Too many siege battles?

[Harry Lime]

Hi, first post and all that...

Does anyone remember Civilization 2? This game reminds me a lot of the end game in it. It was all about jumping from city to city by sending spies into enemy cities, destroy their walls and roll in with cavalry or armor. At the same time the AI didn't give a f* about their reputation and kept sneak attacking you dispite whatever diplomatic agreement you had with them, while you had to be very careful about your own reputation if you wanted to be able to use the diplomatic options at all.

Here we have another reason to why there are so many siege battles in this game. The AI don't care if you have peace with them, are their allies or are at war, they act the same anyway by moving their troops into your territory to lay siege to any city or castle they find looking nifty.

[sapi]

Jumping in late on this topic, a notion that i've always entertained as a possible way to avoid siege battles is drastically increasing the reinforcement radius.

While i'd be the first to admit that i'm not a modder (and thus have no idea how to do so or if it's even possible) I've always felt that it provides the best way around the current lack of field battles (or, more specifically, the way that you can pick the ai armies off one by one).

This would also have the other effect of having the ai's garrison join the fighting, ensuring that, like mtw1, if you won the battle you'd likely win the campaign in that province.

Just my $0.02

[dopp]

I fight a lot of field battles, actually. Are you using any increased movement mods? They can mess up everything.

[dismal]

I personally love the new map. There's so much more options and maneuver. They just need to produce a better AI. Something that the AI should try when they find their armies stranded behind my lines is to take one of my cities there.

One problem that they often face is that despite the fact that they have a full stack 1 turn's march from an ill defended city of mine, they try to make it back to relieve their city which is 2 or 3 turns' march away. I assault as soon as I can. Thus, they turn rebel. Meanwhile, if they take my city that's near them, they would merely trade cities and avoid faction elimination. The problem is that such complex evaluation algorithms are unlikely to be implemented soon.

I agree that new map an better AI would be the best answer.

But is coding the AI to defned its cities all that hard? Honestly, I think it would be a big help if there were an algorithm that kept nearby troops inside the walls anytime there is an army within 2 turns march.

If the guys were in the city when I attack it, they'd extract some level of damage and wouldn't be stranded behind my lines trying to figure out what to do.

I was marching on a city yesterday, and when I'm one turn away the AI emptied it down to 2-3 units. There were probably 2.5 stacks worth of potential defenders in the area standing around while I went right by to take the city. (I took some screenies which I'll try to add later.)

I don't know how hard it would be to revamp the campaign map AI, but I think "underdefending cities" is a serious flaw right now -- possibly the most serious flaw in the game.

I bet if you watched 100 human players, they would all garrison their border cities, and would all try as hard as possible to increase the garrison when an aggressive army was bearing down on their city. The AI seems to have other priorities. Like quiet walks in the countryside.

[Dave1984]

I think the 3D map is tremendous and a galactic sized improvement on the risk-style map. That was my only real complaint with MTW, the fact that each region had only one battlefield and one castle battle map, that an attack from the north fought on the same ground as an attack from the south when at least with the 3D map, whilst the AI has some trouble with it at the minute, it represents far more accurately the way wars of the time were fought (even if terrain is condensed a little).

I use BigMap and make sure that movement is not doubled so that field battles are far more common than sieges.
Sieges at the moment bore the hell out of me. Each siege battle is the same as the last and because out the pathfinding issues with streets you have to add alot of frustration into the mix. I have to be honest I usually now just wait for the defenders to sally or surrender now, or autoresolve if I have a pressing need for the settlement sharpish.
If I'm the defender, I always try to get a relief force there immediately and attack the besiegers with that so it's still an open field battle.

[Kraggenmor]

I fight a lot of field battles, actually. Are you using any increased movement mods? They can mess up everything.

Assuming the question was for 'all': I use no mods at all.

And, in an update of sorts, I finished my Spanish campaign and started a new one as the Scots. In that campaign I'm seeing more field battles. Not a "lot" more but, more.

[Barkhorn1x]

IMO, the 3D map is fine, it is the Strat AI that is hopelessly hosed. Difficult to program? Sure. So what? That is what CA should have been focusing on instead of those useless (and crappy) bloom effects and (awesome) unit shadowing. Enough excuses already! Why is it too much to ask that the Strat/Diplo. code:

- "Orient" a faction to ally w/ factions a./b./c. and assault factions d./e./f.
- Change these orientations based on the condition of other factions - OVER TIME - not just arbitrarily.
- Keep armies out of allied territory unless they are actually going to attack - or you have granted them ROW and they are going somewhere.
- Garrisoning cities reasonably.*
- Attacking you w/ a reasonable force.*

The game is still much fun - and even better w/ the Heraldry and DarthMods in place - but it could have been a classic. Finally, I seriously doubt that the next patch will fix any of the issues I listed.

Barkhorn.

----------------
* In my current H/H campaign as the Danes I am besieging Breslau (HRE) w/ a 15 unit force. The garrison of the castle is about 3 units (the typical [pathetic]spear militia/archer mix). Two turns ago a 2 unit HRE "relief" force marched up but is sitting there doing nothing while larger stacks of HRE forces flit back and forth on the map. I know that, as this is the last turn the castle can hold out, the defenders will sally forth - only to be destroyed - and the "relief" force will attack - only to be destroyed. Now, the pageantry of the whole thing keeps me interested but how cool would it be if the AI had 10 units in the city and moved up another 10 more to snuff me? I don't think I would be so confident caught "between two fires".

[Kraggenmor]

- Keep armies out of allied territory unless they are actually going to attack -

Well, this one seems to be taken care of. For my part, I have yet to see an army in my territory that didn't attack.

[dismal]

Well, this one seems to be taken care of. For my part, I have yet to see an army in my territory that didn't attack.

Are you playing the patch? It seems to have spurred the AI's desire to invade without attacking.

It's not uncommon to have 4 or 5 enemy or neutral armies milling about my empire at any given time since I installed it.

I think I have had 3 different armies hovering about Ajaccio at one point.

The neutral ones are the ones that really drive you crazy. The enemy ones you get around to wiping out eventually.

[rich19]

Really? I haven't installed the patch yet, but I have loads of neutral HRE armies milling around the north of my regions as milan. There was an almost full stack one hanging around 2 squares north of the city of Milan for years.

[baron_Leo]

And to the question, why I want to fight land battles: because they are lot's of fun:-) I like them more then sieges. Much more actually. More room to maneuver. And I get the creeps from siege-battles fighting in streets, where there would be plenty of room for going around, but no, you cannot go around. And unit placement...ahh

[Von Nanega]

It seems to sepend on what kind of territory you are in. (Big or small) And also what your Army relative strength is vs the AI army relative strength. If I want a field battle, I attack, wait for the AI to retreat, then attack again. This way I get lots of battles in the field. If you want a challengeing seige, attack with out the super city taking army. Up on the walls with ladders and towers will certaintly change the dynamic.

[RussianWinter]

I think the 3D map is tremendous and a galactic sized improvement on the risk-style map. That was my only real complaint with MTW, the fact that each region had only one battlefield and one castle battle map, that an attack from the north fought on the same ground as an attack from the south

If memory servers, your complaint is based on a false assumption - each side of the border had a different battlemap, some were specifically hilly, rivers, flat, etc.

[fabiano]

Hi,

I too autoresolve most of the battles. Too many siege battles. If the castles/citadels were diferents it could be fun, but they are very similar.

If you want you could fight some battles, because the enemys always has units moving around the map, but why fight against then if the city is unprotected?

I think the problem is the small zone of control (red square aorund the units). If they are larger (200 units control a lot less territories then 2000) it would be diferent. If the enemy or you want to invae you have to passa the army. And it could give a new push to forts. A huge army fortified, controling your borders, as it was in history. If you want o pass, fight then or discover a alternative route.

Fabiano