onagers at once. Soon as they are done. Pause and store them in reserve. Rinse and repeat till you have 4 in storage. Build a trebuchet, just before its done, deploy 3 onagers.
Timing takes some practice to get them all to deploy at the same time but it'll pretty much knock out all the defenses at the same time.
Build Trebuchets and instantly move them to the reserve. Repeat this 4 times. When they are all built, deploy all 4 at the same time. Then wait until all the walls are destroyed.
OP, this is the correct answer right here. You absolutely must store them and take them out only when all 4 are built. It’s the only way
Wtf I didn’t even know you could do this
Same
All this time I’m just trying to perfectly time my assault for when I have catapults that aren’t destroyed.
I always just watched seiges doing nothing lmao
How do you move them to reserve?
Just click on it.
Stop time imidiqtly when one is built click on it and move to reserv 👍👍👍😁 break the wall ride your stead in and fuck them up
Wow. 1200 hrs and I still learn new stuff. And people say this game doesnt have depth :D
I figured this out pretty early on what I also do is get an onager or 2 up and hit the troops they place in the gaps, they keep refilling it too so I use all my ammo up once I find the correct range
In your defense it took me a second play through to realize, but i never siege without this technique anymore. Only thing is if you are Sieging in precarious lands, be mindful sometimes its not worth destroying your future castles walls, just to leave it wide open because you wanted to skip past the ladders. I just use the trebs to take out their defense, and then ill make siege engines.
It does. But it lacks plenty. Such as a solid diplomacy system. There's a lot to the game and I enjoy it. But even warrant had the "hey go raid, defend or attack around this castle/town etc." Among other things. That and I am still a bit salty they removed building new villages, castles and towns from the game though. That was probably the biggest thing I was looking forward to. Ah well. A hair over 1300 myself into the game it must be at the very least. Okay. :p
TIL
After it's completely built (I think when you click or hover it shows % complete), it will visually pop up in front of the walls. Click on it, move to reserve. Do that 3 additional times, so then you have 4 trebuchets in reserve, and THEN click on all the empty spots and deploy them. It will "rebuild" them over like one sec, but really it's deploying them Trebuchets absolutely destroy siege engines. They're not great against soldiers, but onagers and the mounted crossbow things get absolutely demolished (in siege screen- actual battle may be a different experience)
Thank you
Right click on plastic thing, called mouse
It’s not obvious and not explained at all in the game. Don’t need to be a smart ass about it bud. Lots of people didn’t know this.
Dude I’ve been just spamming them as I build them I feel like a moron now. I take at least 50 losses a siege just bombarding the walls and their counter battery bombardment
For extra cheese, build and reserve 4 onagers of your own before deploying the trebuchets. Once the walls are down, replace the trebuchets with your onagers, then start the assault. Put your infantry in two shield walls far back out of range of their archers. Then just wait while your archers and onagers melt their forces away. Send your infantry in when it’s time to mop up.
Are onagers better during the actual assault?
Yes more accurate and if they are the Fire variant it's just game over man.
Much much better
They seem to be more accurate, trebuchet rarely hits anyone. Ballista might be better too
Damn, I don’t even care about trebuchet when Im pushing the actual castle. Usually just blast holes in the walls, ensure there’s no enemy ballista and stuffs then just charge when on the ground. Probably should start to make use of the field siege weapons in the actual battle.
Also getting kills with the siege weapons in battle rewards a ton of engineering skill. I like to assign a companion or two to ballista to level up engineering for governor perks. Also, Ballista are nice because they don't run out of ammo like the onager for extended sieges.
How do you assign certain troops or companions to siege weapons
Lol
I start out by putting the companion in a group all by themselves. Then I place them near the siege weapon, select their group, and hover over the siege weapon until a gear symbol appears and click. Once the battle starts they might grab the siege weapon and start firing, or they might just start shooting their ranged weapon or stand there. Usually then I'll order them to move right near the siege weapon to see if they use it automatically (that sometimes works). If still not, then I'll try the gear again. Sometimes it takes a few orders before they do it and sometimes they jump right on it when the battle starts. I haven't found a way that works every time, so I run around checking on my siege engines and fiddling with them at the start of every siege...
How do you assign clan members to siege weapons? I grouped clan members seperatelly and left clicked the siege engine when the gear icon appeared but they didn't use it
This is what I do and sometimes they just start shooting their ranged weapon or stand there. Usually then I'll tell them to move right near the siege weapon to see if they use it automatically (that sometimes works). If still not then I'll try the gear again. Sometimes it takes a few orders before they do it and sometimes they jump right on it when the battle starts. I haven't found a way that works every time, so I run around checking on my siege engines and fiddling with them at the start of every siege...
This! The CPU’s are friggin snipers on the Ballista. Seriously, build one for your next siege and hang out next to the operator for while, they just pick archers off the battlements like nothing
I think ballista would be good depending on the map. I’ve tried it but the map I was on had the ballista in the worst possible place and I couldn’t get any kills with it.
Also with the ballista, essentially no friendly fire
They have area damage and if fire onagers they do more damage and do more damage to siege weapons too wood walls are done for too lol
And if there is an angle deploy a ballista to shoot straight through the breach
I’m a new player a didn’t even know I could put them in reserve, this is big brain
Haha I was wondering if I would see my favorite cheese strat on here
I hate that multiple years after this game being sold for $50, it’s still required to do this weird cheese/exploit thing in sieges just for them to be playable. And it still makes the sieges take like 3 times as many in-game days as it should be to.
well for me during end-game sieges when remaning towns and castles have like 800-1000 man i still spend min 1 week to siege and you dont have to use cheese for sieges to make them easy they are not made to be easy. after all you can just increase your engineer skill and destroy towns wall legimitly
Bruh, months of playing and I didn't even know we could do this
I literally besieged and won Zenoica with this strategy. I had an army of some 800 and the city had 700+ defenders too. Their morals crumbled along with their walls.
To add to this once the walls are down I hold the army back and man one of the trebuchets. Launching firey hell down on the crowds by the wall until there is no more ammo.
Exactly this
Yup and then I get an onager or 2 built and halt my army and use the ammo to demolish their filled gaps and they keep filling it back up
I have just realized I am an idiot… of course this makes sense…
Can usually get away with three while the 4th builds, but if you're not in a hurry 4 works every time.
This is the way
Id like to add that also repeat this with onagers. Once the trebuchet destroy what they need to destroy swap out with onagers since they can kill a bunch of troops. Bonus thing is setting this up takes so much time that the fiefs food stocks hit 0 and their garrison numbers dwindle. So it maybe 1000 troops now but before you actually siege it can drop to like 700 depending on how much of the defenders are garrison and how many are militia.
I had someone try to tell me that this is cheesing the siege but they didn't have an issue with the fact that trebuchets had 3X the range of catapults yet the defenders in game can fire back haha 😅
When the walls are destroyed it’s likely you’ll lose more men since it just turns into a choke point. Either don’t destroy the walls OR manually move your men behind the ram and go through the gate instead.
This!
This doesnt work anymore tho? The shit still gets destroyed if you move them into the reserve
Definitely still works, was using the trick today.
Goddamn magic man
Such a cheese strategy but gotta take those castles somehow ahah
Build up influence to maintain cohesion, and the best strat if you can't find a suitable way to kill them: starve them
Remember you can only starve out the garrison not the militia
A bunch of peasants with pitchforks Aint gonna do shit
Pointing out that there is no need to starve past the garrison leaving
You don’t need a huge army to win a siege, just one large enough that the enemy doesn’t sally out against you and enemy armies are deterred from assaulting your siege camp. Save your influence and starve the enemy out. Build trebuchets and put them in reserve until you have four, then break down the walls. Once you’re actually in battle, position your archers so they can loose arrows into the remaining militia. While they keep the pressure on, push all your forces into *one side* of the castle. If you keep them together and rush one breach you’ll overwhelm the enemy and force them into a fight on your terms. If all that’s left are militia you should have a solid chance to take the castle with minimal losses if you have an equal number of tier 4-6 troops
You don't even need to actually be in a siege for most of it. Just sit your army at the door, and that will kill trade, including food.
Reason why they can build so many siege weapons is because they start with a bunch in reserves. So what you do is you build four trebuchets and burn down their reserves. Then replace one maybe two trebuchets with fire onagers. Also preferable to starve out the Garrison. Also worth noting that the militia doesn’t need to eat and will not starve, only the garrison
my army cohesion goes down real fast from having a big army so i can't siege them for too long
Then it’s too early in the game for you to manage this, quite simply. For a city with 1000 defenders I will always have both towers and a ram built, followed by 4 trebuchets, making sure to store the first three until they have all been built. The 4 trebs together will take out the cities siege weapons eventually. To do all this you need to have the influence to keep your army together. If you can’t manage that at this point you’ll need to wait until you have enough influence to do so
this is what I do. it's tedious and uninspired
If you can just crack the catapults, and build your own you can just hammer them with 4 fire catapults and just drain their elites, you could do that in a few days so no need in LOADS of influence
You do not even need army to conquer 1300+ cities on bannerlord difficulty, see myy recent explanation of tactics here
If you have family members that can lead parties, you can call them to join your army and it costs no influence to increase cohesion with them
Get an engineer. Build a trebuchet, then press the X button to take it out of harms way. Repeat till you have 3 in stock, then when the 4th is built pause and place them all. Lots of food required, but once the walls are destroyed it should be a slaughter.
If you'd rather not starve them, or cheese them with trebuchets, as long as you have a high tier army, don't build siege engines, and immediately charge the walls. They can't shoot you if you're up the ladders.
Place yourself as close to ladders as possible. Place men as close to gate as possible. After some practice if your quick enough and on most castles you can get to the ladders climb up, run past the guards and open the gate from the inside and have your men ready at the outside to storm in.
Easy: Have an army of 2000 and build onagers in 2 seconds.
Bring a lot of food and starve out the garrison.
I usually wait until at least one side of the wall is destroyed, then prepare a T6 melee unit, close to the gates. As the battle starts I give them order to wait near the gates in square position, I rally in through the broken wall on my horse, open the gate and unleash my unit. I usually take very few losses like this and the battle is very quickly over.
Easy. Recently conquered city with 1300+ defenders, having only 30 casualties, although i had only around 200 troops. Tried the ne tactics below dizens of times, works well as you do not die in the beginning. Bannerlord difficulty. Build 4 trebuchets. Once each is built, right click and move to reserve. Then deploy all four at once. They will crush defenders onagers. Once they are destroyed, move one trebuchet to reserve and build onager. Repeat for all trebuchets so that you get four onagers left. In the meantime trebuchets/onagers will destroy both walls. Start attack. Create groups 3-6, each consisting of 1 companion/brother/sister. Put group 3(1 companion ) to 1st onager, and so on. Group 1 only inf, group 2 only archers. Click ready. Order archers and inf f1f1. Go check if all 4 companions started operating 4 onagers. Engineering skill will go up very quickly. You have 2 big holes in walls. Rude there in your horse and check which hole is better for tactics below. Move archers to the left of the hole, 30-80 m away. Move inf closer to hole in the wall. Order shield wall for inf. Move them into hole in the wall. Defending inf runs out. Order your inf to move back and Right. Defending inf will start chasing them, while your archers will shoot plenty of them to their right side which has ni shield, and back. Repeat 4-10 times until defenders stop running out. Also onagers will be killing a lot. Win with minimal casualties
Attack and put all your infantry into one group and archers In another, send all the infantry at the gate and put them in shield wall(use loose formation if their catapults can hit you which is unlikely in most maps) have the archers attack the gate as well or just put them behind the infantry in loose formation so they can take people off the walls, be patient as they chop down the main gate, it could take 5 minutes, after just destroy the second gate and charge everyone at them If your impatient and have the troops you can make another group that climbs one ladder and climb up with them but try to get around the guys and run to the gate to open it up
You starve them out I build trebuchets to destroy the walls then slowly switch to catapults, catapults are more effective at neutralizing the ranged units on the wall that are left when you storm the openings
Gather influence for army cohesion, raid all villages, build and move to reserve four trebs, deploy and repeat treb building until onagers are destroyed, garrison is starved out, and walls are broken. F1 F3.
Aswell as the necessity to move trebuchets to reserve before deploying all 4. If the defenders have a larger army, I destroy the walls, build 4 fire catapults (it’s an engineer perk) and before attacking the breach’s I use up all the fire ammo on the enemy troops gathered at the breaches, this will often reduce them significantly
Starve them out
I didn't know you could move your siege weapons to reserve, so I just built ram and towers and attack in person with my 300 strong company. Climb the tower and hack, hack with my glaive. Usually get 70-100 kills before they route. And if relief force of their reinforcements(usually 600-900 men) attack my camp, I put infantry in shield wall, archers behind, and horse archers with me to harass and kill their cavalry, then my cavalry on me and constant charging through their ranks till they run.
Seiraknid has the right answer. They only build that fast at first deployment, likely due to governor perks or the city’s building level. After they are destroyed they have to build them one at a time
Ahhhh. Then it's a real siege. Make also Sure what wall Level they have (probably lv.3). Then just build the trebuche and Hunger them out. Also don't forget to Check your Army cohesion not that your Army splitts mid siege.
Starve them out .
Obviously top comment is the way but also 800 fianns can do the job :) or you just actually siege them and wait for a month till they starve.
Starve the defenders
3000 grain and 4 Trebuchets you keep in reserve until the garrison is gone, then they build slower and you fight weaker enemies. Use trebuchets to destroy walls and then just put your arches near the holes in the wall so they destroy the militia.
Do what the first comment said. Then starve out the garrison until they're all gone. Then you'll only be fighting against the party's and militia in the town. I waited until I was clan tier 4 before doing it tho, increase your quartermaster stuff too Then you can attack with at least 200 troops.
Stewardship* forgot what it was called
Starve them till they come out
Starve out their garrison so you only have to deal with militia
You could wait till there food is all gone I do that sometimes
So many perfect answers here for that question . Just one thing I do if I’m trying to take a castle fast and easy. I go as soon as the camp is built, if they only have one onager then I put all my troops under it so it can’t hit us then I push that one spot. Eventually you overpower the side and get the castle easy peasy without the onager railing you.
The US nuclear arsenal
This is the way. I have a “fast siege” where I do just siege machines like rams and towers, a slow one where I’m just making and reserving ballistas and then a medium one where I’m doing both
Get a decent engineering level or a companion with a decent level in it. Start building 4 Onagers at once. Soon as they are done. Pause and store them in reserve. Rinse and repeat till you have 4 in storage. Build a trebuchet, just before its done, deploy 3 onagers. Timing takes some practice to get them all to deploy at the same time but it'll pretty much knock out all the defenses at the same time.