Multiple Faction Sieges

[Agent Smith]

Ok, this may very well fall under the "Yeah, we knew that already" category, but I just thought I'd shout it out.

I just found out that, during a crusade, if a crusading army from another faction got their first and is already laying siege, you can still lay siege, too. This is a huge boon if you have artillery and the other army does not. They may be sitting there waiting it out, but you can assault as soon as you get there. And, of course, the faction that assaults is the faction that will get the city.

I bet this would work with jihads, too. I also want to see if this is the case when an ally is sieging a city...

[HoreTore]

You can do this with any city besieged by someone you're allied to. I don't know if they've changed this in v1.2, but prepatch, you had to be allied to the faction laying siege to a crusade/jihad target to besiege it.

[Quickening]

Yep. I helped my allies Hungary out assaulting Jerusalem once. My PC nearly died but it was great fun.

[Chosun]

If I'm not mistaken, even if your forces take the center of the city for control before your allies do, they get to keep the city/castle and not you. Haven't done this in awhile but if all you wanna do is fight, then I guess it's OK.

[FactionHeir]

Note that even though several people can besiege the city, if during the siege the alliance breaks, only the original besieger is allowed to assault. You can only move away or hope they stop the siege.

[Frederick_I_Barbarossa]

If I'm not mistaken, even if your forces take the center of the city for control before your allies do, they get to keep the city/castle and not you. Haven't done this in awhile but if all you wanna do is fight, then I guess it's OK.

You're not mistaken

[Bob the Insane]

If I'm not mistaken, even if your forces take the center of the city for control before your allies do, they get to keep the city/castle and not you. Haven't done this in awhile but if all you wanna do is fight, then I guess it's OK.

Unless it has changed in 1.02 it is the case... If the attack was started by your ally (it does not matter who started the Siege first) then it does not matter if you take the square or they do, the settlement goes to your ally...

This works both ways too... When besiging a Jerusalim in a crusade with an ally near enough to help, the garrison sallied and I was fought to a stalemate... The AI only had a few spearmen left (guarding the main square, which is annoying cosidering they were sallying) but I had only a few knights but not enough to take on the remaining spearmen. My knight where inside the city and i used them to open gates which let my allies in. They took the square and wiped out the remaining defenders and I got the city...

[Quillan]

I've done similar things, used a spy or artillery to make an immediate assault, then let my "ally" do most of the dying before I mopped up the defenders. If my ally wins the assault, I get the city. If my ally loses the assault, I can still take the city. The only thing you have to watch is the time limit.

[Shahed]

In my experience this is not the case.

The first person who sieges the city gets it. Has'nt that happened to anyone else ?

[Bob the Insane]

In my experience this is not the case.

The first person who sieges the city gets it. Has'nt that happened to anyone else ?

I don't think so, I frequently steal from allies by besieging and assaulting a settlement they already have undersiege, not only does it force them to help but you get the settlement...

You can even do this to yourself...

In one instance I was besieging with a large crusader stack the crusade target. I brought up a siege engine stack after a few turns later and besieged with that too. I then used this non-crusade stack to lead the assault... Well I took the city but it was my non-crusade stack that did thus resulting in a canceled crusade because the target had been captured...

[TevashSzat]

Works especially well if you encounter a large garrison. Just let your allies wear your enemy out and then just charge in and mop up allowing to take a settlement easily with minimal casualties.

[sbroadbent]

In my experience this is not the case.

The first person who sieges the city gets it. Has'nt that happened to anyone else ?

In my first campaign as the English (note this was Vanila 1.0), the HRE had either Bruges or Antwerp sieged and we were allies. I had several spies and was able to have the gates opened, so I sent a stack to assault.

A couple things occured. Even though I opened the gates the HRE sat passively outside the settlement. It was as though the HRE wasn't able to enter because it didn't think that it could enter the gates and had no siege equipment.

Once I had taken the settlement, the HRE got annoyed that I was awarded the settlement, and started a war with me. The only problem is that most of their armies were pavise crossbow and catapult/trebuchets.

[Shahed]

LOL.

Ok this is great, I guess why it did'nt happen to me is because I did'nt assault... doh !. Thanks.

[Chosun]

So my question would be:

If your ally started the siege and then you join, (like one turn later) and you start the assault and take the center, the city is yours?

What if your ally loses all his forces during the assault and you mop up, who gets the city?

I thought this was a simple question but now I am confused.

Either way, allies on the battle map are pretty worthless for me. They are always slow to enter combat and they just get in the way. Wish you could at least give them some kind of orders.

[Agent Smith]

So my question would be:

If your ally started the siege and then you join, (like one turn later) and you start the assault and take the center, the city is yours?

What if your ally loses all his forces during the assault and you mop up, who gets the city?

I thought this was a simple question but now I am confused.

Either way, allies on the battle map are pretty worthless for me. They are always slow to enter combat and they just get in the way. Wish you could at least give them some kind of orders.

If you start the assault, you always get the city no matter what. So, whether you take the center or your ally does, it is yours. Also, your ally could waste his entire army and you mop up, and you still get it.

[Sentinel]

When crusading against Constantinople I sent 4 spies in to open the gates. But since a HRE full stack arrived just after me I waited for them to start the siege, whilst I moped up some rebels. Next turn I attacked. I thought I was being so cleaver.

I could just sit there and watch the HRE (who were next on my list to attack) keep the large garrison busy and get massacred at the gates, whist I trotted in through the back door and claim the city.

Unfortunately the HRE had time to build a siege tower.

They ignored the open gates and proceeded to push the tower to the walls. When the tower got to the wall, ALL the HRE infantry tried to climb the tower, at the same time.
The computer then went into slow down doing about 1 frame every few minutes. The battle became unplayable.

I would not be denied my prize, maybe if a wait a bit until the stupid HRE clear the tower it would speed up.
So went and did the washing up, got out the vacuum, took wife shopping etc (all good investments for peace on the PC later). I returned to the computer 6 hours later only to find them still trying to get up the same bloody tower.

I then gave up, reload my save game, auto-resolved the battle and took the losses. I lost halve my stack and the HRE lost 10 men.

[atheotes]

In Vanilla RTW, i always used to make use of my allies. Particularly when playing as one of the roman factions... since they start with an Onagers, i will take a small force along with onagers and go around to the expansion side of the other families (if i play Julii, i will go to sicily or tarentum)... I will wait till the other family besieges a settlement.. and then move in and attack in the same turn... In the battle i will just breakdown the walls and my faithful allies will go thru it (most of the times they come running around the wall under fire - talk abt faithfulness!!!). They will kill most if not all the enemies giving me a settlement with very few losses if any...

[Bob the Insane]

So now that we know that your ally gets the settlement if they lead the attack, what do you do in that situation?

The honourable thing? Sending in your forces and doing everything you can to help you noble ally gain the settlement...

Or do you sit back and watch the your AI Allies assault hoping that he will fail while taking out a substantial portion of the garrison?...

[Quillan]

I let my AI buddy take all the losses. I'll engage with missile fire where I can, I'll run down routers where I take few to no losses, but I'll only engage fully if it looks like they are losing the battle. Since I'm taking part in the battle, if it comes down to a loss, I'll take the same computer-assigned casualties at the end. So, we don't lose the battle, but I'll take as few casualties as humanly possible while letting my ally take the most the enemy can dish out. My allies all wind up turning on me anyway, so I'm not worried about it.

If it happened in a multiplayer game, I'd be in the thick of the fight, but not in this case.

[atheotes]

So now that we know that your ally gets the settlement if they lead the attack, what do you do in that situation?

The honourable thing? Sending in your forces and doing everything you can to help you noble ally gain the settlement...

Or do you sit back and watch the your AI Allies assault hoping that he will fail while taking out a substantial portion of the garrison?...

hmm..to think abt it... i have actually never let it happen. I dont know what happens if my allies fail... does my army gets kicked out or continue to siege...

In the few occasions when my allies have assaulted, they were times when i was trying to help out my ally, so i actually fight and help them get the settlement.

[Bob the Insane]

hmm..to think abt it... i have actually never let it happen. I dont know what happens if my allies fail... does my army gets kicked out or continue to siege....

If your allies are the lead army (they initiated the assault) and they all get wiped out or retreat from the battle the fight still continues while you are still there... You can go on and defeat the enemy and take the square if you like but when the battle is over (if you are victorious) your ally still gets the settlement... (plus as part of the winning side he will get back any of his troops that were taken prisoner)...

I think I prefer the RTW style of whoever took the square first with the square being captured by the allied forces with the most soldiers in it...

[Agent Smith]

So now that we know that your ally gets the settlement if they lead the attack, what do you do in that situation?

The honourable thing? Sending in your forces and doing everything you can to help you noble ally gain the settlement...

Or do you sit back and watch the your AI Allies assault hoping that he will fail while taking out a substantial portion of the garrison?...

It would be nice if such multi-faction battles had effects on diplomacy. You should get a diplomatic boost for helping an ally out or vice versa. Maybe even make the boost higher depending on how much you actually did in the battle.

That's probably a pipe dream, though.