Siege Shot guide: topple towers and outlast the ballista

The goal and how a round works

Your catapult sits on the left, a stronghold on the right. You flatten it one rock at a time, and the moment the last piece falls a larger stronghold drops in after a short pause. There is no end: the run finishes when your catapult takes its third bolt, or when your last rock lands and something is still standing.

Two budgets run at once. Rocks are counted per stronghold, and you get exactly one rock per point of health in the stronghold plus a few spare. Catapult health is counted for the whole run: three bolts, no repairs.

Aiming, precisely

The pull's length sets power, reaching full power at a pull of 140 units on the stage. Launch speed runs from 220 at the lightest shot to 840 at full power.
The pull's direction sets the angle, limited to between 8 and 82 degrees.
A pull shorter than 8 percent of full is treated as a cancelled aim, not a shot.
The dots show only the first third of a second of the flight. They tell you angle and speed, not where the rock lands.
On a keyboard, the arrow keys turn the aim at 70 degrees a second, and holding Space charges power from zero to full in 1.1 seconds, then back down.
Reload is 0.7 seconds, and several rocks can be in the air at once.

Because the guide stops early, learn your shots by landing point. Once a pull lands where you want, repeat it exactly: the same drag always gives the same flight.

The pieces

Piece	Health	First appears
Palisade post	1	Stronghold 1
Timber tower	2	Stronghold 1
Stone post	2	Stronghold 2
Keep	3	Stronghold 2
Stone tower	3	Stronghold 3
Ballista	2	Every stronghold

Palisade posts are the only base pieces at the first stronghold; stone posts join them from the second. Towers and the keep never have anything stacked on them.

How falling works

This is the system that decides your score and your rock supply.

When a piece is destroyed, everything above it in that column falls. Every piece that lands takes 1 point of damage. If the piece it lands on was standing still, that piece takes 1 point too. A group falling together lands together, so only its lowest piece hits whatever is underneath. If a fall destroys a piece, everything above it falls again, and takes another point each.

A worked example on a column of two palisade posts with a timber tower on top:

Your rock breaks the bottom palisade: 10 for the hit, 25 for the break.
The palisade and tower above fall. The palisade takes 1 and is destroyed: 10 plus 60 for the topple. The tower takes 1 and survives with 1 health left: 10.
With the palisade gone, the tower falls again, takes its last point and is destroyed: 10 plus 60.

One rock, 185 points, and a column with 4 health cleared. Since you were given one rock per point of health, the three rocks you did not need are now spare. Each spare rock is worth 30 when the stronghold falls.

Pieces with 2 or 3 health survive a single fall, so towers and keeps often need a direct hit as well.

The ballista

The ballista fires on its own timer, which you can see winding up. It turns red for the last 1.2 seconds, and the bolt then takes 1.25 seconds to arrive.

Stronghold	Columns	Pieces per column	Fires every	Spare rocks
1	3	1 to 2	8.5 s	4
2	3	1 to 2	7.0 s	3
3	4	1 to 3	5.5 s	2
4	4	1 to 3	4.0 s	2
5 and on	5	1 to 3	3.0 s	2

A few rules about its timing are worth knowing:

The first bolt at each stronghold comes one full interval after it arrives, plus 0.6 seconds. At the first stronghold that is about 9 seconds, time for a dozen shots.
Silencing the ballista stops future bolts, but a bolt already in the air still lands.
Flattening the whole stronghold removes any bolt in the air.
The timer pauses while the ballista itself is falling.

On strongholds 1 and 2, the ballista always stands directly on the ground on the rear column, behind the other two columns. A shot at it has to clear the columns in front first. From stronghold 3 it can be on any column except the front one, at the top of that column, so breaking a piece under it brings it down. A fall costs it 1 of its 2 health, and if a fall finishes it, it pays 60 plus the 50 bonus.

An opening plan

The first stronghold has at most five pieces and gives you about 9 seconds before the first bolt, so it can be flattened before the ballista fires at all. Spend that time on base shots.
Aim flat and low into the bottom piece of the tallest column first. That column gives the most toppling.
If the stronghold is still up when the timer turns red, ignore the bolt; one hit is affordable early, and a lob at the ballista takes practice.

Mid and late game

From stronghold 3, silence the ballista early. It fires every 5.5 seconds or less. It now sits on a column, so breaking any piece under it drops it and costs it half its health, and one more hit silences it.
Watch the shots counter. It turns red at two rocks. With only two spare rocks per stronghold from the third on, a couple of misses leaves no room for pieces with 3 health.
Fire in pairs. The 0.7-second reload means a second rock can finish a damaged piece before it matters, or clear the last piece before a bolt in the air arrives.
Finish rather than defend. When a bolt is already flying and one piece is left, knocking that piece down cancels the bolt.

Common mistakes

Lobbing onto tops. A top hit does 1 damage to 1 piece and never topples anything.
Assuming silencing the ballista cancels the bolt already in the air.
Taking hits early. The three catapult hits have to last the whole run.

If you're stuck

If you run out of rocks, you are hitting tops instead of bases, so switch to low, flat shots. If bolts end your runs, clear faster at the first two strongholds, where the ballista is slow, and from the third target the ballista's column first.