Siege 101

[unmerged(74649)]

I want to ask what's your best practices when sieging a city?

Do you leave your full blown army in the province until the city falls, then move on? Or you use a dedicated small armies to do the job? How big - one regiment of infantry? Two regiments? One infantry and one artillery?

Do you ever assault?

 

[unmerged(50629)]

I want to ask what's your best practices when sieging a city?

Do you leave your full blown army in the province until the city falls, then move on? Or you use a dedicated small armies to do the job? How big - one regiment of infantry? Two regiments? One infantry and one artillery?

Do you ever assault?

This is what I do, as I find that smaller forces can be picked aprat by the AI, while larger forces will be left alone. I use assault only if winter attrtion is likely to kill a lot of my forces, or the place has lower than expected garrison forces remaining (the AI took it recently, or Recaptured one I left un guarded). Assault has been made less expensive with 1.2.1

 

[Dysken]

Small armies sieging multiple province while a big cavalry army moves around kicking serious butt.

 

[whosthebestcop]

I usually engage their many armies with my large stacks then send stacks of 1-3 units to each of their provinces so they cannot hire or recruit more troops.

Then you can have a stack of say 10K infantry/artillery and just move that from place to place assaulting if you want to speed up the siege. I usually assault if I am after a quick land grab or want to end the war very quickly especially if it is with a 5 province or less country.

If it is with a medium size country to large I just try to have the 1-3 stack of cavalry in each territory and wait the 12-18 months it takes for the siege to happen.

 

[unmerged(74649)]

If it is with a medium size country to large I just try to have the 1-3 stack of cavalry in each territory and wait the 12-18 months it takes for the siege to happen.

Manual states cavalry is useless for sieges. I took over some provinces with pure cavalry stack yesterday, but IIRC it took them a year and half to finish the siege... that's a long time.

In general, I'm especially interested if anyone can confirm that throwing a large stack of units on a siege does speed it up noticeably.

 

[Darlor]

The size of the sieging force does not have any effect on the length of a siege provided your sieging force is larger than the garrison size. If it is not the siege will not work.

 

[unmerged(74649)]

The size of the sieging force does not have any effect on the length of a siege provided your sieging force is larger than the garrison size. If it is not the siege will not work.

Are you sure of this? It contradicts the manual. (But I was suspecting it's the fact from my gameplay)

 

[berhaven]

Usually, an infantry force of the size of the garrisons, plus one artillery, or the maximum attrition-free force do the besieging job, and I usually begin serious sieges only if the enemy is in a defensive mood (i.e. it feels my field army is stronger than its).
There are of course exeptions to the general rule, and if possible I like sending small forces landing in some secondary front if possible.
I very seldom assault, since assault needs large forces and gives horrible losses and - even worse - huge morale depletion.
Again, sometimes (if I'm very rich) I can create some stacks of mercenary infantry to be used for assault and disbanded afterwards.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I use a massive CAV stack for engaging the enemy.
For a decisive battle, i use all my troops, even INF and ART.

After the enemy army is beaten, i pursuit it on its retreat trail with my cav and leave small siege forces, INF inf garrision strengh + ART if available. The CAV pushes ever further and i start besieging multiple provinces at once. If fresh enemy troops arrive, i form a task group to defend besieged provinces.

I rarely assault. Only if I need this province right NOW, or the enemy has low garrison strengh/morale and i got a breach.
Though i guess, in late game assaults become more common since you can afford 10k armies for sieges...

 

[Darlor]

Are you sure of this? It contradicts the manual. (But I was suspecting it's the fact from my gameplay)

Been shown to be so by multiple player testing including my own.

 

[DanomitePrime]

I found the only time to assault is when u see water shortage or walls breached, otherwise wait it out.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I am in the process of researching sieges and have the following facts and deductions (from memory so may not be completely correct).

When a fortress is besieged there is a siege event every 30 days.
Events and their effects:

Siege events and their impacts are as follows:
Event:manpower loss:damage added to siege total
Status quo:0:0
Food shortage:1%:12.5%
Wall breach:0%:25%
Water shortage:3%:37.5%
Defenders desert:10%:0%
Surrender:100%:done

The chance of each event seems to come from a results table (and I can't remember the details) something like this

14+ is a surrender
each type of event has 2 chances down to 5 being status Quo
each 30 days a 0 to 9 chance roll is modified by the following

+1 for each 12.5% of siege progress
-1 for each fortress level above 1
+1 for each point of siege skill of the besieging leader
artillery effect unknown
naval blockade effect unknown

Things like breaches have no effect on siege progress beyond the effects listed in the table above.

The results table I have constructed is based upon specualtion about the sort of algorithm and then filling in the table from the fact that certain things never happen below certain levels of siege progress. Examples of breaches and surrenders under known conditions would be useful. If providing examples then I need presence of artillery, inland/blockaded/open port, leader siege, fortress level, current siege progress and the event.

Moving on to other aspects.

A fortress does not recover if any enemy forces are besieging it
If a siege is lifted then progress immediately resets to zero and garrison rises at the standard recovery rate (varies)
If the siege force has fewer men (all types) than the garrison then progerss ceases (no events occur)
All types of troops count for sieges, cavalry are fine

The assault combat system appears to be a modified version of the battle system with some major adjustments BUT (and this is important) all the suitable troops present get to fight so the total infantry strength of the attackers makes a major difference. It is not clear what troops characteristics apply for either attacker or defender but differential tech levels definitely have some effect.

 

[Tridon]

Have any of you experienced that the siege went up to 100% but nothing happened before a few more months passed by? Seen it a couple of times with the last patch. Don't know if it's supposed to be that way, since 100% normally means that something is completed.

 

[Darkrenown]

The assault combat system appears to be a modified version of the battle system with some major adjustments BUT (and this is important) all the suitable troops present get to fight so the total infantry strength of the attackers makes a major difference.

Not too sure what you mean here, but only Inf assault in my experiance.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Not too sure what you mean here, but only Inf assault in my experiance.

The point is that you aren't restricted to the line of battle effect as in normal battles and hence 30,000 men can assault a level 1 fortress with exceptional effect.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Have any of you experienced that the siege went up to 100% but nothing happened before a few more months passed by? Seen it a couple of times with the last patch. Don't know if it's supposed to be that way, since 100% normally means that something is completed.

As in my main post, 100% progress just gives +8 on the following siege rolls and hence doesn't by any means indicate the siege is over.