castle battles

[Kroney]

right then. in sp, does the AI ever force a siege? i tend to find that the computer will just occupy a territory and wait you out. i want all those castle upgrades like ballista towers to mean something.

[Rosacrux]

Oh, yes, AI does it and quite often. At least from what I've seen. They got some pretty nasty tendancies (attack only when they outnumber your defendants by far) but they do. And they usually get their arse handed to them on a plate, once they do http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Magraev]

It happens. I've seen it a couple of times with the golden horde assaulting my minimal garrison at Khazar and Armenia (and obliterating them both...).

Took me 3 years to wipe them out that time.

[Kroney]

so what difficulty level are you on, could tha have something to do with it?

[Boris the Bad]

The AI playing the Pope attacked my castle in the Papal States. He had a numerically superior force. I placed most of my units inside, except for a ballista and 11 urban militia. While the ballista got creamed by 20 knights, the UM's marched down the side of the castle and destroyed his siege machines. That single move meant he had to concentrate on the front door, and channelled his troops into a confined space. I smashed his troops, and the Pope routed, remembering a prior engagement with a bishop back in Rome.

So it does happen, but my tip is, leave a few units outside to get his siege machines.

[querulously]

The castle seige designer has said that he is improving the castle seige AI so everything we have observed is (hopefully) going to be greatly changed. I have observed serious stupidity in seiges and the AI attacker is often slaughtered due to insane tactics.

[Peabody]

Once, the Novgorods betrayed a treaty with my Biz. They jumped Constantanople and took the province. My garrison fled into our glorious fortress with barbican, ballista towers, catpult towers, gun towers, cannon towers - the works.

Then I surrounded them, and the crazy Russians figured their only hope was to attack. They assaulted the city!

Man oh man, I've never seen anything like it. I hadn't even ever seen a fortress on the map, and they are big. Wall inside walls inside walls. Looking at that fort, I'm not sure it's possible to bust in no matter how many troops you bring.

It took them nearly 800 troops to get past the first gate.

The Rus failed.

[Pragmatic]

Quote Originally posted by Peabody:
My garrison fled into our glorious fortress with barbican, ballista towers, catpult towers, gun towers, cannon towers - the works.[/QUOTE]

So, the upgrades at each level don't disappear when you go to the next level of castle? I've always skipped the upgrades (ballista tower, barbican, etc) because I figured they'd disappear when the castle goes to the next level.

Do you get to have multiple upgrades? Looking in the early/high/late files, I see that there are the following castle types:
Castle1: Fort
Castle2: Fort & Motte
Castle3: Fort, Motte & Bailey
Castle4: Keep
Castle5: Keep & Curtain Walls
Castle6: Keep & Ballista Towers (& Curtain Walls?)
Castle7: Castle
Castle8: Castle & Ringwall
Castle9: Castle & Catapult Towers (& Ringwall?)
Castle10: Citadel
Castle11: Citadel & Barbican
Castle12: Citadel & Demi-Culverin Towers (& Barbican?)
Castle13: Fortress
Castle14: Fortress & Culverin Towers
Castle15: Fortress & Siege Cannon Towers (& Culverin Towers?)

On a side note, is it possible to set up a castle battle (either as offense or defense) in custom battles? And is it possible to adjust the general?

[Durendal]

Maybe I could clarify for you. I've found that the next level castle allways includes the "upgrades" wether you bought them or not. A Castle allways has ballista towers and a curtain wall, a citidel allways has the curtain wall plus balista and catapult towers etc. So no, there is no great reason to ever build the upgrades unless your castle is allready a fortress.

As a note, however, whenever a fortification falls from a seige, it is damaged. So if the fortification has an upgrade it will only lose the upgrade and not be reduced an entire level.

[hrvojej]

Be careful if you ever want to sell a castle (in Rome, for example http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif ). If it has any upgrades, you will sell *only the upgrade*, i.e. get 50% of the money of the upgrade cost instead of the cost of the castle; however, the castle will still be gone completely. For example, you sell a citadel with the barbican, and get 50% of the cost of the barbican upgrade, while the whole citadel is gone as well (no castle at all in the province); if you sell a citadel without any upgrades, you get 50% of the citadel cost (again, no castle at all in the province); big difference moneywise.

Me thinks it's a bug.........

[This message has been edited by hrvojej (edited 10-23-2002).]