Wahee
Recruit
A major issue right now that is contributing to snowballing and just overall boring sieges is that castle/town garrisons are never large enough to defend themselves. Outside of the player, the AI only ever sieges with an army (not individual vassals). A typical army for an average sized faction is what?...300-1000+ units. A typical garrison + militia is usually 150-250.
This means that all AI sieges end in one of two ways, either the army moves away due to an incoming larger army or other need, or they easily take the castle/town. I've never once seen the AI lose the actual assault.
I've managed to do a few siege defenses with a decent sized force, and if you have enough units inside the castle the AI actually performs better. With enough units you can actually block off the gate instead of the typical encircled square of guys behind the gate that gets steamrolled when the gate goes down. You also have enough units to create a chokepoint at the ladders that can actually be defended. The current siege scenes just can't be properly defended with the 150-200 guys you usually have, you need enough bodies to fill all the access points, a larger militia force solves that problem.
This turns all siege gameplay into boring slogs where the defenders never have a chance and you only ever fight underpowered militia garrisons. AI lords never build up garrisons with actual troops and never actually stay inside the walls to participate in the defense.
A simple doubling or more of the base militia (and corresponding food required to prevent starvation) would go a huge way towards slowing down the snowball and making sieges more fun. A mod already do this (Bannerlord Tweaks) and has shown real promise vs. the snowballing, but a permanent official fix is ideal.
This means that all AI sieges end in one of two ways, either the army moves away due to an incoming larger army or other need, or they easily take the castle/town. I've never once seen the AI lose the actual assault.
I've managed to do a few siege defenses with a decent sized force, and if you have enough units inside the castle the AI actually performs better. With enough units you can actually block off the gate instead of the typical encircled square of guys behind the gate that gets steamrolled when the gate goes down. You also have enough units to create a chokepoint at the ladders that can actually be defended. The current siege scenes just can't be properly defended with the 150-200 guys you usually have, you need enough bodies to fill all the access points, a larger militia force solves that problem.
This turns all siege gameplay into boring slogs where the defenders never have a chance and you only ever fight underpowered militia garrisons. AI lords never build up garrisons with actual troops and never actually stay inside the walls to participate in the defense.
A simple doubling or more of the base militia (and corresponding food required to prevent starvation) would go a huge way towards slowing down the snowball and making sieges more fun. A mod already do this (Bannerlord Tweaks) and has shown real promise vs. the snowballing, but a permanent official fix is ideal.