Hi guys, I am a new player. I was trying to defend a castle against enemy trebuchets. I built my wall, and then I built my castle 4 tiles behind my wall, and then I built some bombard towers, and put some trebuchets between those bombard towers and my castle.
But, I lost my castle to enemy trebuchets. Why are my trebuchets not able to stop enemy trebuchets from setting up? My trebuchets were there first, and they were deployed. Shouldn’t my trebuchets have an advantage as having done the work of setting up already?
On another note, bombard cannons cost more than trebuchets, but have a shorter range? Why?
The other player is clearly better than you. The fact you are under siege and not him clearly means he’s better than you. Bombard canons can move and fire, where as a trebuchet needs to pack up and then fire.
Did you happen to try attack him before he made a castle? Or did he attack you before you made your own castle? Or did the two of you just sit around and do nothing until the Imperial Age?
It sounds like you tried to turtle. Turtling only works really on black forest/michi during team games. Other than that, it’s ill advised.
Trebuchets are best countered by either melee infantry units or rams. If your opponent has multiple trebuchets ready then rams secured by infantry/cavarly is the best option as rams deal their damage in a large area
Youcan use your treb to try to shoot the enemyy trebs. Nevertheless, you opponent might have siege engineers (tech at the university which gives +1 range to siege) and you don’t, and thus outrange you.
Also, use your bombard cannons to snipe your enemy siege.
Anyway, playing that defensively is not how AoE works. The fact that you had walls, bombard towers and a clastle at home, tells me you were playing ultra defensively
The other player was the AI. 
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Learn to rush the AI then before he has a chance to make a castle. Key tip, tower rushing the AI can help win the game with ease sometimes. Or maybe lower the difficulty level.
Because trebuchets have around 15% accuracy on paper and like 20% accuracy in effect when targeting units which is substantially less than the 100% effective accuracy vs castles.
There’s some weird quirks with trebuchet v trebuchet fights and idk what the actual effective accuracy is there. Regardless it’s still less than 100% accuracy so the enemy trebs will have quite a lot of time to level a castle before dying to your trebs.
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The first question that comes to my mind is what were you using the Castle for? Castles are used for a variety of purposes, be they offensive, defensive, for map control, or for unit production. Some civilizations are more dependent upon them than others. Was it on higher ground? Was it used to deny resources?
My next question is what type of map was it? Was it an open map like Arabia, a closed map like Black Forest, or something else?
What type of opponent were you facing? A cavalry civilization? Perhaps an archer civilization?
There are many more questions to be asked. As you look deeper into the appropriate deployment of castles, you may find that you have been asking the wrong beginners questions.
I should tell you that Bombard Towers are oft used as offensive tools, to maintain momentum more than to protect structures.
MAybe you just had bad luck with trebs’ accuracy… S**t happens…
I mean, the others made the point that turtling (sitting behind walls booming) is not the ideal way to play but please play however you’d like. Most people just play like that, especially as beginners or children (I did).
So to make it more effective to turtle, here are some relevant civ bonuses;
- Hun trebs fire more accurately
- Tatar trebs have +3 range after their unique tech Timurid Warfare
- Celt trebs fire faster
- Turkish bombards and bombard tower get extra range after their unique tech artillery.
Happy turtling 
Because bombard cannons are mobile, and more accurate when shooting at other siege units. You can more often kill a trebuchet with a bombard cannon than vice versa
Also, Briton trebs do splash damage after you research Warwolf.
As far as extra defense for the castle, play as Teutons to get a range increase on your castle fire; make sure the enemy has to stay as far back as possible.
Of course, I main Franks, so I like to use my knights to clean up siege.