Seige

[Chrisjm15]

Hi there, I'm a Noob, first post.

Playing as the English M/M turn 40ish. At war with Portugal (they blockaded my port once) :inquisitive: and Denmark. Pope has ecom'd me (the old Denmark declares war, I kick their ass and the Pope gets annoyed cos I pissed him off for killing off the Scots in turn6) .:furious3:

I'm spread a little thin :oops: as have Edin, all of England, and the top row of France/Belgium/Holland. Now have taken Hamburg and Arnus (sp?) from the Danes. No depth to my line, and the Danes are now camped outside Hamburg with a similar amount of troops (but way better than my collection of militia spearmen).

Question is are they going to seige me????


I also have 6 sets of Longbowmen so wouldn't mind. Think I could just stand on the walls and pick them off. :2thumbsup:

They're currently waiting it out and it's starting to annoy me cos my men are going to surrender sooner rather than later and getting troops there from my castles in England might not happen in time. :whip:

Further question - what are the pros and cons of seiging if you just have to wait around until they surrender?

Thanks. :laugh4:

[FactionHeir]

You can assault or wait it out depending on what you prefer. Waiting it out allows reinforcements for either side to show up.

If the AI waits you out, you can sally each turn and cause some casualties if you have long range missile units. To sally, have units exit the gate, inflict some casualties and retreat back to the safety of the walls. When you end battle, it will be a draw and the siege continues. You can do so once a turn per settlement.

[Chrisjm15]

I didn't realise you could sally every turn, thought once you'd done it that was it. Might do it a couple of times to wittle down their numbers then reinforce and kick their ass. :smash:

Also, does the AI every actually seige you, or do they just wait? :beam:

[FactionHeir]

Depends. Sometimes they assault you a turn or two in, sometimes they wait you out completely, but if you can whittle down their numbers, they often just retreat.

If you siege the AI, they usually wait till the very last turn to sally.

[batemonkey]

Do you have to wait for the battle timer to run out or can you just quit the battle?

[FactionHeir]

Just quit it, but make sure your units are all back inside the walls.

[Old Geezer]

Has anyone noticed if there is a particular mix of troops you can have which will entice the AI into assaulting rather than waiting out the siege? Will having a relieving force on the way "encourage" the AI to assault?

[ReiseReise]

I believe that whether the AI assaults (or sallies out if they are under siege), depends on the battle odds they will get. I'm not sure what the minimum numbers are because I am usually defending with an 'inferior' force so the AI always has superior odds and always assaults as soon as it builds 1 ram, 1 ladder and 1 tower. Likewise for the AI sallying, I always attack them with superior force so they never sally unless it is the last turn.

Playing Broken Crescent it is very easy to use this to your advantage to capture cities with all cavalry armies. The battle odds severely underestimate horse archers and the super heavy cav, so it is possible to give the enemy 4:3 odds in his favor which will make him sally on the first turn, and he will get chewed up by your 'inferior' force.

Two great examples taken from the first turns of a Georgia campaign:

General and 2 super-heavies (61 total) massacre 481 enemies after the enemy sallies out. Note that there were only 60 prisoners, all units in BC have higher morale and don't route very easily. Most of the enemy died on impact, the middle screen is a great action shot of this. Also the 'super-heavies' are Monaspa Lancers, which you start the game with 2 units of, but you can't build more of them until much much later in the game.
http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/46015/2003032018054168555_th.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003032018054168555) http://aycu40.webshots.com/image/44519/2003006907005929369_th.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003006907005929369) http://aycu38.webshots.com/image/47277/2003093334332548788_th.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003093334332548788)

Then I tempted another garrison to sally out, this time using horse archers and no general.
http://aycu15.webshots.com/image/48134/2003093167695226919_th.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003093167695226919) http://aycu37.webshots.com/image/47876/2003039199321515012_th.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003039199321515012)

Anyway, this doesn't work nearly as well in the vanilla game.