Large and huge stone walls need to go.

[Dooz]

Just be thankful we haven't made the houses in a city hurl roof tiles at your men, yet...

Oh Qwerty, you always know how to make us ruin our pantaloons because we urinated on them because we're afraid of what might be implemented in future builds of EB... hahaha, group hug!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

In terms of accuracy, I'd have to agree that 180+ degree arc of fire repeating ballistae in the towers seems a bit much.

On the other hand, I don't have to break through wall #1 and hack through 15 blocks worth of street traps with roof tiles coming down from all the women in the burg only to find myself facing The Agger with a full two cohorts on top of it.

I actually love city assault in RTW vanilla. I can often pull it off for low casualties and usually find the clock more troublesome than the enemy.

If EB makes city assault a real PITA, that would probably make for a much more fun game.

[vizigothe]

I don't like the huge and epic walls but people are right. When encountered with a city that has a huge or epic wall, I always try to starve them out and if I cannot because of a relief army I break off the siege and deal with the relief army and then go back to starving out the city.

[nemesisvsbrad]

You're kidding, right?? Now where's the chalenge in that??

That's not a battle, that's just plain old slaughter. Sure it's fun to do once in a while but to fight every battle that way just seems boring as hell to me.

That's how it was in real life. An ancient general couldn't afford to satisfy his selfish desires that prefered to lay siege to the enemy. On the other hand the enemy wouldn't want to be besieged either. When besiege starts both sides waited until the other side runs out food and water.

Caesar even ordered his men to dig underneath an unfortunate town's underneath to divert the underground water lines that dried their wells. You not gonna call Caesar a coward, are you? I beleive Caesar was doing exactly the right thing to do. When Caesar besieged Alesia, he built 2 layers of fortification to prevent Gallic forces, too. He wasn't risking an inevitable victory at some unnecessary loss. I can't list everything here, but a true general never ever would expose his men into danger. Both forces would incite each other until one side makes a wrong move and then they would engage. Sun Tsu's Art of War teaches us that place your enemy at disadvantage and let the enemy wear down themselves and attack swiftly to destroy. Generals do the cold calculations and wage war, not by some teenage boy's emotional short sighted anger. remember the Stalingrad siege lasted 2 years and end up the germans being besieged themselves and surrendered. History teaches us some fine lessons, my friend. I do like victories but why lose so many when you can use your natural environment and two litters of liquid in your skull.

[GMT]

That's how it was in real life. An ancient general couldn't afford to satisfy his selfish desires that prefered to lay siege to the enemy. On the other hand the enemy wouldn't want to be besieged either. When besiege starts both sides waited until the other side runs out food and water.

Caesar even ordered his men to dig underneath an unfortunate town's underneath to divert the underground water lines that dried their wells. You not gonna call Caesar a coward, are you? I beleive Caesar was doing exactly the right thing to do. When Caesar besieged Alesia, he built 2 layers of fortification to prevent Gallic forces, too. He wasn't risking an inevitable victory at some unnecessary loss. I can't list everything here, but a true general never ever would expose his men into danger. Both forces would incite each other until one side makes a wrong move and then they would engage. Sun Tsu's Art of War teaches us that place your enemy at disadvantage and let the enemy wear down themselves and attack swiftly to destroy. Generals do the cold calculations and wage war, not by some teenage boy's emotional short sighted anger. remember the Stalingrad siege lasted 2 years and end up the germans being besieged themselves and surrendered. History teaches us some fine lessons, my friend. I do like victories but why lose so many when you can use your natural environment and two litters of liquid in your skull.

Besieging a settlement with 3 full stacks doesn't take any skill at all and certainly no Caesar or Alexandros.

If you really want to insist on playing a historically accurate game then your army setup isn't even realistic to begin with. Not a single general would be able to hire every single mercenary and attack with a 3 vs 1 advantage like you do. Sure you might be able to find some battles where this did happen but certainly not in every single battle.

I believe Caesar was seriously outnumbered in Alesia too. He ordered a second wall to be built because the Gauls sent a relief force to aide Vercingetorix. That's what made him a great general, he defeated a superior force (6 vs 1 advantage) with clever tactics and a lot of guts too and even then it still was a close call.

Also, "a true general never ever would expose his men into danger" puhlease.. what do you think war is all about?

And if you think that Caesar, Hannibal, Alexandros, Pyrrhos or any other great generals didn't fight for personal glory and honor then you're seriously naive.

Edit: the two litters of liquid in my skull are working just fine by the way

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Besieging a settlement with 3 full stacks doesn't take any skill at all and certainly no Caesar or Alexandros.

If you really want to insist on playing a historically accurate game then your army setup isn't even realistic to begin with. Not a single general would be able to hire every single mercenary and attack with a 3 vs 1 advantage like you do. Sure you might be able to find some battles where this did happen but certainly not in every single battle.

I believe Caesar was seriously outnumbered in Alesia too. He ordered a second wall to be built because the Gauls sent a relief force to aide Vercingetorix. That's what made him a great general, he defeated a superior force (6 vs 1 advantage) with clever tactics and a lot of guts too and even then it still was a close call.

Also, "a true general never ever would expose his men into danger" puhlease.. what do you think war is all about?

And if you think that Caesar, Hannibal, Alexandros, Pyrrhos or any other great generals didn't fight for personal glory and honor then you're seriously naive.

Edit: the two litters of liquid in my skull are working just fine by the way

First of all, would you allow your soldiers to die for no reason, and could have been easily averted by using your brains? Soldiers will be in danger, of course. What nemesisvsbrad implying that you always try to reduce the danger. SO you never expose unnessesary danger, when you could use some other way to minimalize losses.

Oh, and those generals you mention tried to not waste men for glory. Wasting lifes ISN't honourable.

My 2 bucks.

-Copperhaired Berserker!

[GMT]

First of all, would you allow your soldiers to die for no reason, and could have been easily averted by using your brains? Soldiers will be in danger, of course. What nemesisvsbrad implying that you always try to reduce the danger. SO you never expose unnessesary danger, when you could use some other way to minimalize losses.

Oh, and those generals you mention tried to not waste men for glory. Wasting lifes ISN't honourable.

My 2 bucks.

-Copperhaired Berserker!

Seriously when did I say that you should trow your men's lifes away or that any of the mentioned generals did such a thing? Try reading the post for Christ sakes. All I said was that they did fight for personal glory, which they did quite well actually. ( without wasting their men's lifes )

The only reason I even quoted this "a true general never ever would expose his men into danger" was to make the exact same point that you did. If you're gonna wage war then there will always be danger, of course you try to minimize it but to "never ever" put your men in danger is quite unrealistic.

My point was, and still is that besieging a settlement with 3 full stacks is totally ahistorical and certainly not "how it was in real life". Anyone can do that and you certainly don't need to be a Caesar or Alexandros to do that.

[Geoffrey S]

It's perfectly historical. Not every general was an Alexander or Caesar, you know, and mostly would besiege a city only when certain of numerical superiority; otherwise it's impossible to prevent supplies from arriving and such. Heck, even the great Scipio massively outnumbered the Carthaginians in Carthago Nova, and his (adoptive) grandson outnumbered the Carthaginians when he actually besieged Carthago itself. A general would have to be extremely confident, very skilled or extremely stupid to attempt a siege, let alone an assault, on a fortified position or city when outnumbered.

I agree with nemesisvsbrad here. While it might not be as challenging to so massively inflate your army to minimise risks, it is the sensible thing to do in real life. The trick to battles was to maximise your own advantages and minimise those of the enemy before even thinking about a fight, preferably causing the enemy to believe they have an advantage where they have none; generals like Hannibal were skilled at this, not to mention Fabius Maximus doing absolutely everything he could to protect the fragile morale of his Romans after numerous defeats.

Personally I think it takes some of the challenge away when applied to RTW, where the player already has the advantage over the AI, but for an assured victory it's the sensible approach.