Bringing troops into besieged city

[Uriel]

In my Julii campaign I have a General (incredible plague and apparrent death in battle survivor, 2 silver chevron mentioned in another thread), 3 units of Hestatii and 1 unit each of Principes, Roman Archers (gold weapons), Equites and Velites (Gold weapons) stuck under siege by the Thracians in Thessalonica. 2 Family members, 2 militia hoplites and the rest of the stack filled with peltasts are laying seige. They've built themselves 3 battering rams too (we'll try to pretend they're not probably just going to sod off once I've hit 'end turn' following reloading the save).

There's one partially depleted unit each of Hestatii, Wardogs and Roman archers (GW) outside the city that had just been on a 'hit and run' mission that now can't get in. The city had wooden walls and I'm trying to get some stone ones built but there's no progress while under seige. All of my other armies are otherwise engaged in North Africa, Carthage, Gaul or Germany and are at least 3 turns away (Thessalonica can hold out for another 5 or 6 turns). I have no agents around for assassination or bribery so that leaves me a wee bit stuck.

Here's the plan: Initiate a sally battle with the units stuck outside as reinforcements (in other armies red zone but to the side). Have my archers within the walls try to burn the battering rams and then do as much damage as possible while keeping clear of peltasts). Meanwhile I'll have the three units stuck outside leg it around the back or side and into the city and then they can join in. Barring any mass route of the enemy I'll then just sit within the walls and pop out from time to time in a game of cat and mouse, hopefully letting my towers deplete their numbers a bit. I then intend to repeat this once a turn until they leave (assuming the load game thing doesn't do its usual trick), or I think I can risk risk a full assault.

Is this going to work? Will my archers be able to burn at least 2 of the battering rams before they get to the walls? If I manage to get the reinforcements inside the settlement will they appear there when back in the campaign map? Any ideas? If this doesn't work it could all go horribly wrong.

[Franconicus]

I do not think that this works in patch1.2. If you sally there, you have a win or die situation. You cannot retreat back behind the walls without loosing the battle and all of your men and the town

[Uriel]

Are you sure? I've sallied with only a unit of peasants before in 1.2, popping out every so often and having some Germans chase me around the town walls. This resulted in a draw, with no losses to the peasants and quite a few to the enemy. The Germans never made it within the walls though.

[The Stranger]

you can sally but, if you don't win, your troops that were in the castle go back (they don't get eliminated) the troops outside the castle retreat to a safer location (or rout if there are to little survivors)

[PseRamesses]

Is this going to work? Will my archers be able to burn at least 2 of the battering rams before they get to the walls? If I manage to get the reinforcements inside the settlement will they appear there when back in the campaign map? Any ideas? If this doesn't work it could all go horribly wrong.

Yes. Make shure your archers are protected though. If you step out with only archers you´ll probaly be rushed. Then you can only fire one volley before you have to run back to safety since there is that darn "delayment" when passing in and out of the gates.
I´ve done this many times especially with a lone general with the objective to lure the foe within range of the towers and isolate single chasing units.

[Uriel]

Does that mean that the troops that started outside the castle will remain outside (even if I bring them inside during the battle)? Or does it mean that if they make it inside during the battle they will be inside once it's finished?

What I'm really aiming for is to be able to bring more troops inside while the city is under seige.

[Uriel]

Yes. Make shure your archers are protected though. If you step out with only archers you´ll probaly be rushed. Then you can only fire one volley before you have to run back to safety since there is that darn "delayment" when passing in and out of the gates.
I´ve done this many times especially with a lone general with the objective to lure the foe within range of the towers and isolate single chasing units.

If I can avoid bringing the archers outside, I will do so. The ones outside will just leg it for the nearest gate as soon as the battle starts.

The plan is to have archers shooting over the walls from inside for the majority of the time.

[The Stranger]

Does that mean that the troops that started outside the castle will remain outside (even if I bring them inside during the battle)? Or does it mean that if they make it inside during the battle they will be inside once it's finished?

What I'm really aiming for is to be able to bring more troops inside while the city is under seige.

nope, the army that's outside the wall will always remain outside even if they were in it during the battle. you can't bring in new units during a siege. the city is cut off, you also can't bring in assassins, spies and other things.

[Uriel]

I had a crack at this last night and it was all going rather well, until I left the game paused over dinner and it crashed. The reinforcements mad it into the city and there was a nice pile of Thracian bodies piling up outside the walls.

Eventually they wised up and got themselves out of arrow range but by that time they were quite depleted. I had a wander out with some cavalry and managed to route about 4 or 5 units of Peltasts before dinner (it turned out to be quite a long battle. There was plenty of time left on the timer too so I think I may actually have a chance of winning this one outright. I'll have another crack later today.

[Lancome]

If you tried to sally out and you had Ornagers, you could of used them to thin your enemies lines. Well thats what I did. Also try to open the gates and when they come to arrow range close them and thin their # some more.

[The Stranger]

yup always use artillery in border cities or standing armies, never in moving armies. it slows you down

[Mayfield The Conqueror]

yup always use artillery in border cities or standing armies, never in moving armies. it slows you down

Or carry them in ships.. if you are involved in a campaign along the coast you can keep two armies; one marching along the coast conquering and pillaging, while the other with siege equipment being carried in ships, just land the army next to the city and viola!

[The Stranger]

hmmm smart, never thought of that. robably cuz i aint a naval type. but that's smart. most of the time i do it wth rams and stuff.

[Lancome]

Or carry them in ships.. if you are involved in a campaign along the coast you can keep two armies; one marching along the coast conquering and pillaging, while the other with siege equipment being carried in ships, just land the army next to the city and viola!

You know that is such a good Idea, I gotta try that on my Next campaign. But there is one Flaw of the ship idea. Don't do it if you enemy is a naval Power or try to sink his ships w/ another fleet.

[katank]

I personally don't find the siege in ships idea worth it. Micro of several fleets, need for naval dominance, and some small disparity in distance which results in siege not quite reaching the city etc.

The trouble is too much. I personally just train up a horde of high level spies who swarm in and open the gate practically every turn.

[Uriel]

Not far enough into the campaign to have much artillery worth using.

I tried the bringing troops in without a crash last night (my PC is unstable with dual channel memory for some reason - move a stick of RAM and everything's fine). The troops remained outside the city after the battle. In terms of defending the city, they always (including 2 mid game crashes) managed to make it inside the walls before the attacking troops got to them.

Looks like I was a little over conservative in my assessment of the situation though. Once the archers had done some damage, I had the rest of the troops pop out the side gate. The militia hoplites were very easy to outmanouver with Hestatti and Principes and the equites or wardogs mopped up the rest. My general didn't even get to join in, as I had him chase some routing cavalry off the field to make sure they didn't come back.

The battle ended up being one of my most one-sided victories ever, with my 1200 or so men killing over 2000 for under 50 losses (a 'house rule' of mine is I don't carry on chasing routers once the victory notice comes up - about as close to iron man as I get). The losses were mainly because I had both my equites charge into the front some heavy infantry I'd not noticed, thinking they were peltasts!

Makes you wonder what you have to do to get experience chevrons. Before the battle most of my units were on 0 ore 1 bronze chevron. Only the 2 archer units and 1 unit of equites got any experience for the battle and every unit apart from the general and velites killed more of the enemy than are in their own unit.

[Uriel]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - the battering rams seen by my spy didn't appear during the sally battle.

[Emren]

Yeah, I was gonna say: "Just attack them, with your forces you'll win easily." -- but you figured that out all by yourself!

I find that I gain more experience, when I take heavy losses. I think experience gains are based more on your own losses, than the losses of the enemy. So I never actually use those loopholes of luring the enemy into running around the city, getting shot up. I don't mind my troops taking a beating, that's what they're there for in the first place!

Also, I try to keep a balanced force at any time, which in my book means more infantry than skirmishers/missile troops. Never use wardogs.

[Uriel]

Well the archers that got experience lost all of 1 man between them. I've read the experience thread over at Ludus Magna and it didn't seem to go into much detail on losses of men. If a small number of men, however, get a lot of kills they will get a lot of experience. I believe retraining results in new troops being the same level of experience as the average for the unit.

For instance, in a previous battle, my general was down to under 10 bodyguards at the start of a battle in which he was vastly outnumbered. His unit was wiped out in battle but had a few recoveries (effectively resurrecting him) and gained 8xp for the single battle. Replenishing of Generals bodyguard units does not seem to work in the same way as retraining and, as more men have recovered, the expereince has been diluted (3 silver chevrons when up to 20 or so men. 2 when up to 40).