Does any one starve the enemy???

[Ghaust the Moor]

I am currently playing a Casse campaign and I admit it to be the hardest campaign for me to play in eb. I have attempted the Nigh-impossible with saka and conquered most of my victory conditions and then I got bored. I am finding that the only way for me to conquer all of brittania is to starve. I take a half stack army, just enough for the enemy not to sally, and seige. I wait for the number of seasons that it has to survive and when it is down to its last, I lift the seige and then besiege again. I do this until they have 200 or so men left. I find this to be cheating, but I find battles with the casse versus casse-fakes are too risky. If even my second in command general dies, my men rout and it is utterly stupid when I have lost of all of 100 men. Their moral sucks. I was wondering if any one else uses my tactic to assure vistory. I just feel really guilty.

[DaciaJC]

I used this tactic several times myself in my Getai campaign. To be honest, I don't consider it cheating, as sieges were known to last for years on end (as least in medieval times), with the besieging army living off the land, as it were. The EB team added the Rationing/Tightened Belts/Starving traits to limit this course of action, I imagine, in addition to rampaging far behind enemy lines.

[Saldunz]

I'm playing as the Casse myself right now, and am thankful to say that the campaign is almost done. Only three settlements left. And I think you're right to have found the Casse so difficult. The campaign didn't get any harder for me than uniting the isles. I've starved the Eleutheroi, but not quite in the same way as you have.

What I ended up doing was moving half-stacks, being all that I could afford, to siege the settlements. The engine calculated this as a 1:1 advantage. Too bloody for me to assault and too bloody for the AI to sally. Then I let the seasons pass and wait for their numbers to dwindle, until they have no choice but to sally. At which point, I don't break off but accept the fight with the severely weakened AI. So if you really feel guilty, I would suggest letting the starved AI sally without going through the same motions again and again until you can't possibly lose. I can guarantee it's far more satisfying this way, and definitely doable.

Here are just some pointers to help you win these encounters. The enemy can only sally forth one unit at a time. Even if the unit is much more powerful than yours, you still have a half-stack against it. Furthermore, as those units run out one at a time, remember that launched bullets and javelins can utterly cut them down to half their numbers, and may even rout them (especially with your general nearby). In fact, even a single routing enemy unit slows down the rate at which the others sally forth. This allows even more time for your slingers to slaughter them. And even if they somehow manage to sally forth, at these reduced numbers, your infantry should make short work of them. What can easily clinch the battle in favour of one side or the other though is the death of a general, as you've discovered. It's incredibly easy to lose your Casse general by a stupid mistake, like the chariots getting themselves stuck in melee. So only let that general charge if your absolutely positive it'll cause the enemy to rout.

All in all, though, you shouldn't feel like you have to do it the way you're doing it. It sounds like slow unrewarding work. The Casse take a while to get used to at the beginning, but once you get the strategy of it down, Britannia starts to seem like the easy part of the campaign. :)

[Drewski]

Playing as The Romani, its quite easy to start taking every province with a super-full stack..

I got a little bored of siege battles in one game, so started starving out rebel cities...I took Massalia, Tolosa and Emporion, ALL without a battle...when the last siege turn came, the rebels decided to just give me the city.....very sensible of them.

Quite a boring way to play though ;)

[Apázlinemjó]

I don't like to play attacker in siege battles, that's why I usually use that method to conquer the cities.

[mountaingoat]

just take my time with the towns and siege them until they rally .

sometimes its better to have them break the siege on the first turn if your units are better equipped than theirs.

[delablake]

I use this tactic, reluctantly - usually with two different armies, one besieging, one behind my own lines, taking turns when the hunger sets in. Though I really enjoy it when the enemy attacks after the first turn in order to relieve their comrades. Yes, I HATE sieges!

[Maion Maroneios]

Though I, as an honest Makedon, prefer to fight, sometimes I starve out ther enemy (or just wait for them to sally forth) when their army is quite strong.

Maion

[Atraphoenix]

As a pahlava fan, I have no time to wait AS garrison die, they love sending reinforcement again and again so although it is a nightmare to fight with shvatir i pahlavanig in the streets, I always assault I have no time to stop until fall of antioch then finally I have time to build reformed goverment. plus AS mostly sally on advised difficulty VH/M just after the turn I besieged the city.

[satalexton]

Though I, as an honest Makedon, prefer to fight, sometimes I starve out ther enemy (or just wait for them to sally forth) when their army is quite strong.

Maion

Except for Barbaropolis I'm sure =]

[Chris1959]

I use starvation as the Romanii nearly all the time despite the fact legionaries are some of the best troops for clearing walls.

I like to role-play and feel it represents a more realistic time scale to subdue a province. If a relieving army intervenes so be it, and I fight the battle.

I don't like playing siege battles.

There are exceptions, if the garrison is really small and my spies have opened the gates. Then I nearly always use auto-calc for the battle unless there is a high star FM in the garrison and I'll get excessive losses.

[fighter36]

Slingers are the key. They murder any troops in the game once you get some chevrons on them. Get them to sally out after they run out of food. The slingers should be able to take down 4 or more units to half strength as they leave the settlement. Get some of your spears and swordsman to face off with them and get your chariots to hit em from behind and the bastards will run! :)

[sethbest]

What difficulty are you playing at? I found uniting the british isles was pretty easy but it was only on normal difficulty. Getting the first few settlements involved moving my army into the enemy territories, luring them to attack me in split groups rather than facing several forces at once in pitched battles around settlements, but after that it got pretty easy.

[Cute Wolf]

Siege until the enemies die starving is real warfare tactics.... And you MUST siege them until dead if you only have HA's in your army (playing as the nomads)... Casse is better, they can order their men to use the Ram and Ladders.... Steppe infantry is useless...

Anyway, when playing Casse, after get 3 or 4 settlements with starving siege... you just need to pump out swordsmen...

[V.T. Marvin]

Siege until the enemies die starving is real warfare tactics.... And you MUST siege them until dead if you only have HA's in your army (playing as the nomads)...

I beg to differ. If you besiege a city with a SMALL ENOUGH horse-archer army, the AI would think it can win a sally and will sally forth immediately. This, of course, is to bring forth its own doom, because it will be slaugthered by concentrated missile fire. Killing off routing units fleeing back to the town-square is something that even horses in narrow streets can manage.

I have done this quite often in my Pahlavan campaigns, but it sometimes felt as an exploit.