understanding a sally

[zooeyglass]

thank you! i'll look into this as well, when my dying computer lets me. but very curious - i did not even realise sallies really existed, so the thought that i can sally, pelt the enemy with arrows, and then quit without leaving my walls, is fairly exciting. :)

[spqr_arcani]

thank you! i'll look into this as well, when my dying computer lets me. but very curious - i did not even realise sallies really existed, so the thought that i can sally, pelt the enemy with arrows, and then quit without leaving my walls, is fairly exciting. :)

I think Sally Draws are great for situations where you're low on troops and generally you're optimizing the utilization of your armies and levelling them, particularly artillery units.

The down side is you're going to spend more time in battle mode. If you're like me (impatient and low on time), you might opt to wait till the besieging army attacks. To me, it's not that hard defending a city from AI armies in Medium difficulty anyway, and replenishing the troops that died/fled from starvation merely becomes a logistical consideration.

[Ferromancer]

Thanks for going through and confirming exactly what happens during a sally.

Here's a situation I had once:

I was sieging a city, and the enemy sallied forth. Normally I'm able to kick butt and take the city like I normally do even though the enemy gets the first strike. Well, I was outnumbered and it took the whole entire timer to fight my way into the city. I took the walls to keep the AI from reinforcing the square from troops outside the gates. I ran out of time right as I had about two minutes left to hold the square . End result was a draw, so no troops got healed, but I still was able to take the city--I assume I took it either because my troops were inside the walls, holding the square, or defeated more foes.

It's nice to know I can use this to my advantage on the defending end though.

[zooeyglass]

I was sieging a city, and the enemy sallied forth. Normally I'm able to kick butt and take the city like I normally do even though the enemy gets the first strike. Well, I was outnumbered and it took the whole entire timer to fight my way into the city. I took the walls to keep the AI from reinforcing the square from troops outside the gates. I ran out of time right as I had about two minutes left to hold the square . End result was a draw, so no troops got healed, but I still was able to take the city--I assume I took it either because my troops were inside the walls, holding the square, or defeated more foes.

so you attacked, got a draw, but ended up taking the city? strange turn of events....

at the time of the draw, am i to understand that the enemy's troops still alive were all outside the city walls, and your troops were all inside the city walls?

[Ferromancer]

so you attacked, got a draw, but ended up taking the city? strange turn of events....

at the time of the draw, am i to understand that the enemy's troops still alive were all outside the city walls, and your troops were all inside the city walls?

Yep They stormed out to wreck my siege equipment, got distracted by some skirmishers, and I ran some guys all around the city walls. They would come to gate after gate only to find it locked, until they just gave up and sat on the hillside to watch the rest of the fight.

[spqr_arcani]

Yep They stormed out to wreck my siege equipment, got distracted by some skirmishers, and I ran some guys all around the city walls. They would come to gate after gate only to find it locked, until they just gave up and sat on the hillside to watch the rest of the fight.

I've had this interesting siege battle very similar to yours before. However I haven't had the battle timer zero out on me before the 3-minute square timer did.

Can you clarify whether this was the last siege turn?

I have a feeling that the reason you occupied the city in your scenario was not because you locked the enemy out (which actually makes sense from a warfare point of view), but because it was the last siege turn, when the AI is left with the choice of either sallying out as a last ditch effort to save the city, or surrender the city without a fight.

The second choice makes sense to me because of pure RTW game mechanics. In this case, it wouldn't have mattered whether you were inside or outside the city walls, or if you were on the square or not. You could actually have a dozen skirmishers hiding in a forest outside, and if they survive when the battle timer zeroes out, you actually can take over a city garrisoned with a full stack!

But your scenario might be different, so that's why I'm curious.

[spqr_arcani]

Yep They stormed out to wreck my siege equipment, got distracted by some skirmishers, and I ran some guys all around the city walls. They would come to gate after gate only to find it locked, until they just gave up and sat on the hillside to watch the rest of the fight.

And you mentioned another thing that I'm even more curious about.

I haven't seen a scenario where I could use troops to destroy siege equipment.
How do you do that? I've seen my wall towers destroy enemy ambulant towers when they storm the city walls, and was able to use the general to attack the troops carrying ladders to slow them down, but don't think I've ever destroyed towers, ladders, battering rams, or sap points by melee-ing them. On occasion I've had archers use flamed arrows burn down ambulent towers.

Could you elaborate on how the AI wrecked your siege equipment?

[spqr_arcani]

And you mentioned another thing that I'm even more curious about.

I haven't seen a scenario where I could use troops to destroy siege equipment.
How do you do that? I've seen my wall towers destroy enemy ambulant towers when they storm the city walls, and was able to use the general to attack the troops carrying ladders to slow them down, but don't think I've ever destroyed towers, ladders or sap points by melee-ing them. On occasion I've had archers use flamed arrows burn down ambulent towers.

Could you elaborate on how the AI wrecked your siege equipment?

And if anyone knows what I'm talking about, the opening RTW movie sequence shows this part where a siege tower collapses after it has reached the wall. Not sure if that's caused by city wall towers firing flame arrows at the siege tower, or if it was due to some melee attack.

And there were times in the original vanilla RTW where for some reason an entire array of enemy troops climbing ladders simply fell splat to the ground. Not sure if my troops defending the wall had anything to do with it. I thought that was hilarious.

If anyone knows whether these are still possible in EB or know how to do these, please share!