Sieges and Sallying forth

[Heidrek]

I have a couple of questions about sieges.....

A number of times, I've been sieging as castle and the enemy tries to break the siege using troops from outside the province and the garrison sallying.

If I win the battle and continue to hold the province, which troops end up in the castle? Is it just the reminder of those that were originally in there or do they get reshuffled? Lets say 300 enemies flee the battle, do they all go into the castle if possible and the rest flee to another province?

It often seems that even if I defend the province sucessfully, the number of years I have to siege them goes up most of the time?

I'm attacking a province that contains the enemy king. If I win and trap him in the castle, and a relief force arrives to break the siege but fails, can he join those troops that escape to another province or will he be bottled back up in the Castle again?

[macsen rufus]

Having a battle, whether an assault or a sally, prevents any "siege attrition" that year - the only losses that will occur on either side will be those caused during the fighting. In the event of a sally, I believe it resets the "siege clock", so that after the battle it recalculates how long the garrison can survive based on the new reduced garrison size. AFAIK only the garrison returns to the fort after an unsuccessful sally, everyone else escapes back to where they came from. If there's no escape route (eg relieving forces came by sea) I believe they go to a neighbouring safe province, if available, or get caught and ransomed if not. I have noticed that if you have a sally, and kill all the units from the garrison, the fort usually falls, even if you didn't destroy the entire army (making it worth hunting down those few small broken units from inside during the battle). I think it might also vary with whether or not there are relieving forces or just a sally, as I've seen cases where I've reduced the garrison to one or two men, yet next year it is still "about to fall" rather than recalculated.

Kings can sometimes escape, I find it highly implausible, but a few times I've shouted at the game "You can't do that, you cheating !" but it never listens to me

[Ironside]

It often seems that even if I defend the province sucessfully, the number of years I have to siege them goes up most of the time?

It's recalculated with the new garnision size and the remaining food.

I'm attacking a province that contains the enemy king. If I win and trap him in the castle, and a relief force arrives to break the siege but fails, can he join those troops that escape to another province or will he be bottled back up in the Castle again?

He should be bottled up, but as macsen says, thje comp does some odd moves sometimes. The sally got the option to retreat from the province though, but only pre-battle.

[Heidrek]

The sally got the option to retreat from the province though, but only pre-battle.

So if I have a castle under siege that's about to fall, I can sally with the garrison, then at the prebattle stage choose to abandon the province and I wont lose the troops that were previously trapped in the castle?

[FactionHeir]

Pretty much, but you lose the castle that way. I think what the others mean is that you can sally forth, lose the battle, but at least manage to retreat with a few of the sallying force to keep the status quo.

[Heidrek]

Thats very useful to know. I think that this way I could hold out sieges just about indefinitely. When you get down to only a year or two to go, sally forth and sacrifice a few units of the garrison, particularly ones that are sub optimal and up the clock a bit. You were going to lose them all anyway so what's the harm?

[Ironside]

So if I have a castle under siege that's about to fall, I can sally with the garrison, then at the prebattle stage choose to abandon the province and I wont lose the troops that were previously trapped in the castle?

Yes, but if you sally without troops from a neighbouring provinces the AI will often counter with a storming, and even if you win it will still be sieged for that year (aka if it's about to fall it will fall).
And as FactionHier mentioned, by abondoning the castle, your province will fall.

Good way to give more defensive castle battles btw.

[Heidrek]

So, I could bait a castle attack by retreating as much as I can intot the castle, then sallying next turn and perhaps feeding a few suiicide troops to the enemy but keeping my best troops by withdrawing them at the start of the battle?

I can see some nasty castle defenses happening soon!!

[Ironsword]

Yes, it's a great way of keeping those Halbardiers and trebuchets, whilst thinning out the urban militia etc. that take away your valuable food stores at the keep.

Quick siege question. When do your arrow/ballista/catapult towers stop firing? After the wall containing them has been breached? Or after all the men within that part of the castle have been slain?

- My top strategy for sieges, have a small detachment of light cavalry outside the walls. Charge them immediately into the 'usually' isolated siege weapons of the AI. You may lose them, but his troops then have break their way through every gate with potentially huge losses.

[Ravencroft]

I'm not really sure about the towers.

From my experience, even if I broke through the gate, the towers keep firing (Although the outer towers no longer fire).

[Heidrek]

I remember one sneaky game where I was defending Constantinople. I had a bunch of small beaten up units defending it, enough to be able to call up reinforcements. Anyway, after forcing big losses on the attackers and eventually having my garrison eliminated, my reinforcements arrived at the map edge. I just sat them there ot of the way and the enemy never found them. I won by running out the clock forcing them to attack again the next turn and lose even more men.

[Peasant Phill]

I'm not really sure about the towers.

From my experience, even if I broke through the gate, the towers keep firing (Although the outer towers no longer fire).

The ring will keep firing until all friendly units in that ring are destroyed.

[Caerfanan]

Thats very useful to know. I think that this way I could hold out sieges just about indefinitely. When you get down to only a year or two to go, sally forth and sacrifice a few units of the garrison, particularly ones that are sub optimal and up the clock a bit. You were going to lose them all anyway so what's the harm?

Indefinitely, I don't know, your army could be totally eliminated eventually?

[macsen rufus]

I've encountered situations where a sally didn't work, and it seems like a case of the bigger army "trumping" the smaller one: ie where you sally at the same time as the AI deciding to assault, the assault happens if their army is bigger. It's a similar mechanism to when armies cross a border to attack each other, the larger one succeeds in attacking, the smaller one is forced to defend.

[Heidrek]

I had a frustrating experience last night. I was defending my castle against and army that had decided to storm the garrison. Ther siege engines were destroyed before they couldbreak down a wall, forcing them to take the gates.

I noticed after a while that even though I had my forces up against the inside walls, so no archer could get a clear shot at them, I still lost troops to crossbow fire. It's like they were shooting through the wall. Anyone know how this works?

[macsen rufus]

It's another case of the AI cheating, Heidrek. I've seen it as well, whereas in my case it was arbalesters shooting round corners

[Peasant Phill]

I haven't noticed it myself but I've heard of this before. I think it's because you're to close to the walls. Move your units a bit back from the wall. Xbows can't shoot in an arc (at least not steep enough to clear the wall and still hit the units inside it).

[Heidrek]

The kill rate was low, I didn't even notice if for a while. I'll try and move them back a bit next time and see if that helps. I also noticed his gunpowder units were damaging my walls very slowly. I think they only ended up doing about 5-10% damage but it did make me wonder - if they were damaging my walls, could this have been what was killing my troops? or does it only matter when the wall actually falls down?

[Caerfanan]

Question: what happens if you decide to storm a castle which garrison sallies?

(I don't want to hear any answer containing the word "swap"!!! )

[Heidrek]

Good question - can't say I know the answer to that one.

another question - while under siege, do you know what determines the likelihood your province will rebell against the besiegers? Does it's previous loyalty level make a difference? How long it's been yours? there are times when i've needed to keep 1000+ troops besieging a province to prevent it rebelling, yet the AI seems to be able to get away with a few hundred sometimes?

[macsen rufus]

Question: what happens if you decide to storm a castle which garrison sallies?

Depends which is the largest army. If the garrison is bigger than the besieging force, you have a sally battle. If the assaulting force is bigger than the garrison then the assault goes ahead.

[Caerfanan]

another question - while under siege, do you know what determines the likelihood your province will rebell against the besiegers? Does it's previous loyalty level make a difference? How long it's been yours? there are times when i've needed to keep 1000+ troops besieging a province to prevent it rebelling, yet the AI seems to be able to get away with a few hundred sometimes?

I don't know, except that I've been saved one or too times thanks to this when playing the Turks and was sieged in Constantinople...

[macsen rufus]

The likelihood of a loyalist rebellion to save your besieged garrison will vary with all the usual factors: any culture/religious difference, how long you held the province would have a bearing too, etc. Maybe the most useful thing you can do is bring any available spy into the province -- you've probably noticed when you have the AI besieged in its last castle, all the strategic agents come back to the province. You may not see them, but you can be pretty sure the spies will be in there too

And once again, I think the AI cheats

[Heidrek]

hmmmm....spies.....good point.

Does a spy's affect on province happiness increase over time, or it it a static amount that stays the same as long as the spy is there?

[macsen rufus]

I think it's a static amount dependent upon the valour of the spy, so the better the spy the greater the effect on loyalty (or disloyalty in an enemy province, of course), but it doesn't change over time AFAIK.