Started to play the game after shelving it for years only to find a siege exploit!

[Handel]

Shelved the vanilla MTW2 for years due to the bugs and decided to give a try again with 1.3 only to find out there is a stupid exploit. It happens when an enemy army comes to help the besieged army. Lift the siege and attack the incoming army and voila - the both enemy armies suddenly are in open field making it much easier to kill them one by one instead of going for heavy (and costly) siege.
And yes - I know I can not use it but this leaves me with no way to attack the relieve army and forces me to wait for sally out while attacking the besieged force gives the enemy the opportunity to combine both forces inside the defended city/castle.

[LegendofTotalWar]

All i hear is whinge whinge whinge. It's not an exploit. It's like this on ALL TW titles and it makes perfect sense.

[Handel]

All i hear is whinge whinge whinge. It's not an exploit. It's like this on ALL TW titles and it makes perfect sense.

Well, it may be in all titles but do not have any sense. Instead of fighting an upscale battle now I just have to win an open field battle. Suddenly all the city/castle walls and the towers and the ballistas and such are gone.

[LegendofTotalWar]

Yeah it's cause the garrison is reinforcing. If they wanted to attack you near the city, they would sally out, which they do on occasion depending on how strong they are.

[Nelson]

It is a bit wonky, I agree, but at least the sorties DO come right out of the castle. In Shogun 2 a sortie is a field battle far from the fortress that bears no resemblance to a sally at all.

[Tsar Alexsandr]

I've done this a number of times. Especially as I sometimes employ, or used to employ, very cavalry heavy armies. I wouldn't exactly call it an exploit, but it's no secret it's something a Human can figure out and the AI can't. We're all outgunning the AI in that area. : D

[Myth]

It makes perfect sense. You get two options:

1. Continue with the siege, in which case you start with whatever siege units you've been able to build prior to the attack. You're positioned as if you're assaulting the city, but a reinforcing army is coming from the appropriate direction. This way you can storm the settlement and then defend from the inside versus the relieving army.

2. Lift the siege. Then attack the relieving army, in which case the AI has the option to reinforce with the settlement garrison (which it will take naturally). You can do the same thing if it even leaves one unit next to a fullstack inside a settlement. If you wipe out both armies and spare no one, you will b e able to walk in side unobstructed.

[venomousmonkey]

If you don't like it, you can always use night attack to only attack the army outside of the city. Yes, it forces them out on the field. But it requires certain circumstances and positioning to come into play.