Harassing siege battles?

[YD23]

Thanks all for your replies. Really appreciate the help and feedback.

@Titus Marcellus Scato
Wow, I've never thought to try and do that! Thanks for a good explanation, I'll certainly give this a try when I fire up EB again.

@moonburn
Yeah I figured someone would say this. I just find it incredibly annoying when the rebel boii hill camp the town square with a few cavalry, naked fanatics, sworsdmen, slingers & some spearmen. (other 46% remaining) Attacking this head on is usually not a problem for me, I just find it annoying that I have to take so many unnecessary losses. Even with careful planning I tend to lose at least 600 men in the process going against maybe a bit more than half of the enemy. Since they can't really rout in town square they just fight to death. While they do that my hastati/roarri(sp?) drop like flies even if completely encircling the barbarians.

But I figured if I could at least diminish the army halfway and then attack the rest this would make things a bit easier on my troops who have to march on to conquer/battle further. :)

[Saldunz]

@moonburn
Yeah I figured someone would say this. I just find it incredibly annoying when the rebel boii hill camp the town square with a few cavalry, naked fanatics, sworsdmen, slingers & some spearmen. (other 46% remaining) Attacking this head on is usually not a problem for me, I just find it annoying that I have to take so many unnecessary losses. Even with careful planning I tend to lose at least 600 men in the process going against maybe a bit more than half of the enemy. Since they can't really rout in town square they just fight to death. While they do that my hastati/roarri(sp?) drop like flies even if completely encircling the barbarians.

That sounds pretty realistic to me. Have you considered just starving them out? You'll lose more time, but a *lot* less men.
And of course, starving them out would be more historical than what you're trying to do.

[YD23]

Yeah I used to do that. Then I realized the lost time/negative morale traits/negative traits for general (hesitant attacker, etc..) are not worth it. : \ Unless of course you swap your generals around or make him sit elsewhere with no other general backing up your army.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Personally, playing the Romani against barbarian enemies, I prefer to seige with an army small enough to make the enemy garrison sally out when I end the turn. Then I can fight a defensive battle out in the open.

However, YD's tactic is useful for steppe nomads with archer-heavy armies to use against enemy garrisons which don't have long-range missiles. The dream of every horse archer is to shoot at the enemy without the enemy being able to shoot back.

[Blxz]

Wait, what? Hesitant attacker? This only happens if you choose to assault the city (so you can see the unit composition) and then you choose not to attack and instead siege them out. If you only seige then you will not get this trait. If you desperately need to see the enemy units before they attack you then simply bring a spy rather than starting an attack and then not commiting (you deserve the trait obviously).

As for lost time. This is a game that is over 1000 turns long. You almost have time to seige every single city on the entire map one city at a time if you wanted.

As for morlae negatives, they are temporary. Will disappear once you rest in the town for a few turns. And quite frankly they have virtually no impact on the seige battle when you defend from the enemy sally. The enemy troops will be so depleted and the battle so favourable that you shouldn't have any problems with winning.

[Lysimachos]

Wait, what? Hesitant attacker? This only happens if you choose to assault the city (so you can see the unit composition) and then you choose not to attack and instead siege them out. If you only seige then you will not get this trait. If you desperately need to see the enemy units before they attack you then simply bring a spy rather than starting an attack and then not commiting (you deserve the trait obviously).

As for lost time. This is a game that is over 1000 turns long. You almost have time to seige every single city on the entire map one city at a time if you wanted.

As for morlae negatives, they are temporary. Will disappear once you rest in the town for a few turns. And quite frankly they have virtually no impact on the seige battle when you defend from the enemy sally. The enemy troops will be so depleted and the battle so favourable that you shouldn't have any problems with winning.

I concur. In most cases I find it preferable to wait up. You don't get any negative traits for that.

There is another thing about starving a city out instead of assaulting. I regularly notice people complaining about how there are too many siege battles and too little field battles. Well, that's because they assault. If you wait long enough, the AI will usually bring reinforcements and attack the sieging army and - tadaa - it's a field battle.

[Atraphoenix]

Nearly all of my generals have that trait. If you are unsure I think it would be better to starve them out. I rarely assault cities. I send my spies first. Then check which city has bad garrison then my spy armies opens the gates for me.
I use your words when defending my cities. Radically I spare lots of horse archers together with normal archers on cities and until my main army comes to action I could wipe out half of the enemy.