Really odd siege tactics?

**Danest** · 01-15-2006, 21:34

I sieged a city the other day, to starve it out. Their army was larger than mine, but had no elite units. When they had only one turn left, they tried to sally forth (supposedly). But they just sat in their walls, doing nothing! Eventually the timer ran out, and reported a draw, and it's back to the world map. But then he attacks again, and again only sits inside his city. Back to the map after the timer, and then attacks again, doing nothing. This repeated endlessly, until I finally gave up and invaded the town. Has anyone else seen this odd behavior? It seems when it happens, starving out a town becomes impossible due to the endless loop of do-nothing attacks. I never bothered to waste time starving towns in vanilla, so I don't really know if it's a bug or just an annoying AI tactic.

**cunobelinus** · 01-15-2006, 21:57

i think it is an AI tatic coz i try this when i break out and my units are weaker it is a good tatic and it works coz it uses glitches in the game to win.

**Elthanas84** · 01-15-2006, 23:45

Well, in normal RTW you can only sally forth once a turn.
Haven´t tried it in EB yet. But I would consider it a bug, when you can sally out endless times.

**Quintus Decius** · 01-16-2006, 00:16

Originally Posted by Danest

I sieged a city the other day, to starve it out. Their army was larger than mine, but had no elite units. When they had only one turn left, they tried to sally forth (supposedly). But they just sat in their walls, doing nothing! Eventually the timer ran out, and reported a draw, and it's back to the world map. But then he attacks again, and again only sits inside his city. Back to the map after the timer, and then attacks again, doing nothing. This repeated endlessly, until I finally gave up and invaded the town. Has anyone else seen this odd behavior? It seems when it happens, starving out a town becomes impossible due to the endless loop of do-nothing attacks. I never bothered to waste time starving towns in vanilla, so I don't really know if it's a bug or just an annoying AI tactic.

In RTW, I remember the AI sallying out again and again after a draw. The engine doesn't accept a drawn battle on the last turn of a siege. It requests either that you win or loose.
I've been playing RTR for about 6 months or so, and in that mod the enemies come out of the city to attack you when they sally forth (as they did in RTW). They don't just sit behind their wall. It seems to be a bug with EB, as I also experience this problem you are describing. I have to get into the city and bring the fight to them. As to what is causing it, I have no idea.

**Lord Hammerschmidt** · 01-16-2006, 00:22

Anytime I have a relatively weak army, I generally sit and wait for the enemy to decide to sally. In my Makedonia campaign, I've had the AI sally against me at least six times, and have yet to experience this behavior. In most of the cases I had significantly more strength than the enemy, but simply did not want to bother with fighting the city assault, as sallies are less annoying.

**Elthanas84** · 01-16-2006, 00:26

It is not fully true, that the AI can sally out again and again. I don´t know much about 1.2.
I have played 1.0 and 1.5 a lot and it is a well know abuse, that you can siege the AI cities with just 1 mounted (light cavalry) unit and then run in a circle when they attack you. The AI could only sally out once and after a few turns you conquered theire city without 1 loss. You could win every fight with a single mounted unit.

**Quintus Decius** · 01-16-2006, 00:36

Well, maybe I didn't push the exploit as far as some of you did. The furthest I went is crushing the opponent the third time they sallied out (it was getting boring).

**Armenian Warlord** · 01-16-2006, 06:42

It happened to me when I was seiging the pontos army as the armenians and they kept trying to break the saige but would not come out and fight so I shot them to pieces and then stupid game crashed

So I loaded and he attacked again but this time he came out and fought me. So just reload it and I think it will work.

**QwertyMIDX** · 01-16-2006, 06:48

Remember guys "RTW, it's a do it yourself project."

**econ21** · 01-16-2006, 11:19

Going slightly off topic, can mods alter AI siege equipment? I was playing BI over the weekend and they always seemed to bring one tower, one ram and some ladders. Against stone walls, only the tower was useful and one was just not enough for a full stack.

I haven't had a stone walled city besieged in EB, so I don't know if anything has changed there.

**Elthanas84** · 01-16-2006, 11:59

Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Going slightly off topic, can mods alter AI siege equipment? I was playing BI over the weekend and they always seemed to bring one tower, one ram and some ladders. Against stone walls, only the tower was useful and one was just not enough for a full stack.

I haven't had a stone walled city besieged in EB, so I don't know if anything has changed there.

Well, the last time some rebels army attacks me they had exact the siege equipent you just mentioned. A Ram, One tower and 3 ladders. SO I think nothing has changed =)
But I think it would be really boring if the AI use only towers (Yes, I know they are most effective). I want to see my archers doing their job

And in addition to it, it would not be historical and this is a realism mod ^_°

Back to topic. I just tested the AI behavior in my campain now. I sieged a few cities with only 1 unit of sauromatea horse archer. And it worked like it supposed to work. At least for me. I conquered 3 different cities after staving them out. Without even loosing 1 unit.

But I experienced an infinit loop once too. Sieging the Greeks with their only melee units/short range units. I could decimated their whole garrison. When they had only 7 men left they just stand in their city camp and waited, sally and waited, sally and waited... Of course all in one turn

After 4 times I aborted my siege. In my oppinion it must be a bug...

**Jebus** · 01-16-2006, 16:39

Hah, in my game they constantly use sap points - but perhaps that's because every city in the game now has 'Epic Walls' (since a Huge city is no longer required to be able to build these walls.). This is actually getting pretty annoying too, since I'm starting to wonder why I wasted all that time and money on those big-ass walls when they can be brought down in two minutes by a bunch of peasants with a shovel.

Yeah well.

**Danest** · 01-16-2006, 18:47

Hmm, interesting point - I've always felt that defending against ladders is very easy, but defending against a broken wall is much harder. Does that mean epic walls actually are harder to defend, then? Weren't epic walls going to be removed anyway?