View Full Version : Sieging army starved to death!
Snowhobbit
10-10-2003, 13:49
I was playing as Novgorod in early, and lost a battle against some slavjavelinmen(rebels).
Anyway my 17 men force retreated to the fort in the province and after five years the besiegers had sieged themselves to death.
This is how it happend:
Year 1: They were at first twenty but lost five, i lost zero.
Year 2: They were fifteen and lost five men, i lost zero.
Year 3: They were ten and had now lost five more, i lost zero.
Year 4: They were five, and lost four, i lost one.
Year 5: They were one and lost, one and they were gone http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif .
Why?
The_Emperor
10-10-2003, 13:58
Ahh yes, good old VI and its siege attrition feature.
Make you wonder who was besieging who http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
I assume you had a very small garrisson with the "This castle will not fall without a direct assault" or "will require years of waiting".
Most of the enemy must have been killed off by disease.
Still serves them right
Rocket_Boy
10-10-2003, 14:01
Actually I'm very surprised that there wasn't a loyalist rebellion with such small numbers of enemy troops holding your province
Snowhobbit
10-10-2003, 18:01
We'll they were rebels, so a loyalist rebellion weren't likely.
A.Saturnus
10-10-2003, 18:16
Well, the ridiculous thing is actually that 20 men have actually tried to siege a castle. I mean they can`t even surround it, how would they prevent the besieged from going out to get food?? In any case, after 5 years they should - if not starved or died of diseases- been eaten by wolves.
Jeebus_Frist
10-10-2003, 21:23
Not very realistic in this situation. However attrition was a MAJOR factor in war up until recently. Supply lines were nearly unheard of so most made do with foraging or outright seizure of food from the locals. When you are sieging a castle you have to remain in the immediate vicinity of the castle so you quickly scavenge all resources in the area. In addition to the supplies, disease was rampant and could easily wipe out an entire army in a matter of weeks. Add to this the simple fact that most soldiers were conscripts from villages and farms controlled by the Lord leading the siege and you are in command of a bunch or peasants with pitchforks who just want to go home which means desertion also has a huge impact. Toss in unsavory weather and you have a recipe for disaster. Of course things aren't going to be any better inside the walls of the castle either. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Snowhobbit
10-10-2003, 21:56
Did you know that in europe there was more sieges than battles?
Well there have been cases of small armies besieging a castle but I don't think that small and was more in the times of the dark ages than the medieval times. Where in the dark ages nations did not exist like they did the medieval times
Foreign Devil
10-11-2003, 22:44
Quote[/b] (Snowhobbit @ Oct. 10 2003,15:56)]Did you know that in europe there was more sieges than battles?
This is true. Open battle was often avoided- if a general or king enganged in battle, there was a chance of losing. Opposing armies would sometimes line up facing each other, only to have one side just walk away,
Snowhobbit
10-11-2003, 23:01
Quite different from VI http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Marshal Murat
10-12-2003, 00:36
I would think that the AI being somewhat smart, may try and force more men into your castle. But one easy way to kill the enemy is to have them attack your castle in Battle and see them slaughtered, yelling and screaming and avoid them being locked up.
MizuKokami
10-12-2003, 03:34
did you bother to take the province back after the siegers died?
Quote[/b] ]This is true. Open battle was often avoided- if a general or king enganged in battle, there was a chance of losing. Opposing armies would sometimes line up facing each other, only to have one side just walk away,
Didnt realize that half the battles the A.I. walks away from was historically accurate. An all this time I was kinda mad they'd show there face on the battlefield and as soon as I start marching they start fleeing
Snowhobbit
10-12-2003, 09:18
Citera[/b] (oaty @ Okt. 12 2003,05:46)]
Citera[/b] ]This is true. Open battle was often avoided- if a general or king enganged in battle, there was a chance of losing. Opposing armies would sometimes line up facing each other, only to have one side just walk away,
Didnt realize that half the battles the A.I. walks away from was historically accurate. An all this time I was kinda mad they'd show there face on the battlefield and as soon as I start marching they start fleeing
LOL
And yes i did retake the province.
TheViking
10-14-2003, 09:56
have you ever had this situation?
i won a battle but the a.i got away with a few men.
next year it says it will take a direct assault to take the castle.
the year after that the enemy send in a force to try and lift the siege. but that army also withdraws to the castle
i thout well i can wait out those few years it take for a castle full with me to give up.
but the 3rd year it still says i have to make a direct assault to get the castle, even if the castle is full with men.
is that a bug that the castle siege only calculate the time it take to get the castle to fall without a battle when the first men enters the castle.
it happends like that everytime.
Snowhobbit
10-14-2003, 10:20
I think it's because the comp calculates the time for a siege based on the original number of men and thats why you suffer from that problem...
Anti-christ
10-15-2003, 09:03
you heathen you have stolen my siege it okay though, it was at my house:)
GAH
Vanya once laid siege to a fortress with ONE MAN (And naturally, it was a single peasant with no armor and a pitchfork). The garrison in the castle was a mob of 40 yellow, gutless kinigits that didn't want to get their armor dirty.
Well... Neither force lost anything for 3 straight years in a 8 year siege.
Year 4: Message comes back saying the besieger had a leg hacked off. The defenders lost 10 men.
Year 5: Message comes back saying the besieger had his other leg eaten by rats. The defenders lost 10 men.
Year 6: Message comes back saying the besieger gave up an arm to fend off hungry wolves. The defenders lost 10 men.
Year 7: Message comes back saying the besieger ate his other arm because he was starving. The defenders lost 5 men. In addition, the besieger "taunted" the defenders that his injuries were "merely flesh wounds" and that he would bite off their heads.
Year 8: Message comes back saying the besieger lost his head and all remaining defenders died as well. The province went rebel
GAH
Orda Khan
10-15-2003, 18:10
A Welsh army laying siege to Conwy Castle suffered a similar fate...disease, hunger, poor conditions, bad weather. King Edward, on the other hand, was having a ball, supplies were maintained and stockpiles of grain actually began to go off. The garrison actually had more than they could eat
....Orda
Gazza the Lionheart
10-15-2003, 19:39
Is there any way to turn this off?
Gazza the Lionheart
10-16-2003, 03:31
Quote[/b] (Kraxis @ Oct. 15 2003,15:01)]Turn off sieges?
No turn off the feature where the forces doing the sieging lose men.
No, and I would say it is much less historical to have no losses to the besieger than have a few unlucky armies, which are imposible to keep up sieges anyway, die out. I can't see the problem in this. The armies are too small to keep the province anyway.
Teutonic Knight
10-20-2003, 15:53
wasn't this feature put in the game to force the AI to assault castles more often, cause I know that was a big complaint around here. I definitly have noticed the AI assaults castles allot more than it did in vanilla MTW.
Funky Phantom
10-21-2003, 18:36
I think its fair really, if you arent prepared to last through a potential siege after the battle, then you werent really prepared to invade the place in the first place :/
In old MTW i never used to attack castles, now i do when i have to finish a war swiftly under threat of being excommed :P
I agree with Teutonic, the AI definitely uses castle assaults a lot more than in original MTW, ive never been on the recieving end of one though, that would be interesting http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
The way the game calculates the number of turns a siege lasts is completely screwed up to begin with, though this doesn't really pertain to the examples given above this post.
There needs to be some value placed upon the men needed to man all the castle defenses, like 50 for a Fort, up to 500 or so for a Fortress. Their ought to be a set number of turns that the castle could hold out with 1 additional man, say ten, and then the number of your men should be added to the garrison's personnel, and the turns calculated from there, with a minimum of, say, four turns for a castle packed to capacity. If you wanted to go one better, you could be realistic and say that the castle garrisons still had to be defeated even if no regular troops were with them, by getting an attacker into the innermost ring of the castle ala the historical battles.
This would eliminate the starvation of huge AI armies in one-turn sieges, and also eliminate the situations like I had recently where I had to storm a citadel because ONE man had gotten away from the field battle. The one man would be inconsequential if you had to storm the castle regardless to defeat the garrison, and make sieges, and especially preparing for them when you attack, a much more realistic and enjoyable part of the game. And these particular suggestions shouldn't even require any new code to speak of; just adjust the food calculations and use the historical battle triggers that are already in place.
I don't know why these things don't occur to designers....
In addition, I think that Foreign Devil should be banned from the site for making me laugh at his ridiculous sig. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Quote[/b] ]Year 4: Message comes back saying the besieger had a leg hacked off. The defenders lost 10 men.
Year 5: Message comes back saying the besieger had his other leg eaten by rats. The defenders lost 10 men.
Year 6: Message comes back saying the besieger gave up an arm to fend off hungry wolves. The defenders lost 10 men.
Year 7: Message comes back saying the besieger ate his other arm because he was starving. The defenders lost 5 men. In addition, the besieger "taunted" the defenders that his injuries were "merely flesh wounds" and that he would bite off their heads.
Monty Python holy grail by any chance http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Quote[/b] ]In addition, I think that Foreign Devil should be banned from the site for making me laugh at his ridiculous sig.LOL http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
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