Castles: storming vs besieging

[caravel]

Personally I dislike sieges, as I've said many times before. It's why I particularly hated RTW - though the sieges in that were definitely an improvement the issue of stupid AI was still there (arguably worse in fact).

Sieges show the MTW AI at it's worst IMHO.

1) The units that march back and forth in front of the gates getting cut down, routing, coming back for more, etc... before eventually manually attacking the wall on one side and then dying.

2) The cannon/ballista towers (which I never build), which shoot your own men, shoot your walls, gates, towers...

3) The AI approach: I've won many siege defence battles when outnumbered about 10 to 1, simply because the AI was too stupid to attack in a coordinated fashion... but instead sends it's units against you piecemeal (the kind of battles that could be won by simply positioning the troops, starting off and then going down to the pub...)

4) The AI often doesn't bring siege engines, positions them too close to the walls (the crews get shot to pieces) or in a position where they can't all hit the gates/all hit the same piece of wall.

When it comes to attacking it's certainly more in the AI's favour as it's sitting in the same place and the stucture itself adds to the challenge. But I've always found moving your best units out and using autoresolve gives a lower casualty rates than risking your general and decent units attacking a castle that sends a constant spray of "auto arrows" at you. Also if you don't bring siege equipment along with every single army stack, you stand a fair chance of being involved in a few sieges without equipment. In such cases I will almost always starve them out as manually battering down the wall or gates is far too costly.

[Gilrandir]

4) The AI often doesn't bring siege engines, positions them too close to the walls (the crews get shot to pieces) or in a position where they can't all hit the gates/all hit the same piece of wall.

It has always been a surprise for me why the AI doesn't bring siege artillery while besieging, but brings it for field battles (especially while attacking!!!). But in the last case it can be a useful thing when fighting against an enemy with a multitude of reinforcements. I noticed that when the AI doesn't want to bring in more of those (in fact, acknowledging defeat) then the siege engines' crews leave their equipment and beat it. So, seeing them doing this is a sign that the AI gives it up.

[caravel]

It has always been a surprise for me why the AI doesn't bring siege artillery while besieging, but brings it for field battles (especially while attacking!!!).

Another problem with siege equipment, which you highlight here, is that the AI indeed takes it to field battles, where especially if attacking, it's essentially useless. This is further compounded by the AI's inability to organise his reinforcements. The worst result can be a ballista army...

My personal opinion is that the way STW handled it's "sieges" was better. Simple and unrealistic yes, but they actually worked.

[gollum]

The solution to this problem is to raise the maintencance costs of the artillery to that of a normal unit. The AI stops spamming it, although he brings one or two pieces/stack. This is implmented in the Caravel mod.

Of course he's still worthless in how to use art in pitched battles. But stack composition can be much improved and hence his performance.

[Gilrandir]

One more issue connected with the sieges. When you starve the garrison out the port in the province is, as a rule, destroyed (if it is a coastal province). I don't see any sensible reason for it, especially if it was a land attack not a marine mission. But, interestingly, this port demolition is not a law. So, how can you avoid it?

[caravel]

It can perhaps be avoided by modding...

To put it simply the port is a single level building, so it's often razed when the whole province loses a tech level after an invasion/siege. To avoid this, the port needs to be modded to have level 2, 3 and 4 structures (upgrades). I've never tried it myself... in fact it'll probably break the port, but perhaps not... worth a try anyway... Certainly worth considering for the Gollum Mod 3.0.0.1?

[Stazi]

It can be done but it'll affect all ways of conquering a province so IMO it'll be very unrealistic. Additionally, there are some castle guarding coastal cities and ports so the raze of such port during long siege is very likely. Another reason is that you don't own a province without a castle so it's naturally that your soldiers raze and plunder enemy province during long siege.
The other way is to rise the importance of port for the AI and reduce it's build time to e.g 1 turn so it can be rebuilt immediately.