Cities more powerful then Castles

[Darasuum]

When playing Crusader Kings 2, just vanilla no mods, I find that cities are actually harder to assault then castles. In my current game a city has an average defending garrison of 2000 soldiers and a fort level of 3. The average castle has a fort level around 6-7 and a defending garrison of about 1400-1500 soldiers. Yet whenever trying to assault, the city is harder to take then the castle.

Anyone else have this 'problem' or lets just say noticed it?

 

[Yenzen]

Completely normal, however the town takes significantly less time to siege.

A good strategy is to rush the primary barony if possible, then siege the bishoprics and cities.

 

[Jeltz]

I have noticed this too, though I have not looked into this enough to be certain. My strategy currently is to assault castles but just siege towns. Towns fall quickly to siege while castles having a smaller garrison are easy to assault.

 

[Talq]

Yep, larger garrison (keeps fight going longer + more casualties). Also, cities are invariably vassals and their levy doesn't get called when fighting starts (one of the issues with the liege levy system I think).

 

[Lorehead]

Haven’t really tested, but is what's going on that cities actually upgrade themselves because they have the income?

 

[Beagá]

What do you mean? Yes, they do upgrade themselves.

 

[theKing1988]

What do you mean? Yes, they do upgrade themselves.

And Castles does too, remember every realm starts with no taxation of feudal lords, so either they horde money or they use them (i have seen a lot of both)

 

[unmerged(281782)]

Yes, I've noticed this as well. Even if city has less troops than castle (and obviously lower fort level), I'll still suffer greater casualties assaulting it for some reason.

On slightly related note, siege events are really nasty. Why 20k army besieging 100 guys would suffer 5% losses (that is 1k soliders!) from enemy sally?

 

[Bialaska]

In my experience cities improve much much faster than baronies, simply because the income of the owner is many times higher. In some games I have seen castles generate around 8 gold, whereas a city generates 35. Thus where the Castle will have 10 buildings, including a small wall, the city will be approaching the maximum possible with their current technology.

 

[Beagá]

Pretty much so. Lots of monies = high fort level + no levies raised = pain in the ass to siege.

Which is why the best military tech to rush is Siege Equipment.

 

[disgradius]

Don't cities also lean more towards light infantry/archers which pushes their troop counts up more? I've always found them easier to assault though. The greater numbers are rather deceiving as they lose morale pretty fast once you give the order.

 

[JonStryker]

The REAL problem is that the AI is either pretty reluctant to raise all the levies or there is a bug hidden beneath.

If you fight someone in 99% of the cases the only holdings with raised levies are the ones of the ruler. If someone joins someone else's claim usually only the part of the levy gets raised which they would have to provide to their liege (the top x percent).

The odd thing is that the AI somehow still manages to raise tens of thousands of men from somewhere

All of this contributes to the fact that there are lategame-cities with 4000 defenders which are pretty difficult to conquer.

 

[Maui]

Assault the city then...

A 20k army takes about the same losses assaulting 3000 men in a fortlevel 3 city as they does attacking 1000 men in a fortlevel 7 castle...

 

[Darkgamma]

That doesn't mean they're more powerful.

 

[JonStryker]

Assault the city then...

A 20k army takes about the same losses assaulting 3000 men in a fortlevel 3 city as they does attacking 1000 men in a fortlevel 7 castle...

Really? I had the impression that any castle with 1000 defenders can be sieged down by say 10000 men. A city with 3000 defenders? Very unlikely. It helps to bring 40000 men though

 

[dauncosony]

Yep, larger garrison (keeps fight going longer + more casualties). Also, cities are invariably vassals and their levy doesn't get called when fighting starts (one of the issues with the liege levy system I think).

This is exactly why cities are harder to storm now. The liege levy system only lifts out levies from the liege's pool, while all the vassals retains the same number of garrison. So that means in the county you own, only half of the capital holding remains while all the other holdings retain full garrison.

 

[Maui]

Really?

Yes.

I had the impression that any castle with 1000 defenders can be sieged down by say 10000 men. A city with 3000 defenders? Very unlikely. It helps to bring 40000 men though

A castle with 1000 defenders can be sieged down by 1001 men, if you are lucky and don't loose any of your attackers. But you need about 10k to reliably assault it. (note the diffrence between sieging and assaulting).

The 10x defenders to reliably assault is true for castles, not so for cities and churches. They can be assaultet with less then 10x, as their fortlevels are much lower.

 

[JonStryker]

It seems like I confused "sieging down" with assaulting

What I meant was:

"Really? I had the impression that any castle with 1000 defenders can be SUCCESSFULLY ASSAULTED by say 10000 men. A city with 3000 defenders? Very unlikely. It helps to bring 40000 men though "

 

[Jeltz]

In my very anecdotal and unscientific experience you need almost 10x the defenders to reliably assault cities too. Could just be that the cities are richer and therefore more upgraded than the castles, or it could just be me being wrong.

 

[Maui]

It seems like I confused "sieging down" with assaulting

What I meant was:

"Really? I had the impression that any castle with 1000 defenders can be SUCCESSFULLY ASSAULTED by say 10000 men. A city with 3000 defenders? Very unlikely. It helps to bring 40000 men though "

I don't know what to say..... But until city's get more then fortlevel 4 or so, I often assault them with only 5 times the number of defenders. Works every time... (as in 15k troops to assault a 3k men city)

Fortlevel is VERY important when assaulting, a castle with max fortlevel will give you massive looses if you assault with "only" 10x the ammount of men, but you will still win.