Laying Seiges

Does laying seiges and not attacking the city depreciate your army just like in MTW?

Do you guys always attack the city directly or hold seiges until the enemy surrender?

For the first question, I haven't noticed any attrition, so I don't think it wears down the army

For second question, I don't think the enemy will surrender. Once I tried maintaining the seige until the city couldn't last any longer and the enemy simply come out to attack my army. Suicidal but hey, better then giving it away to me I guess ~:)

There is no attacker attrition, there is defender attrition. Faction cities seem to always sally on the last turn of the siege, however, I have taken neutral cities without having to fight the defenders.

Bh

No attrition but remember this. A city that gets starved out has devastated farmland for 20 years. So when you do get it you will have very little farm income fron the city.

I always typically attack on that turn (most of my assault armies have ongars that enable this), or I wait one turn for all the seige equipment I could possibly need, and storm it.

My experience is to that they always sally forth, wont taking starving for an answer lol.

I have found that armies will sometimes stick in for the long haul, but if say one of your cities rebels and you do not want to lose any troops and can spare the income/production you can attack with two armies and have the one that is attacked retreat every time. I have done this in Memphis and another city in the province directly east, because my Seluecid empire is massive and the rebels are not worthy of dying on my men's swords!

As I said, the defenders suffer from attrition, which is the reason I often delay. I know they are going to attack me, but I can usually cause 20-25% casualties without even firing a shot just by waiting. Seems worth it to me. Not when I know I can take it easily, but when the forces are somewhat close, I generally wait.

Bh

I lay siege when I have the feeling I could not successfully fight my way through the walls, but would be able to win a open field battle.

Now what really pisses me off is when the enemy sallies, but does nothing on the battle screen. The AI just keeps all it`s troops inside the city. I can`t attack, because as mentioned I am not properly prepared for bloody street combat.

So I have basically to wait untill the battle times out.
Next turn the same will probably happen again.

Pretty annoying if the AI wastes ones tme like that.

You could just hit escape and click on exit battle, I believe that if you are not engaged in combat it will just end the battle and say that it was a draw, without causing any casualties. You might want to start a throw away campaign just to test it though, because I am not 100%.