Siege or Storm

Besieging usually always cost less troops. Sometimes you may get unlucky with siege events on a long siege, but then you wouldnt have been able to storm such a castle anyway.

I usually go for a 10:1 to storm. I never lost at that rate, though sometimes it does cost me too many troops to make it worthwhile. There are a lot of variables that comes into account though.

Some troops are better at siege (archers) while some sucks at it (heavy infantry I think). Then there is your siege tech (both as defense or offense) and the castle fort level.

Generally you need to outnumber the defenders 10 to 1 in order to assault safely, sometimes it's ok to go with less if it'll end the war or you're in a hurry for whatever reason, but even then, you don't want to do it if you have less that 5 to 1.

8-1 minimum unless youre using an stack of troops that do very well in skirmish phase.

10:1 is an good eraly game rule, while lategame i might even bump that up to 12:1 when you face some monsters of an castle.

What people easily overlook lategame is the military tech... Castle fort level and garrison size is big, yes, but its easy to notice. High Military tech by the AI very well mean high Siege Equipment, which acts as a multiplier to all the siege variables in their favor.

If you are the kind, like most players, to focus your military tech on Mil. Organisation and whatever type of troop you focus on, your Siege Equipment is probably lacking compared to an AI castle of the same tech level as you.

I also like 10:1 odds.

The speed (effectiveness) depends on your troops. For example, Heavy Infantry are less effective so the bar goes down slowly, whereas Archers are better so they reduce the morale bar more quickly.

Even with 10:1 odds, storming can take awhile if, for example, they have 2000+ garrison/levies.

Storming tends to be more costly with troops but you can take over the holding more quickly, whereas sieging takes time. Depends on the war situation and whether you have time or whether you want to wrap things up quickly.

Besieging tends to save you more troops over time, but there are rare cases where several unfortunate events lead you to lose more troops than you would have if you had stormed.

Note that you can storm after you have started besieging - you do benefit from the decreased morale that you've already caused. However, every time you start a storm (click the button), the defenders do get a small morale boost (so if you quit and load a lot, then storming is NOT good!).

Besieging can benefit from a Siege Leader, but the latest patch's quirk of removing commanders can reduce the effectiveness of this. Ideally you will have a Siege Leader in your COURT (not as a vassal) so he isn't automatically removed. But if your siege leader is removed, then you need to move your army to reassign him, and that resets the 12-day counter.

grumphie said:

8-1 minimum unless youre using an stack of troops that do very well in skirmish phase.

Click to expand...

This. With longbow retinues I could push it to 4-1, but I had a very healthy cash flow at the time (a lot more lord mayors than are currently allowed).

If are close to getting a 100% war score and need to wrap up quick (that infidel King/Sultan ally you had overlooked just joined your war) then do it. Or if you outnumber the last holding in the province 20-1 you can get a quick storm with few losses and move on to the next province. Or if you are using mercenaries, they are cheaper the more you kill off and they replenish automatically (in some situations mercs can just about pay their own way storming holdings).

[EDIT] Forgot about one more situation when you want to storm - you are trying to snap up that small vassal that just rebelled against his emperor before he white peaces and you lose your CB.

Otherwise if you are not overwhelmingly powerful you are best advised to conserve your troops. If you are overwhelmingly powerful, what's your rush?

yep 10/1 here as well. It's the same in many other paradox games always assault with 10/1

I have never stormed in my current game, although I used to before. Instead, I invite commanders with the siege trait (the catapult) and invest in siege tech early on. Otherwise I try to pick a leader with the highest Martial score available – this often means guys with a generic high Martial skill but no specific commander trait, unlike the field commanders whom I use for their traits – but also taking account of his Intrigue score because the latter affects siege events.

I did use storm before, as in the earlier patches it was possible to lose a half of your force just simply sitting on the siege, with no notification or anything. I suppose those were siege events popping up for the enemy siege defence commander. Perhaps the worst cases involved an enemy commander with a large Intrigue score. Losses from a direct assault were less than from a 1-2-year siege by a 15K force (going down to 8K in some cases).

But nowadays I don't see such huge losses in siege camps, so I'm not inclined to assault.

Archer retinues do the trick indeed. 5:1 is usually enough for assaulting without significant loses, make it 7:1 at very hard difficulty.