Siege combat is a special type of combat in Heroes III where the defending player has some significant advantages including Arrow towers, a Moat, and Siege walls.
A Town must have at least a Fort structure built in order to use siege combat, and the defenses are substantially improved upon construction of the Citadel and Castle. If there is no fortification built in the town, there is a usual battlefield instead, as if the combat were outside a town.
Tips, combat tactics, and features
- Attacking creatures will get stuck in a moat for at least 1 combat round. This can be bypassed with the Teleport spell or by breaking or "trapping" the drawbridge.
- Arrow towers can be incredibly effective in all stages of the game, due to their ability to bypass all ranged penalty and ignoring the defense stat of creatures.
- Catapults will damage the walls once per turn (can be augmented by the ballistics skill.) Walls can also be damaged by Earthquake as well as the cyclops creature type.
- Flying creatures can fly over walls, but they will usually become high priority targets for defending melee creatures as well as the arrow towers.
- The center arrow tower does the highest damage, and usually will not be destroyed until the main walls have been significantly damaged.
- Several towns have enhanced moats. Most notably, the Fortress has a high-damage moat that is 2 hexes wide. The Tower has land mines in place of a moat, which can occasionally detonate several times as creatures walk over them, but are generally considered weaker than standard moats, because they do not hinder movement.
A large siege playing out against a stronghold town.