Defending in sieges - bug?

[Fredusko]

Hey, I'm the marshall of my faction and, while at war with the khergit, i moved my man in a campaign to stop the siege in one of my faction's castles. However, when I reached there and joined the siege battle as a defender, the other lords did not joined me. I event waited some seconds so they could join the battle before me, but they didn't. I found it very weird since, when I'm besieging a castle, or in field battles, they immediately rush to the battle, even if I don't join it.
So, is it a bug or a normal condition from the game? I mean, it could be a problem to pass through the siege line, but your party can do it, so some lords could also do it.

 

[Troll]

It's normal as far as I know. At least I haven't seen them acting differently ever. I have myself thougt about this too but I think it's the best way. I believe it would be really hard to conquer any castles for AI lords as it's already hard without defenders getting help.

 

[darklon7]

I think you must have good relation with them for them to help out.

 

[Johnny Morphine]

I've never, ever seen lords join in a siege defense after it started. You're more likely to see them patrolling around the embattled town/castle as the battle is happening than anything.

The fact that the game lets you join in these battles is completely unrealistic in the first place - seriously, a real army would never let you "pass through their ranks" to fight against them in the walls. That defeats the purpose of "besieging" in the first place.

The reason the game lets the player in is that otherwise, you'd never get to do it, and siege defense in my opinion the coolest battle type of all. Only Lords can sit in castles forever, thus stuck in there when the siege starts. Meanwhile the player is discouraged from chilling behind a wall for weeks or months at a time...

 

[stygN]

But if they were not to "Let you pass through their ranks" then you should have the option to hit the attackers from the rear along with a mighty army.

This would need a lot more coding...

Picture this.

1 castle have 100 defenders on its walls. 400 enemies are attacking them. You are leading a great army of 1000 men. Why cant you attack the enemy on the ground outside the city? You could do that in real life...

 

[Johnny Morphine]

I often thought the same thing. I'm pretty sure it's hardcoded that you simply cannot do that, though. On the off-chance that it can be done, I'm going to play around with that idea for my mod.

The reason I think it couldn't be done is that, as far as I know, there are two sets of spawn points around each castle during a siege. One for defenders and one for attackers. You'd have to add more for the incoming siege breakers, which would require editing castle scenes, or creating new ones. Most of the castles (especially towns) don't have the space for armies to be fighting one another on the outside. Those like Chalbek Castle are set for it, that is, if it could be done.

On top of that, the troops in the castle are set to obey your orders no matter what, as it stands, and on top of that there are only three slots (four, if you consider the companion slots from some versions) for archers, infantry, cavalry... and giving orders to any one of them would cause your troops in the castle to abandon their posts, which would be a sloppy mess.

Hopefully it can be done. I'm suspecting Warband will offer more options for siege situations.

 

[Fredusko]

But if they were not to "Let you pass through their ranks" then you should have the option to hit the attackers from the rear along with a mighty army.

This would need a lot more coding...

Picture this.

1 castle have 100 defenders on its walls. 400 enemies are attacking them. You are leading a great army of 1000 men. Why cant you attack the enemy on the ground outside the city? You could do that in real life...

Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. Thanks you guys for anwsering. Hope they make something like that in later versions.