defending a castle

[Tigger]

I'd really like to try doing this but the AI never seems to want to end a siege when attacking you

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Has anyone experienced this before? Maybe i can do it in a single battle game or something...

[A.Saturnus]

Yeah, I had it once. The English attacked me over sea in Denmark. I retreated to the castle cause I had only a few men as garrison. I expected they would provoce a loyalist rebellion as they usually do, but instead they attacked the castle. I was heavily outnumbered and the enemy had catapults. Fortunately, the arrow towers managed to disable the catapults. So, I could defend the gate with some spearmen and the rest of the enemy got decimated by the towers.

[NateEngle]

I've fought several sieges, although sometimes it's been disappointing. The best instances I've seen were times when I was able to rush some light cavalry out to destroy the attacker's siege engines. I recall one case where my Hobilars destroyed a trebuchet, a catapult, and a ballista, and then ran back into the castle to wait for the assault on the gate. The worst cases have been when I was stuck in wooden forts and realized that the enemies could come through my pallisades at least as easily as they could through the front door.

Probably the most disappointing thing for me about any siege is that your score doesn't seem to include any enemies killed by towers/castle defenses. Only the guys killed by your own troops are counted. Aside from that they're fun, albeit tense (since they really only happen when there's a pretty formidable enemy camped out at your gates).

[NewJeffCT]

I agree - why do the arrow towers not count towards your kill ratio? I was the one that built them after all...

I did have one castle that was assaulted 2 years in a row by the Russians. The first time, they had a ballista that had crewmen that just didn't die despite being in arrow tower range... and, they knocked down the wall. But, the arrow towers got enough of the rest of them that I was able to repel that assault.

The next year, they had a catapult, but I killed the crewmen in short work via the arrow towers and the rest (including their fearless leader) were easy pickings after that.

[Heraclius]

I love defending castles and have done so quite a few times. The trick to winning is to destroy the enemy artillery with your light cavalry. It doesn't matter if you lose the whole unit, the artillery [I] has [I/] to be destroyed or it will be very hard to win because ideally you want the enemy to come through the gate because they will suffer massive arrow casualties marching and trying to destroy the gate.
Once they have done that you should let them come partway through the gate, engage them in the front with infantry and then bring your cavalry smashing down on their flanks, while firing on them with archers. This trick will also neutralize the enemy's number advantage.

[Hakonarson]

I've defended castles agaisnt the AI a few times.

Even if they do knock down a wall there's lots of fun to be had - make a hullow "U" inside teh breach and hit his assaulting troops on 3 sides with archers shooting into him overhead - lots of kills that way http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Also in a castle IIRC 100 man units are noraly split into 2 x 50 man units - I don't recall whether 60's are split into 30's or not tho. So you usually get a bit more tactical flexibility than you're expecting.

[Galestrum]

unfortunately ive never had the AI try a castle assault on me - they will just siege. Ive had 12 guys in a castle surronded by a large army, but since i had so few ppl inside it had to be assaulted to fall. They sat their eating the support cost penalty for 10 years until i got bored and lifted the siege http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Brutal DLX]

I've found that the AI normally only attacks castles if the Siege time would be very long (that most often also means very few defenders inside the castle), and if it has proper siege weaponry. Other than that, they just sit it out, most of the times.

[econ21]

On a related point, anyone know what determines how long a unit can last out in a siege? It seems be determined by size of garrison relative to capacity of castle, since when the two are equal (ie the castle is full), the city seems always predicted to fall within a year. What is the optimum garrison size for a given size of castle? Filling it seems counter-productive, as it gives you only a year to rescue it. On the other hand, having a very small garrison - eg just 100 men - might just encourage opportunistic invasions (and destruction of property).

[insolent1]

the AI won't attack a castle without seige weapons. I had a fortress in khazar when mongols arrived i let 1 naphta thrower unit retreat to castle & they didn't try to lift seige. It was quite funny because they invaded georgia with about 6000 troops & invaded all neighbouring provinces leaving khazar empty so I got it back as it was under seige & the remainder of teh army that i had fought in georgia had nowhere to retreat including the great khan himself. As I said months ago the mongols need seige weapons like they had prior to patch

[71-hour Ahmed]

had a few sieges but it tends to be stupid and waste good opportunities, often losing the battle against inferior forces due to that.

[Praylak]

There are times, frequently enough, that I want to take a province quickly and move on. So I see quite a few sieges, and rightly so as they are fun. Nothing is as cool as three treb's in action, pounding man and wall alike into mounds of hamburger. My most memorable moments in this game have been sieges. Like the time where my valour 5 catapult crew launched a rock straight threw the front gates, hitting the only man standing in the castle. One shot in a million and to this day I'm kicking myself for not saving the replay. Argh

I'd love to see the AI siege my fortress, or even a citadel. But if you had the cash to build those, then you likely can afford a decent garrison for the province. I wonder if the length of attrition was made longer, how would it effect the AI?

Anyway, strategicly speaking, the last place you want to be is holed up in a castle. If your in this position, you have lost the field battle and suffered the pillaging that followed. That's usually a really bad thing as you just lost years of building time, the buildings themselves, and how much money? I think this would explain why we don't see many sieges from the defending side. Our initial defences, the garrison, does thier job.

Even if you win the defence of your castle, you still loose.
But hey, if you want to see more of it, just reduce your garrisons, and I'm sure the AI will complement you with an attack. Just remember, the AI is pretty smart in this regard. If it only has to wait a few years, then why the sacrifice. But if it has to wait ten years or more...