Surrender before an assault

[Pedders]

Picture the scene, an enemy invades with a large force. You retreat to your stronghold and await a relieving force. The enemy decides to storm before the relief force arrives. Your troops and their valued noble leader dies in the defence of your castle.

Wouldn't it be nice and add to the experience if surrender could be offered before a direct assault?

[motorhead]

I think the whole 'retreat to castle' and sieges in general could use some improvements.

Make it an option to either retreat the general or his 2nd in command to the castle to wait out the siege. Too often the AI loses their better generals, not on the field of battle but in a siege.

Surrender at the end of a siege would be good, perhaps some % chance that they do this. Even a chance that a truly outnumbered garrison (in a fort or keep, less than 100 men, outnumbered by better than 10-1, let's say) have a chance to surrender even before the siege would end "normally". Or make it an option when you drop an emissary on a sieged castle to a)bribe them or b)offer to set them free (ie in their nearest province) if they abandon the castle. If you were in a besieged castle, wouldn't any option to live be more likely to at least be considered?

[A.Saturnus]

I`m not sure about medieval times, but in post-medieval times most sieges ended with negotiations. I would expect that to be the case for medieval times, too. Even in the crusades, negotiations between siegers and besieged were the rule.

[Eastside Character]

You are right A.Saturnus ,but it would be propably difficult to make AI negotiate in a flexible way.Or wouldn't it be ? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Pedders]

When you get the siege report at the end of each turn (the bit with the attacker and defender casualties) you could have a button to surrender, which the opponent can accept or reject.

Likewise when you get the pre-battle message that your castle is about to be assaulted.

[Foreign Devil]

Saturnus is right. During the timeframe of the game, negotiations were common. Often, a garrison was expected to resist for a set amount of time before they would be allowed an honorable surrender.

Of course, open battle during this time was quite rare, with most Kings and generals not seeing more than one or two major engagements in thier lives.

[The_Emperor]

In a number of Medieval battles the besigers would shoot enemy corpses into the enemy fortress to demoralise them... Once the crusaders used this tactic on the Turks by showering the fortress with the heads of a defeated relief army.

The garrisson quickly negotiated a surrender

(Imagine using that tactic in TW, by shooting the enemy dead from previous battles over the walls)

Man that would be fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Hikarr]

There'd also be a sanitation hazard, making the beseiged
garrison succumb to sickness aswell as starvation and
the occasional efforts of the sieging army.

(Although the morale effect was probably the intended goal)

[rory_20_uk]

I think that the point that the troops which retreat to the castle should be selected by the player. I probably want my leader in the next province, with a force consisting of defensive units and no horse in the castle / citadel (of course the size of the expected relief force / attacking force will affect the chosen units). I am sure that everyone is used to castles being death traps to the AI, with the player being able to kill all the best units without any effort (the beseiger taking casualties has improved this).
The option of a negotiated siege would be a very good idea, with the cost being less than if the army had been captured. When the AI should or should not request bailing out his troops or not might be a more difficult issue to resolve.