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The Siege Tower is a Classical Era support unit in Civilization VI. Its purpose is to breach city defenses.

Vanilla and Rise and Fall[]

Gathering Storm[]

Strategy[]

The Siege Tower is the second ancient siege-support unit, along with the Battering Ram. It affects melee units (and also anti-cavalry units in Gathering Storm).

The Siege Tower is the opposite of the Battering Ram in the sense that units will do major damage to the city and minor damage to the wall, whereas the ram allows major damage to the wall. In the first case, melee units are able to climb over the wall, ignoring it completely, while in the second case they use the ram to ignore the wall's natural strength which protects it from conventional weapons.

Note that these two support units do not increase damage at all, but they remove penalties.

The Siege Tower becomes obsolete (cannot be produced anymore) after researching Civil Engineering; also, it becomes completely useless when the target civilization develops Urban Defenses.

Since the June 2019 Update the Siege Tower has been useless against anything more advanced than Medieval Walls. This practically forces attackers to use Catapults and their upgrades once the Renaissance Era hits, since they become the only thing effective against wall-defended cities in the middle game. This state of affairs will persist all the way to the Modern Era when airplanes and balloons provide additional ways of attacking cities from outside their defensive perimeters.

Civilopedia entry[]

Climbing walls up ladders - while the defenders above hurled boiling oil, rocks and pointy objects down - wasn’t conducive to high morale among the troops, and so the Neo-Assyrians invented siege towers around the 9th Century BC. At the time, most of the towns in Mesopotamia were surrounded by mud-brick walls, generally sufficient protection against attackers, but the siege towers of the Assyrians allowed them to get over the walls relatively unscathed; thus their empire spread virtually unchecked for three centuries. It was an idea whose time had come, and soon enough all the ancient civilizations had siege towers in their arsenals. In simplest form, a siege tower was a covered wooden tower on wheels; once pushed near the offending wall, a gangplank was dropped to bridge the gap and happy warriors rushed into the town or castle. Made ever more sturdy and efficient by those master engineers the Romans, the siege tower was used throughout the Medieval Era, until gunpowder finally made them obsolete.

See also[]

Civilization VI Units [edit]
Civilian SettlerBuilderTraderArchaeologistSpyNaturalistRock Band GS-Only
Land military AT CrewArcher (Hul'che1Pítati Archer1) • ArtilleryBarbarian Horse ArcherBarbarian HorsemanBombardCatapultCavalry (CossackHuszár GS-OnlyLlanero1) • Courser GS-Only (Black Army GS-OnlyOromo Cavalry1) • Crossbowman (Voi Chiến1) • Crouching TigerCuirassier GS-Only (Rough RiderWinged Hussar1) • Field Cannon (Hwacha R&F-Only) • Giant Death Robot GS-OnlyHeavy ChariotHelicopterHorseman (Hetairoi1) • Infantry (Digger1) • Keshig R&F-OnlyKnight (Mandekalu Cavalry GS-OnlyMamlukTagma1) • Line Infantry (Garde ImpérialeRedcoat) • Machine GunMalón Raider R&F-OnlyMan-At-Arms (Khevsur R&F-OnlyBerserkerSamurai) • Maryannu Chariot ArcherMechanized InfantryModern ATModern ArmorMountie GS-OnlyMusketman (ConquistadorJanissary GS-Only) • Nihang1Pike and Shot (Carolean GS-Only) • Pikeman (Impi R&F-Only) • Questing Knight4Ranger (Highlander R&F-Only) • Rocket ArtillerySabum Kibittum1Saka Horse ArcherScout (Okihtcitaw R&F-Only) • Skirmisher GS-Only (Warak'aq GS-Only) • SlingerSpearman (Hoplite) • Spec Ops R&F-OnlySwordsman (Hypaspist1Immortal1LegionNgao MbebaToa GS-Only) • TankTrebuchet (Domrey1) • Vampire3VaruWar-CartWarrior MonkWarrior (Eagle WarriorGaesatae1) • Zombie5
Naval military Aircraft CarrierBattleship (Minas Geraes) • Caravel (Nau1) • DestroyerFrigate (De Zeven Provinciën R&F-OnlyJong1) • Galley (Bireme GS-OnlyViking Longship) • IroncladMissile CruiserNuclear SubmarinePrivateer (Barbary Corsair GS-OnlySea Dog) • Quadrireme (Dromon1) • Submarine (U-Boat)
Aircraft BiplaneBomberFighter (P-51 Mustang) • Jet BomberJet Fighter
Support Anti-Air GunBattering RamCultist3Drone R&F-OnlyMedicMilitary EngineerMobile SAMObservation BalloonSiege TowerSoothsayer2Supply Convoy R&F-Only
Religious ApostleGuruInquisitorMissionary
See also Great PeopleHeroes
1 Requires DLC2 Apocalypse mode only • 3 Secret Societies mode only • 4 Heroes & Legends mode only • 5 Zombie Defense mode only

R&F-Only Added in the Rise and Fall expansion pack.
GS-Only Added in the Gathering Storm expansion pack.

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