What happens when you try to starve out the AI?

[homefry]

Let's say you have an army full of cavalry and you siege a settlement. You can't take it because of no siege equipment, but you decide to starve out the enemy. If the enemy can't get an army to help them, will they sally out and attack you or just surrender.

[Laman]

Depends on the size of your army and their army. If the defenders are too weak and the attackers too strong they just surrender, but most often they make a sally attempt that is generally easily crushed.

[imnothere]

cavalry are too expensive for a costly siege. try spears instead - it wont hurt as much when you take casualties.

[Jason X]

well, playing HA heavy factions, you often find yourself waiting for an AI sally. and it doesn't hurt at all as you get to concentrate fire on the poor fools as they come out of the gate.

[TheLastPrivate]

I hate losing all my good men in seige streetfight so I almost ALWAYS wait out seieges. Sometimes I'll siege settlements that I can't occupy due to spatial relationship of borders just to reduce the garrison and harass enemy economy.

[Bob the Insane]

Like everyone else states...

If the AI is stronger then you they will sally straight away.

If they are a little weaker than you they will sally just before time runs out (which never made sense to me as they would have lost troops by then so would have been better off sallying immediately).

If they are a lot weaker than the attackers they simply give up...

[Quillan]

In my experience they typically wait until the last turn then try to fight you. I have to agree with Bob on that part, it would make more sense to sally on the first or second turn of the siege before half the defenders have died of starvation and pestilence, but that's how they work.

[van de Bilde]

Aye, I think they'll wait until the last turn possible. I once sieged Alexandria (I think?) with about 20 cavalry while they had 10-15 light infantry inside. They waited for the last turn before surrender (6-7 turns) and sallied out.

[homefry]

How do these fights work?

As they come out, can you bumrush them at the gate or force your way into the town square and take it over like that?

[WhiskeyGhost]

efore time runs out (which never made sense to me as they would have lost troops by then so would have been better off sallying immediately).

Actually, it makes perfect sense to me, since the reason you stay put is to wait for re-enforcements. I've seen the enemy do it a few times, and i've done it myself on occasion, where i've had to bring some nearby garrisons to help lift a siege. In 3 turns time of siege, you could easily mass an army capable of helping stop the attack or even counter attack to draw them off your town (the AI doesn't like being cut off. If you send a reasonable force near their border town thats closest to your sieged town, they will more often then not break siege to go defend it)

[Daveybaby]

In my experience they typically wait until the last turn then try to fight you. I have to agree with Bob on that part, it would make more sense to sally on the first or second turn of the siege before half the defenders have died of starvation and pestilence, but that's how they work.

Well they could be waiting for reinforcements to come and break the siege. Which would be a good idea, if the AI ever bothered to send any.

And anyway when i'm defending a siege i dont always sally immediately against the AI even if i'm stronger than they are (a depressingly regular occurrence) - i usually wait a turn or 2 to see if they are going to attack. Youre much better off defending against an attack than sallying. Of course a sieging human player will generally attack on the same turn they start the siege (if they brought arty with them), whereas the AI will always wait at least 1 turn even though half of their stack is artillery. Not sure why.

Has anyone ever seen the AI start a siege and then attack immediately?

[RickooClan]

it would make more sense to sally on the first or second turn of the siege before half the defenders have died of starvation and pestilence, but that's how they work.

I somehow disagree since as long as you resisting the siege you still have the chance somebody can help you out or the sieging army may retreat for whatever reason.

If you do know you get little chance to win in sallying out (which will directly hand over the city), it is more logical to hold the city as long as possible. (at least you still have a few turns of income! )

[RickooClan]

Has anyone ever seen the AI start a siege and then attack immediately?

I have the same question in my mind but i didnt see any as well.

Therefore to be fair i wait at least one turn before sieging the city.

[Bob the Insane]

I somehow disagree since as long as you resisting the siege you still have the chance somebody can help you out or the sieging army may retreat for whatever reason.

If you do know you get little chance to win in sallying out (which will directly hand over the city), it is more logical to hold the city as long as possible. (at least you still have a few turns of income! )

Holding out to the last possible moment would make sense if there was a supporting army on the way. And this occasionally occurs for normal factions, but the Rebels never do that...

I guess overall it makes sense that the AI hangs out as long as possible from a gameplay perspective. Even if there is no hope of a relieving army, there is no point in allowing to player to rush even quicker...

As a player, if you had an isolated settlement that was undermanned and you suddenly found it undersiege by a much larger army and there was no way you could get a sufficiently large relieving army there in time, what would you do? Sally out ASAP? Hang in there?

I guess it is all about odds, the player can be very efficient about sending just enough troops to prevent the AI from sallying before the last turn, by which time AI army that was only slighty small is now way smaller...

Mybe the rate of troop loss to to high... I mean the armed defenders of a settlement are the ones who are likely to get the most of the remaining food. Maybe a better mechanic would be not losing any defending soldiers, but rather the population of the settlement decreases over time. Plus a chance every turn of the plague catching on in the settlement (with it's normal results)...

That would be fun...

[Quillan]

It would make sense to me to hold out if you're waiting on reinforcements, but I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I've seen reinforcements show up to try to lift the siege; this may be purely a matter of my playstyle as I tend to eliminate the field force before laying siege. I could even see holding out till the last minute as a measure of "I'm going to make you wait as long as I can before giving you the benefit of owning this province!", but would that be the exception or the rule?

I know that I, from a defensive standpoint, sally ever turn of the siege in an effort to cause as much damage to the besiegers as I can. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not, but I still do it.

As to immediate AI assaults, I have seen those. It's usually when the attackers vastly outnumber the defenders and have plenty of artillery along.

[TevashSzat]

You can always autoresolve sieges when attacking.

When you autoresolve, the game engine doesn't take account of defenders advantage due to walls/morale/city square so the battle will autoresollve as if you fought each other in an open field. This usually guarantees far less casualties for cav heavy armies

[_Tristan_]

The best ally of an cav-heavy army is the spy (or better, spies...), with a bit of luck or skill on your spy(ies)'s part, you can get the gates opened on the first turn of the siege...

With the gates open and with the speed of cavalry, you can deploy all around the besieged city (more difficult with castles) and completely disorganize the defenders, leading a merry chase (Benny Hill-like)

Depending on the strength of the defenders, an cav-heavy army doesn't have to rely on large numbers, so with a small force of cav you can generally generate a sally from the defenders rather early... and defeat them easily...

One more good strategy to force the AI out of sieges is to siege with a few units of cav (preferably light and fast) and leave the rest of the army (be it cav, inf or a mix of the 2) near the siege (as reinforcements...) The AI, in my experience, will always strike at the weaker of the two forces (here, the cav sieging army) when sallying...

You can then try to lure them away from their town on their sally (usinf the speed of your cav to keep away from missiles or to raid isolated units such as missile infantry which will often advance much further and much faster than other infantry) and use the reinforcements to try and gain the town center... When they turn around from chasing your cav to return and defend their town, they will have to fight their way through your main force and will be harassed by your cav, sure to get an easy rout of most units (hammer and anvil effect )