Mount & Blade siege sucks

[Cloud Breaker]

Siege is retarded.

Every siege can be fought with only a single ladder.

I've been assaulting Jelkala with 500 men, supported by 4 lords. My men kept falling like grass so I got pissed off and imported an uber character level 36 to pwn 400 Rhodoks by myself while my men stood aside watching my carnage like stupid ****ing useless spawn of cods. Single ladder emplacement makes my men totally useless.

Try it, whichever naysayers might read this, who'd say 'OMG you noob' etc, assault a town and leave your troops to take the town by themselves. It doesn't ****ing work. Siege should be possible even without you being a virtual superhuman.

M&B siege rule no.1

When besieging towns, bring in a superhuman shock trooper.

Medieval realism my ass.

Siege fails. Utterly.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Battlesize, difficulty, troops, opposition, and companions?

 

[Torak]

You're just catching on to this?

 

[Proteus]

AFAIK some modders are working in mods that are intended to increase the realism in sieges.
So maybe we can get better sieges in the near future

 

[Momaw]

Point 1: What we have in M&B are not really sieges, they are assaults.  Siege is when you camp outside the walls and prevent anybody from leaving or bringing in food, medicine, weapons etc. You let refugees go in of course, because they are more mouths to feed for the defenders.

Point 2:  Fortifications were extremely powerful in direct assault. If M&B had "medieval realism",  75% of your men would die from archers, thrown rocks, and burning oil poured over the wall.  And that's before you even get a ladder set up and men start to try climbing it while the defenders use poles to push it away from the wall.

From a realism standpoint, M&B is extremely generous to let you win with even 1:1 casualties.

What you are actually arguing is gameplay balance, or the Fun Factor; not realism.

 

[MarcusValerius]

I actually do let my men do the majority of the work in seiges, and I'm usually drastically outnumbered. (300 to 84 for main towns) I'm playing vanilla with 0 mods, the inventory tweak, 100 battlesize, total difficulty 107% (normal damage for all, good AI normal speed). I have a level 30 something character, and spend most of my time hunting down archers and using my crossbow during sieges. I usually do not have any lord back up, and I'm currently at 84 men.

Impossible you say? No, but I do lose sometimes. I like to just train up a crapload of Seargents or Huscarls and some Sharpshooters. Dump em in my castle/town until I need them, so I don't lose any needlessly and can train up more from scratch faster. Then when I intend to go seige, I take out all the good troops so nothing but top tier troops are in the siege on my side. Their mix of good troops and crap troops drop like flies against my lawnmower of two-handed and shield wielding axe choppers of armored goodness.

Expensive, yes, but if you can keep  a town and some villages with rents, combined with selling off loot, it's doable, and IMO, the best way to siege.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

Battlesize, difficulty, troops, opposition, and companions?

Attackers

Rhodok Trained Crossbowman  69
Rhodok Crossbowman              51
Rhodok Sergeant                    86
Rhodok Tribesman                  56
Rhodok Trained Spearman        35
Rhodok Spearman                  88
Rhodok Veteran Spearman        7
Mountain Bandit                      6
Khergit Horse Archer                1
Khergit Skirmisher                    6
Khergit Horseman                    2
Khergit Lancer                        4
Caravan Guard                          3
Forest Bandit                            1
Nord Footman                          1
Nord Huscarl                            1
Swadian Crossbowman              1
Vaegir Horseman                      2
Swadian Infantry                      1
Vaegir Archer                          5
Vaegir Knight                          2
Vaegir Marksman                      2
Vaegir Skirmisher                      2
Swaidan Sharpshooter              1
Lords                                      5
16 Companions with expensive equipment (Heraldic Armor) and level 30-31
Me (Plate stuffs and Bardiche with Winged Helm) level 36

Total: 455

Defenders

1 King
Rhodok Trained Crossbowman  102
Rhodok Crossbowman                46
Rhodok Spearman                    78
Rhodok Sharpshooter                45
Rhodok Trained Spearman          78
Rhodok Veteran Spearman        39
Rhodok Sergeant                      19
Rhodok Tribesman                    30
Rhodok Veteran Crossbowman    14

Total: 452

Difficulty 100%

Battlesize 200


Marcus, siege should be possible to win without you being a superhuman marksman.


Edit: Crap, you are playing with manual blocking? You must be one helluva crazy player.

 

[MarcusValerius]

What is your definition of superhuman marskman? I hardly think 20 -30 kills between a crossbow and sword out of 200 kills to a siege is superhuman in the context of the game. Besides, I CAN sit out, but my losses tend to be higher. Does that make my AI troops superhuman since they are so outnumbered?

Oh, and here is a screenshot for those that disbelieve. Edit: No, I tried manual blocking. My wrist hurt and I died alot.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

80 vs. 300. Tough call. 

 

[Fay]

80 vs. 300. Tough call. 

Going to be close.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

There were complains about stagnant siege battles since many versions ago yet nothing has been done.  It's a major gameplay issue that needs to be immediately addressed.

 

[Fay]

If you think siege sucks with one ladder, try taking over a town/castle which for the life of me, I can't remember the name. But half your troops gets mauled by arrows before they even get to the ladder.

Going up a 60 degree slope is not easy I tell you.

 

[Cloud Breaker]

That's why siege sucks.

 

[MarcusValerius]

80 vs. 300. Tough call. 

Well, keep in mind it's only really against 200 and a bit in a town siege. It cuts out and you fight in the streets then the castle. If it was all 300 in one go, it probably wouldn't work. The reason it does work is that you have nothing but heavy troops during the assualt, they punch in much more easily. Once they are past the killing ground of the top of the ladder it becomes a game of weight. Well armored companions + seargents = one heck of a wall when it goes against a mixed bag. Low tier troops fail like dead wood, and top tiered troops are too few so get surrounded and wiped out.

The reason sieges are so hard IMO is that you can't choose what troops to bring, otherwise you would always use your heaviest troops first like in Total War. You wouldn't send peasants up that seige tower first would you? Only solution beyond modding, is bringing your own loadout of nothing but heavies, like so.

I would prefer Huscarls, but I'm playing in the south right now, and it's not necessary to have Huscarls for Kerghits and Rhodoks most of the time. Just avoiding the Enemy Lords if at all possible does it for me.

 

[pentagathus]

Siege is retarded.

Every siege can be fought with only a single ladder.

I've been assaulting Jelkala with 500 men, supported by 4 lords. My men kept falling like grass so I got pissed off and imported an uber character level 36 to pwn 400 Rhodoks by myself while my men stood aside watching my carnage like stupid ****ing useless spawn of cods. Single ladder emplacement makes my men totally useless.

Try it, whichever naysayers might read this, who'd say 'OMG you noob' etc, assault a town and leave your troops to take the town by themselves. It doesn't ****ing work. Siege should be possible even without you being a virtual superhuman.

M&B siege rule no.1

When besieging towns, bring in a superhuman shock trooper.

Medieval realism my ass.

Siege fails. Utterly.

Yeah becuase it would be amazingly easy to take a well defended town when you dont even outnumber the defenders 2 to 1 or even 1.5 to 1 isnt it? 400 defenders would beat the **** out of your 500.
Althoug having said that yes seiges do suck.
Edit: Does starving people out actualy work?

 

[Fay]

I thought that the soldiers on top of the party list gets 'brought' in first?

Someone should make a mini-mod which would let us choose what units to bring and when.

 

[pentagathus]

Why "should" someone have to do that when plenty of people find the system works fine?

 

[Fay]

Ignore the minority?! 

@pentagathus: I would think so. Though it takes huge amount of days if you really have the patience. Though usually some lord comes around and it's 2 parties vs 1.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

I see a fault in your line of reasoning, it is possible to conquer a settlement with max settings of M&B, just not with the battlesizer mod. You can do it without being superman with the native's 100, but they didn't exactly intend for you to do it with 200 troops fighting for the ladder in mind.

As you can see...

Siege should be possible even without you being a virtual superhuman.

You real argument should be Sieges should be possible even without you being a virtual superhuman with the battlesizer mod set above native's max battlesize.

 

[MarcusValerius]

I see a fault in your line of reasoning, it is possible to conquer a settlement with max settings of M&B, just not with the battlesizer mod. You can do it without being superman with the native's 100, but they didn't exactly intend for you to do it with 200 troops fighting for the ladder in mind.

As you can see...

Siege should be possible even without you being a virtual superhuman.

You real argument should be Sieges should be possible even without you being a virtual superhuman with the battlesizer mod set above native's max battlesize.

I think this hits it on the money. 200 size would have one heck of a wall at that one choke point. Not to mention the sheer amount of projectiles they could send into your charge from the 5 or more archer stations in each siege. I might have to DL this battlesizer mod just to see how crazy it would be.