Castles: storming vs besieging

[Gilrandir]

I have noticed that when you storm a castle the very building survives undamaged, but when you sit and wait for the garrison to surrender the outcome is doubtful: sometimes (though rarely) the building stays intact, in other cases (in about 90% of them) it is downgraded one level (e.g. if it was a keep, it becomes a fort). First of all, it doesn't seem logical as in real life storming presupposes some degree of ruination while besieging does not. Second of all, I would like to know how can one be sure that when the siege is successfully over you will "keep the keep" without downgrading. Any tips?

[Prince Cobra]

I have noticed that when you storm a castle the very building survives undamaged, but when you sit and wait for the garrison to surrender the outcome is doubtful: sometimes (though rarely) the building stays intact, in other cases (in about 90% of them) it is downgraded one level (e.g. if it was a keep, it becomes a fort). First of all, it doesn't seem logical as in real life storming presupposes some degree of ruination while besieging does not. Second of all, I would like to know how can one be sure that when the siege is successfully over you will "keep the keep" without downgrading. Any tips?

I don't think you can be sure of how much the castle will downgrade.

When storming you also don't have a guarantee that it won't downgrade but you will lose less buildings. The last 3 times I stromed a fort, it downgraded to dust each time. It may be the fact I attacked the fort from at least three directions (the same for the other more improved defences when I have siege equipment.)

P.S. In relation with the other thread, spies, if they have a high chance for success are a good alternative.

[I of the Storm]

My current working theory, yet to be falsified, is that it depends on whether extensions to the fortification have been built or not. Each time a province is taken, the fortification is diminished by 1. If you have a fort with motte and bailey and it's taken, it will be a fort with motte. If you have a plain fort, it will be gone once the province is taken. (this corresponds with the fact that fort level counts as "castle" internally while fort +m+b counts as "castle2" IIRC)
I think there was a thread containing the correct maths of this a while ago.
So what it boils down to is: build extensions to each fortification.

[caravel]

That is correct. The "upgrades" are not treated as such by the game engine, but as additional castle levels (which is what they are in fact).

[gollum]

+1 to I of the Storm's and Asai's point; these are my observations as well.

[Ironside]

Second of all, I would like to know how can one be sure that when the siege is successfully over you will "keep the keep" without downgrading. Any tips?

Bribes. Bribing the castle garnison will change the castle to your hands, leaving every building intact. Not always easy to pull off though.

[Gilrandir]

So what it boils down to is: build extensions to each fortification.

But you storm your enemy castles, how can you build extentions to somebody else's castles?

[I of the Storm]

That should read: "build extensions to each fortification of yours - just in case..."
You can't help the AI obviously, seemingly it hardly builds extensions.

[drone]

The castle extensions can be beneficial to virtues (cheap and fast for the Builder line), but I usually don't build them if the province is in a contested area. They don't add food/capacity to your besieged units, and if you lose the province you have now gifted the opponent with a higher level fortress you will have to retake later.

[Stazi]

btw do you ever defend your castles? I mean battles on maps with a castle. My standard tactic (if I can't win in the field) is to "retreat to stronghold" and counterattack next year with forces gathered form other provinces. If I'm unable to retake province in this fashion it means I've done something wrong. If I have strong garrison the AI doesn't want to attack but when I have small garrison I'm unable to effectively defend the castle. In both situations it's just a waste of units.

[gollum]

You can use castles Stazi in order to delay enemy troops when you have many fonts open that you can't possibly cover all at the same time. In this case, its best to have your armies in one or two proinces per front and in teh rest you can have a small "custom made" garrison for castle defence. This includes usually a missile unit, a spear unit, a militia unit and a small perhaps cavarly unit or some combination of those. Usualy i pick units that have suffered losses so the castle will last a long time under siege.

Provinces are more likely to rebel (including loyalitsts) when besieged, so keeping a front with small custom made garrisons and good fortifications is a good strategy of you need the troops elsewhere for defence or for expansion.

This strategy of course is for border regions, not for your core lands! You want to keep training troops and making prfits and etching up from those.

Another area in the same theme is that of castles defences. For example if you make your castle on a hill (all castles for which you've built a motte are on a hill, for all castles you didn't built the motte they are on the plain), its better not to make ballista/catapult/artillery towers - the enemy is low and the artillery are hitting your own walls (especially true from catapults onwards). But for castles you make in plains, building the catapults is good as the ground is flat and the catapults can hit the enemy troops with devastating results. This by the way is pretty historical. There were castles in flats in Spain and elsewehere that were build with a low outter wall and a high inner wall or keep inside and the two are pretty close to one another. This was in order to fire at assaulters from both the outter wall and the Keep/inner wall.

[Ironside]

btw do you ever defend your castles? I mean battles on maps with a castle. My standard tactic (if I can't win in the field) is to "retreat to stronghold" and counterattack next year with forces gathered form other provinces. If I'm unable to retake province in this fashion it means I've done something wrong. If I have strong garrison the AI doesn't want to attack but when I have small garrison I'm unable to effectively defend the castle. In both situations it's just a waste of units.

You can often force a siege by sallying from the castle without moving in reinforcements. The AI usually counteracts by storming the castle. Of course, the AI doesn't always do this and then you have a field battle on your hand (or full retreat from the castle). Usually I do what you do, but this method can give good castle defense battles for fun.

Finding out was painful though. Had my best general besieged by Mongols (I was Russian), tried to save him by retreating from the province, got a siege instead, won epic victory. The general starved to death the next year...

[Gilrandir]

btw do you ever defend your castles? I mean battles on maps with a castle. My standard tactic (if I can't win in the field) is to "retreat to stronghold" and counterattack next year with forces gathered form other provinces. If I'm unable to retake province in this fashion it means I've done something wrong. If I have strong garrison the AI doesn't want to attack but when I have small garrison I'm unable to effectively defend the castle. In both situations it's just a waste of units.

Defending castles is worthwile, when you can't help it (you cannot draw relieving force in the first year of the siege and the AI storms your castle). In this case your main objective is to destroy as much of the enemy as possible (particularly, the general), so that the province the enemy has captured can go rebel soon because of the small number of the enemy's garrison. Moreover, sometimes you can even win (especially if you manage to kill the general). I had in my experience two cases like this. One was the Byz against the Egyptians when they brought plenty of desert archers and other crap. They captured the outer yard of the keep and stood put indefinitely absorbing missiles and then fled.
The second was the Turks against the Byz. Their forces were far below under the hill, so they had to foot it a long way and up before they reached the gate (no siege equipment for them). The first units to be engaged at the gates were Varangians which were destroyed in the process of breaking the gates. The general unit kept gallopping along the walls until all shot from within. The other units (although numerous and with reinforcements) were successfully repelled by mine.

[gaijinalways]

I'll have to try some of these in my next campaign. I'm often lazy and autoresolve a lot of the castle battles. I almost never have siege weapons as I don't build them, so it's only if I bribe rebels or capture them and don't execute them.

[gollum]

The best way to get siege weapons in vanilla is as mercenaries - cheap and fast. Always i keep a province underdeveloped (higher level castles/forts reduce mercenary mgnetism) and close to the enemy for an Inn to get them and any other mercs. I never autoresolve - even chore battles and sieges. The battlefield is the place to be in MTW :)

[gaijinalways]

I hear you Gollum , but sometimes real life has a way of intruding, so I save time sometimes and even (gasp) autoresolve battles I know that I should easily win (where I have far superior numbers) if it saves time to finish some campaigns in days and weeks rather than months.

[gollum]

I hear you Gollum , but sometimes real life has a way of intruding, so I save time sometimes and even (gasp) autoresolve battles I know that I should easily win (where I have far superior numbers) if it saves time to finish some campaigns in days and weeks rather than months.

Absolutely. I was just expressing how much i like playing TW battles rather than telling how it should be. I feel for you as i have precisely the very same problems :)

[Gilrandir]

I autocalc at the stage of the game, when you have sheer dominance in numbers and 70% of the map is conquered. The game becomes not that interesting in matters of fighting, but only in terms of general policy and strategy.
Strange are the ways of human mind!!! When you are threatened from all sides by powerful factions, when you have to scrape last coins in your treasury, when you see in a nightmare your generals starting a civil war, when your heart starts missing a beat expecting an heir to be born (cheatcodes don't work in my game), you hate it all and wish for some stable and smooth situation in your kingdom. But if such times come and you are sitting at your throne, benevolent and wise, deleting empires with a wave of your hand, the game becomes tedious and boring (or are they synonyms?). Is there any explanation to that?

[gollum]

Explanation i don't know, but there is a way out: you can change factions mid game once you have made one too powerful.

[Gilrandir]

I can't. You forgot how special my game is. And even if I could, it would break my heart to give away to the AI what I have so long toiled for. Call me greedy (or avaricious would suit better?).

[gollum]

And even if I could, it would break my heart to give away to the AI what I have so long toiled for. Call me greedy (or avaricious would suit better?).

Then you have just answered your own question about the human mind it seems to me :)

[Prince Cobra]

Explanation i don't know, but there is a way out: you can change factions mid game once you have made one too powerful.

Sorry for the off-topic question but how do you do that?

[Gilrandir]

Then I'm a greedy person longing for thrills and scared to death when they come and getting bored when they don't. But I wonder does anyone have similar feelings?

[gollum]

Sorry for the off-topic question but how do you do that?

Hello Prince Cobra,
it is done thus:
1. Make a shortcut of you MTW exe (if you don't use one)
2. Then right click the short cut and put your cursor to the target box. Leave the text there are is, and also leave one space.
3. Then type: -ian

The -ian command line allows you to change factions mid game. Every faction is represented by a number of your keyboard. Factions are:
1. Rebels
2. Almohads
3. Byzantines
4. Danes
5. Egyptians
6. English
7. French
8. Germans
9. Italians
0. Polish
Shift+1. Russians
Shift+2. Spanish
Shift+3. Turks
Shift+4. Aragonese
Shift+6. Golden Horde (after they appear)
Shift+7. Hungarians
Shift+9. Pope
Shift+0. Sicilians

Further more you can add more shortcuts; two i always use (and also reccomend the Caravel mod with) are:
-loyalty:130
-green_generals
You need to leave one space again before typong these in after the -ian

The loyalty bit makes the AI keep 130 loyalty in all his provinces at all times, This practically means that he is keeping small garrisons in them, and hence his long terms devlopment is much safer from rebellions civil wars and his attacks more prudent rather than recklessly opportunistic

The green_generals makes dead generals being replaced by the game engine by new statistically inferior versions; hence you cannot cultivate super generals over a long campaign. It also downgardes and changes their traits.

Then I'm a greedy person longing for thrills and scared to death when they come and getting bored when they don't.

You took it somewhat wrong Girlandir :) I didn't meant it to be a deprecating comment at all - i just noticed a certain irony between your previous previous question and in your previous answer - that's all :)

But I wonder does anyone have similar feelings?

I would say yes. They are universal as far as i can tell.

[Prince Cobra]

Thanks!

[gollum]

You're welcome Prince Cobra.

[Gilrandir]

You took it somewhat wrong Girlandir :) I didn't meant it to be a deprecating comment at all - i just noticed a certain irony between your previous previous question and in your previous answer - that's all :)

I took the point and it was self-irony - no offence taken. It's a pity typing can't render intonation.
But, speaking of changing faction and modding the game, you say that it is possible to play as Papacy. I believe it is fun to excom everyone. But what is the mechanics of such a play? I mean can you excom at will or are you to follow some rules? And what about heirs? And crusades (do you pay yourself to be allowed one?). I expect it is still more fun to play as the Horde (it is not possible in vanilla). Although, in an EXCEL table the neccessary buildings for produce GH heavy cav are listed I wondered how could you do that except by modding the game.

[gollum]

I took the point and it was self-irony - no offence taken. It's a pity typing can't render intonation.

Right i see, that's great - i was just making it clear as sometimes misunderstandings happen :)

But, speaking of changing faction and modding the game, you say that it is possible to play as Papacy. I believe it is fun to excom everyone. But what is the mechanics of such a play? I mean can you excom at will or are you to follow some rules? And what about heirs? And crusades (do you pay yourself to be allowed one?).

You can indeed enable the Papacy as a playable faction and some mods do just that. The excom decisions are still taken though by a hardcoded version of you (as the Pope). However you are immune to such threats (you don;t receive them) iirc.

I expect it is still more fun to play as the Horde (it is not possible in vanilla). Although, in an EXCEL table the neccessary buildings for produce GH heavy cav are listed I wondered how could you do that except by modding the game.

The Horde sometimes manages either by burning its troops through battle or by conquering much land to get out of debt in the game as the AI. In those instances teh horde will start building up troops and even artillery and navies. They can be a pretty dangerous opponent. Its for this that they have buildings assigned to them.

You can play the Horde in vanilla by either starting to the late era and mod them there as playable from the starting_positions.txt or you can switch to them by means of the -ian switch (for those that have it available ntheir versions) as soon as the Horde appears. Just a note of caution don't do the -ian switch to teh Horde in a GA game - you will get crashes at GA dates probably because the Horde is not designated in teh GA tables.

[Geezer57]

In this case your main objective is to destroy as much of the enemy as possible
<STUFF DELETED> They captured the outer yard of the keep and stood put indefinitely absorbing missiles

One small observation in such situations where you're defending a castle large enough to have inner and outer walls, but don't have a garrison large enough to securely hold the outer portion. I tend to defend the outer gate with a unit I can afford to sacrifice, but try to use the toughest unit possible in that role, while hoping to salvage any survivors if possible. If the enemy enters the outer ring of defenses, and there are no defenders in that outer ring, the outer wall's missile defenses will quit firing. The ideal unit to prevent that is one that can hide in plain sight (Sherwood Foresters, Hashishin, etc.), even if there's only a single man surviving in the unit. Place them inside the outer wall as far from any opened gates or breaches, and let them hide for as long as possible. Any enemy searching for them (and the AI will eventually get around to it, trust me) will have to travel the full distance from one end of the defenses between the walls to the other, suffering missile defense fire the full way.

When defending gates: you ideally want to set up something similar to a bridge defense, forcing the enemy units into an overcrowded position while not overcrowding your own. If you have three strong melee units to use, set two of them facing each other perpendicular to the gate opening, just far apart enough that they're clear of the gate opening, with their outboard flanks anchored to the inside face of the wall. Position the third unit perpendicular to the first two, with its face just touching the inboard flanks of the earlier units, forming a narrow box in which to trap any enemy that filter through the gate. Those enemy will be overcrowded, flanked on both sides, and attacked three ways. It's best to turn on Hold Formation and Hold Position, or you'll lose your bonuses after your troops become intermingled with the enemy's during combat.

If you only have two good melee units to spare for gate defense, you can achieve almost the same effect by angling the inboard ends of the units towards each other, so that their faces just meet at that end. Then any enemy that makes it through the gate will have to run a ever-narrowing gauntlet that closes before they can enter the courtyard.

Cheers!

[caravel]

Personally I dislike sieges, as I've said many times before. It's why I particularly hated RTW - though the sieges in that were definitely an improvement the issue of stupid AI was still there (arguably worse in fact).

Sieges show the MTW AI at it's worst IMHO.

1) The units that march back and forth in front of the gates getting cut down, routing, coming back for more, etc... before eventually manually attacking the wall on one side and then dying.

2) The cannon/ballista towers (which I never build), which shoot your own men, shoot your walls, gates, towers...

3) The AI approach: I've won many siege defence battles when outnumbered about 10 to 1, simply because the AI was too stupid to attack in a coordinated fashion... but instead sends it's units against you piecemeal (the kind of battles that could be won by simply positioning the troops, starting off and then going down to the pub...)

4) The AI often doesn't bring siege engines, positions them too close to the walls (the crews get shot to pieces) or in a position where they can't all hit the gates/all hit the same piece of wall.

When it comes to attacking it's certainly more in the AI's favour as it's sitting in the same place and the stucture itself adds to the challenge. But I've always found moving your best units out and using autoresolve gives a lower casualty rates than risking your general and decent units attacking a castle that sends a constant spray of "auto arrows" at you. Also if you don't bring siege equipment along with every single army stack, you stand a fair chance of being involved in a few sieges without equipment. In such cases I will almost always starve them out as manually battering down the wall or gates is far too costly.