Garrison dieing off - Why?

[Cretan]

Can someone please explain why my Garrison slowly dies while waiting for the enemy army to lay siege to my city?

It doesen't make any sense to me, if my city has food stocks and defenses (that the enemy cannot breach) how are my troops dieing ... maybe of boredom.

[VersusAllOdds]

Sorry to be so blunt, but man this is a dumb question!
They die because lack of supplies while under siege...

[Cretan]

Sorry to be so blunt, but man this is a dumb question!
They die because lack of supplies while under siege...

At first, i too thought it was a silly question but when you think about it logically it doesen't make a whole lot of sense.

A modest city can resist a siege for 6 Turns, which is 3 years, while after just 6 months the garrison starts dieing. So by that logic troops starve to death while the city still has 2.5 years worth of food in storage ....


Even more unrealistic is the attacking force, that in reality would have 1-2 months of food supply (6 months maximum with foraging) does not loose any troops over 3 years of being separated from civilization.

I just thought there would be a more logical explanation, hence my *Dumb question*

[Guyus Germanicus]

Cretan,

I wouldn't call your question dumb. You're new to the game, right? The game is, of course, set up this way - minor attrition takes place on any garrison under siege. In rare cases there are occasionally no losses suffered. But that's not typical in RTW. Think of your losses while under siege as characteristic attrition such as what might occur in a real life siege. You can lose men for a variety of reasons: skirmishing between your units (on the wall - even if you don't have any that you've posted there yourself) and the besiegers, supply shortages, brackish water, food spoilage, disease from reduced or bad hygiene because of the lack of freedom of movement, accidents caused by the stress of the circumstances, etc. Your city's maximum length of survival time does not mean that your casualties don't begin until the food runs out at the end of that time limit. It really represents the absolute limit of your garrison's morale and will to resist given the size and resources of that particular city.

I've always tried to avoid putting my cities thru a prolonged siege. You can't recruit or do any building while your city is under siege. Valuable time is lost in development. If you have quality mercenary units inside a besieged city, they cannot be 'replaced' with recruitment like your regular units. You can only recruit whole units of mercenaries, and then only as the internal game's mercenary recruitment 'schedule' permits. So siege losses are irritating, especially if the mercenaries are expensive or valuable like Cretan archers.

By the same token, besieging armies should suffer less in the siege process. They can forage from the countryside while your army is bottled up in the city. You will see the land 'blackened' on the 'gameboard' as a result of the besieging army's presence in your territory. That's RTW's way of showing pillage and forage wasteage from an enemy army. The besieging army can get fresh water and food stocks while your army inside the city is depending on stored foodstuffs that might be spoiling or molding from 'poor' storage conditions. Hope this makes sense. :)

[Cretan]

Cretan,

I wouldn't call your question dumb. You're new to the game, right? The game is, of course, set up this way - minor attrition takes place on any garrison under siege. In rare cases there are occasionally no losses suffered. But that's not typical in RTW. Think of your losses while under siege as characteristic attrition such as what might occur in a real life siege. You can lose men for a variety of reasons: skirmishing between your units (on the wall - even if you don't have any that you've posted there yourself) and the besiegers, supply shortages, brackish water, food spoilage, disease from reduced or bad hygiene because of the lack of freedom of movement, accidents caused by the stress of the circumstances, etc. Your city's maximum length of survival time does not mean that your casualties don't begin until the food runs out at the end of that time limit. It really represents the absolute limit of your garrison's morale and will to resist given the size and resources of that particular city.

I've always tried to avoid putting my cities thru a prolonged siege. You can't recruit or do any building while your city is under siege. Valuable time is lost in development. If you have quality mercenary units inside a besieged city, they cannot be 'replaced' with recruitment like your regular units. You can only recruit whole units of mercenaries, and then only as the internal game's mercenary recruitment 'schedule' permits. So siege losses are irritating, especially if the mercenaries are expensive or valuable like Cretan archers.

By the same token, besieging armies should suffer less in the siege process. They can forage from the countryside while your army is bottled up in the city. You will see the land 'blackened' on the 'gameboard' as a result of the besieging army's presence in your territory. That's RTW's way of showing pillage and forage wasteage from an enemy army. The besieging army can get fresh water and food stocks while your army inside the city is depending on stored foodstuffs that might be spoiling or molding from 'poor' storage conditions. Hope this makes sense. :)

That is what i find irritating, its like the game forces you to play aggressively when defensive battles are much more fun.

I guess i simply don't like the way this mechanism works, and was curious about the logic behind it. As unconvincing as it seems, it looks like something i've got to put up with or Mod it out of the game.

Thank you for you insight into how it works. :)

[Cretan]

Sorry for the double post but this site won't let me Edit posts.

*Thank you for your insight into how it works*

[Quirinus]

Just keep posting and you should get the ability to edit your posts in no time. =]

minor attrition takes place on any garrison under siege. [...] Think of your losses while under siege as characteristic attrition such as what might occur in a real life siege. You can lose men for a variety of reasons: skirmishing between your units (on the wall - even if you don't have any that you've posted there yourself) and the besiegers, supply shortages, brackish water, food spoilage, disease from reduced or bad hygiene because of the lack of freedom of movement, accidents caused by the stress of the circumstances, etc.

By the same token, besieging armies should suffer less in the siege process. They can forage from the countryside while your army is bottled up in the city. You will see the land 'blackened' on the 'gameboard' as a result of the besieging army's presence in your territory. That's RTW's way of showing pillage and forage wasteage from an enemy army. The besieging army can get fresh water and food stocks while your army inside the city is depending on stored foodstuffs that might be spoiling or molding from 'poor' storage conditions. Hope this makes sense. :)

Though realistically armies haemorhage casualties all the time - why should this only be reflected in a garrison under siege?

But I suppose it also makes waiting a few turns before attacking a city a more attractive option, and adds some further incentive for the besieged to break the siege as soon as possible.

[Cretan]

Just keep posting and you should get the ability to edit your posts in no time. =]

Ahh, right ... i think i'll read my posts more carefully until i have that privelage. :)

[ReluctantSamurai]

The whole system of sieges in RTW is rubbish anyways, but it is they way it is, and you either deal with it or play another game. I say rubbish because there is little common sense in the way it is implemented, but for different reasons than you state.

There should have been a size requirement for besieging forces. A handful of light infantry and a few skirmishers would have absolutely no chance to siege a walled city of any size in real life. A direct assault would be the only choice, in that case. Also, a garrison in a city with a port cannot be starved out unless the port is blockaded, as well. Common sense, no? New supplies would be continuously be coming in via the port.

But, these things are wishful thinking, as the parameters for sieges are hard-coded (someone correct me if I am wrong) and cannot be changed. So just learn to adapt. If I feel I have a good chance of winning, I sally on the first turn. Even if you don't break the siege on the first turn, keep at it. If you are skillful enough, you will eventually kill enough of the besiegers to drive them off. You can also bring up reinforcements and attack in that manner. This will result in a field battle with your garrison and the reinforcing army both.

And btw, excellent post, Guyus!

[Karl08]

Disease would be a major factor. A time-honoured method of getting a city to surrender is to contaminate water supply, lobbing carcasses over city walls (more a medieval thing), and also waste and rubbish of various kinds would be pooling up inside the city. Also, this was long before refrigeration, so you may well have huge storages of food, but how well will that food keep?

[yutterh]

he port doesnt work either cause incase you didnt notice there is a road that goes to the port outside of the city >_> unless the city itself is a costal town it cant get resources from the port.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Poor choice of words, on my part.

As it stands, a port need not be blockaded to cause garrison losses. I was suggesting that it should have needed blockade, otherwise a garrison would receive supplies through it. The use of a road to a city's port is a totally arbitrary thing implemented by the map-makers. In most cities of the era, the port would debark directly into the market district.

[Karl08]

Poor choice of words, on my part.

As it stands, a port need not be blockaded to cause garrison losses. I was suggesting that it should have needed blockade, otherwise a garrison would receive supplies through it. The use of a road to a city's port is a totally arbitrary thing implemented by the map-makers. In most cities of the era, the port would debark directly into the market district.

I think that's what he was replying to, and he was saying that unless the port was integreted into the city proper, ie. it was within the city walls, you shouldn't have to blockade the port. Why should you, seeing as the city is cut off from it?

[ReluctantSamurai]

you shouldn't have to blockade the port. Why should you, seeing as the city is cut off from it?

This time, it isn't my choice of words that's at fault ;-)

What I said was:

The use of a road to a city's port is a totally arbitrary thing implemented by the map-makers. In most cities of the era, the port would debark directly into the market district.

Hence, most ports disembarked directly (read as--no roads necessary or only a very short service road completely contained within the city walls) into a city via the marketplace. Makes sense, no? The market is where most goods are bought and sold. I'm sure not every city was set up this way, but it's a very arbitrary design by the RTW map-makers that ports are some distance from the city.

I really can't see belabouring the point.....the dynamics of sieges cannot be changed, AFAIK.

Here is an interesting link that covers quite a few harbors in ancient Greece, Phoenecia, and Italy.

http://www2.rgzm.de/Navis2/Home/Frames.htm

Pick your language and navigate to the harbors menu. For example, the port at Athens, Pireaus, was outside the city but heavily fortified. The port for Sparta, Gytheion, debarked nearly direct into the city. The same for Corinth's primary port, although it had a second 4km away. Some pretty good reading.

And to get some kind of idea of the difficulty in laying siege to a city that's supplied by port read Alexanders siege of Tyre.....

http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/ArriCamp.html

[Guyus Germanicus]

There should have been a size requirement for besieging forces. A handful of light infantry and a few skirmishers would have absolutely no chance to siege a walled city of any size in real life. A direct assault would be the only choice, in that case. Also, a garrison in a city with a port cannot be starved out unless the port is blockaded, as well. Common sense, no? New supplies would be continuously be coming in via the port.

But, these things are wishful thinking, as the parameters for sieges are hard-coded (someone correct me if I am wrong) and cannot be changed. So just learn to adapt. If I feel I have a good chance of winning, I sally on the first turn. Even if you don't break the siege on the first turn, keep at it. If you are skillful enough, you will eventually kill enough of the besiegers to drive them off. You can also bring up reinforcements and attack in that manner. This will result in a field battle with your garrison and the reinforcing army both.

And btw, excellent post, Guyus!

Gracias, amigo.

I have to admit I do get irritated when enemy factions besiege my well-garrisoned city with a couple mediocre units. Invariably when I sally, they retreat in terror off the combat gameboard. Irritates me, 'cause they just diminished my profits for a turn and then ran off without my getting a chance to stomp them. So I've gotten into the habit of posting some units outside the walls of my frontier cities as a blocking force when enemy units are fairly close. A size requirement for besieging forces would seem to be a reasonable notion. I have to laugh when a lone general and his body guard unit 'besieges' my city with a garrison comprised of a faction member, half a dozen hastati, cretan archers, and 3-4 cavalry units. Who's he kidding? ;)

You do have a good point about besieging port cities with active harbors. It would seem only fair that you have to both blockade the port and besiege the city simultaneously. However, in some cases resupplying an ancient city even when it has an unblockaded port would be problematic in real life. It really depends on the city. Ancient generals like Caesar, Mithridates the Great and Demetrius the Besieger, as well as Alexander-t-G, would invest a city by building siege walls around the entire city perimeter so that nothing could get in or go out. True, at Syracuse the Athenians had to both block the harbor and build siege walls around the city. But, Scipio built siege works blocking Carthage's access to the hinterland and then built a mole across the harbor channel blocking the harbor entrance - no navy needed. Guess we just have to assume some things when we're playing RTW. :)

At Alesia, Caesar built a series of walls and moats all around the town and then built walls on the outside of his own series of camps outside the city so that a relieving army could not break his stranglehold on Alesia without storming over walls and moats to get at his army. The Romans were really good at siege warfare. They built siege towers at intervals all along their investment walls and ramparts, then posted archers and slingers in them so that any enemy sallies would be a truly expensive undertaking.

At Syracuse, the Athenians didn't complete their investment wall in time to lock down the city's defenders, and with Spartan help Syracuse broke the siege. They counter blockaded the Athenian fleet inside the harbor, if I remember correctly, so the Athenians burned their boats - a big, big mistake as they had no way to escape if their siege failed. It led to 30-40,000 dead or enslaved Athenians, a catastrophe. There was serious mourning in that city when the news reached them.

Mithridates tried a shipborn siege tower in one of his battles.

Of course, RTW doesn't reproduce these interesting elements in the game. You basically are offered siege equipment options for a straight assault on the walls - sappers, battering rams, ladders and siege towers. Oh well . . . and I still can't tear myself away from this game. :)

[ReluctantSamurai]

A size requirement for besieging forces would seem to be a reasonable notion.

You think?

It would seem only fair that you have to both blockade the port and besiege the city simultaneously. However, in some cases resupplying an ancient city even when it has an unblockaded port would be problematic in real life. It really depends on the city.

I would probably back off on the port blockade, although I still feel it's a reasonable thing. If you visited the Navis site, you'll see that, although many if not most, cities had their port shielded by their walls (at least those discussed), enough didn't. Not sure the AI would be able to distinguish or even co-ordinate blockades on those cities whose port was some distance from the city.

I have to laugh when a lone general and his body guard unit 'besieges' my city with a garrison comprised of a faction member, half a dozen hastati, cretan archers, and 3-4 cavalry units. Who's he kidding?

Kinda like the scene in Troy where Achilles is standing in front of the city gates calling for Hector?!?