Options when defending a settlement

[Encaitar]

Just thinking back to MTW, I'd like to see the defender given the following options when a settlement is first attacked (i.e. on the campaign map, an enemy stack moves up and tries to initiate a seige/assault).

1. Give battle.
Your forces within the castle march out to meet the enemy in a regular, open field battle (as opposed to having to sally forth later, which can be quite awkward). If you are defeated, the survivors retreat to the settlement and it becomes beseiged.

2. Prepare for seige.
Your forces remain within the settlement, and it becomes beseiged (as currently happens all the time in RTW).

3. Abandon the settlement.
Your forces flee, and the settlement is surrendered to the enemy.

[Ignoramus]

I agree. One thing I hated about Rome was that you couldn't surrender. Not every general was prepared to fight to the death.

[Hobot]

That's a damned fine idea I think
I'd like to add that surrendering should make your army retreat a fair distance in a random direction away from the enemy as a penalty for a hasty withdrawal. Basically same way as a navy losing a battle runs away for a good bit from the site of the engagement.
It is very useful to be able to engage the enemy on your own defensive terms when they approach the city, rather than having to sally forth into their waiting arms. Defense is always at a huge advantage with the way Total War battle mechanics work, and this would even give the AI a big boost, since it would be way harder for you to trap a fairly good army with a force that is only good on defense. E.g. You approach and lay siege with an army that consisted mostly of slow spear type infantry and a mix of ranged units. A terrible army to attack with, but one that is great for defense, and if you lay siege with it, you can easily starve the enemy out or force them into a battle on your terms. An automatic sally forth option, would both be realistic and give the AI (and the player) good added strategic options. I definately hope CA thinks about adding this either now or in a future expansion.

[SirGrotius]

Sounds reasonable to me, especially if you think you can take back the settlement in the not-too-distant future.

[Nathanael]

I would kill for those options, especially the ability to have a defensive battle first instead of just having to be sieged and then sally forth. It would definitely help keep the game from becoming Total Siege.

[hoom]

Yeah, that would be awesome!

I love the defensive & offensive implications of this idea

Too late for M2TW but could hope for the expansion...

[Azog 150]

fingers crossed.

I think this is an absolutly brillaint idea, realistic to. So yer, hopefully in the next expansion.

[Darth Nihilus]

Very good ideas. I always hated that you couldn't surrender.

[gunslinger]

I've never played RTW, but in MTW you always have the option to retreat to the nearest friendly province. I would never recommend it though, unless your king or some other unit that you just can't stand to have beseiged is there. If you can beat the invader, then beat him. If not, hole up in your castle until help arrives, thereby keeping the enemy from just attacking the next province down the line.

[Bob the Insane]

Well we have to recognise the differing mechanism of the RTW (and thus M2TW) campaign map...

You inherently have these options... If another coutries army stack is stomping around your province then you can "1. Give battle." by sending you army out to attack it, though this does lead to the odd mechanism were in defending you lands you become the aggressor?!?

Or you can leave you forces in the Settlement and generally ignore the trespassing army which is sort of the equivilent of "2. Prepare for seige." only in this case the siege is not automatic and you do not lose control of the province even if the siege begins.

Finally you could take one look as the invaiding army and decided you have no chance unless you consoladate you forces and withdraw your troops from the settlement and province all together leaving the invaiding army free to do whatever they like without oppostion, as in "3. Abandon the settlement.". Again the assault on the now empty settlement is not guaranteed at this point and revolt becomes a possibility to...

In princple I agree with the other posters in that it would be nice to get some immediate options at the start of a siege; immediate sally (with your troops in the settlement and their's starting near the edge of the map and if the clock runs out before you drive them off then the siege begins), lock the gates, or make a run for it abandoning the settlement as long as there is a valid route to withdraw.

I just wanted to point out that with the more dynamic nature of the campaign map now we essentially have the same options as before with more variety in possible outcomes...

[supersalsa]

if u know that like your about to be beseiged maybe another option like stock up food stores or something like that could be made, but so like everybody doesnt just click it every turn then it should come with a cost depending on the settlement size and defences

[supersalsa]

Also if you prepare for the seige like u know is coming then you could make sum extra defences like on the walls and a stronger gate, but these extra defences will mean a decrease in trade or something along those lines

[Black General]

I agree that the retreat option should be available.
If you do not have the option of retreat than you may end like russians in 1941. Their army was butchered because it did not retreat. Retreating may save your army, while your castle would be probably doomed anyway (unless you can bring reinforcements from some place nearby). Better to lose only your castle rather castle and army both.

[Polemists]

I agree falling back sounds reasonable. Espically since now with recruitment pools you can only pull so many men before a battle. Say you have a small border town, you get struck by a major power. You can only pull together four units or so, fall back to a large castle, say your capital, marshall a larger force, and take it back.

Seems pretty logical to me.

[Sun of Chersonesos]

NICE IDEA! however i have one additional:-

• convince army to lift the seige, if a diplomat is within the settlement, then there is a better chance of it working and more options available, for example, bribe the army so u get the army and obviously the seige then stops

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

NOT In the history never happened that an army left the town when an enemy army is close.They would defeat you if you would leave from the town when they are so close.This option is not good.It happened ,but the army that was protecting the town left days before the enemy could arrive not when the enemy was 20 miles close.




1And it is not fair:you have your faction leader blocked in a city and a powerful enemy wants to attack him and you run and escape.
2The computer could abuse this option and you will never get a really good siege.




Maybe you should send 1/2 of your army and with the rest you will escape.

[Ciaran]

It happened ,but the army that was protecting the town left days before the enemy could arrive not when the enemy was 20 miles close.

Keep the scale of the TW game in mind, 1 turn = six months (at least for RTW, I´m not sure what´s up with the new time model for MTW 2), one campmap square = ??? square miles.

As for your points:
1) yes, your faction leader can escape, but you lose the city. There´s a limit how often you can retreat, obviously. I´ll not mention that it worked pretty well in MTW I.

2) I don´t see why not. Either the AI is weak, then they´ll retreat and abandon the city. Or they´ll give battle when they´re strng enough and, when they´re defeated they´ll be entrapped in the city. Finally, the AI decides it´s strong enough to hold out in a siege, but not to give battle, then they´ll retreat into the city and wait for external reinforcements. Again, I won´t mention that it worked well with MTW I.

[rory_20_uk]

I would also like to add that an enemy army can besiege a settlement (i.e. surround it to al intents and purposes) even if there is a friendly army directly behind the settlment. I feel that this army should have to be driven off before a siege can commence - as well as the possibility that armies can attempt to cause a localised lifting of the siefe. This could mean that the count down timer to capitulation freezes until the army is again driven off. Of course the beseiger can then opt to launch an attack to resolve the matter.

That all diplomacy ends unpon the commencing of a siege is hardly realistic. Both sides would rather a solution than both sides suffering losses (as a uman player, our value of life is somewhat different of course )

[Encaitar]

Looks like CA has indeed included these options.
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...gAnch=imgAnch5
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...gAnch=imgAnch6
(There's also a white flag button which I'm presuming/hoping is 'surrender and flee')

[screwtype]

Looks like CA has indeed included these options.
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...gAnch=imgAnch5
http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y25...gAnch=imgAnch6
(There's also a white flag button which I'm presuming/hoping is 'surrender and flee')

AND there's an option to "attempt a night attack"! That's pretty cool.

I don't see any point in having an option to retreat before a siege though, since you already essentially have this option available to you when you see an enemy army approaching.

What might be good is an option to sack your own town before retreating, burning down infrastructure and so on to deprive the enemy of it. A sort of "scorched earth" policy. On the other hand, I don't really think you should ever be able to capture enemy military infrastructure anyway, it just doesn't doesn't make sense, so maybe all such buildings should be eliminated by the game automatically whenever a settlement changes hands.

[Jambo]

What might be good is an option to sack your own town before retreating, burning down infrastructure and so on to deprive the enemy of it. A sort of "scorched earth" policy. On the other hand, I don't really think you should ever be able to capture enemy military infrastructure anyway, it just doesn't doesn't make sense, so maybe all such buildings should be eliminated by the game automatically whenever a settlement changes hands.

This is how STW and MTW used to work and believe me, you don't want to back there from an AI point of view. Do you not remember the AI factions knocking each other back into the Stone-age in these two games by repeatedly taking and destroying each other's regions over and over? The human player could better defend their key provinces and this feature wouldn't impact on their empire and so what we had in the end game was chivalric knight based armies vs peasant and spearmen armies.

The method they adopted in Rome was pretty good in this respect, where buildings could be damaged or destroyed, but repairing them took only one turn as opposed to the original time to construct the building from afresh.

[screwtype]

Hmm yes good point. You could get around that easily enough though simply by making it that the infrastructure is only destroyed when the human player takes a settlement. Or you could even make it that the military infrastructure built up in an AI settlement simply isn't accessible to the human player who always has to build his own. But it will be available to the AI again if it retakes the settlement.

But really you raise a good point, which is that the military infrastructure system is pretty silly anyhow. After all, what do you need for training troops? Nothing much but experienced teachers and maybe some spare armour and weapons to train them with.

It would probably make more sense to dump the whole military building paradigm and replace it with something else. Unfortunately, CA seems to be in love with their building paradigm, so I guess we won't be seeing a change any time soon.

[Bob the Insane]

Well infrastructure is not destroyed in RTW when a settlement is taken. Sure things are damaged but things are not destroyed (not sure about that newer sack feature in BI though).

[Sun of Chersonesos]

But really you raise a good point, which is that the military infrastructure system is pretty silly anyhow. After all, what do you need for training troops? Nothing much but experienced teachers and maybe some spare armour and weapons to train them with.

Well i dont think the only thing you need is a teacher and spare armour and weapons, you'd need an area in which to do it in, if they did it in the streets with the teacher then with those men running wild, some civilians are bound to get injured.

[Nathanael]

I don't understand why you think you shouldn't be able to use another factions' buildings - it's not like it's Starcraft or something where the different factions use wildly different technology. A blacksmith is a blacksmith, and a practice range is a practice range, no matter who is using the building. There might be slight variations in amenities and architecture, but the basics are the same.

[screwtype]

I don't understand why you think you shouldn't be able to use another factions' buildings

Because the game is too easy, and if you weren't able to capture all that juicy infrastructure it would be harder.

it's not like it's Starcraft or something where the different factions use wildly different technology. A blacksmith is a blacksmith, and a practice range is a practice range, no matter who is using the building. There might be slight variations in amenities and architecture, but the basics are the same.

What I'm saying is that all these different buildings for training different troop types is not realistic. All you need to train troops is a barracks for them to live, some open space for them to practice fighting, and some experienced soldiers to do the training. All these different buildings really only exist to add interest to the game. I mean, take the Romans in RTW. First you can build hastati, then after a few upgrades you can get principes, and after a few more you get triarii. How does this simulate reality? It doesn't. The Romans didn't field armies of hastati, only later adding some principes and after that triari and so on. All the different troops types were available to be trained from the outset, the only cap on availability was cost and equipment availability and so on.

So the building tree is really only there to maintain interest, oh gee, I'm only a few more building upgrades from getting some triarii and I really want to see how good they are and what I can do with them. It has very little if anything to do with the way armies were actually raised.

And therefore there is no reason at all that capturing a foreign city might suddenly allow you to build a bunch of units you couldn't build before, just because it has some buildings that supposedly allow you to do this. I think that is just an absurd mechanic.

[Bob the Insane]

RTR has a nice mechanisim in which barracks are replaced/enhanced as culture and political integration buildings (to abstract the control and eventual domination of the conquroring culture)...

So factions of the same culture can use each other's buildings but when the Romans turn up (for instance) they have to start building up their own infrastructure, government and administration. The first level of building gives you a law boost, the second level gives you some access to the cheapest and lightest local troops and so on... You have to progress to the 4th level before you have Romanized the place sufficiently to build Roman style troops there, but once you do you get to build them all (as long as you have the Stables and Archery ranges to support those troop types).

[Polemists]

This sounds pretty good. I mean yes a blacksmith is a blacksmith. However don't expect the archery range in Antioch to know how to train english longbowmen haha :)

[Dark_Magician]

Just thinking back to MTW, I'd like to see the defender given the following options when a settlement is first attacked (i.e. on the campaign map, an enemy stack moves up and tries to initiate a seige/assault).

1. Give battle.
Your forces within the castle march out to meet the enemy in a regular, open field battle (as opposed to having to sally forth later, which can be quite awkward). If you are defeated, the survivors retreat to the settlement and it becomes beseiged.

2. Prepare for seige.
Your forces remain within the settlement, and it becomes beseiged (as currently happens all the time in RTW).

3. Abandon the settlement.
Your forces flee, and the settlement is surrendered to the enemy.

Surrender is fine idea. In addition I'd say that a big city should have by default one unit of city militia defending it because it is not normal when one can "fish" for cities accidently left unguarded and take them with minimal effort. In reality medieval cities normally enjoyed autonomy and employed own militias as they frequently do up to today

[Peasant Phill]

there will be (a) free unit(s) of militia for every settlement/city/castle. So they won't be unguarded unless the A.I. is unable to handle it, which I doubt.