SP - General Siege Defence battles never happened in 200h+ of gameplay

[Savhos]

Has anybody managed to ever get into a siege defence? I haven't played in a proper one in 200h of gameplay, it's far more rewarding to just let them lose troops in autocalc and attack the AI once it's done destroying the militia+garrison or joining a not so realistic field battle with the militia/garrison as an ally on the same field side.

It seems the AI only wants to engage you inside a castle or town when they have overwhelming numbers, otherwise they just leave to pretend to go somewhere else until you exit the castle.

I miss Warband where the AI would attempt sieges at more even odds as well, or you could join a castle defence without losing half your army to break in (realistic? yes, fun? no.)

• Make the AI more willing to siege the players garrisoned in a fief (e.g. with a 60% force advantage or more)
• Allow the AI more engineering skills to build more siege engines, to break your defences while starving you out to improve their odds (e.g. from 60% to 70%) within a certain deadline (e.g. max 1 in-game week, then they will have to attack)
• Allow the option to choose which siege engines the players' fiefs should build in town/castle management
• Allow the player the possibility to try to sneak in a small party into castles/towns at night to help the defenders or reduce/remove army losses to break-in
  
  

 

[Maximum997]

All that decisions was made to not allow player to defend his land without army of vassals.

You can argue that break through mechanic is a bad gamedesign.
But ffs why i should play a field battle, when i was already in the castle before siege starting?

And i played siege battles. I ezpz can beat enemy army in the field with 0 casualties, but sicrificed half of my army just to see this. And what i saw:

1) AI is incredibly dumb, we all know this.
2) For some reasons there are no defensive engines at all. They are ment to be the best siege improvement. And we have none of them.

 

[kampfbock]

What the hell are you suggesting, to make the AI even dumber, just so you can have siege battles that will inevitably be won by you?
Realistically speaking, noone in their right mind would attempt a siege without overwhelming numbers. There were exceptions to this rule, but then there were very good plans to overcome the advantage of the defenders. And if there was no such plan or it didn't work out, then you would fail.

It would be nice though, to be able to sneak into fiefs that are sieged, still, it would make no sense for your whole army to be able to sneak inside alongside you. When you do the sneak attempt, you should be able to choose whom you take with you, the greater the numbers, the higher the risk of discovery and trying it with more than maybe 20-30 men should be impossible. Rougery and scouting could increase your chances of doing this successfully.

It would also be nice if we could have a similiar mechanic for the offensive parties. Being able to sneak inside with a few good men, disabling defensive siege engines, opening the gate, setting fire to the fortifications, maybe even kidnap the enemy commander and use him as hostage. Again rougery and Scouting could be factors for this. The possibilities are endless, but i fear we will never see any of that.

I agree that the AI handling of sieges is poor, mainly due to the fact that they dont make use of most of the mechanics. They build their ram, maybe 1 or 2 siege towers and then attack. I have never seen the AI build any catapults, ballista or trebuchets, i have never seen them prolong the siege to starve the enemy. It would be nice to see them use some advanced siege tactics and i wouln't even put any timelimit on that, as you suggested. If there is no reaosn for them to rush, why should they be forced by some arbitrary hard coded bull**** to do so.

I agree with the option to choose defensive siege engines. I expected this to be possible until i experienced my first defensive siege, only to find out that it is not for whatever reason.

 

[chandl34]

Only seen one in 100 hours, where they had 6x my men. What's the minimum difference people have seen? I think I've seen them pass when they had 2x my men.

 

[Schoulayer]

I've only done siege defenses against overwhelming odds (like 700 vs 200). In my experience, if the AI thinks there is any chance of losing they'll just abandon the siege. I've tried to bait 400 attackers into attacking my 250 defenders on more than one occasion, and the attackers cancel the siege every single time.

I'm not sure what the answer should be. I proposed one solution in a thread titled "Mistakes in Judgement". Alternatively, maybe they should allow us to conceal our forces inside the castle to make the castle appear weaker than it is.