Sieges - evacuation by sea

I was besieging the Greeks recently whilst playing as the Scipiones(h/h) and was down to only two turns left before capitulation, when I would also earn a nice fat major exotic unit from the Senate. To my surprise at the turn end the "you have captured the city" board came up. On investigation I found that the Greek army of 14 units and a family member had decamped into a nearby fleet rather than face annihilation.

I presume this is down to the patch, at least I've never noticed it before. In any event a pleasing touch showing some AI intelligence, though quite how they got out of a besieged city without fighting I don't know. The port wasn't blockaded but how did they get that far in the first place? The only annoying part was that the Senate immediately announced that it no longer required me to capture the place and reneged on the exotic unit I had been salivating over. I had captured the place , blast it!

Anyone else had this happen?


Carinus

This must be a post patch occurence, as I have never seen, or heard of it happening before. I know that they would retreat to the safety of their ships if they had a path open to them before, but as far as I know, never when they were in a besieged city.

If this is down to the patch, then it just goes to show that CA were right to take their time with the patch, and not listen to all the constant whining that kept getting happening (nearly all of it over at the .com)

it has happened to me once in the unaltered version, those cowerdace pontus 1 turn till annihilation then all of a suddin the paddling like hell to there last remaining stronghold. i did'nt think much of it cause i got there pretty city without spilling a drop o blood (disregarding the extermination).

Well in MTW you could abandon while under siege and some cities should be able to flee by sea/straight or river. That is considering that there are no enemy fleets next to yours.

Historically it did happen that an entire populace either left before the opposing army or they snuck out during the siege. How often and how successful would have had many factors.

Could have been a feature that they could not get done in time.

true it was under extreme discussion of the Athenians at the battle of marathon but they were able to fool the persians instead, we all know the story.

it never happend to me but that could mean more salvation measures for poor defended citys! :book: well write that down............. :charge:

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Originally Posted by Carinus

On investigation I found that the Greek army of 14 units and a family member had decamped into a nearby fleet rather than face annihilation.

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Why the hell would a 14 unit army be that afraid? Considering that is about 75% of how many troops they could use maximum. Were you attacking with a full stack of merc elephants with a full stack of arcanii reinforcments?

Sheesh.

Well that is cool! Never happened to me, pre or post-patch. Also, think the other way around: did anybody try to evacuate a besieged city instead of fighting? Is it possible?

Proletariat:

Had a full stack of quality troops but confess I was also surprised. I was expecting the usual sortie. Greeks just lost their nerve I suppose.


Carinus

Using V1.2, I had this happen playing Brutii and sieging the AI city with Macedon defenders. I also was robbed of the Senate reward - two minor exotic units.

I have not tried siege evac/reinforce by sea in V1.2 but this tactic did work quite well RTR 5.1. One memorable example, I was Macedon defending Athens from a Roman (unified) siege where they had six surrounding armies totaling roughly 4500 troops (large unit size). I specifically waited for the siege battle to occur. While waiting, I added troops to the garrison, swapped others out to put in troops with upgrades and such all by using fleets next to the city. When the battle occured, by 1400 defenders fought and won vs about 2000 Romans while the rest sat on the battle map and did nothing until the time expired.

This is all new to me...

How do you do it, exactly? Does it only work for cities actually on the coast? Does it work if your port is blockaded?

Fridge,

In my case, the city (Athens) was on the coast and the fleet was at sea next to the city, not using the Harbor/port facility. The AI (in RTR) did not blockage the port (not good in doing so).

Pretty easy to do. Pull up the fleet next to the city under siege, move troops from the garrison to merge with the fleet like normal, and do the same in reverse to add troops from the fleet to the city.

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Originally Posted by Lichgod

Fridge,

In my case, the city (Athens) was on the coast and the fleet was at sea next to the city, not using the Harbor/port facility. The AI (in RTR) did not blockage the port (not good in doing so).

Pretty easy to do. Pull up the fleet next to the city under siege, move troops from the garrison to merge with the fleet like normal, and do the same in reverse to add troops from the fleet to the city.

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Great! I'm gonna try this ASAP. Nice this game still has something to offer months after first playing it.

Is this a bug, or a deliberate feature? If it only happens in cities that are actually on the coast, or had fortified roads going down to the sea, fair enough, but to my knowledge, none of the cities (on the battle map at least) are actually on the beach, with a harbour within the walls (wouldn't that be cool?).

Damn those secret underground tunnels...