SP - Battles & Sieges Lack of Castle Defending (huge problem)

[Wayne2077]

Hello.

Can you add a teleport button, when your Castle is under siege (TP without your army), to fight alongside with the defenders? Because while playing SP I had 0 chances to be involved in siege defences, which is annoying as hell.

The only way to become a defender is to sit inside of a castle with the inferior force.

Or can you add a feature/possibility to take a control of a random unit of that defending army in a Castle? With the possibility to switch him after death to another soldier from that defending army.

Because I like to be a part of defending army, but the game doesn't give me that chanse. You have only 2 options: sit inside the castle and wait for the enemy to atack you, which is stupid (and your army should be smaller than the enemy'sto trigger this) or to go through the enemy siege positions with enormous losses inside the castle, which is also stupid.

I just want to have some castle defending experience man, because it's so much fun to defend a castle.

Imagine this system in Rome Total War, it would be a disaster.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

Start campaign.
Cheat yourself a castle.
Make war with every faction.

Wait
???
Profit

Or perhaps the Battle Simulator does this as well, never tried that out.

 

[RahnThundercaller]

My idea in the past was to let us play as our governor if we assign a governor to a city and it's under siege. I think it would add immensely to the immersion as most sieges get cancelled immediately if your 100-200 man force breaks through a siege to help defend a castle. Plus it makes governor's far more useful.

On a side note, I believe you can use the battle simulator to get defensive sieges in as Grindelvald said. But I agree, I'd rather get to enjoy defending my own castles and cities I spent dozens of hours upgrading. And if I spend 100k buying equipment upgrades for my companion and set them as governor, it would be nice to actually see them defend that city and get to put their commander/party leader perks to use.

 

[ceprast]

Yeah I think this has to do with the broken mechanic where the AI knows which castle is the weakest and goes for that. I've gone ahead of armies that were on the way to besiege a place and as soon as I park in the castle they change targets.

 

[Mizza]

Yeah I think this has to do with the broken mechanic where the AI knows which castle is the weakest and goes for that. I've gone ahead of armies that were on the way to besiege a place and as soon as I park in the castle they change targets.

Yes they do I had only 12 troops ran to a town that was a target and the chicken army turned away.. takes away from fun. yes I might have got captured but thats part of the game.

 

[Mizza]

Hello.

Can you add a teleport button, when your Castle is under siege (TP without your army), to fight alongside with the defenders? Because while playing SP I had 0 chances to be involved in siege defences, which is annoying as hell.

The only way to become a defender is to sit inside of a castle with the inferior force.

Or can you add a feature/possibility to take a control of a random unit of that defending army in a Castle? With the possibility to switch him after death to another soldier from that defending army.

Because I like to be a part of defending army, but the game doesn't give me that chanse. You have only 2 options: sit inside the castle and wait for the enemy to atack you, which is stupid (and your army should be smaller than the enemy'sto trigger this) or to go through the enemy siege positions with enormous losses inside the castle, which is also stupid.

I just want to have some castle defending experience man, because it's so much fun to defend a castle.

Imagine this system in Rome Total War, it would be a disaster.

I think you can teleport with a cheat. ?? I dont use them so. but in Warband we could.

 

[niekdegrijze]

My idea in the past was to let us play as our governor if we assign a governor to a city and it's under siege. I think it would add immensely to the immersion as most sieges get cancelled immediately if your 100-200 man force breaks through a siege to help defend a castle. Plus it makes governor's far more useful.

On a side note, I believe you can use the battle simulator to get defensive sieges in as Grindelvald said. But I agree, I'd rather get to enjoy defending my own castles and cities I spent dozens of hours upgrading. And if I spend 100k buying equipment upgrades for my companion and set them as governor, it would be nice to actually see them defend that city and get to put their commander/party leader perks to use.

100% agree with this. this would insure we can play a role in a defensive siege for a fief we spend time and money on.
I also like the idea of adding this to the governor. I personally think added functionality to the governor is preferable to +1 or -1settlements stats.

 

[Apocal]

I think you can teleport with a cheat. ?? I dont use them so. but in Warband we could.

Enable cheats, Ctrl+click, IIRC.

 

[niekdegrijze]

Enable cheats, Ctrl+click, IIRC.

yes, but if you go through the enemy siege lines you will lose a lot of your soldiers. And usually the enemy will besiege another settlement after your troops are added to the defense. I would welcome the opportunity to be involved in a defensive siege without my character present. Since I started playing I have only been part of a defensive siege twice. Both times I was vastly outnumbered and had no hope of winning. It would be nice to defend a castle or city where your actions can make a difference.

 

[Apocal]

yes, but if you go through the enemy siege lines you will lose a lot of your soldiers. And usually the enemy will besiege another settlement after your troops are added to the defense. I would welcome the opportunity to be involved in a defensive siege without my character present. Since I started playing I have only been part of a defensive siege twice. Both times I was vastly outnumbered and had no hope of winning. It would be nice to defend a castle or city where your actions can make a difference.

That is because the effectiveness of your party is being greatly over-estimated in the case of a siege defense. I forget the exact formula, but walls -- especially level three walls -- give a massive boost to the effective strength of a garrison. Siege equipment reduces this by a substantial amount, but even with a ram and two towers, walls are highly effective in autocalc. But this increase is in no way whatsoever justified by their actual performance if you play out the battle manually. Against level three walls, it is a fairly simple matter to take 1:1 casualties with the defenders, even without using siege equipment at all. On certain castles/towns, it is possible to only take something on the order of one loss for every three or four defenders, just because the AI is really stupid and never abandons the walls.

Not even if you have 300 max-tier archers arrayed in front of them, ready to feather.

 

[Pentagathoos]

My idea in the past was to let us play as our governor if we assign a governor to a city and it's under siege. I think it would add immensely to the immersion as most sieges get cancelled immediately if your 100-200 man force breaks through a siege to help defend a castle. Plus it makes governor's far more useful.

This would be dope.
Also it would be great if the "break through the enemy siege lines" option actually gave you a battle scene where you had to try and... break through the enemy siege lines, instead of just randomly stealing some of your troops. And the AI behaviour really needs to be tweaked so that they might actually attempt to assault a castle/town when they have a chance of being repulsed, not just so you can fight in siege defences that aren't hopeless but also just to make the simulated world around you feel more real.

 

[Medivhtratos]

This would be dope.
Also it would be great if the "break through the enemy siege lines" option actually gave you a battle scene where you had to try and... break through the enemy siege lines, instead of just randomly stealing some of your troops. And the AI behaviour really needs to be tweaked so that they might actually attempt to assault a castle/town when they have a chance of being repulsed, not just so you can fight in siege defences that aren't hopeless but also just to make the simulated world around you feel more real.

At least the sieging army should also loose some men. I mean if a party breaks through the siege lines, it shouldn't be the case that the soldiers are running straight for the door like braindeads, ignoring every axe swing or arrow from the opposing army.

 

[Nerethi]

indeed, having enemy armies instantly know what target to attack anywhere in the kingdom and change decision as soon as the target defense is reinfored (say, by the player party) is kinda over-realistic, immersion breaking, and frustrating.

plus, BIG +1 for the idea of having the option to swap to controlling the governor instead of your main character.

breaking through lines is no fun to play, you randomly loose precious troops, but well ...
what whould be awesome would be to join the siege battle from an external spwan point with little troops (more if you have high tactics) giving you a chance to harrass the besieger.
The same way, when ennemy parties stands around waiting and doing nothing when player besige a place, they may unlock spawn points outside the walls to harrass the player army as well during the actual battle.

A good solution for the break through lines scenario could be to assign your troops to various groups commanded by the player and then comanions. Then those groups will spawn one at a time somewehere kinda safe on the siege map and, following the leading character, they'll have to reach the gate under enemy fire. the player is free to do as they please to rush to the gate or push any opportunity to strike a disorganized ennemy before retreating to the gate (wich should open for those troops as they arrive, which might let some ennemies in as well, depending on the situation)
Then once a group is inside, the player has a window to trigger the next wave, and so on.

 

[Wayne2077]

@MArdA TaleWorlds

Hello!

Any updates or plans on how to deal with it? Is the developer team working on this?

I want to comeback to singleplayer asap, but only after this thread issue being resolved in the game.

 

[darksoulshin]

One solution could be to leave a companion to rule the city / castle and when this is attacked we will use that companion to defend it instead of our character.
In this way, the more companions you have, the more cities you can defend "personally".
Clearly you would have the stats of that companion, so it would be advisable to make the companions with great stats very expensive and make those companions at level 1 inexpensive and easily found, so as to customize them as much as possible.

More than an arbitrarily set "companion limit", I would say that this limit is generated based on the sum of the cost of the companions you have.
As long as you are not financially stable you shouldn't be able to afford too many companions.
The more cities or castles you have, the more your finances will bear the cost of companions.
You can have many low-level companions or a few high-level companions.
Many low-level companions would entail the possibility of personally defending many cities or castles, but when they are not defended the government of the same is entrusted to these inexperienced companions, and therefore is not efficient in economic terms in times of peace.
Conversely, expensive companions with excellent stats tend to cost a lot and therefore we cannot afford many, which forces us to choose which cities to defend personally.
Clearly being good companions, in times of peace they will have the right skills to make a city's economy pay off.
Let's say this is the basic idea.

 

[niekdegrijze]

Would be nice to get an answer from a def about these suggestion. @Callum would you be able to comment on this?
fighting in the person of your governor/ clan member goes against the idea of playing as a single person, but It would increase the feeling of playing as a clan.

 

[niekdegrijze]

Hello.

Can you add a teleport button, when your Castle is under siege (TP without your army), to fight alongside with the defenders? Because while playing SP I had 0 chances to be involved in siege defences, which is annoying as hell.

The only way to become a defender is to sit inside of a castle with the inferior force.

Or can you add a feature/possibility to take a control of a random unit of that defending army in a Castle? With the possibility to switch him after death to another soldier from that defending army.

Because I like to be a part of defending army, but the game doesn't give me that chanse. You have only 2 options: sit inside the castle and wait for the enemy to atack you, which is stupid (and your army should be smaller than the enemy'sto trigger this) or to go through the enemy siege positions with enormous losses inside the castle, which is also stupid.

I just want to have some castle defending experience man, because it's so much fun to defend a castle.

Imagine this system in Rome Total War, it would be a disaster.

This mod makes it possible to take control if one of you clan members enters a battle Should also work on governors. player switcher:https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/2304?tab=posts&BH=2

edit: at the moment the mod doesn't work for governors, but it does work for caravans and other parties. Hopefully this will be updated.

 

[caledoni]

My idea in the past was to let us play as our governor if we assign a governor to a city and it's under siege. I think it would add immensely to the immersion as most sieges get cancelled immediately if your 100-200 man force breaks through a siege to help defend a castle. Plus it makes governor's far more useful.

On a side note, I believe you can use the battle simulator to get defensive sieges in as Grindelvald said. But I agree, I'd rather get to enjoy defending my own castles and cities I spent dozens of hours upgrading. And if I spend 100k buying equipment upgrades for my companion and set them as governor, it would be nice to actually see them defend that city and get to put their commander/party leader perks to use.

+1 This would be great.

It would encourage assigning (and equipping) a governor and also increase the number of defensive sieges we get to play.

 

[vonbalt]

+1 This would be great.

It would encourage assigning (and equipping) a governor and also increase the number of defensive sieges we get to play.

absolutely agreed, defensive sieges are the most rare type of fight the player experiences in the game right now and this feature would greatly increase the effectiveness of having a governor and add another interesting choice like "do i chose the guy with the best stats for governing or the best combat skills in case that fief is attacked and i need to play as him?"

 

[caledoni]

absolutely agreed, defensive sieges are the most rare type of fight the player experiences in the game right now and this feature would greatly increase the effectiveness of having a governor and add another interesting choice like "do i chose the guy with the best stats for governing or the best combat skills in case that fief is attacked and i need to play as him?"

Yeap. Adds lots of great considerations. It could also put more value on castles if you can actually play the battles. It would certainly make me more likely to garrison them well and leave a good governor if I was going to get the chance to actually defend them.

I think increasing the number of defensive sieges is something TW are aware of. They made some changes to the AI's decision making a few patches ago so that they would lay siege with worse odds.