Citadels?

[Ibn Munqidh]

After seeing many pics of MTW2, the ones that showed in game views of cities really caught my eye in one aspect, their centres.

Historically, besieging armies, after capturing a city, the city's defeated garrison would retreat into the citadel, and hold out there, waiting for a friendly army to besiege the previous besieging enemy, and sally out from the citadel as the friendly army commences battle, or, if there is no relief force, hold out and pray for good surrender terms. With all the pics of MTW2 I saw, the ones with showing the cities, they all had a citadel in the centre of the city, is it possible that that aspect of medieval warfare has been included by the dev's into the game?

[Martok]

It's possible, but I don't think it likely. Trying to program that into the game would add another layer of complexity,and I doubt CA has neither the time nor inclination to code such a feature.

I think it's more likely that the citadel will be the defenders' final refuge in a battle, where they will make their last stand. I imagine that as an attacker, you will have to take a city's citadel, else you will not conquer the settlement.

[Darth Nihilus]

This one looks mildly hard to capture

http://www.gamestar.de/_misc/galleri...36&fk=1124650#

[Vladimir]

This one looks mildly hard to capture

http://www.gamestar.de/_misc/galleri...36&fk=1124650#

Just take a lesson from history. Take it the way the Egyptians took it, by deception.

[Furious Mental]

CA have said that there will be castles with concentric defences which a besieing army might have to take one layer at a time. So that would suggest that some sort of citadel within a city is possible. However all the screenshots of cities which I have seen show only one wall.

[Oaty]

Well it would be a nice added feature, but I'm 50/50 on that it will be just like the original MTW. Since they have added the siege equipment brings the problem of how to take the inner fortifications.

3 ways to take the inner citadel in 1 turn a battering ram to fit through the main gate, ladders, and to have artillery. The safest way to take it would be by siege tower(inferring your army doesn't have artillery) and that would first require taking the outer wall, laying another siege to build the tower to scale the citadel walls. I don't think CA will go backwards and go back to letting men bash a gate open with thier swords. So actually it is likely it will take 2 turns to take a citadel unless you have the right elements.

Also while on the subject it would be nice to add to siege building items would be siege stones/cannonballs

Because sometimes, especially the stone throwing artillery took many months to carve enough stone to bring down the walls. Thus allowing tougher walls to hold out longer.

[Myrddraal]

So actually it is likely it will take 2 turns to take a citadel unless you have the right elements.

I don't think they'll spread actual battles over two turns. I think it is likely you'll have to take the whole thing in one go, or fail.

[Furious Mental]

Neg. I don't know exactly where but it has been stated unequivocally that some citadels will be very difficult if not impossible to take in one go, and have to be taken in series of successive battles.

[poo_for_brains]

Neg. I don't know exactly where but it has been stated unequivocally that some citadels will be very difficult if not impossible to take in one go, and have to be taken in series of successive battles.

I thought if you failed to take the castle, you lost and retreated from the siege? Though I could be wrong (I Haven't played RTW in a while), or it could have changed for the new game.

It would be good to have to continually defend your castle, over several years, nstead of only having to hold out for one battle.

[Furious Mental]

If you are repulsed from the outer walls then probably yes. However if I remember correctly the article, interview or whatever (I will link to it if I can find it again) said that layers of defences could change hands as many times as it took the defenders to boot the besiegers out or for the besiegers to take the keep. In which case you could actually spend several turns fighting over the middle walls of a castle.

[Oaty]

^^ Furious mental now that you said that I remember reading that part of an article


Hopefully Citadels/fortresses will be limited, although fun, would start to become tedious and annoying, just like in mid game of RTW having to conquer many large cities and a poor autoresolve when odds are hugely in your favour.

[Orb]

I really, really, really hope they have Alamut in this. Impregnable fortress with unique water supply system held by frothing Nizaris.

[Jambo]

Well, all this would be lovely if the AI actually defends its castles/citadels with a reasonably sized force in MTW2....

In RTW, despite the grand walls and large cities, the AI regularly only had one or two units defending... which lead to incredibly boring and un-epic siege battles.

I hope that the new MTW2 recruitment system will allow for the defender to restock defending forces somewhat when under siege situation.

[sunsmountain]

In RTW, despite the grand walls and large cities, the AI regularly only had one or two units defending... which lead to incredibly boring and un-epic siege battles.

If you attacked the AI after the AI attacked you yes, cities will be mostly empty as their armies search for you. But if you're the first to attack the AI, you can catch them defending. The Greek city states are notorious for epic siege battles, perhaps you should leave them for last (i know, they're juicy).

[poo_for_brains]

What I want to know more about is how you fling dead cows etc into the cities, I read that it was possible in MTW2, but it was an early source, and there were no details - would be a coool addition to sieges.

As for what Jambo just said, hopefuly the new recruitment system will allow the AI to keep its cities & castles stocked with men.

[sunsmountain]

There is some extra stuff about siege battles this time:

* In quite a few videos (e3, castle and cities), you clearly see an inner wall and stronghold instead of just an outer wall. Level 3 cities (minor cities) have just an outer wall, level 4 cities can have an inner wall, and level 5 cities (huge cities) can have an extra building inside of that, which seems to replace the usual town square, which must be taken.
* You also see Trebuchets (or similar artillery) hitting that inner wall (actually, the inner gate) in order to break it open. In other words, almost everything in a city is within range of good siege equipment (+ the promise that if you demolish something, it's actually destroyed instead of damaged 100%).
* In podcast number 5, they discuss an army under siege deciding to retreat to the inner wall when the time is right, during siege. This implies the battle isn't over until town square/inner fort, inner walls and outer walls are taken, with one side dead or routing.
* If the attackers for whatever reasons are repelled, they are forced to lift the siege, as before. If the defenders sally forth but lose (rout and retreat), it's a draw.

I haven't heard dead cows being flung into the city yet, nor have I seen them, but hey, I'm all for it
(In the program Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel they managed to throw a dummy over 200 feet using a catapult like contraption).

[4th Dimension]

Throwing cows with catapults? They be stealing good options from Stronghold 1 now. "Here comes the Bessy"

[Nathanael]

Yeah, that's one thing I always thought should be improved - if the sieging army fails because of the time limit (not because the entire army as been routed), there should be no penalty. You should even be able to attack again in the same turn (it didn't take six months between assaults on defended castles that were under siege!). That way (if you were really patient and methodical), you could have battles where you are just hurling missles at the enemy to lower morale and cause casualties (maybe even lower population by destroying buildings) before you actually commit to a full fledged assault.

Maybe to balance things, you could make it so missles don't recharge between each "day," but you could do like the above poster said and make "day's worth of ammo" one of the siege weapons you build on site.

[Azog 150]

Surely it is going to be incredibly hard to capture citadels with 3 walls. I imagine you could take the first one ok, but it seems walls get bigger as they go along. So caputuring the second wall could prove a challenge and then you will have not nearly enough troops left to capture the third wall.

[sunsmountain]

Yeah, that's one thing I always thought should be improved - if the sieging army fails because of the time limit (not because the entire army as been routed), there should be no penalty. You should even be able to attack again in the same turn (it didn't take six months between assaults on defended castles that were under siege!). That way (if you were really patient and methodical), you could have battles where you are just hurling missles at the enemy to lower morale and cause casualties (maybe even lower population by destroying buildings) before you actually commit to a full fledged assault.

Maybe to balance things, you could make it so missles don't recharge between each "day," but you could do like the above poster said and make "day's worth of ammo" one of the siege weapons you build on site.

Exactly, losing on the time limit would simply mean "leaving it to tomorrow". That would replenish your arrows as well (it's a bit too much of a hassle saving arrow information as a programmer, you know?)
But the idea of extending the siege battle over multiple battles is nice (though I don't like the time limit to begin with!)