"Settlement Besieged" -- what do you do?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A Quiz on tactics -- comments appreciated.

[Kekvit Irae]

Fighting on the walls is a much safer tactic than sallying forth. Letting them come at you one at a time is much better than having to rearrange your troops once you get out of the gates. Fighting in the streets means you were too stupid or too unlucky to defend the walls.

[Krauser]

I wait for a relief force if there is one nearby otherwise I wait on the walls.

[Red Harvest]

The AI is so inept with missile troops that I always sally. I always keep a missile unit or two around and start the war of attrition immediately, because I can't win the melee fight in most of these. In 95+% of sallies, even against much larger AI armies, the AI will try to turn away and set up farther from the city. The AI army is very vulnerable when it does this, so I rush archers/slingers out and close, which allows them to fire into the rear of withdrawing heavy infantry. A cav unit or two can also be used to make units rout or pick them off if they break.

I send out some light cav or family member in support of the missile units, so that I can successfully withdraw the missile units if things get hairy. I will also use any cav I have to chase down onagers and such, since they move too slow and get left behind before the AI has reset.

I usually have some spears available, and I will use these as a stop gap against cav attacks. I can actually tear up the enemy cav pretty well this way, since it tends to come in piecemeal.

Typical sally for me would be 2 slingers (or archers/horse archers combo), 1 or 2 units of spears, or moderate infantry, 1 family member, maybe 1 or 2 cav/mounted javs (if I didn't have hrose archers for missile troops--if I did then I probably wouldn't have any foot archers or foot slingers.) Typical force size is about 5-6 units total, often facing 15+.

Assuming a large enemy force, with my missile units and opportunistic cav attacks I seek to kill off at least 2 and usually 4 enemy units in my first major sally. Then, when I run out of ammo, I go back inside and take the draw. On the next turn I do the same--and if I have a bit of luck I can win on the 2nd sally. If I haven't got enough edge left to win the melee on VH/VH, I will instead withdraw again to take the draw. By the 3rd turn I am always am in position to win in the sally (or in defense if the enemy assaults.)

Rarely some major blunder will happen and I lose a sally. If I don't have enough missile units to win in time, I'll send in some relief units to produce a successful sally.

[GreatEmperor]

I just wait until the attack me, and then fight on/behind the walls or I position my army in the streets.
If they wait till starvation, I'll sally the 2nd last turn and the last if I lost the previous battle.

[Somebody Else]

I'll saunter out if it looks like I can get a few easy kills without any losses, but generally I'll wait for them to assault - it's nice and easy to clobber them on the walls, or funnel them into nasty little deathtraps in the streets. Sometimes a relief force is handy - then I'll sent that in.

All depends on the situation.

[Magraev]

With phalanxes nothing is sweeter than a street-fight.

If I have good odds I'll sally quickly rather than being starved out. Usually I wait and see if the AI builds some siege-equipment and thus is going to assault. Otherwise I'll sally immediately - ideally with some outside aid.

[Conqueror]

I voted that I always sally out immediatly. That's what I usually do, except for these special cases:
- Settlement has 100% peasant garrison -> I wait for a relief force.
- I either have only infantry, or am outmatched like 10-1 -> wait for them to attack me.

Whether I fight on streets or walls depends on the type of units I have. If I have legionaries then I defend the walls. If I have just phalanxes then I fight on the streets.

When sallying, I usually leave my infantry out of the battle entirely, put my archers on the walls and use my cavalry to attack the enemy units one at a time. If they start chasing my cavalry then I retreat back to the walls where my archers and the towers will punish the chasers. Using these tactics I can win heroic victories against armies 5 times bigger, without major casualties to my own forces. It makes very boring and long winded battles though.

[Cras]

I usually attack from the walls, my cities usually have 5-6-7 units of archers, 2-3 cav's, rest inf. units.
Often the attackers go to right side of the field (dont ask me why), and will do that sort of in formation therefor coming within range of the archers on the wall,.. this will kill 3-400 of then in the first few minutes of the fight.

what I then do depends on the fact if I am attacked by 1 or more armies.

if it is one, I sally out for all my forces making a nice tight line with all archers behind then slowly creeping up on the army, decimating a lot of their units. What is left is then easy to kill with the infantrie and cav.

If there are more armies, you often know from what side they will join the fight, after the first sally of arrows from the walls I move my archers to side of the wall the other army has to pass killing perhaps 20-30% of them.

if the remaining army is to big I will lure unit to my walls with my general, teasing them to attack (if I have still arrows left). When nothing is left I turn game speed to max and wait the draw out...

this I will do till the sieging armies are defeated or till a supporting army arrives....

[TB666]

I only sally when the enemy are trying to starve me out and I usually do it on the last turn.
A heroic all or nothing attempt
If they don't then I wait for the assault.
And when they attack I will fight them on the walls and streets.
Usually put half of the infantry on the walls and the rest on the streets.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Depends:

• If there's a relief force at most two turns away and the odds ―according to my observations, not the AI's calculations― are obviously against me, I rush the relief force and play a double penetration battle.
• If the assaulting AI army has infantry units and a have one or two foor missile and two or more decent infantry units, I know that they will assault the next turn; kill them off on the walls. If I have light or missile cav, I also make mini-sallies from the backdoors (in case of besieging reinforcements) and decimate their often weak infantry.
• If I'm behind wooden walls or lower, I sally no matter what. Even if I lost, I would take half or more of the besiegers with me to Valhalla.

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[Ciaran]

Can a city be starved out in RTW in the first place? Whenever I try to do that, the AI always sallies forth in the last turn.
So far, I always had relief forces close enough, so I can´t recall being starved out. I haven´t seen many battles on the defender´s side, as well.

[Magraev]

The AI sometimes surrenders without a fight when severely outclassed/outnumbered.

In my oppinion they should always sally - for no other reason than to take some of my troops with them when they go.

[Mouzafphaerre]

Can a city be starved out in RTW in the first place? Whenever I try to do that, the AI always sallies forth in the last turn.
So far, I always had relief forces close enough, so I can´t recall being starved out. I haven´t seen many battles on the defender´s side, as well.

.
In my recent Hun (BI) campaign I've noticed that Romans always prefer an honourable starvation while rebels always sally with their petty peasants and get grinded down.
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[Slicendice]

I always sally. Especially if I have some good cavalry in the city.

I keep a unit or two of peasants in every city so usually sallying is not a good option.

Honestly though the AI is still crap. They seige and then leave the city alone and then they come back and seige it again. I am so disappointed with the AI. But that's another thread.

My cavalry rushes out when the enemy is repositioning. (just like another poster said)

Archers provide support.

Sometimes the enemy will chase my general around the city getting cut up by my archers and towers. Haven't seen that in BI yet.

I've defeated an army of thousands with just 1 general. Took a couple turns but I did it. All you really need to do is kill their infantry and then their cavalry will leave.

[Somebody Else]

Generally, as long as I have a halfway decent force within a city, I'm quite happy to let them try and assault me. Even if they do succeed in capturing the place, I can usually inflict such a mauling that I can waltz in the next turn or so and relieve the AI of their new settlement.

For example, taking Londinium off the WRE in BI, the Romano-British when they pop up go straight for it. Playing as the Saxons recently, 6 basic infantry units, 4 archers and 3 peasants were enough to inflict ~80% casualties on the full stack that popped up, allowing my Eburacum garrison to come in and win the place back without any problems. (Stone walls)

Also, fighting in the streets - any size settlement - effectively negates most of the advantage from numbers - was able to completely destroy a 3 quarter stack Roman army (several comitatenses, limitanei, archers, etc. oh, and a 6 star general) with 2 units of spearmen and a 3 star faction leader. (Stockade)

Basically - cities are deathtraps for assaulting armies, so let them die.

[Prodigal]

That's not a single answer question. If heavily outnumbered & have no relief force available sit & wait to defend. If the numbers are against me but I have a decent force & there's no relief, sally & do as much damage as possible with as little loss as possible, this has two results, you either get them to run, or at least do them some damage too. If I'm even close to their numbers, chase & destroy their army, then head straight for their nearest city; this has two benefits, you get you're own back & the follow up stacks they've probably got coming towards you, are fought on their land rather than yours.

[dismal]

I almost always sally out immediately.

This is because I almost alwasy garrison at least 4-5 archers and a couple spears in a border city, and can use this army to beat (or at least inflict pretty severe damage on in a "draw") most of what the AI brings.

If I don't have enough defenders (in relation to the attackers) I'll try to get a relief force there. I'll try to position them on the opposite side of the city from the besiegers, which allows me to get them inside the walls and then use my sally out tactics.

Actually defending a siege I almost never do, and if I do it's usually because I was so undermanned I couldn't sally out so it's an inevitable defeat.

[Riedquat]

I voted that I always sally out immediatly. That's what I usually do, except for these special cases:
- Settlement has 100% peasant garrison -> I wait for a relief force.
- I either have only infantry, or am outmatched like 10-1 -> wait for them to attack me.

Whether I fight on streets or walls depends on the type of units I have. If I have legionaries then I defend the walls. If I have just phalanxes then I fight on the streets.

When sallying, I usually leave my infantry out of the battle entirely, put my archers on the walls and use my cavalry to attack the enemy units one at a time. If they start chasing my cavalry then I retreat back to the walls where my archers and the towers will punish the chasers. Using these tactics I can win heroic victories against armies 5 times bigger, without major casualties to my own forces. It makes very boring and long winded battles though.

Word for word is exactly what I do.

[Geoffrey S]

Save and load.

[dismal]

The poll should probably be simpler:

1) Mostly sally out immediately
2) Mostly fight on the walls
3) Mostly fight in the street
4) Mostly wait to sally out (w/ relief force)

I've probably done all of the above at times, but sally out immediately 90% of the time.

[gardibolt]

Like others here, it's situational.

If the besiegers have lots of archers and I have a fair amount of cavalry, I'll sally and try to wipe them out.

If I see them building siege engines, I'll wait for the assault since it's like defending a bridge battle: cake.

If all I have are peasants, I scoot a relief force as fast as I can.

But I voted wait for the siege since that's what applies about half the time.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I sally immediately if there is no sally force nearby, unless a victory is impossible. For example I won't sally a unit of principes against a stack or half a stack unless it is extremely peasant heavy. If there is a relief force within a couple of turns I will wait for it if I think I'll need the extra edge in a battle, but that doesn't happen too often.

[Red Harvest]

After responding in this thread, I had the nightmare sally scenario unfold: I was playing Numidia on VH/VH. Egypt besieged me in Siwa before I could get any long range units...still I sallied...three times...Egypt was reinforced and we fought in the streets/square where I was narrowly beaten by the surviving egyptian family member.

Initial battle, Sally 1:
Numidia (me): 1 mid size family member, 2 Numidian Mtd. Javs., 4 Numidian javelinmen (1 a merc), 2 Desert Infantry, 1 Peasant. Relatively large army, but NO long range units were available.

Egypt: ~2 mid size family members (chariot archers), 1 chariot archer, 3 bowmen, 1 javelinman, 1 slinger, 1 Numidian Cav merc., 4 Nubian spearmen, 3 peasants.

This should be an impossible match up for Numidia as it is massively outranged and would be severaly outclassed in melee both on the mounted side, and on the infantry side. However, the AI has no idea how to use all those archers or its phalanx units...and I know that.

Tough fight, but I managed to catch the bowmen on the run and kill all but 30 of them. Killed some of the peasants, which are a nuisance on VH. Set my javs loose on the chariot archer unit cutting it down to 1/3rd. Also used javs to weaken the Nubian phalanxes. Killed off the merc. cav. Losses due to chariot archer missiles were high but I still killed better than 2:1 before withdrawing.

Sally 2:
My decent general got caught by some chariots and was killed in this sally (running down bowmen and being slowed by remaining peasant speedbumps...which allowed the chariots to catch him,) fortunately I was "reinforced" by a family member coming of age in the settlement. Now with reduced morale, I couldn't keep my javs from routing, but did cause more damage to the phalanx units, etc.

Sally 3:
Situation desparate. Weak general. Pushed forward with javs to kill off phalanx, and hoped that chariots would try to engage. Nubians nearly dead at the end, chariot archer unit dead, only the two Egypian family members and a few scraps remained...but I couldn't face them until my troops were re-equipped with missiles and morale.

Assault:
AI reinforced with two units of slingers and 2 more nubian spearmen. I'm down to scraps: small general unit, small numidian cav, 2 javelinmen, 1 spearman. I sally out with puny cav force as the rams approach killing 3/4 the slingers manning them. General gets caught by an Egyptian family member and is of course mauled but makes it back into settlement. One ram makes it to the wall, my javs close to the wall inflict heavy losses on the spearman. I withdraw to the square. Rout all units of phalanx spearmen at the square, and kill the enemy general, but finally succumb to the remaining enemy family member.

Conclusion:
Had my main general not been killed in the 2nd sally, I would have won. The reinforcements Egypt received were then pivotal. Still came close to pulling it off. The AI has no idea how to use its forces. There was no way for me to reinforce, so I risked nothing by sallying. In the end I destroyed nearly a full Egyptian's stack worth of men, giving me time to take out the remaining Carthaginians in Africa at Lepcis Magna, and prepare a *real* army to meet the Egyptians near Cyrene.

[Red Harvest]

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...

[Kaldhore]

As many others have said you cant really give one answer - at least thats the way it should be.

High Cav - Sally
Phalanx Inf - Fight in streets (If using many Archers with Phlanx - have them shoot on the walls then as the enamy gets to the walls - run along the walls to the other gates then come down off the wall to the main square - leading the enemy to your spears).
Non-Phanlanx Inf - all or nothing Wall fight

Remember tho that when you play as the Romans in RTW, you can get Phalanx Mercs from sardinia - Never wait for the Senate to tell you to take Sardinia, go for it asap, then hire the mercs when ever you can - put the merc phalanx in border towns close to enemies and see the effects - early on v the gauls they are outstanding.

[Kagemusha]

I dont face many assaults in the game.I mostly handle these things stratecigally. I place my defensive armys so that they are actually very near the enemy cities.If enemy army sieges my City, i usually move the war in their domain by counter sieging one of their cities.This usually leads into that the enemy army breaks the siege and tryes to lift the siege from their own city,what gives me the edge of fighting an defensive battle and usually gives me a new city.
If this wont happen i bring army from the interior from my domain and attack the invading force,but this have not happened many times.

[Garvanko]

Save and load.

Heh.

Usually I try to relieve the besieged city and fight them in the field. I sally only if I have superior numbers and troops or where I am left with no other choice.

[Tyrac]

The AI is so inept with missile troops that I always sally. I always keep a missile unit or two around and start the war of attrition immediately, because I can't win the melee fight in most of these. In 95+% of sallies, even against much larger AI armies, the AI will try to turn away and set up farther from the city. The AI army is very vulnerable when it does this, so I rush archers/slingers out and close, which allows them to fire into the rear of withdrawing heavy infantry. A cav unit or two can also be used to make units rout or pick them off if they break.

I send out some light cav or family member in support of the missile units, so that I can successfully withdraw the missile units if things get hairy. I will also use any cav I have to chase down onagers and such, since they move too slow and get left behind before the AI has reset.

I usually have some spears available, and I will use these as a stop gap against cav attacks. I can actually tear up the enemy cav pretty well this way, since it tends to come in piecemeal.

Typical force size is about 5-6 units total, often facing 15+.

Assuming a large enemy force, with my missile units and opportunistic cav attacks I seek to kill off at least 2 and usually 4 enemy units in my first major sally. Then, when I run out of ammo, I go back inside and take the draw. On the next turn I do the same--and if I have a bit of luck I can win on the 2nd sally. If I haven't got enough edge left to win the melee on VH/VH, I will instead withdraw again to take the draw. By the 3rd turn I am always am in position to win in the sally (or in defense if the enemy assaults.)

Rarely some major blunder will happen and I lose a sally. If I don't have enough missile units to win in time, I'll send in some relief units to produce a successful sally.

I just cut and pasted this rather then just write it again in my own words. :)

[Just A Girl]

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