Harassing siege battles?

[YD23]

Hi all. :]
I've tried searching for something similar but I did not find anyone mentioning this; which brings us here.

I am playing as the Romani if this matters.
Here is what I am trying to do. I want to attack a settlement (same turn spy opens gate preferably; or with siege equipment); and simply dimish the enemy forces quite drastically through killing half the stack with just missile units. I generally have a few slingers/leves/velites/hastati & principes who all carry pilla and other aimable materials. This only seems to work in battles where the enemy walls are not made of stone (for obvious reasons) - otherwise my tactical attempt does not work.

I simply want to kill as many as I can without taking ANY or very little losses and somehow retreat BUT not break the siege. In my trying attempts to do this I somewhat fail every time. I go with my plan, kill off 56% of the enemy troops, lose something like 100 men out of my 3500 stack then order all to retreat = crushing defeat & siege is broken, my army then proceeds to retreat in shame when it just utterly destroyed the enemy with barely any losses (+ I might also pick up a negative trait..). So I retry and do the same thing except now I let the timer run down after missile massacre = close defeat. My question is, is there any way to do the above but manage to get a neutral draw of some sort so that I still keep the siege and can attack next turn? I know it is possible to get a draw when you are defending, perhaps when attacking as well?

What I am trying to do might sound like a bit of an exploit but I also think harassing the enemy with my missile units in a siege battle can be pretty historical as well.

I hope there is a way to go through with this plan but I just have not found it yet.
Thanks in advance,
YD. :bow:

[Saldunz]

From what I can tell, the answer is no.

There's only one way I think you can get a draw as an "attacker" in a siege battle, and that's if the defenders have sallied and neither side wins before the end of the battle. Your tactic only works as a defender.

You don't really need to do this though. Every turn of the siege, the enemies you're besieging will lose troops.

[d'Arthez]

Saldunz is correct.

If you feel 56% of the enemies loss is acceptable for simple harassing, you may as well turn the 'Arcade Mode' on, so you can wipe out the enemy completely and take the settlement. You can easily roleplay that as saying the back of the resistance has been broken, and that the besieged rebelled against their dimwitted military commander who led them to their slaughter.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Hi YD:

Here's the way to carry out your plan.

Instead of having one army to besiege the city, have TWO armies. (Divide your big army into two smaller ones, if necessary.) Each army will take turns to beseige the city.

Your family member (general) must be with the army that is NOT beseiging the city. That way, the seiging army will be led by a captain, who can't get any negative traits since he's not important enough to have them. And your family member won't get any negative traits, since he's not present when the fighting takes place, so he can't be blamed for any temporary defeats.

Your first army seiges the city, assaults it, fights with the defenders using missile fire only, then ends the battle, suffers a defeat, retreats, and the seige is broken. Your family member leaves the second army and joins the first army which has just retreated, to buck up their morale. Then the second army moves in and puts the city under seige again straight away! End the turn.

On the next turn, the second army assaults, fights with the defenders using missile fire only, then ends the battle, suffers a defeat, retreats, and the seige is broken. Your family member leaves the first army and joins the second army which has just retreated. Then your first army goes back in and puts the city under seige yet again! End the turn.

Repeat as many times as required until the garrison is reduced to the point where a simple assault and break-in becomes possible to mop up the survivors. It's like a boxing match, each of your two armies is a fist: left hook, right hook, left hook, until the enemy's face is turned into a bloody pulp. Smack smack smack.

If you want to reduce the city even quicker, have three armies instead of two.

Warning: your sieging armies must be strong enough to stop the enemy garrison sallying out to attack you. Otherwise you'll have to fight a battle with only half the troops you'd ideally want to have available, and you'll be outnumbered, meaning that you'll suffer heavy casualties even if you win.

[moonburn]

doesn´t work if both armies are besieging at the same time and if they aren´t then it will be almost impossible to take the city that way and you´ll eventually have to take it

also if you can remove 56% of the enemies with just missile fire any smart general would take the tactical advantage and storm the weaken defenders since if you retreat the defenders will have their casualties healed

[YD23]

Thanks all for your replies. Really appreciate the help and feedback.

@Titus Marcellus Scato (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php?27074-Titus-Marcellus-Scato)
Wow, I've never thought to try and do that! Thanks for a good explanation, I'll certainly give this a try when I fire up EB again.

@moonburn
Yeah I figured someone would say this. I just find it incredibly annoying when the rebel boii hill camp the town square with a few cavalry, naked fanatics, sworsdmen, slingers & some spearmen. (other 46% remaining) Attacking this head on is usually not a problem for me, I just find it annoying that I have to take so many unnecessary losses. Even with careful planning I tend to lose at least 600 men in the process going against maybe a bit more than half of the enemy. Since they can't really rout in town square they just fight to death. While they do that my hastati/roarri(sp?) drop like flies even if completely encircling the barbarians.

But I figured if I could at least diminish the army halfway and then attack the rest this would make things a bit easier on my troops who have to march on to conquer/battle further. :)

[Saldunz]

@moonburn
Yeah I figured someone would say this. I just find it incredibly annoying when the rebel boii hill camp the town square with a few cavalry, naked fanatics, sworsdmen, slingers & some spearmen. (other 46% remaining) Attacking this head on is usually not a problem for me, I just find it annoying that I have to take so many unnecessary losses. Even with careful planning I tend to lose at least 600 men in the process going against maybe a bit more than half of the enemy. Since they can't really rout in town square they just fight to death. While they do that my hastati/roarri(sp?) drop like flies even if completely encircling the barbarians.

That sounds pretty realistic to me. Have you considered just starving them out? You'll lose more time, but a *lot* less men.
And of course, starving them out would be more historical than what you're trying to do.

[YD23]

Yeah I used to do that. Then I realized the lost time/negative morale traits/negative traits for general (hesitant attacker, etc..) are not worth it. : \ Unless of course you swap your generals around or make him sit elsewhere with no other general backing up your army.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Personally, playing the Romani against barbarian enemies, I prefer to seige with an army small enough to make the enemy garrison sally out when I end the turn. Then I can fight a defensive battle out in the open.

However, YD's tactic is useful for steppe nomads with archer-heavy armies to use against enemy garrisons which don't have long-range missiles. The dream of every horse archer is to shoot at the enemy without the enemy being able to shoot back.

[Blxz]

Wait, what? Hesitant attacker? This only happens if you choose to assault the city (so you can see the unit composition) and then you choose not to attack and instead siege them out. If you only seige then you will not get this trait. If you desperately need to see the enemy units before they attack you then simply bring a spy rather than starting an attack and then not commiting (you deserve the trait obviously).

As for lost time. This is a game that is over 1000 turns long. You almost have time to seige every single city on the entire map one city at a time if you wanted.

As for morlae negatives, they are temporary. Will disappear once you rest in the town for a few turns. And quite frankly they have virtually no impact on the seige battle when you defend from the enemy sally. The enemy troops will be so depleted and the battle so favourable that you shouldn't have any problems with winning.

[Lysimachos]

Wait, what? Hesitant attacker? This only happens if you choose to assault the city (so you can see the unit composition) and then you choose not to attack and instead siege them out. If you only seige then you will not get this trait. If you desperately need to see the enemy units before they attack you then simply bring a spy rather than starting an attack and then not commiting (you deserve the trait obviously).

As for lost time. This is a game that is over 1000 turns long. You almost have time to seige every single city on the entire map one city at a time if you wanted.

As for morlae negatives, they are temporary. Will disappear once you rest in the town for a few turns. And quite frankly they have virtually no impact on the seige battle when you defend from the enemy sally. The enemy troops will be so depleted and the battle so favourable that you shouldn't have any problems with winning.

I concur. In most cases I find it preferable to wait up. You don't get any negative traits for that.

There is another thing about starving a city out instead of assaulting. I regularly notice people complaining about how there are too many siege battles and too little field battles. Well, that's because they assault. If you wait long enough, the AI will usually bring reinforcements and attack the sieging army and - tadaa - it's a field battle.

[Atraphoenix]

Nearly all of my generals have that trait. If you are unsure I think it would be better to starve them out. I rarely assault cities. I send my spies first. Then check which city has bad garrison then my spy armies opens the gates for me.
I use your words when defending my cities. Radically I spare lots of horse archers together with normal archers on cities and until my main army comes to action I could wipe out half of the enemy.