"Settlement Besieged" -- what do you do?

[Kekvit Irae]

It depends on the seige equipment they have,
If the have tebushays and magonels and stuff, Then Sally out and attack them is what id say,

if they have ladders and battering rams,
Id say fight them on the walls,

But Usualy il try to send men down to eliviate the seige.

There wasnt an option that i would feel comfortable voting for,
So i abstained

The problem is, I have yet to see the AI build any long-range siege weapons. I guess it's different in multiplayer

[gardibolt]

Sallies would work much better if cavalry would go back into the city when you tell them to; this business of lining up to go through the gate, sending them into the arms of the enemy, is suicidal. Because of this behavior, I seldom can afford to make more than one sally.

[Red Harvest]

The problem is, I have yet to see the AI build any long-range siege weapons. I guess it's different in multiplayer

I've had the Julii attack me with onagers, scorpions, and ballistae... They were quite accurate but I play on VH/VH. I learned to time my cav charge to catch the lumbering siege gear while the enemy was redeploying.

[Slyspy]

I wait until the AI loses interest and wanders off. Failing that I hit the attackers with the nearest decent army stack I have safe in the knowledge that the AI will not have a competent general in charge nor a great variety of troops.

[Red Harvest]

Sallies would work much better if cavalry would go back into the city when you tell them to; this business of lining up to go through the gate, sending them into the arms of the enemy, is suicidal. Because of this behavior, I seldom can afford to make more than one sally.

With cav and horse archers I usually send them to the side gates if there are enemies in pursuit (taking the HA's off skirmish is a necessity near the walls/gates anyway.) Pursuit along the walls is a bad idea for the AI, as it will get shot at.

[Slyspy]

....but is too dumb to avoid the towers.

[Red Harvest]

....but is too dumb to avoid the towers.

True, but it takes casualties on the trip in, and on the way out. The casualties will make them less formidable and hurt their morale (so they might break off.) So in the end, my cav will take fewer casualties going through a less cluttered gate with a weakened enemy. And my cav will outrun foot, it is only other cav that I need worry about.

And if I have a far larger force than normal...I sometimes keep some spearmen posted near the side gates so that I can turn the tables on over eager cav pursuit.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Learned a lot here. Good stuff folks.

Tried a Red Harvest punitive sally against a Selooky siege force (276 attacking troops to my 1000 or so). Broke the siege by annoying them and drawing them under the bows and towers and by slapping at them with scythes when I could get a spear group from the rear. I ended with a draw, but lost just 20 to their 180 or so. They scarpered.

Never knew the AI was so rich -- 2 phalanx units and 3 Hefalumps!

Still love a wall & street fight best in this whole game -- nice and stressful from either end.

[dismal]

Main reasons I sally are:
1. Attrition of larger enemy force, with little cost to me.
2. Ending effects of siege on my economy sooner.
3. Using potential relief forces to strike at the enemy cities instead...taking the war to them, rather than fighting at home. This is normally a big part of my plan. Letting the enemy tie up its forces in a siege while I take its adjacent territories.
4. Little risk...taking the draw is nearly always an option--unless I get sloppy.
5. Relieving forces have problems at times so relying on them is risky: running into rebels on the way, getting ambushed by rebels along the way, and of course the potential for not having control of the army with the family member in it...

I agree with all of the above.

The one thing I would add is that you can both sally immediately and use a relief force.

I recently had a siuation where I (as Franks on VH/VH) was besieged by Saxons with an army that contained 5 family members, 2 Hunters, but only 4 or 5 units of infantry. I only had 4 hunters garrisoned as it was not a city close to my border.

I sent some relief troops. And while waiting for them to arrive I sallied with my 4 hunters, focusing on attriting down his 2 hunters. When my first batch of relief troops arrived a turn later (which was just 4-5 units) I sallied twice focusing on attritting his infantry. By the time he had his siege engines built he didn't feel he had enough infantry left to man an attack.

A few turns later I got a second relief force there, which I also sallied out with. At this point, the remaining Saxons (literally just 4 generals units) gave up and rode away. 3 draws, 2 relief armies, siege broken.

[TinCow]

A good thing you've made this a multi-choice poll. I picked the ones that generally apply to me: sally when under 2:1, wait for assault, fight on walls, fight in streets.

I really depends on the situation. I'll sally only if I know for sure that I will win or if it's a critical moment. For instance, if I don't do it now another stack will arrive to reinforce next turn making it impossible or if I'm on a tight budget and a long siege would put me into the red. Otherwise I wait and fight when they assault.

Whether I fight on the walls or in the streets depends on MANY factors including (1) the composition of my army (2) the composition of the enemy army (3) the type of wall (wooden or stone) (4) the layout of the city (barbarian towns are harder to defend in the streets) (5) whether I have reinforcements arriving from outside the walls and many other minor things. I will always sally on the last turn or when it becomes obvious that they will not assault (not building siege equipment or all-cav army).

[edyzmedieval]

Most of the time, 80%, I sally and attack.

Or I bribe the guys.....

[gardibolt]

With cav and horse archers I usually send them to the side gates if there are enemies in pursuit (taking the HA's off skirmish is a necessity near the walls/gates anyway.) Pursuit along the walls is a bad idea for the AI, as it will get shot at.

Hm, good tip. Thanks!

[Celt Centurion]

Hm, good tip. Thanks!

I almost always sally forth immediately. What I have noticed is that for the most part, the only cities and towns that get besieged are the ones more or less bordering an enemy, or on a coast directly across the water from an enemy. With this in mind, I make it a point to keep those fully stacked at all times.

My typical full stack is: (all approximate)

4 to 5 units of archers. If I am a faction with weak archers, I try to keep a lot of Cretan archers as they have better range than say, Greek, or Roman Archers. On the other hand, if I can get Roman Archer Auxilia, German archers, or Pharaoh's bowmen, they are great. I line them up on the walls facing the enemy before I sally.

Preferably 6 units of cavalry. If for example, the enemy is parked outside my North gate, I usually put half of the cavalry at the East gate, and half at the West gate.

I like to have about 3-4 groups of skirmishers. They are initially deployed just inside the gate, and how I use them depends on what the enemy does when I "start battle."

Then I like to have 5-6 heavy infantry, and they are just beside the skirmishers.

I rarely even train up onagers or other artillery because when defending a city, they usually do more damage to my walls than an enemy. I also suspect that they sometimes fire short rounds that cause casualties among my own archers. Rarely do I have a place to even put them where they don't do more damage than an enemy.

The battle begins.

In RTW vanilla, the enemy used to stand there while my archers filled them with arrows. They don't do that anymore with the 1.2 patch.

Now, they usually run to the (my) right. Once in a while to the left. They stay just outside the range of my archers.

When they move to the left or right, now I send out my skirmishers to nail them, and hopefully provoke them to come closer to the walls. Sometimes they do, usually though, they just withdraw a few yards.

While the skirmishers are spiking the enemy's canteens, I have cavalry (remember from the East and West gates) ride out and outflank them, prefering to send them right up to the red line so that the enemy has to run past them once they're routing. So now, my skirmishers are spiking them, and my cavalry are actually behind them, and at this point, they have made it clear that they are not coming up to meet my archers.

So, I march out my infantry toward the corner of the wall which is closest to the enemy, put my archers on "cease fire" and run them to the corner up on the walls. "Cease fire" is very important here.

This is where the enemy will often start to march on the infantry and skirmishers. I let them come, and when I suspect them to pretty much be "in range", I put the archers on "fire at will." At this point, the archers are shooting, the skirmishers and infantry are engaged, and I put my cavalry to gallop right into the enemy's rear, and he's wondering "What happened?", and they start to rout.

If my infantry are the types which were in phalanx formation (such as Greek or Selucid), I put them in standard formation, and double click on an enemy so that my infantry are chasing and killing them. On the other hand, if my infantry are legionary cohorts, praetorian cohorts, or urban cohorts, I simply put them on "fire at will", and I don't have to tell them anything else. Then all units chase down and kill fleeing enemy units.

On the other hand, if the enemy charges at my gate as soon as I "start battle", my archers make quick work of them, and my cavalry chases them down when they flee.

If I am besieged in a wooden wall or palisade city with a small army (early in the game when nobody has a large one yet), I still use the same basic formation, but instead of actually going out with my army, I let the General go out alone. Invariably, the enemy will chase my General. As they chase him along the wooden wall, the towers pick off whoever is chasing him. I have gotten a draw by simply letting my towers pick off an army as they chase the general. The towers have actually reduced a chaser by 30% to 50% as they gallop or march around the perimeter. Two or three turns like that, and they give up, or are whittled down enough for the army I do have to take care of them. I have only lost one general doing this when he was almost to a gate, and enemy light cavalry (faster) caught up with him (his horse was not as fast as his bodyguard's), and all of his bodyguard was out there in front of him. The only casualty was the general himself. Unfortunately the bodyguard was lost at the end of the turn.

If there is another city close by, I will also send reinforcements from there if the garrison in the one besieged is weak. (Nothing close in some places.)

I do not wait for them to attack me. There have been a few times when I was besieged, and forgot a city was under siege, (several under siege at one time) and they attacked, but in these cases, I stagger half of my infantry and all of my archers on the wall. I put the archers on "use fire" and direct fire on the siege machinery. Once it's all destroyed, "extinguish flames" and use the arrows to nail the attackers. When and if a siege tower reaches the wall, I post the infantry on the wall to hold them there. Between my infantry and my towers, their men coming out of the siege towers do not last long. If I have another infantry "behind" the enemy when one is engaging them from the other side, I send the second one to carve them up from the other side.

I have never lost a stone wall city to a siege. In my very first campaign about a year ago, I almost lost one because all it had was 6 units of town watch, exactly as Vicoria suggested. It had not occured to me to train archers and cavalry. I held on because the last of the town watch (3 men) held on at the town square against nearly 200 of the enemy, and the clock ran out.

One other time, I had a full stack in the Stone wall city of Cyrene. They were besieged, and I forgot about them. About 9 turns later, I kept noticing "riots" which killed so many of my soldiers there over about 4 turns, but I neglected to even look at them, because there was no money to retrain casualties, and I was really busy elsewhere. I finally looked at Cyrene, and to my horror, there was a full stack out there from Macedon, and all of my units were at half strength or less, and one turn to surrender. I sallied, and it was a near run thing. When the smoke cleared after the battle, I had won, but the ai had consolidated my stack to one unit of cavalry, one of archers, one of peltasts, and one of two types of infantry, and they were all badly depleted! It took over a dozen turns to get back up to full strength, because there was so little left.

I would not recommend "waiting."

If you have a strong army in there to begin with, a sally on the first turn will chase them off almost every time.

It's harder now with the 1.2 because they don't stand out there waiting for arrows anymore, but then again, I could never understand why they stood out there waiting for arrows to start with.

I certainly don't like to fight them in the streets defensively. That is a very bad indicator. The best way is to kill them just outside your wall, and let your cavalry clean up the stragglers.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Rilder]

lets see, If i got phalanxes even low moral militias set up on the crucial points near the town center, man i remeber in my seclucid campaign defending off 5 or 6 FULLY stacked armies with nothing but 3 or 4 militia hoplite units, needless to say my general became a legend in short time

if i got stone walls and good infantry on the walls, if i can hold off the initial drop off of the seige tower door dropping then i've won already, if i have good infantry and wood walls then set up around the breaces if i have enough if not, defend the center....

welll needless to say i prefer phalanxes in my garisons

[Kickius Buttius]

Very situational, as others have pointed out.

I would say that most often I bribe the offending army out of existence. I keep a diplomat within two turns of every city that I own and try to keep at least 10,000 denarii on hand at all times. I play on h/h or vh/h, so this isn't always possible, but most of the time I am able to do so.

Failing bribery, my preferred method would be to send a relief force. I think the AI makes defending the city too easy.

[professorspatula]

I sally if I can. The AI is very poor at sieges, and now at least the AI retreats far from the walls when you sally so you have a proper fight. That said, I've waited a bit longer than usual to sally lately. If I'm not confident of a good victory and I know the AI will just send more units to siege my settlement again, I might let the AI assault the walls in their own time. Depending on my force, I'll try and hold walls for as long as possible, but also send cavalry out to cause the enemy as much trouble as possible. The last such battle I had, the stupid AI had all its archers carry their siege equipment, so I was able to use mercenary archer cavalry and heavy cavalry outside the walls and kill off much of their force whilst my infantry held the walls. Had their archers been free to fire, they'd have killed most of my cavalry and defenders on the walls. In fact in the battle, it was the AI's pesky wardogs that caused the most trouble, chasing my cavalry back into the stronghold, and then biting at their heels down the streets. It's so embarassing to see your elite cavalry taken down by a bunch of overfed mutts.

[Red Harvest]

LOL, yeah, the wardogs are a real immersion killer for me, and the problems of not being able to engage them properly really get on my nerves. My solution was to remove them from the building queue. Now I get to face more historical units.

Perhaps it is just me, but I haven't found dogs intimidating since I was 8 years old.