The Curious Defence of Valencia Castle

[matteus the inbred]

I've noticed this one quite a few times; whenever I defend Valencia's castle (so far only when it's a stone keep with an outer stone bailey) in a siege, the AI will obligingly commit suicide by doing the following.
The castle is always placed on a long ridge with a cliff at the opposite end to the gates. The AI inevitably deploys below the cliff, at the 'wrong' end of the castle. It then attacks the castle by sending its units one at a time to march up the side of the cliff, past the castle and round to the front gate. They get shot up on the way in, roasted by boiling oil, and then shot up again as they break and flee back round the castle and down the cliff. It will then repeat this with a few more unlucky units before sending everything that's left in for the final assault. Inevitably this fails as it still has to get through the inner gate and take on the garrison. I've successfully defended this castle on no fewer than four occasions in various campaigns...it's hard to tell how many AI casualties occurred cos the kill bar doesn't record kills inflicted by the castle defences, but on one occasion a Spanish army of 800-odd was left with the general and about 30 scattered bits of units...
I don't know whether to feel a bit robbed, or a bit of a cheat, or whether to feel rather pleased, as this has saved my strategic bacon more than once...anyone else discovered castles the AI can't seem to get its assaulting head round?

[antisocialmunky]

The AI isn't particularly good at castle assault anyways.

[matteus the inbred]

I know, it never brings siege equipment to them! To the battlefield, yes, but never a siege.
Nevertheless, on the rare occasions when I have to face an assault, the AI normally wins. Just not here...

Sieges can be fun, except in one siege where I confidently set up four bombards to knock down the walls and had all four blow up on consecutive shots after the third shot...

[Asmodai]

I have theory, why AI doing this.

When the siege battle begins, sometimes attacking army starts their deployment on the "back" of the castle, usualy on the wrong side of the fortifications. Human player can deploy units closer to the gates, and usualy do this.

Starting position in deployment is where the cursor will be positioned, after vieving battlefield and choosing weather.
Ai deploys whole army far from the gate, at the cursor position. So, they usualy ends up with whole army to far from main gate.
Usualy two units assaulting the main gate, and while going along the wall, they taking casualities from main citadel and walls and towers.

So, they take huge casualities, before they break throug castle defences.

i`d noticed this...bug on every dificulty level. So, even expert AI can be realy dumb.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I know, it never brings siege equipment to them! To the battlefield, yes, but never a siege.

The Polish in my recent Cuman campaign brought a catapult to siege my Carpathia castle. They still lost through a combination of assaulting gates with cavalry and wedging themselves into killing zones one unit at a time, but they did manage to knock half a wall down

This was XL mod, Early era.

[Bregil the Bowman]

Last time I lost a bit of wall was in a custom game where my defensive artillery shot a hole while trying to see off some routers - nearly a disaster as my attention was still on the melee at the gate!

I find that when I start a siege game all my troops are on the wrong settings - engage for spears, hold formation for skirmishers - and if I don't change them I can end up losing. But with the settings right it's possible to make the enemy pay heavily for every inch of sand - even if you lose the castle you may well have eliminated the enemy army in the process. I once crippled the Golden Horde by bribing a garrison commander and letting the three full stacks in the province batter themselves to pieces against the walls.