Siege or assault? Any effect on buildings?

[econ21]

Just curious - when deciding whether to assault a city or starve it out, are there any implications for the city's buildings? Is there a chance that some get destroyed when you occupy a city? And if so, does the answer depend on how the city was taken? If not, is the choice of to siege vs to assault just a choice between saving time or avoiding casualties?

[Enderel]

I've found that if I assault the city straight away, I normally don't get any damaged buildings at all. (Especially with elephants or spies opening up gates on first time)

If I wait out and siege the city I normally end up with damaged buildings. Even if I assault later on in a siege there are damaged buildings.

If I starve out a city completely I find about three quarters of buildings are damaged on average.

Seems proportional to how long you siege a city for but not sure on the precise formulae for working it out.

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

You can also dmage buildings by hitting them with siege ammo

[Rodion Romanovich]

Buildings can be damaged by siege weapons, by riots against the garrison (typically if the enemy has a very small garrison or haven't pacified the city because they conquered it a short time ago) and by rams etc. If you don't want to have to repair walls, only ram down gates and no wall sections (but that can instead be risky and make you lose the battle sometimes).

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

That's true. I never use rams

[IliaDN]

As far as I know buildings are damaged after a long siege , because of rioting in the city , which occures if the city is besieged for long time.