More Siege questions (Spoiler)

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Yeah the random troops is annoying...
If i just spent 2000 on a bloody Dane to buy him a ship and armor... i wouldnt let him sleep in the piss with the other men!

He! I wont even let him do anything until the actual assault!
And i most defenitly wont send him out in the vanguard to put up the bloody ladders...

The more i play with the new siege system... the more i hate it... sorry...
 
Im clearly not as creative as the mod team, never really thought the siege system needs to be re-worked.

I guess my only real complaint is how random it is.

The whole idea is that you are a commander/warlord/whatever and you are supposed to be in-charge.
You tell your troops where to go, how to stand, where to charge.

The siege system is in sheer contrast to that...

You just sit there... cross your fingers and hope your elite troops, that you invested so much time and effort in... wont catch a cold and die  :cry:

Dont get me wrong, I enjoy a challenge! I also like games to try and be as realistic as possible...

Having said that, its still a game, and in a game i would like to have a say in the outcome of things... not stare at the screen in silent pray to woden, waiting for the next random event to strike.
And see how many Elite troops i lost...

As it stands, the new siege system is like a mini-gambling-game, the worse kind of gambling.
Not poker where you can try to bluff and manipulate the outcome...
More like dice, where you just throw them and hope for the best.

What im trying to say is that i would like to have more control in the siege system.
I dont enjoy this random-event system.

As for suggestions... im pretty much clueless...  :sad:
Here are my 2 cents tho;
- Allow me to recruit as i siege?
- Reduce building time?
There are 2 must-have buildings.. the fortifications and the latrine, and its a lose-lose situation.
Either you stop the besiegers from getting reinforcements, and harassing you.
Or you stop your troops form dieing from disease.
Either way you will lose men.
- Reduce how fast besieged lords get new troops;
Had this problem, Cantaware was down to its last castle had all 4 lords inside and in the 4 days it took me to build fortifications the defenders more then doubled their numbers!
Worst thing was i couldn't do anything about it...

These are my own private thoughts and feelings about this,
This is meant to be constructive,
I cant but appreciate the ton of work that went into this,
So dont crustily me all you die-hard-fans.
 
I have to say I agree with Ogaburan. I do enjoy the new system, and I am very grateful you guys took the time to make it. But it's still a bit flawed. Adopting one or two of Ogaburan's suggestions might just make it less annoying.

I also have nothing against the random events, just keep adding more :razz: But just like Ogaburan, I feel powerless when confronted with the wrath of Woden.
 
As for suggestions... im pretty much clueless...  :sad:
Here are my 2 cents tho;
- Allow me to recruit as i siege?
- Reduce building time?
There are 2 must-have buildings.. the fortifications and the latrine, and its a lose-lose situation.
Either you stop the besiegers from getting reinforcements, and harassing you.
Or you stop your troops form dieing from disease.
Either way you will lose men.


Workaround for this is start the longer build, click wait till tomorrow.. click the castle right away. Now tell the troops to build latrines. Presto, both build at once. Can do things like mantlets at the same time too, even have your troops loot and burn crops as they build.
 
Mm, I think that real problem is maybe ramdom events too followed one after another. I will try fix this.

Maybe too, it is a problem that you havent a guie like prevent problems (when you build something you advoid problems like diseases, sally etc...), but a guie need time and player xp that I havent.


Other thing, somebody have try play siege warfare with realisc casulities active?


 
I played with realistic casaulties active and my 300 elistish troops were dead before the circumvallation was even half built (against about 450 defenders).

I love the idea, in principle, but I would add my voice to those calling for shorter build times and less frequent random events.  At this point, I have turned it off.
 
Other problem is that you are try attack with less men that your enemy, and this is near to suicidal. If you attack with more men, ramdom events can benefict you over enemy, and when you assault town meet less enemies.

Well, I will add more time enter ramdom events for 1.35, I like all you try it and post here your opinion.
 
Dorrin said:
Workaround for this is start the longer build, click wait till tomorrow.. click the castle right away. Now tell the troops to build latrines. Presto, both build at once. Can do things like mantlets at the same time too, even have your troops loot and burn crops as they build.

Oh my!

This should be nailed somewhere!

Very useful information!

Idibil said:
Other thing, somebody have try play siege warfare with realisc casulities active?

Yes... I am.
 
The new siege system is a wonderful thing because now you havent any chance if you are outnumbered (realism). I feel (personaly) that the siege is going better when you hit during waiting times the camp button brcause i feel the time you can do nothing is longer than the building time so you can break your waiting time and finish the camp and so on..... hope you understand what i mean :smile:
 
I have turned off the new siege system because it seems unplayable.  Maybe I just don't know how to use it.  The magic involved in programming is giving a feel of realism without forcing realism.  Games are not reality.  If I have an elite army I should be able to assault a castle that has me outnumbered to some degree.  And the "rules" of how the game work need to account for the size of the world and the fact you cannot move armies around like sports cars.  I should be able to assault a small castle before all the factions armies show up unless they were nearby to start with.  This has to account for the unrealistic fact that the game map is practically crammed with countless armies for the sake of fun.  You can't just suspend that fun factor to arbitrarely make something "realistic".
 
Why not give an option to control your spies during the siege? Can't poison the well or destroy food anymore unless you break the siege and give orders then re-engage it. I could see the arguement that they are too powerful during sieges but if thats teh case then they shouldn't have the option to poison anyway. \
Also, noticed that if you try to cut off the fort by surrounding it they always charge out and destroy what im building and I have to start over... I see the purpose of this but it seems no matter which option i choose I always lose and can't finish building it. I have a hard time believing they would have destroyed all your work anyway maybe set you back 20 hours or something? but to force you to start all over is way too much imo.
 
I just tried besieging the castle on the island between britain/wales and ireland (forgot name already :razz: ) and found it rather difficult... i finished off one of the lords on the field  with 175 fully elite troops, lost about 10 or so (the few archers i brought) and beat his 200-something army, then the siege began.... built latrine, mantles, and lost 1/4th of my top tier elite shield wall troops in either raids and/or bringing up ladders. I know i was outnumbered about two to one but even in the more realistic Total War games and etc, elite troops usually are able to take 3 or more peasants at a time. So basically im saying that i think after certain rankings the penalites on certain troops should be reduced.... having an army with a wage of 7000 should not be beaten back that easily.... oh and by the way, it seems my guys like splitting up and either running into door as it "breaks down" or killing the men on the walls then getting shot to death by the swarm waiting for doors to open... then nobody coming in...


I like the idea/theory of realistic sieges... but it relies on both sides having the same ranking/type of troop only with difference on number (for sacrificial purposes).

Once again, i appreciate all the work and it awesome in all the details but... still needs some polishing

Uffa said:
Why not give an option to control your spies during the siege? Can't poison the well or destroy food anymore unless you break the siege and give orders then re-engage it. I could see the arguement that they are too powerful during sieges but if thats teh case then they shouldn't have the option to poison anyway. \
Also, noticed that if you try to cut off the fort by surrounding it they always charge out and destroy what im building and I have to start over... I see the purpose of this but it seems no matter which option i choose I always lose and can't finish building it. I have a hard time believing they would have destroyed all your work anyway maybe set you back 20 hours or something? but to force you to start all over is way too much imo.

Thats a good idea, because when u poison the well and knockout the troops, then they just heal as you build
 
I find that if you do everything properly, you can easily perform a realistic siege with few casualties.  Just do these steps in order:

1.  Fill up your inventory with food.  Every slot should have food except for a few slots for your horse and maybe a couple of extra weapons.  All other items should be left in the chest in your lair or castle to make room.  You must have good inventory skill, at least 5-7, in order to feed a large army.  Also, do not go into a siege with archers or cavalry or weak infantry.  Your army should consist of 300-500 medium to heavy infantry.  In the new training scheme, this can be hard to build up.  Good.  That is how it should be for this time period.  Besieging castles is something you do mid to late game.  By the time you think of besieging a castle, you should have high renown to recruit a lot of men, and you should have at least 6 companions with high trainer skill (5-7 trainer skill).  You'll note that with these conditions - and with high morale - you can actually get a large number of medium or heavy infantry at a reasonable speed (although it costs a fortune - but by now you should have several wineries and a good trading strategy in place).

2.  Destroy any armies near the castle first to avoid being attacked while setting up entrenchments.

3.  Besiege the castle by clicking "besiege castle".

4.  Click on "Spend two hours entrenching your camp."

5.  Allow no waiting periods at all while building entrenchment or sanitation.  Right after you have clicked on "build entrenchment", click on the castle again and click on "build sanitation."  The secret to success here is building multiple things you need for a successful siege simultaneously.  Don't click to build something and then try to wait for it to finish building.  Get it all going at once.

6.  Immediately after clicking to build sanitation, click on the castle again and go to the siege preparations menu.  Click on "Block place".  The fence will start construction now.  You'll note that, already, you are given a message that your men are disciplined and that latrines have been built and other sanitation measures are in place.  Now you will not suffer the kinds of huge casualties resulting from lack of sanitation.  You might have some casualties from the cold of winter, but these are usually manageable. 

7.  Now, immediately click on "assault preparation".  Build the equipment needed to assault.  Now, you have to do some waiting.  If the enemy begins to attack your fence while you are building, always divert men to protect the part of the wall under assault.  If you have hundreds of heavy infantry, you should lose relatively few men (like 15-30 max).

8.  Once the fence is ready and the assault equipment is ready, I usually assault since I have a strong army.  If you want, you can kill more of the enemy by infiltrating the castle with traitors and disease and what not.  I've occasionally had a fortress surrender without a fight because all the enemy died unsuccessfully trying to break the fence. 

Some more notes:  Never allow enemy soldiers into your ranks.  They are probably spies.  I usually just send them back, not killing them (there is probably a morale penalty for that).  Also, if it is autumn, you can pillage nearby fields to get more food.  If given the opportunity to launch heads into the enemy castle, do it.  Any random event that comes up that gives you a choice to demoralize the enemy, or that will give your men higher morale (dancers, for example) should be taken, whatever the expense.  High morale for your men is very important.  Demoralize the enemy and you end the siege sooner, albeit these choices usually come with a small loss of honor.  Finally, each day you are trying to build the fence, click on the castle and check to see if the option to close the fence is available.  You want to spend as little time as is necessary building and waiting.  The game won't tell you when you can close the fence, you have to check it yourself.  Also, you should meet with the enemy commander each day and demand that he surrender.  Often, if he is outnumbered, he will agree.  While you'll get messages telling you that you've lost men, if you have a lot of well-trained men (which you should have if you want to successfully capture a castle), you'll usually notice that the number of men you lose is less than the number of men the enemy loses.  Over time, the enemies ranks dwindle.  Sure, you'll lose a lot of men, but you're smart and didn't think of laying siege to a castle without coming with at least twice the number of men in the enemy fort, right?

Realistic sieges are really not that difficult if you do it right:  build sanitation, don't let in enemy spies, defend your fence and your camp, don't allow your men to fraternize with the enemy, offer mercy to the enemy if they surrender, and in general be disciplined and brave, like a good Englishman.  If you don't, you'll lose most of your army in a pathetic cycle of disease, misery, and enemy action.  That seems about right.
 
I agree with the above poster.  I have taken out larger forces this way.  The only thing I do hate is when seiging a large town, it can take a really long time to build circumvation, and there seem to be too many random chances to lose it. e.g. when the enemy tries to burn it or destroy it.  I have 8 engin, and 330 men and it took me 110 hours to build and then right away they burned it.  I have to admit I was saving the game throughout the siege for that reason. However it is because it was the first city I was conquering and I couldnt afford to lose all those soldiers again. 

My 2 cents would be to let the besiegers somehow send out the supply wagon for food.  I have to admit I dont know much about using the wagon I sent it out to trade and it came back with nothing. I was hoping it would bring some food for us.  I know with 330 troops I was really burning through food and I have a lot inventory space, like 5.  and I imagine with 400 men I would have run out of food before the city, even with burning and pillaging the fields.
 
I added to guides!  :grin:


cpkuntz said:
I find that if you do everything properly, you can easily perform a realistic siege with few casualties.  Just do these steps in order:

1.  Fill up your inventory with food.  Every slot should have food except for a few slots for your horse and maybe a couple of extra weapons.  All other items should be left in the chest in your lair or castle to make room.  You must have good inventory skill, at least 5-7, in order to feed a large army.  Also, do not go into a siege with archers or cavalry or weak infantry.  Your army should consist of 300-500 medium to heavy infantry.  In the new training scheme, this can be hard to build up.  Good.  That is how it should be for this time period.  Besieging castles is something you do mid to late game.  By the time you think of besieging a castle, you should have high renown to recruit a lot of men, and you should have at least 6 companions with high trainer skill (5-7 trainer skill).  You'll note that with these conditions - and with high morale - you can actually get a large number of medium or heavy infantry at a reasonable speed (although it costs a fortune - but by now you should have several wineries and a good trading strategy in place).

2.  Destroy any armies near the castle first to avoid being attacked while setting up entrenchments.

3.  Besiege the castle by clicking "besiege castle".

4.  Click on "Spend two hours entrenching your camp."

5.  Allow no waiting periods at all while building entrenchment or sanitation.  Right after you have clicked on "build entrenchment", click on the castle again and click on "build sanitation."  The secret to success here is building multiple things you need for a successful siege simultaneously.  Don't click to build something and then try to wait for it to finish building.  Get it all going at once.

6.  Immediately after clicking to build sanitation, click on the castle again and go to the siege preparations menu.  Click on "Block place".  The fence will start construction now.  You'll note that, already, you are given a message that your men are disciplined and that latrines have been built and other sanitation measures are in place.  Now you will not suffer the kinds of huge casualties resulting from lack of sanitation.  You might have some casualties from the cold of winter, but these are usually manageable. 

7.  Now, immediately click on "assault preparation".  Build the equipment needed to assault.  Now, you have to do some waiting.  If the enemy begins to attack your fence while you are building, always divert men to protect the part of the wall under assault.  If you have hundreds of heavy infantry, you should lose relatively few men (like 15-30 max).

8.  Once the fence is ready and the assault equipment is ready, I usually assault since I have a strong army.  If you want, you can kill more of the enemy by infiltrating the castle with traitors and disease and what not.  I've occasionally had a fortress surrender without a fight because all the enemy died unsuccessfully trying to break the fence. 

Some more notes:  Never allow enemy soldiers into your ranks.  They are probably spies.  I usually just send them back, not killing them (there is probably a morale penalty for that).  Also, if it is autumn, you can pillage nearby fields to get more food.  If given the opportunity to launch heads into the enemy castle, do it.  Any random event that comes up that gives you a choice to demoralize the enemy, or that will give your men higher morale (dancers, for example) should be taken, whatever the expense.  High morale for your men is very important.  Demoralize the enemy and you end the siege sooner, albeit these choices usually come with a small loss of honor.  Finally, each day you are trying to build the fence, click on the castle and check to see if the option to close the fence is available.  You want to spend as little time as is necessary building and waiting.  The game won't tell you when you can close the fence, you have to check it yourself.  Also, you should meet with the enemy commander each day and demand that he surrender.  Often, if he is outnumbered, he will agree.  While you'll get messages telling you that you've lost men, if you have a lot of well-trained men (which you should have if you want to successfully capture a castle), you'll usually notice that the number of men you lose is less than the number of men the enemy loses.  Over time, the enemies ranks dwindle.  Sure, you'll lose a lot of men, but you're smart and didn't think of laying siege to a castle without coming with at least twice the number of men in the enemy fort, right?

Realistic sieges are really not that difficult if you do it right:  build sanitation, don't let in enemy spies, defend your fence and your camp, don't allow your men to fraternize with the enemy, offer mercy to the enemy if they surrender, and in general be disciplined and brave, like a good Englishman.  If you don't, you'll lose most of your army in a pathetic cycle of disease, misery, and enemy action.  That seems about right.
 
While the post above me is good advice I'd like to highlight a couple of things. Well, one thing.

Right now it takes you a couple of weeks to successfully siege a decent castle. That is just about a couple of weeks more than in Native, where it took a max of 30 hours with low Engineer skill.
This is good.
BUT the enemy armies can reach from the other side of Britain. That means you quite often get attacked by numerous armies of 200-500 enemy soldiers (unless the enemy faction is dwindling). Now, in WWII the German army moved an incredible distance of up to 40km per day. That's in the 20th century! The Romans were renowned for moving their 20-30km each day about 2000 years ago.

So, in the 7th century there is no way an army would reach you from Seals-ey when you're besieging a castle somewhere north of Bebbanburh. I mean, a town could possibly survive for that long but a wooden castle (which most often weren't real castles, but more like palisades built on small hills) would succumb long before any army could reach there.

This would mean party speed should be decreased, which in turn could be boring for players who like to move around a lot. Quest times would also have to be extended and it would make a serious fuss.

I am by no means a modder, but I suggest that you simply prolong the time before a warning reaches the player/lords of a realm that a castle/town is being sieged or a village is being raided.
 
UnholyNighmare said:
This would mean party speed should be decreased

absolutely!
i think its still too fast. traveling from the south coast to powys land e.g. shouldnt be an "afternoon-event" (in terms of realism).
this way you really have to organize your travels (food, rests, etc.), by now you just go there and back like nothing.
(side effect: slower movement on map reduces e.g. bandit surpises while having a sip of beer and not looking on the display)
 
Can someone explain how poisoning a well actually works during a siege?
I've send a few spies into a town before starting the siege but I can't find an option to start the poisoning.
Or is it happening automatically on random, and i'm just unlucky?
 
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