Grow Empire: Rome: How to Counter Battering Rams

To counter battering rams in Grow Empire: Rome, deploy melee infantry outside your gate to intercept escort units, strike the incoming ram with catapult boulders at mid-field, and maintain enough wall archer firepower to destroy the machine before it breaches your fortification.

Battering rams are dedicated wall-breaker siege engines that ignore standard unit taunts and drive straight toward your fortress gate. Because rams possess high armor and large health pools, passive wall defenses will fail if incoming escort infantry distract your archers or if your artillery timing is off.

Wave Engagement Sequence

When a wave containing a battering ram spawns, execute your defensive actions in the following order:

Spot the ram early: Check the spawn line immediately for the battering ram frame and note the density of the surrounding escort infantry and archers.
Deploy barracks melee units: Release Roman Spearmen or Swordsmen outside the gate. These troops halt the enemy vanguard in open ground, preventing escort units from drawing fire away from the siege engine.
Fire catapults at mid-field: Trigger your wall catapult strikes or General boulder abilities as the ram reaches mid-field. Hitting the cluster early deals heavy area damage to the ram while clearing out foot escorts.
Concentrate archer fire: With escort screens cleared by artillery and ground troops, rampart archers automatically focus their continuous arrow volleys into the exposed ram.
Reinforce the frontline: Deploy replacement melee platoons if surviving escorts push past the initial clash zone toward your wall.

Defensive Upgrade Priorities

Balancing offensive damage and defensive durability ensures you can defeat rams across escalating wave tiers without wasting gold on non-essential upgrades.

Defensive Component	Primary Function Against Battering Rams	Upgrade Priority
Wall Archers	Delivers continuous, zero-mana damage across the entire field	High (Prioritize count, damage, and attack speed)
Wall Catapult	Cracks heavy siege armor with high kinetic burst and clears escorts	High (Upgrade damage and AoE value)
General Boulder / Active Skills	Eliminates dense escort clusters and bursts mid-field ram HP	High (Time cooldowns for mid-field impact)
Barracks Spearmen	Establishes a ground buffer to absorb escort aggression	Moderate (Level up for field durability)
Wall Fortification (HP)	Provides an error margin to survive incidental ram strikes	Moderate (Keep pace with current wave tier)

Managing Wall Health and Breakthroughs

If a battering ram breaks through your ground forces, your wall fortification level determines whether the wave ends in defeat. Upgrading your wall increases total Hit Points (HP) and structural resistance, allowing your gate to survive two or three direct strikes. This buffer provides the extra seconds required for your archers and cycling artillery cooldowns to finish the ram before it delivers a fatal breach. Avoid investing solely in wall HP, as passive health cannot replace the ranged damage required to destroy incoming siege engines permanently.