Auto Resolving Sieges

[Sentinel]

ARRRR !
Could some nice kind moderator type person please correct my title for me? It should read.
Auto Resolving Sieges

Thanks

[Foz]

Since the settlements have been garrisoned with archer units, it would make sense to include in your analysis the applicable defense against missile fire that each unit involved has. You note that the results do not directly follow from each unit's attack values, nor their defense values, but perhaps a combination of attack and missile defense DOES give a better sense of how the unit will perform against a settlement full of archers. You noted that armoured swordsmen, then feudal knights, then Retinue Longbowmen was the order of preference for heavier units. Their missile defense stats look like this respectively: 14, 11, and 8. Looks to me like it's directly tied to how many losses the unit takes. The lower tier units, Town Militia, Hobilars, and Militia Archers, have missile defense 6, 4, and 0... so it seems very clear that all of your results are due to how resistant the given unit is to the missile fire the enemy units in the garrison are laying down.

[sapi]

Interesting.

@foz - that could be a factor, yes

@sentinel - i've fixed the title for you

[Sentinel]

Sapi - Thanks for fixing the title.

Foz- What you say makes sense.

To confirm the theory I ran the test again with Bill Militia, that also has a total missile resistance of 0. The result were

Attacking Unit type-----------Lost----------Kills
Bill Militia--------------------391----------156

This fits the theory.

This made me wonder what results melee defenders would give. So I retested this time giving Magdeburg to the Papal States who garrisoned it with -

4 units of Mailed Knight.
2 units of Mounted Sergeants
2 units of Dismounted Feudal Knights.
All Melee - No Ranged units

The results were -

Attacking Unit Type-----------------Lost----------Kills

Armoured Swordsmen--------------59--------- 202
Feudal Knights--------------------88----------213
Retinue Longbowmen-------------129----------208

Town Militia----------------------288----------100------defeat
Hobilar---------------------------317----------84------defeat
Militia Archers--------------------354----------50------defeat

This is the same order as for the ranged defenders. Maybe because the settlement has so many towers, that inflict missile damage, the calculation assumes that all the defenders inflict missile damage?

[Foz]

Hmm. As always I'm back with the defense analysis, this time for melee.

Armored Swordsmen: 22
Feudal Knights: 16
Retinue Longbowmen: 14
Town Militia: 7
Hobilars: 7
Peasant Archers: 1

They fall in exactly the same order as the missile defenses of the units did, I believe. So you can't say that the game is calling the damage from the melee defenders missile damage, there's simply no evidence that points to that. Granted I just read all those numbers out of the file, and notice that several do not agree with what you quoted in your original post. How exactly is it that your Feudal Knights and Retinue Longbowmen came out with the stats you listed? (btw you added the feudal knights def up incorrectly, 8+5+5=18).

It'd also point out that though town militia and hobilars have the same melee defense, there are several reasons the town militia probably beat hobilars:

1. They have many more men in a unit, and on the field, at one time. This allows them to have more men poking at the enemy unit than hobilars could, and thus possibly killing a few more.

2. They have anti-cavalry properties, and as most of the melee units garrisoned are cav, this may play some part. Also if routing and morale are considerations, they will rout with more men left due to having a larger unit size than hobilars, and thus more men are likely to successfully scurry off the battlefield (and so not be killed or captured). This may not happen so much at the end of the battle when cavalry can give chase, but in the beginning one would expect a fresh batch of militia enters the fray to replace the routing one, and they largely escape.

One more thing to point out - note how, while taking nearly the same number of casualties, the bill militia cause considerably more kills than do any other low-tier unit - almost up to the level of the upper tier ones. Just a guess here, but it's probably due to their much better attack value. They don't kill as many as upper tier units with comparable attack values, though, which seems to indicate that the attack and defense are somehow blended to determine the effectiveness of the unit overall. So I'd suggest that kills and losses aren't generated separately, but rather are results of some calculations that determine the direct unit strengths versus each other.

[KHPike]

Don't know if it's been mentioned, but I think auto-resolve causes the game to ignore settlement defenses. It also ignores advantages conferred onto defenders when on the walls I think, and this minimises your casualties. I don't have the exact stats here now, but I tried comparing auto-resolve vs assaulting myself.

I assaulted Tolouse as Milan with 5 Genoese Archers, 4 Famiglia Ducale, a general and the rest dismounted broken lances (full stack) vs a French army with lots of sergeant spears, some knights and archers (castle with full stack)

When I auto-resolved I lost only about 400 men. However when I played it out myself it was a near disaster as I lost 50% of my men to the walls (maybe I'm a bad assaulter?) The Frenchies burnt down one siege tower and my ram...

[Nebuchadnezzar]

You didn't mention if you had any fixes eg 2H fix. This could make a world of difference in favour of playing out seiges.

I auto resolve more than 70% of my battles to avoid the passive AI and also because they get very repetitive, particularly sieges. I find that I would usually sustain only moderately more casualties fighting a seige than auto-resolve, but not always. On the other hand sometimes it can be a total disaster if you loose your seige equipment.

Reloading and replaying an auto-seige will give you a very different and better result again!