What just happened ? Siege Slaughter

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Was enjoying my new campaign up to this point then ...

I tried to siege a Khuzait city with about 300 defenders - 50 garrison , 250 recruits. I had 340 troops, mostly grade 3 - 5 , 180 Infantry, 40 archers, 50 Cavalry, 30 horse archers, 40 skirmishers. City was Syronea. I had 2 siege towers. When I attacked , my siege towers slowly moved to the walls, no soldiers tried to climb the ladders while towers moved. When they reached the walls, soldiers slowly, and in single file, climbed a single ladder, leaving 2 other ladders untouched. I watched in horror as my soldiers were exterminated, red labels filled my screen. In the end most of my men were dead, and the defending Khuzait recruits were climbing down my towers to attack my archers ..

I lost most of my men, he lost about 20 - 30 soldiers ..WTF !! I understand attacking a city would be costly but I expected in the later stage of a siege, when my troops gained the walls, My quality troops would get the advantage. .. but NO!

(1) Are random number used to bias a side ?
(2) Do Khuzaits get an advantage ?
(3) Do city defenders get a large bias ,ignoring other factors ?
(4) Shouldn't Siege tower be full of troops BEFORE it's pushed to the walls ?
(5) and why aren't I allowed to attack other parts of the walls, sides, rear (sneak a ladder onto the rear wall)

HELP !
 
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1. No.
2. No.
3. No, they actually get a malus due to the oversized party morale penalty.
4. Not realistically.
5. Because the siege battles use a mostly static navmesh.
 
Siege pathfinding is broken in places, ladder climbing is one problem. TW will fix it at some point.

Yeah I noticed that,

Ladders should also be available even with towers being used, and soldiers should start climbing ALL ladders when in place - 3 ladders per tower, & single ladders. I hope Sieges aren't being nerfed because of complaints.
 
And one point: The defenders don't have 250 recruits, they have 250 militia. These are mostly Tier2 and a few veteran T5, and commonly half spearmen and half archers. That makes 340 agains 300 even worser odds (I'd never tried that storm, I prefer 1.5:1 or better). Your army had in my opinion not enough archers to clear the walls before the bugged ladders allowed the defenders to cut down your troops when they tried to storm the walls. And I would always field a battering ram - the mass of defenders trying to keep you out of the gate can't be on the walls on the same time (and the gate storming soldiers don't suffer from tha ladder bug)..
 
Nothing about it is Khuzait specific.



It's actually pretty easy to win sieges for the most part, just bring a lot of archers. The devs are already aware of that.

yes. Also a ram would have done just fine. never build towers.
 
3. No, they actually get a malus due to the oversized party morale penalty.
TW should consider to remove that for sieges. Defenders should not fear armies that aren't much larger than their number. They have their walls to protect them and strengthen their confidence and morale.
Historically, defenders behind walls should get a morale boost if they have enough supplies for a long siege, as storming was always the bloodiest option for the attackers. Bannerlord lacks other options to solve sieges than storm or leave (like buying traitors, surrender to overwhelming odds or because lack of supplies, getting paid to leave by the city) which were historically prefered.
 
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I might replay the siege ,this time only build ram and bring lots of archers. I'm limited to 250 men in my army,I could create new parties (armies) but cannot afford them. Last time I did that, my brother cost me 1,000 per day for an army 100 strong .. weak.

Archers get splattered by catapults at sieges though.
 
You always can bring down the walls with trebuches and take a walk to the park with minimum loses only downside of this is by the time you get ready to assault they can gather an army or many parties will come to defend and you're in trouble.What i do is 1st farm around 200 influence by fighting parties and then gather an army and do this strategy.
 
I think it's a good thing that you lost this siege. Sounds realistic that an only slightly stronger army could not conquer a walled settlement in such a way.

The only game related problem you faced was the bad state of siege towers which do not work as intended. On the other hand siege towers never had such a big importance during actual sieges because it was often quite difficult to get them to the walls. So I can live with their bad performance, it's just annoying that the AI is tricked by them. In my opinion using ladders and siege towers should be much more difficult in the game and the AI should do it reluctantly. And it should be also more difficult to reduce enemy archers on walls.

So, as a small or bigger force, one should always have to build throwing machines. It's a good feature that that needs time, so an army could come to the rescue of the city. It is of course nonsense that trebuchets or onagers can actually destroy walls which they usually could not in reality, but as the most effective form of sieging, building mines to bring down wall segments, is absent, the machines are the best we have.
 
As others have said, ignore siege towers for now.

You need a more suffocating force.

As far as what you are doing:

I like to bring a range weapon with a single quiver, a shield, and a pole arm.

Help clear the walls of some of the archers until you’ve used most of your ammunition (you don’t have to be that good with the weapon, in particular a light crossbow, to knock a few out.)

Then, climb a ladder with your shield and polearm and take out defenders at the edge your weapon range. The sister ladder should be able to start to deliver troops to that section of the wall.

Be careful once you’ve cleared that section: reinforcements are coming. So while finishing scaling the ladder can bring more troops up there is going to be a big fight at that section of the wall still. Either stay on the ladder for the next wave, or find a spot to firing bolts at the reinforcements while your boys start to flood that section.

There are multiple other approaches, but this is one of the safer, still impactful to the battle, approaches that can turn the tide of battle
 
???

Not once have my archers been hit by defending catapults.

My archers kept getting targeted by fire gravel throwers *fire shot gun" , killing many each hit.

As to my siege problems, OMG! how the siege changes over multiple attempts by loading a previous save ! First 3 attempts were repeats of the Slaughter then my 4th?? attempt totally changed. My attacking troops were slaughtered by arrows and fire rocks but once I got my 2 towers and ram to the walls, things changed. The killing was more balanced and eventually I got the advantage as my superior troops fought their militia on the walls and in the gate house. I won with about 30-40% casualties. This is how I envisioned the battle to go .. only took 4-6 attempts to get it correct.

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the gate house. I won with about 30-40% casualties. This is how I envisioned the battle to go .. only took 4-6 attempts to get it correct.

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3 losses and one win with that many losses? I don't know the difficulty you play, but I think you still try with too few troops.
 
As others have said, ignore siege towers for now.
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I like to bring a range weapon with a single quiver, a shield, and a pole arm.

Help clear the walls of some of the archers until you’ve used most of your ammunition (you don’t have to be that good with the weapon, in particular a light crossbow, to knock a few out.)
I don't think ladders are much better, the problem is soldiers ignore one of two ladders in same way they ignore ladders of towers. Considering the cover towers give, I still use them.

My weapons of choice are a two handed falx sword, the best available bow and two quivers of bodkins - polearms are nice, but if you are inside a tower, you lack room to swing it for maximum damage. And I don't storm the walls as one of the first - I try to find a place from where I can shoot at defenders who enter the towers drawbridge, prefered left from the tower (defenders unshielded side).. That helps my troops to leave the tower and enter the walls.
 
(4) Shouldn't Siege tower be full of troops BEFORE it's pushed to the walls ?

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4. Not realistically.
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Maybe true but the draw bridge shouldn't be released until the top floor has at least 5 soldiers. Mass attack when bridge is dropped is the key to winning a foothold on the wall.

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