Siege Battles

[Sparticus]

I've been playing Brutii campaign for a while now, and I think I'm somewhere around the year 140 b.c. This has given me plenty of battles where I must defend my cities in siege battles.

But the enemy AI in the siege battles is terrible. I start the battle and deploy my troops but the enemies never attack. They just sit outside of my arrow range and stay there. I am forced to charge with my men just to win the battle, which causes me to loose more men than if they attacked me while I am in the safety of my walls.

On the campaign map I let them maintain their siege for several turns to let them build siege equipment, but they never do. Not even battering rams or siege towers. So they never attack me because they don't have siege equipment.

Has anyone else had this problem? It really takes the fun out of defending in siege battles. In my previous Jullii campaign I had the Barbarians bring in multiple battering rams to ram down my wooden walls. But I never finished my Jullii campaign so I don't know how the AI handles the bigger siege battles that I am experiencing now. Now as as the Bruttii facing the Greeks they are,nt building any equipment a all.

[Fridge]

One thing, Sparticus, if they attack you and then just sit there, you can just let the timer run down, and you'll get the win. Unless you're not using a timer, in which case you do have to sally out (that's the only reason I've turned mine back on).

I've had massive armies siege me, and only start building equipment on, say the 5th turn - since it only takes them a turn to buildl, they still attack on the 6th. Also, maybe the AI doesn't think it can beat you attacking your walls, so it's actually trying to starve you out, depleting your garrison and forcing you to sally - which, as you point out, can be tricky.

Then again, that's probably giving the AI too much credit - it's probably just a bug...

[drone]

Then again, that's probably giving the AI too much credit - it's probably just a bug...
Seems to me that the AI is actually doing quite well for itself here. If you charge out the walls, you lose men. If you wait inside, you will eventually starve. Why should it attack, when all it has to do is wait?

Each faction has a specific AI type, maybe this determines what the AI players do to take over cities. Storm the walls, or wait them out.

[Lichgod]

I saved a great siege assualt by the AI. I am using Total Realism, 5.1, Large units, Hard battles, Very Hard Campaign, normal battle timer.

I am Macedon. I am defending Athens, stone walls, around 240bc with levy pike, merc hoplite, peltasts, archers, crete archers, light lancers, greek cav, faction leader, one family member. Total force just under 1400 men, a full 20 units. Most are at least one chevron and upgraded sword+shield (or +3 for missile weapons).

I have been sieged in Athens by 4200+ Romans divided in six armies for about 3 turns. I wanted to see if they would assualt or not. The main army of about 1100 guys builds 2 rams, one tower, and 3 ladders. When they attacked, the pre-battle screen came up showing all six Roman armies would be present (I made a special save at this point in case the siege turned out to be fun to repeat just for the fight).

The deployment was neat as it showed Romans start areas completely surrounding my city but I knew where the siege equipment was so deployed opposite that army. Too bad the AI is not smart enough to have multiple stacks join the siege and build their own equipment.

Great battle ensued. I won (which always helps). The tower and one set of ladders made it to the wall. I decimated the Roman siege army and parts of two other forces moved around to help them with a unit or two from actually getting to the ladder on the wall to climb it. Otherwise, the other Roman forces did not play much of a role.

I did sally with the Faction Leader and a unit of cav to try to destroy the ladders that did not make it to the walls before the other Romans could pick them up. Sort of a waste. Found out they could not destroy the ladders even when attacking the undefended ladders nor did the reinforcing Romans try to pick them up to use them. Still, I was able to smite the slinger unit picking off my cretean archers.

I also noticed as time was running out a continual decrease in system performance. It was very laggy at battle's end. I have a gig of RAM and 3.0 mHz processor with 128meg video card (Alienware system).

[Anselm]

I have found Lichgod that corpses actually slow down fps speeds pretty drastically. I've not done in-depth experiments, but you might want to have a look at the corpses from a distance. Normal men at a distance turn to 2D sprites, perhaps the corpses don't share this feature? In which case every single casualty will take up all the memory of a 3D soldier. Just an idea.

[dismal]

. They just sit outside of my arrow range and stay there..

It can be worse, sometimes they stand inside arrow range.

Now that's bad AI.

If they stand outside arrow range you can send out some mounted missile or skirmishers to draw them closer.

Another good trick is to run them around the walls.

[Malrubius]

I had an interesting siege battle today. I had laid siege to wooden-walled Sparta, the Greek capital, with hastati, velites, merc phalanx and Illyrian skirmishers (about 150 men vs. their 90). On the Greek turn, they sallied forth. An understrength unit of Spartans, some hoplites, and 3 young generals burst out of the gates. I was caught by surprise, without the usual pre-battle speech and deployment phase. I had my Illyrians drop the ram (kind of useless in this battle) and tried to form my infantry into a line while my velites were sent to slow down the Greek hoplites. Instead they got hit by a heavy cav charge :charge: . At this point, I figured the battle was lost and I might as well inflict as many casualties as I could, so my next siege would go better. :duel:

After heavy losses, I killed their general and had them on the rout back through the gates. I wanted to follow them in before the doors shut, but my men were too slow to keep up with the cav.

I set my Illyrians to guard the gates and sent my hastati to retrieve the ram to continue my assault. (My velites had been routed). But before the hastati could get to the ram, a lone general bodyguard had ordered the gates opened for a suicidal charge into my Illyrians. End result: I captured the gates and the town. ~:cheers: However, it was a close run thing, with me suffering as many casualties (~80 men) as the Greeks, despite my numerical superiority.

[Productivity]

End result: I captured the gates and the town. ~:cheers: However, it was a close run thing, with me suffering as many casualties (~80 men) as the Greeks, despite my numerical superiority.

Yep, sally battles have a bad habit of going bad on those that sally out. Against a human player sometimes you can move a unit out the back and then around the side with a set of ladders, and be on the walls while the battle is still going, then you run round and take all the gates and they are stuck outside...

[The Stranger]

this never happened to me they always assaulted
but the best and hardest to defend siege battles are those with stone wall that has a gap in it try it out they are awesome