Castle Siege 100% Guide

Table of Contents
Introduction
General tips
Building an army
Scouting the castle
Preparing to strike
Making the first strike
Continuing the attack and cleaning up
Conclusion

Introduction

This is a guide to getting 3-star wins in Ages 7 through 9, particularly 8 and 9. Many
of the suggestions can apply to earlier ages, but they are directed toward players
with larger armies and more advanced opponents. It is also not meant to be a
beginners guide, but rather something to help relatively experienced players
improve their attacks.
Ive tried to make this tutorial as general as possible, so it has everything needed to
get 100% victories while still giving people room for their own attack styles. I dont
believe there is any one specific attack style or army setup that can get 3 stars, but
I see most of the advice here as essential to 3-star attacks.
I should also say that Im solely a computer-and-mouse player. I realize that some of
the tips I give in this guide are a bit harder for a phone player to carry out. However,
I havent played on the phone in a long time, and Im not sure how to cater the
guide to phone players. Im pretty sure most of the given strategy should still be
doable, though.
While you wont get 100% wins every time using this strategy (unless you are
incredibly skilled) you should at least be able to get 2 stars every time if you do it
well. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and its always possible to get 1 star or
lose. I lose sometimes as well. However, Im confident that using this strategy
skillfully will lead to regular 3-star wins. Im sure there are also plenty of people
more skilled than me who could use it to get 100% wins more often than I do. It just
takes knowing how to go about it.

General tips

Before I start laying out my 3-star strategy, I want to give some general tips for
attacking. Most of these suggestions are helpful for most attacking styles, but I

believe they are all essential practices for getting regular 100% wins. If you arent
comfortable jumping right into the strategy given in this guide, I would advise first
trying to incorporate these pointers into your own attack styles and getting into a
habit of practicing them.

Be conservative. Only deploy the units that you need when you need them.
Spawning most of your units at once makes it easy for all of them to get
killed in a short amount of time. It also leaves you without options toward the
end of the attack.
Avoid stacking troops. This is related to the previous point. Spawning
multiple squads in the same place, or letting them join together after they are
spawned, makes it easy for them to all die in the same time it would take for
one squad to die. 3 squads of infantry stacked on top of each other is about
as helpful as 1.5 squads, or just 1 if you let them near fire. Similarly, 2
stacked trebs could both go down to a stray shot from a treb emplacement,
while having them separated would leave you with another treb to work with.
Optimize hero ability uses. Dont use abilities until theyre about to be
useful. For example, triggering Conrads ability before him or his fellow siege
units come under fire wastes precious shield time. Instead, you should use it
right before they start getting shot at. Similarly, using Alexs ability before he
gets to where he can start hitting a lot of defenses means you wont be able
to do as much damage. Optimally, you should use his ability right before his
first shot at the main defenses.
Prioritize defenses, not the keep. So often I see people head straight for
the keep while ignoring everything shooting at them. This may work most of
the time when Martel or Conrad has your back, but it is a good way to lose
with a simple mistake and it will rarely give you much more than a 50% 2-star
victory. If you take out the defenses that can shoot at you before taking out
the keep, you wont have much trouble taking down the keep afterward. Its
also a lot easier to take out defenses while under the protection of a shielding
hero rather than waiting until after the keep is down to take them out (or
worse, until you need to take them out because your shield is gone).

Know the game. This is a bit of a no-brainer, but it is still very important.
You need to have a good feel for the damage, health, and speed of all units
and defenses; how things behave; and the threat levels of defenses and
enemy troops. This knowledge is essential for decision making in the middle
of a battle, such as deciding what to destroy first, what to use to intercept a
defensive unit, if you need to back out momentarily, etc.
Practice, practice, practice. This is how you gain the knowledge for the
previous point. It is also how you improve your skills and make good habits.

(Of course, remember that practice makes permanentpracticing bad habits

makes it slow to improve in those areas.) You probably wont be getting 3-star
victories right off the bat. It will take a bit of time to develop the right habits
and hone your micromanaging and decision-making.

Building an army

The first step for any victory is putting together a good army. Like I said in the
introduction, there is no one right setup, but there are a few things you need when
building an army capable of 3-star wins:
Plenty of meat. This is pretty obvious, but having units to tank damage is
essential. I do see a lot of people with probably not enough meat shields for a
100%. Good meat shields should probably make up to of your units (as
in number of units, not capacity). This is true even when using a hero like
Martel, who can tank a ton of damage himself.
DPS units. Also obvious, you should have a good amount of damaging units
to back up your tanks. You need to be able to take out defenses quickly
enough to not burn through all of your meat in the first half of the battle. Of
course, trebuchets are going to make up most of your DPS in virtually every
setup; their damage and range makes them indispensable. I always carry 4
trebs, and that seems to work pretty well. Those in Age 7 will probably want
3, and having 5 can work as well. You cant have too many, though, or youll
crowd out other necessary units.
Troop killers. The last essential part of an army is units that can kill
defending troops. Defending units can easily overwhelm you if you arent
prepared for them. You should be able to deal with multiple waves of a wide
array of possible defenders. Those include:
Engineers
Cavalry, mamluks, and knights templar (they can all be dealt with in
about the same way, though they do have differences)
Grenadiers
Raiders of Muscovy (they behave a bit differently than the other
mounted units)
Infantry, spearmen, and archers
Teutonic knights
Cheirosiphons (theyre rare, but they can be hard to deal with when
you arent prepared for them; I tend to not have appropriate counters
to them because theyre so uncommon, so they can cause trouble for
me)
Rushers. Its not necessary, but its good to have some units that can rush in
and destroy priority targets faster than your treb line can get there. Theyre
also handy for cleaning up at the end of the battle. These units shouldnt take
up too much of your army capacity, though.

 Raiders. Im mentioning these only to say that they dont fit in very well with
this 3-star strategy. When youre getting 100%, you dont need to have units
dedicated to destroying resource buildings. Once most of the defenses are
destroyed, most units can raid effectively. If you feel the need to have some
raiders for the cleanup phase, I wouldnt take more than 2 RoMs or 4 raiders.
If you have a way to use them to reliably help take out defenses, though, it
could be okay to take more.
Diversity. With all the different setups and units you can come across, its
good to have a bit of diversity to be prepared for anything. Too much diversity
can be detrimental, though. You dont need every unit to be prepared for
anything. Plus its hard to select units when you have to scroll to get to them.
Versatility. Having units that can take on several different roles is often
better than using specialized units. For example, cavalry can rush
emplacements just as well or better than laddermen (as long as youve made
a path for them), and they can also kill defending units, tank a bit of damage,
or clean up resources if needed.
Choosing heroes
Heroes are of course a big part of building your army. There are a few things to keep
in mind when choosing your heroes.
Spread powerful heroes over multiple attacks. Its tempting to always
start with the two most powerful heroes (right now Martel and Alex), but
when you do this you take away potential from your later attacks. Unless
youre only attacking a couple of times a day, its better to pair strong heroes
with weaker ones. For example, Ive been pairing Martel with Edward and
Alex with Maslama. This makes it so all of your attacks can be strong rather
than one or two being super strong and the others being weak.
Cater your army to your heroes. This isnt necessary and I dont do it
much myself, but it is something to consider. Modifying your army to take
advantage of your hero abilities can be very beneficial. For example, it can be
good to take some extra siege weapons when you have Conrad or a couple
more infantry or knights templar to run in ahead of Winrich.
Take a damage hero and shielding hero. This also isnt necessary, but I
find that it works well. Having both an offensive and defensive hero helps
provide a balanced setup, and it makes it easier for the offensive hero do his
thing.
Avoid keep rushers. Heroes that mainly help you rush the keep generally
arent very helpful when trying to get 100%. These include Charlemagne,
Richard, and Belisarius (Im excluding Edward and Saladin because they are
effective at taking down defenses as well). Thats not to say that its
impossible to use them to get 3 stars, though. You just have to use them to
help take down defenses, not the keep, and its rather difficult to use them
that way. Theres no point in using heroes to snipe the keep because the keep
is a low priority when going for 100% wins.

Scouting the castle

Once you have your army, the next step is scouting out your opponents castle. Im
not going to go over looking for a good castle, since thats up to what youre trying
to get from the battle and what youre comfortable with, but I will say that it might
be good to go a little outside of your comfort zone sometimes, at least once you
have the basics down. I didnt start getting regular 100% wins until I took down
some castles that I wasnt sure I could beat. I think it was both the experience and
confidence from those battles that propelled me forward.
Anyway, what Im going to focus on in this section is scouting out the castle that
youve chosen to attack. That includes locating the biggest threats and figuring out
where youre going to attack from. At this point you should be able to locate the
various defenses fairly quickly and figure out how the defensive power is distributed
(whether its mainly in the center, weighted toward a specific side, spread out, etc.).
How you use that information to plan your attack is especially important when going
for 100% wins, and there are a few main factors to consider:
Start with the most powerful side. When going for 3 stars, this is almost
always the best approach. The most common exception is when you have
Winrich, since he can usually quickly get to and take out large clusters of
defenses anywhere in the castle, but even then its usually good to start
where the most defenses are. Its best to destroy as many towers as you can
at the beginning of the battle because thats typically when you use most of
your armys power. If the castle has a lot of defenses in one area, its
relatively easy to clean up once those are gone.
Start from a side, not a corner. Its possible that there are times when
attacking a corner is better, but I have yet to come across a castle where the
corner is definitely the way to go. When you start from a corner, it generally
takes longer to get to defenses, which means defenses will be able to shoot
at you longer before youre able to strike back. Creating openings from a
corner also takes longer, and navigating is more awkward. Lastly, its very
difficult to have a line of trebs when youre attacking a corner. On the other
hand, attacking a side typically means youll be able to get to defenses
quicker and hit more at once.
Figure out how to take out the guard houses and watch signal as
soon as possible. It isnt always possible to quickly take out all of these,
and there may be times that it is better to hold off on them for a little bit, but
you generally want to attack a side that has at least one of these buildings, if
not two or three of them. The sooner these are out of the way the better. If
possible, also consider using a treb or some other units to take out a guard
house on a different side than your main attack.
Hit symmetrical castles from the broad side. Many castles have a
symmetrical layout where guard houses and trebs are across the keep from
each other. If they line they make is diagonal (SW to NE or NW to SE) its

usually best to attack from a side that you can reach both of the guard
houses or trebs at about the same time, rather than a side that has one treb
and guard house close but the others across the keep.
Be wary of starting on a side that is at the edge of the map. For
castles that are against a side or corner, you should only attack from the
edge of the map when youre sure its the best approach. Its very easy to
lose a lot of meat and a few trebs when doing this, so make sure you have a
plan to take out the surrounding defenses as quickly as possible, especially
the close range towers against the side.
Hero tips
It is also good to think about the heroes you have when scouting out a castle. Here
are a couple things to look for:
Targets for Winrich, Edward, etc. Its good to plan ahead where youre
going to use heroes that target defenses. One good way to use them is taking
out troop-spawning buildings early.
Parking spots for Martel and Conrad. Look for places where these heroes
can draw the fire of the most defenses at once. Be wary of blind spots.

Preparing to strike

Once you have a plan, the next step is to set up your attack. Its typically better to
take some time to get everything ready before striking rather than rushing into the
attack. There are a few things you should do in this stage:
Lure away and kite or kill troops. Most do this already, but if you dont,
you should make a habit of it. Its also good to know when to kite and when
to kill.
o I find that its generally easiest and cheapest to kite grenadiers,
infantry, and knights templar because they can be kited for a while
with a single squad of infantry. I usually dont kite mounted units
because that takes mamluks or cavalry, which are expensive, but its
an option. If there is a mix of grenadiers and mounted units, its good
to try to separate them and kite the grenadiers while killing the
mounted units. Also remember that kiting patrol point units is pointless
unless they mingle with the guard house units.
o When kiting, I find it works well to make a large circle around the
castle. I realize this is difficult for phone players, though, as is kiting in
general. If youre a phone player, youll have to figure out what is best
for you, even if thats just killing all defensive units.
o Try not to spend too much time taking care of the first wave. It can
easily take a minute or so if youre not careful, and time is precious
when going for 100% wins. However, it is difficult to do it quickly.

 Check for traps. Again, I doubt I need to say this, but you should check the
side you will be starting the attack for fire and engineer traps with
expendable units. I often check for fire traps with the same unit I use to draw
out troops (and replace it if necessary), but it might help to take care of the
first defending units more quickly if you use separate units. For engineer
traps, its good to check with a ram or catapult rather than a trebuchet, since
even if you react quickly you can lose a treb if you place it right on an
engineer trap.
Line up your trebs. Youll want to have two or three trebs on one side,
spaced out well. This includes Nikephoros or Saladin if you have them. Of
course, youll want to lay down some meat first if there are towers on the
outer wall or a treb emplacement nearby.
Destroy any outer defenses and make a wide hole. This both helps you
a lot when getting units inside and is a good way to keep your trebs lined up
for the initial strike. If there are any towers on the outer wall, youll want to
destroy them before breaching the wall. Otherwise, you can usually make a
hole without getting shot at, but you might have to use some meat to keep
your trebs safe from emplacements. You basically want to keep targeting
walls until youre satisfied with the size of the hole, not letting your trebs
wander too close to the castle or each other. Dont use a defensive hero at
this point or youll just be wasting precious ability time/uses.
Attacking from the edge of the map
If youre attack from an edge, youre obviously not going to be able to do all of
these things. You should still kite or kill the first wave of troops, but there will
usually be no traps to check for (unless theres a space between the walls and the
edge) and you wont have any time to make a large breach. After taking care of the
first wave of troops, youre going to want to deploy your meat and trebs and go
straight to the next step. You can open holes into the castle after the immediate
threats are destroyed.
Frosted castles and great walls
These arent nearly as common anymore, but I feel they should get a mention.
Attacking these is mostly the same as more typical castles, but it is different in
some ways. The biggest difference is any mistakes you make will have greater
consequences, so it can be good to use more meat shields toward the beginning
than you normally would, unless you have a good shielding hero.
Youll still pretty much always want to attack a side, not a corner. You should also
still make a big hole in the outer walls during the prep stage, even if the wall isnt
complete (like those lines of four walls you see sometimes). Having obstructions
between the spawn area and the actual battle is always something you should
avoid.

Another thing to keep in mind is that meat shields will take longer to get to the front
of the battle, so you should try to send in more a bit before the current tanks are
dead. Its hard to remember and time right, though.
Finally, troop spawners are an even bigger threat in these setups. It would be
especially good to take them out as soon as possible, even if that means skipping
over treb emplacements and other big threats.
Hero tips
Probably the only heroes you should activate at this stage are Joan and John, and
even then its not always necessary. If you only have to worry about the two squads
from the guard houses, its usually best to just kill them rather than using your
ability, especially with John. Also, with Joan, its tempting to try to gather as many
units as possible at the beginning of the battle, but its sometimes not the best to
do this if it takes a lot of time and units to do. Its not the easiest decision to make,
though.

Making the first strike

Finally were at the main part of the attack, where you punch as big a hole in the
castle as you can. This is when youre probably going to use your heroes as well as
at least half of your army. The gist of this phase is that you want to do as much
damage as possible while you have your heroes and their abilities available. If you
do it well, the primary threats should be gone and the rest of the castle will take a
bit less effort to take down.
This is when the first four points in the general tips really come into play, so really
try to keep them in mind during this stage. There are also several other things you
should do to make the first strike successful:
Keep your trebuchets safe and efficient. With a typical army, your trebs
are always going to be your primary sources of damage. Because of this, you
should prioritize keeping them safe and having them attack efficiently. There
are a few key ways to do this:
Keep units in front of them. This point is no secret, but I feel its
worth repeating because everyone can improve on it. As soon as a treb
gets targeted by defenses, its likely as good as dead, so you need a
constant buffer of meat shields in front of them to keep them safe. It
can be easy to forget to refresh your frontline until its too late, so try
to always keep an eye on how much meat you have left. You also need
to have a good idea of when to deploy troops so they get the frontline
as the last wave dies.
Keep them spread out. This goes back to the general tips, but it is
also worth repeating. Having two or more trebs on top of each other

means that theyll all die at once if theyre targeted by a treb

emplacement, ballista, squad of grenadiers, etc.
Give them separate targets. This is how you make the most of their
damage. When you give your trebs the same targets, you may take
those targets down faster, but there will be a lot of wasted shots and
more time between every target. If you give your trebs separate
targets, youll basically always be firing at something with one or two
of them while the others move into place for the next targets. If you
micromanage well, you can also prevent wasted shots so that your
trebs are always moving on to the next thing when the killing shot is in
the air. Overall, three trebs in a line targeting separately can take down
more defenses in less time than any number of trebs stacked on top of
each other and targeting the same things. It is worth mentioning,
though, that it can occasionally be good to give a couple trebs the
same target if you want to take it out as soon as possible, such as
when taking down the keep or dealing with a musket tower.
Destroy the defenses in a wave. In regards to your trebs and siege
heroes, you should always destroy defenses as you get to them. Even with
Martel or Conrad, passing up defenses to get to bigger threats or the keep is
never a good idea. Taking out defenses in a wave means there will always be
as few things as possible trying to target your treb. That doesnt mean you
shouldnt rush some big threats with other units, though. If you wont be able
to target a guard house, watch signal, or treb for a while, it can be good to
rush it with mounted units or a rushing hero (e.g. Edward or Winrich).
Dont go straight for the keep. Ive said this before, but once again its
worth repeating. The keep is hardly a threat, so only destroy it when youre
about to sweep past it for the defenses behind it. If everything is going south
and youre worried about winning, it would be good to focus a bit on the
keep, but that should be the only time.
Consider destroying short-range towers before long-range. This may
seem counterintuitive since treb emplacements and ballistae are bigger
threats to your trebs than fire and crossbow towers, but destroying the latter
defenses first means that your tanks will live longer and have more freedom
of movement. The longer your meat lasts, the easier it is to take out the longrange defenses. This is situational, though; a good time to do it is when a fire
tower is right in the middle of the defenses youre targeting and making it
difficult to keep meat in front.
Cut off defensive troops whenever possible. Try to make sure defending
units dont make it near your trebs. Make sure there is meat well in front of
your trebs in the castle, and pay attention to make sure you arent caught off
guard by something outside the castle. Its often good to stop watch signal
units right as they arrive, or as they approach the main battle. Its dangerous
to wait for them to get near your treb wave before taking them out, as they
can unexpectedly target your trebs.

 Destroy the guard houses and watch signal as soon as possible. Your
ability to destroy these buildings quickly is largely dependent on where you
decided to attack, but youll often want to destroy them before your line of
trebs gets to them if possible. If theyre on the other side of the keep, you can
usually rush them with mounted units or a hero. If one is just inside the walls
of a side you arent attacking, you can use longbowmen, templars,
grenadiers, or even a treb to take it out. Usually the sooner these buildings
are gone the better, even if it takes some extra losses. Of course, if a watch
signal is on the opposite side of the castle, only go in to destroy it once its
triggered or about to be. I should also mention that you may want to keep
these buildings up temporarily if you have Joan, so her ability uses dont go to
waste.
Remember to take out wall grenadiers (and archers). It can be easy to
forget about these guys, but they can easily take down your trebs if you
arent paying attention. Make sure to always take them out after the
surrounding defenses so you dont have to worry about your trebs passing by
them.
Keep opening paths. As you proceed, its also good to take out walls to
open compartments, though usually only after the surrounding defenses are
destroyed. Doing this helps your wave continue smoothly as well as helping
the cleanup phase go quickly and without hindrance. It can also be good to
make them bigger than just one square, especially when the first square is at
an intersection, so your units (especially your trebs) can get in easier.
Hero tips
Like I said, this is the phase when youre most likely going to use your heroes. The
main thing to keep in mind for all heroes is that you should only use abilities
when they will be the most useful.
For heroes like Alex and Conrad who have empowerment abilities,
this means waiting to use their abilities until right before they are needed. For
example, triggering Alex right before he fires his first shot at a good cluster or
triggering Conrad right before he starts getting shot at a lot. When you use
empowerment abilities well before they are needed, you lose precious ability
time.
For heroes with targets like Winrich and Henry, it obviously means
using their abilities on the best possible targets. If you dont have access to
prime targets yet, then its probably best to hold these heroes back until you
do. It can also be good to take them back out between abilities if they cant
get to all of their best targets at once, rather than using all of their abilities at
once.
With troop-targeting heroes like Joan and John, it means knowing when
to convert/scare units and when to kill them. You shouldnt just their abilities
right when any defensive come into range. Instead, try to wait for waves of
two or more troops so you can make the most of your abilities. If a single

defensive unit is headed toward you, its usually best to just kill it. However, if
a treb is in immediate danger from troops, dont hesitate to use an ability to
get rid of them.

Continuing the attack and cleaning up

This phase typically starts once youve used up your hero abilities. With the less
powerful heroes, though, there isnt much distinction from the first strike. At this
point, you should typically have the primary threats (both guard houses, both trebs,
and the watch signal) destroyed, at least a third (hopefully a half) of the defenses
down, and several holes throughout the castle. Of course, the first isnt always
possible, but its a good objective to have. From here, the goal is to destroy the
remaining defenses and then clean up the last resource buildings for the 100%.
There are a few things you should always do to achieve this:
Keep pressing forward with your first wave of trebs. Keep up your
momentum and just keep plowing through. Dillydallying can cost you the
100%, both because of lost time and because of the extra meat you have to
use in that time. Supply your meat distractions either through the opening
you came through or by putting them against the outer walls by the towers
youre targeting. When possible, the latter option is usually better because
you can get the meat there faster.
Dont forget the keep. I say this mainly because I do forget the keep
sometimes, because of my focus on defenses rather than the keep. So just
try to still have the keep on your mind even though you arent going straight
for it.
Start sending out units to clean up. Once there are only a few defenses
left, its usually a good time to deploy any units you have left to destroying
resources (though you can leave some unused if youre sure youll get 100%).
You can also send them to take out resources by the remaining defenses to
act as meat shields for your trebs, since they wont die very quickly once
there are only a few towers left. You should also try to remember to check the
corners and sides of the map for stray resource buildings. Many times I have
missed out on 3 stars because of forgetting to check and running out of time.
There are also a few other things you can do in this stage depending on the castle
layout, the remaining defenses, and your remaining troops. Overall, it is the most
flexible part of the attack, being more about doing what you need to with what you
have than having a set pattern. Its good to keep some very versatile units in
reserve until now, since it gives you several options for taking care of whatever is
remaining. Depending on what you have left, you might even use some units in
ways you normally wouldnt, such as using grenadiers as meat or mamluks to finish
off a tower. Here are some common things you might do:

 Start a new angle of attack. With your spare trebs, its often good to start
attacking from another direction. This lets you get to the remaining defenses
sooner than if you entered from where you started, and it can help keep the
defenses busy while your primary wave comes up from behind. This will
basically be a toned down version of the primary attack.
Take out stray towers with non-treb units. You dont always have to wait
for your trebs to get to a tower before you can take it out. If you have
grenadiers or templars (or maybe other units) and there is a lone tower or
one with only an archer tower nearby, you can easily take it out with just
those units.
If youre short on time, focus on resources. If you know youre not going
to have enough time to get 100%, then go ahead and focus on getting as
much resources as possible, rather than taking out towers that wont give you
anything.

Conclusion

If you do all of this well, you should end up with 3 stars a good amount of the time.
If you do it perfectly, Im confident you can get 3 stars every time.
Of course, you probably wont be pumping out 100% victories right away, and
attacking like this is likely to feel awkward at first. However, practicing and applying
these concepts should gradually increase your amount of 100% wins. Hopefully
many of you will go from feeling that 100% wins in Ages 7 through 9 are impossible
for you to feeling confident that you can get 100% whenever you see an average
castle. Thats how it went for me.
Once youre comfortable with these concepts, feel free to experiment yourself. Like I
said in the beginning, there is no one specific way to get 100%. Though I do think
that most of the tips here are essential. Figure out what works for you, and most of
all have fun. I wish you all good luck, and I would love to hear about your successes
if this guide works for you. See you on the battlefield.