Quote Originally Posted by Werner
Nope. The only time you cannot move your troops prior to the battle is if the enemy has a spy who SUCCUESSFULLY opens the gates to them. The only reason you never see the enemy utilize this is due to a bug that CA will most likely (better) fix in the patch.

It has nothing to do with wait time or castle versus city.

Actually, I've had the enemy use this quite cleverly. I couldn't deploy, so figured there was a spy. However, they had catapults, and knocked a hole in the wall, then took out two of the four towers near the gate. I moved most of my defence to the hole, and they rushed the gate. I just about (i.e. needed to pause and give orders) got a unit of infantry across to block 3 units of cavalry until the rest got there, otherwise they would have been through on my general.