badaspin: The deaths you see are due to disease and starvation, not from battles. If the AI decides to break the seige you will defend in the castle.

NARF: They do but they only do so when you are heavily outnumbered, they prefer to wait until you die off. No fun at all of course.

The moral of this is if you want to try some castle battles, try some custom battles.

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Fight first, then scream 'Doh, why did I forget my Kensi!'