understanding a sally

I was wondering what are the criteria for having a successful sally.
Obviously, the sally where you make the enemy retreat is a successful one. Specifically, I'm only interested in one where I can do damage only to the enemy, but not make them retreat.

This involves using the ESC key and opting to quit before the end of the battle. Sometimes I get the note saying,

a. "if you quit now, you will lose this battle",
and sometimes I get,
b. "your sally was successful" (or something to that effect).

If I get a., then the game auto-resolves the battle (with me losing) and also auto-kills a bunch of my troops.

If I get b., then I leave with the casualties to both sides being exactly what was inflicted during the battle.

So, what are the criteria for getting to b.? I've always tried to guess it but not being able to fully isolate it.


Thanks!

To get a successful "draw" sally, you just have to have all of your units within your walls when the battle ends. In a draw, no casaulties will recover, as there is no clear winner.

thanks a bunch. i was wondering about this as well. :)

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Originally Posted by Cullhwch

To get a successful "draw" sally, you just have to have all of your units within your walls when the battle ends. In a draw, no casaulties will recover, as there is no clear winner.

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Thanks Cullhwch.

Just came back from a sally a minute ago (lots of my cities under siege).

Just so I'm clear, you did mean having a "draw" sally after ESC-aping out early, right? The reason I ask is that in my last battle I got a "draw" because my troops were still fighting outside the city walls when the battle timer was up.

Either way, I'm going back to try my next sally, ESC-aping/quitting out early with all my units back behind the walls.

what if you have no battle-time limit?

The best sally forever is when you got a lot of archers (especially the syrian ones), sit on your stone wall, and just launch their misssile to skewer enemy army who walk aimlessly under my walls... and get the thorakitai ready on the wall when they land their towers here...:laugh4:

but some of them died the ext turn because they didn't have much food left....

I had a great night playing EB because of the newfound appreciation for sallying.
The RTW manual doesn't seem to address sallying adequately, iirc.

So, now that the ambiguity is gone, sallying is no longer a finicky venture nor do-or-die battle (if it's not the last siege turn). You can actually do guerilla warfare to shave the enemy down to a more manageable number before they assault.

Makes me wonder why I haven't asked sooner.

Now this is really useful Information for me.
I might try it the next time I get to play EB.:yes:

Another fun kind of sally is when the ennemy besieges the city from a "corner".
To make it clearer, the besieging army is always deployed in front of a door. When they were besieging from a "corner", their first move on the battle map is to reach a deployment area in that corner. Let's say they were placed on the northeast corner of the city on the strat map, they will try to reach the northeast corner of the battle map.

Line your archers on the wall, use a few horse archers to get out of the town and shoot the ennemy in the back, and voilà. Slaughter. Repeat if necessary, but as your shooters become heavily chevroned, it's more and more unlikely...

I use this exploit to stabilise some fronts for a while (the Tarsos-Antiochia region is perfect fot that: I used Tarsos as a stronghold in my Epirote campaign vs Seleucid hordes after taking Asia Minor, and Antiochia in a Pahlava campaign to tie Ptolemaics coming from Asia minor as I was working around Hierosalyma). I have a Client ruler who became a legendary general that way, who never got out of the city except once or twice to check the mercenary pool....

I know that's cheating, but in order to get rid of menace in mid-game (let's say after 200 bc) the only things you can do are:
- blitzing ennemy holdings, and I hate blitzing.
- bridge battles
- sallies

Sallies are as boring as bridge battles, but are much shorter, so I use a mix of both.

Not really on topic, but what do you mean, get rid of a menace?

I often whack them in field battles with one or two Consular Armies, saves them ravaging my countryside. Is that different from what other factions do?

I mean tying ennemy formations to a single city (destroy the besieging army, wait for the next to come, destroy it, wait, and so on). In the case of chokepoints like Tarsos and Antiocheia, it's 99% efficient, incoming armies seldom go further and come besieging.

That way you have an (easy and cheap) trenchwar instead of an invasion, and can focus on other fronts (and train your missile troops fast and easy)

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Originally Posted by spqr_arcani

I had a great night playing EB because of the newfound appreciation for sallying.
The RTW manual doesn't seem to address sallying adequately, iirc.

So, now that the ambiguity is gone, sallying is no longer a finicky venture nor do-or-die battle (if it's not the last siege turn). You can actually do guerilla warfare to shave the enemy down to a more manageable number before they assault.

Makes me wonder why I haven't asked sooner.

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please can you write up your findings, as i'm struggling to follow.

what possible outcomes are there if you are defending and you wait for timer to finish?
i. you lose?
ii. you get a draw?


what possible outcomes are there if you are defending and you ESCape out of the battle?
i. you lose?
ii. you get a draw?

italics for the bits i'd love clarified. thank you!

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Originally Posted by zooeyglass

please can you write up your findings, as i'm struggling to follow.

what possible outcomes are there if you are defending and you wait for timer to finish?
i. you lose?
ii. you get a draw?


what possible outcomes are there if you are defending and you ESCape out of the battle?
i. you lose?
ii. you get a draw?

italics for the bits i'd love clarified. thank you!

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Concerning timers, I've no idea (having stopped playing with them around Medieval; seemed they were only much fun as a way to get the AI to move tactically during battles, and then only if it were on offence). As for ESC-ing out during a sally (i.e. when you order the troops inside a city to attack the besiegers, not when they assault), you win or draw (I think, depending on casualties dealt) if all friendly troops are within the city walls on exit. If any are not "safe" (or if the gates are open, I suspect), they are probably fair game for auto-calc damage.

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Originally Posted by zooeyglass

please can you write up your findings, as i'm struggling to follow.

what possible outcomes are there if you are defending and you wait for timer to finish?
i. you lose?
ii. you get a draw?

what possible outcomes are there if you are defending and you ESCape out of the battle?
i. you lose?
ii. you get a draw?

italics for the bits i'd love clarified. thank you!

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If you wait for timer to finish:
I try not to have to wait it out, so I'm telling you what I've observed. People are welcome to correct me if I'm wrong.
i. You lose if it's the last siege turn, or all you units get killed in any turn.
ii. If it's not the last siege turn, as long as you still have units left, you'll have a draw. It doesn't matter whether your units are inside the city walls, or outside having a melee battle with the enemy.


If you ESCape out of the battle:
I'm repeating what Cullhwch said and I've confirmed this personally.
i. You lose if you have units outside your city wall when you press ESCape and opt to quit the battle. This is assuming, of course, you have remaining units left. Unless it's the last siege turn, this loss results in the program auto-killing a sizeable portion of your army.
ii. You get a draw whenever all your units are back behind city walls. It doesn't matter whether any of your units have gone outside or not. It doesn't seem to matter how you fight your enemy as long as all units are back in the city by the time you do ESC.

What I can't confirm, is what happens when you ESCape out when all your live units are back in the city, but during the sally some were destroyed (such as a skirmisher unit being run down by enemy general). I don't think this would result in a loss, but someone else needs to confirm.

thank you! i'll look into this as well, when my dying computer lets me. but very curious - i did not even realise sallies really existed, so the thought that i can sally, pelt the enemy with arrows, and then quit without leaving my walls, is fairly exciting. :)

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Originally Posted by zooeyglass

thank you! i'll look into this as well, when my dying computer lets me. but very curious - i did not even realise sallies really existed, so the thought that i can sally, pelt the enemy with arrows, and then quit without leaving my walls, is fairly exciting. :)

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I think Sally Draws are great for situations where you're low on troops and generally you're optimizing the utilization of your armies and levelling them, particularly artillery units.

The down side is you're going to spend more time in battle mode. If you're like me (impatient and low on time), you might opt to wait till the besieging army attacks. To me, it's not that hard defending a city from AI armies in Medium difficulty anyway, and replenishing the troops that died/fled from starvation merely becomes a logistical consideration.

Thanks for going through and confirming exactly what happens during a sally.

Here's a situation I had once:

I was sieging a city, and the enemy sallied forth. Normally I'm able to kick butt and take the city like I normally do even though the enemy gets the first strike. Well, I was outnumbered and it took the whole entire timer to fight my way into the city. I took the walls to keep the AI from reinforcing the square from troops outside the gates. I ran out of time right as I had about two minutes left to hold the square :shame:. End result was a draw, so no troops got healed, but I still was able to take the city--I assume I took it either because my troops were inside the walls, holding the square, or defeated more foes.

It's nice to know I can use this to my advantage on the defending end though.

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Originally Posted by Ferromancer

I was sieging a city, and the enemy sallied forth. Normally I'm able to kick butt and take the city like I normally do even though the enemy gets the first strike. Well, I was outnumbered and it took the whole entire timer to fight my way into the city. I took the walls to keep the AI from reinforcing the square from troops outside the gates. I ran out of time right as I had about two minutes left to hold the square :shame:. End result was a draw, so no troops got healed, but I still was able to take the city--I assume I took it either because my troops were inside the walls, holding the square, or defeated more foes.

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so you attacked, got a draw, but ended up taking the city? strange turn of events....

at the time of the draw, am i to understand that the enemy's troops still alive were all outside the city walls, and your troops were all inside the city walls?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zooeyglass

so you attacked, got a draw, but ended up taking the city? strange turn of events....

at the time of the draw, am i to understand that the enemy's troops still alive were all outside the city walls, and your troops were all inside the city walls?

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Yep :beam: They stormed out to wreck my siege equipment, got distracted by some skirmishers, and I ran some guys all around the city walls. They would come to gate after gate only to find it locked, until they just gave up and sat on the hillside to watch the rest of the fight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ferromancer

Yep :beam: They stormed out to wreck my siege equipment, got distracted by some skirmishers, and I ran some guys all around the city walls. They would come to gate after gate only to find it locked, until they just gave up and sat on the hillside to watch the rest of the fight.

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I've had this interesting siege battle very similar to yours before. However I haven't had the battle timer zero out on me before the 3-minute square timer did.

Can you clarify whether this was the last siege turn?

I have a feeling that the reason you occupied the city in your scenario was not because you locked the enemy out (which actually makes sense from a warfare point of view), but because it was the last siege turn, when the AI is left with the choice of either sallying out as a last ditch effort to save the city, or surrender the city without a fight.

The second choice makes sense to me because of pure RTW game mechanics. In this case, it wouldn't have mattered whether you were inside or outside the city walls, or if you were on the square or not. You could actually have a dozen skirmishers hiding in a forest outside, and if they survive when the battle timer zeroes out, you actually can take over a city garrisoned with a full stack!

But your scenario might be different, so that's why I'm curious.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ferromancer

Yep :beam: They stormed out to wreck my siege equipment, got distracted by some skirmishers, and I ran some guys all around the city walls. They would come to gate after gate only to find it locked, until they just gave up and sat on the hillside to watch the rest of the fight.

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And you mentioned another thing that I'm even more curious about.

I haven't seen a scenario where I could use troops to destroy siege equipment.
How do you do that? I've seen my wall towers destroy enemy ambulant towers when they storm the city walls, and was able to use the general to attack the troops carrying ladders to slow them down, but don't think I've ever destroyed towers, ladders, battering rams, or sap points by melee-ing them. On occasion I've had archers use flamed arrows burn down ambulent towers.

Could you elaborate on how the AI wrecked your siege equipment?

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Originally Posted by spqr_arcani

And you mentioned another thing that I'm even more curious about.

I haven't seen a scenario where I could use troops to destroy siege equipment.
How do you do that? I've seen my wall towers destroy enemy ambulant towers when they storm the city walls, and was able to use the general to attack the troops carrying ladders to slow them down, but don't think I've ever destroyed towers, ladders or sap points by melee-ing them. On occasion I've had archers use flamed arrows burn down ambulent towers.

Could you elaborate on how the AI wrecked your siege equipment?

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And if anyone knows what I'm talking about, the opening RTW movie sequence shows this part where a siege tower collapses after it has reached the wall. Not sure if that's caused by city wall towers firing flame arrows at the siege tower, or if it was due to some melee attack.

And there were times in the original vanilla RTW where for some reason an entire array of enemy troops climbing ladders simply fell splat to the ground. Not sure if my troops defending the wall had anything to do with it. I thought that was hilarious.

If anyone knows whether these are still possible in EB or know how to do these, please share!

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Originally Posted by spqr_arcani

And there were times in the original vanilla RTW where for some reason an entire array of enemy troops climbing ladders simply fell splat to the ground. Not sure if my troops defending the wall had anything to do with it. I thought that was hilarious.

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That happens if your troops on the wall breake the enemy unit, the remaining soldiers on the ladders fall down and die.

Ceterum censeo Romam esse delendam

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Originally Posted by Zett

That happens if your troops on the wall breake the enemy unit, the remaining soldiers on the ladders fall down and die.

Ceterum censeo Romam esse delendam

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No wonder I haven't seen this in a while.

Back in Vanilla RTW days it was easy recruiting robust faction units such as legionnaires as soon as you conquered the enemy city. When my newly conquered city was assaulted by enemy troops, my faction units held out well and probably broke the ladder climbers as you pointed out. For some reason (maybe game balancing), I find putting melee units on the walls not quite that efficient or effective when playing EB.

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spqr_arcani

And there were times in the original vanilla RTW where for some reason an entire array of enemy troops climbing ladders simply fell splat to the ground. Not sure if my troops defending the wall had anything to do with it. I thought that was hilarious.

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The first time I laid siege to Syrakousai, one of my siege towers had been ordered ("sort-of deliberately"; in the name of science, you could say) to a section of wall that was also being targetted by sappers.

Hilarity ensued.

I remember one of my finer sallies...
The Greeks had been pushed out of Greece and they somehow had ownership of the town in the Trapezous region, their last remaining stronghold. Once I broke into the east past Galatia, Greece sent a force of ~1500 mostly light eastern infantry who were readily slaughtered by my Scythian archers, 2 turns and they were down to about 400 men.

To spqr_arcani, siege towers can be destroyed at the walls when defending archers hit them with flame arrows, mine've done that before. Other than that, siege equipment IS destructable by non-archer units, it just takes a long time to even do any damage to it. Elephants (if you've got them as reinforcements not stuck in the city) I think will do significant damage and smash the siege equipment. If anyone can test that please post the results. :D

In terms of sallies by a besieged foe, does this mean that you have to force them back inside their walls to get a draw? I ask because I'm playing without a battle time limit as the Saka, and had a general and two low-end horse archers units besieging Taxashila, basicly halved the enemy forces without loss, but then was forced to retreat because I couldn't force their remaining forces back inside the walls. I'll return in six months to finish the job, but I just wanted this clarified.

Thanks,

Curio

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Originally Posted by Gaius Scribonius Curio

In terms of sallies by a besieged foe, does this mean that you have to force them back inside their walls to get a draw? I ask because I'm playing without a battle time limit as the Saka, and had a general and two low-end horse archers units besieging Taxashila, basicly halved the enemy forces without loss, but then was forced to retreat because I couldn't force their remaining forces back inside the walls. I'll return in six months to finish the job, but I just wanted this clarified.

Thanks,

Curio

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No. See my post above. All I had to do was take the square, it came to a draw, but was able to take the city.