sieges\trojan horse tactic

[Balinux]

Ok, we should have an option to conquer a city or castle in the moment.

What Im sugesting is, we arrive at an enemy town, we are given the option to select a few of our best men to follow us to the gates under disquise, kill the guards and hold it off against incoming waves of enemies untill our full army arrives and swarms in. Obviously, it would be extreemly hard to do it, just like it would in real life. Our army would take its time to arrive, since it couldn't be too close to the town or the guards would spot it.
Im simply tired of getting my men slaughtered every time I try to take a city.

One other thing, we shouldn't be allowed to enter besieged cities, because all entries are suposed to be barricated.

 

[quiet420]

I find it way to siege as it is....I just order a charge, let them get halfway up, then order them to hold the position at the bottom of the ladder...then rinse and repeat, sometimes 'pulling' the enemy soldiers myself after the first wave rather than sending my troops up, as they don't do the best job holding their shields effectively....brings the defenders down a few at a time to certain death.

with battlesize mod on, full damage to myself and friends, and medium AI, just a few minutes I took a castle guarded by over 180 enemy soldiers with only 32 men, and to be honest, it doesn't really matter how many troops are on either side as long as I start with more than a handful.

someones going to say "well don't do that if you want a challenge" my reply to that is 'don't let me do that then.'

and if im not going to be able to do that, then there needs to be a better seige mechanic then that damn ramp--- I mean really---it's obviously a temporary soloution, I can't wait to see something, anything, else implemented.

I totally endorse this suggestion, and anything else that would get rid of that dang ramp.

 

[Lt. of the tower]

I don't like how the player can have like 30 men and take out 100. When seiging the attacker should have at least three times the amount as the defender.
Also a larger amount of bowmen should be present at the castle. More ladders placed on the walls would be cool too.

 

[Darian]

One alternative would be the battle starting in progress; the player spawns on the walls with a small handful of men while the rest of the army spawns at various stages of approaching or getting up the ramp. It's easy to get up the ramp without taking any significant damage so this wouldn't really affect the game balance. Being able to build multiple ladders/towers would be nice too.

Then again, the ideal siege weapon would be a battering ram--smash through the barricaded portcullis and you'd then have a nice clear entrance that the AI wouldn't have as much trouble using. The trade-off would be that entering here would make the men vulnerable to archers on the walls and it also puts you closer to where the new enemies spawn from.

 

[Lt. of the tower]

Hell yeah for battering rams!!

 

[mishamael]

battlerams! 
yeah, it would be nice to pick what way to charge a castle like: ramp/s, ladders or battleramps! 
it would add some more variety.
and the idea to start in the middle of a siege would be nice, especially if you reinforce an ally who is sieging/being besieged, but then you shouldn´t spawn in the castle obviously 

 

[Lt. of the tower]

Starting in the castle or on the battlements would be good after the first part of the battle has been won would be great and mean less casualties from trying to squeeze through the small (and usually covered by tonnes of defenders) gap.

 

[Lord Mur]

Definately an area to pick up on; the besieging of a town or caste is not, i feel, completely under the pplayers control. The player should be able to:
pick which area of the walls to attack
choose how many siege towers/ladders to put up and where
be shown where enemy troops are thickest on the walls
split his army into seperate attack groups

These are all off the top of my head, and some may be a bit stupid, but hey. Perhaps the engineer skill could have more influence in the game via these areas? Higher Engineer, More towers, for example.

And wouldn't we all love to see mahoosive catupults? In use, that is.

 

[Kraven]

These are all off the top of my head, and some may be a bit stupid, but hey. Perhaps the engineer skill could have more influence in the game via these areas? Higher Engineer, More towers, for example.

Only quoting this since its the most important part in my opinion, though all your opinions on this matter is good, though instead of just engineer skill, leadership should open more possibilities in where to attack from and a weak spot in their defence such as in where which soldiers is and a advice "Why they COULD be placed there by the enemy", engineering should be how fast to build the stuff for the siege AND to tell you if there is any weak spot in their defences as in walls and such.

 

[Æsir]

What if you could make a rush at the Lords hall and hold him hostage until demands are met or they let the sap die. Or something similar in the town.

 

[Archonsod]

someones going to say "well don't do that if you want a challenge" my reply to that is 'don't let me do that then.'

Actually, I'd say try putting the AI up to maximum so it isn't quite so mentally retarded
[/quote]

I do agree with Arch on this, however I would also like to point out that some factions which don't have as many ranged troops as others, simply have a dis-advantage when trying to hold off a castle. For instance, the Nords run out of throwing axes and spears relatively fast and if you hold off your own infantry until that happens, they pretty much just jump off the walls right into the middle of your infantry in suicide attempts (and this is with max AI).

It would make a little sense if castle defenders consisted of more 'designated' archers, who have exceptionally large stock of ammunition (seeing as how they are theoretically inside the castle compared with your party which has to hog around those quiver half-way across Calradia). Likewise, I do hope that long-range bombardement type of units (such as catapults) are included eventually, which again your enemies would use just as much as you. Thus breaking the wall before actually being able to assault the defenders would take time, in which your enemy would stand a chance at holding you off.

 

[quiet420]

I just don't like the ramp at all. And to the best of my knowledge, siege towers were always boxes with stairs on the inside, not a ramp behind them.

What about sappers? if you tunnel underground, your safe from people throwing, shooting, and dropping crap on you, then when your tunnel reaches the walls, you light a fire using hog (of the type least fitting to be eaten) grease, and straw, and that section of wall crumbles.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the use of sappers in this manner much more commonplace than any type of direct assault without the use of siege engines (catipults, balistas, trebuches, battering rams, cannon, etc)?

 

[David Derde]

Sappers would have to be the most tiem consuming options, and it did occasionally go wrong - some armies actually met underground while trying to tunnel to undermine the walls and each others tunnel in one battle I remember vaguely. The whole problem for me is that it's far too expensive to feed your army once you have enough men to stage a proper siege so that enemy parties will stay away - in real life, very few sieges were won by an outright assault - it was deception or starvation that took cities like Antioch in the Crusades, for example - an insider agreed to end the siege in exchange for freedom. And possibly a decent meal. I'd like to have it made a lot easier to hang around until a city's food supplies are depleted - and maybe have the option of a lengthy double encirclement, like Caesar at Alesia, where he built two sets of walls to surround Vercingetorix - one to trap him, and another to block relieving armies. This way, you could have a chance to meet relieving forces from atop your own walls.

 

[EasyCo506]

I just hope they make sieges easier. It's impossible for me and my 50 troops to walk up that tiny ladder while getting shot at by khergits. I don't know how you people do it.

 

[Balinux]

Shoot them with your vaegir marksmen.

 

[Lord Mur]

I just hope they make sieges easier. It's impossible for me and my 50 troops to walk up that tiny ladder while getting shot at by khergits. I don't know how you people do it.

I had trouble till i went and bought a shield solely for the purpose (being a 2h axeman).

And sieges are a tad ****ing-hard, i reckon that after you get inside the fort, your reinforcements should spawn inside, same as the enemy's.

 

[EasyCo506]

The 50 troops were rhodocks...

 

[Branko]

What I'm thinking of is searching the villages connected to the castle for one of the stonemasons who built it.
Then you could either bribe,persuade or even escort him to one of your settlements (standard escort quest) to start a new life.
In return he would give you some details about the castle (loose sewer grate or something like that, but not secret passages though), and you could then use some underhanded means of lowering the castles troops (poisoning the well, setting food stock on fire anything along those lines).