Won the siege defense, but still lost the city?

[ssssnake]

Defending Laria, I just held off 1400 D'Shar with 270 troops.  Killed 157 attackers myself.  Won the battle, got renown.  Battle was over, I sold some stuff in the marketplace, then left the city to visit one of my other castles.  About 5 seconds after I left, I get the message that I have lost Laria to the D'Shar. 

? ? ? ? ?

I'm in a "realistic" game, so I can't just start over from my last save. 

What just happened here? 

Anyone have this happen to them? 

 

[KruniacZio]

Defending Laria, I just held off 1400 D'Shar with 270 troops.  Killed 157 attackers myself.  Won the battle, got renown.  Battle was over, I sold some stuff in the marketplace, then left the city to visit one of my other castles.  About 5 seconds after I left, I get the message that I have lost Laria to the D'Shar. 

? ? ? ? ?

I'm in a "realistic" game, so I can't just start over from my last save. 

What just happened here? 

Anyone have this happen to them?

I'm assuming that since you left the city, but the city was still "under siege", the game took a look at your garrison and decided you lost.

Did you still have troops in the garrison, or were they with you under your command?

 

[zykox]

Another possibility:
1,4k is definitely not ALL the enemy lords...so once you left Laria with minimal defenders, a different Lord 200-300 men strong thought "easy pickings" and sieged it by himself.

Btw, for people with "realistic games", the save games are located in:
C:\Users\APEX\Documents\Mount&Blade Warband Savegames\Prophesy of Pendor 3.611
meaning, you can backup your savefile, and copy & paste it to go back to the last save point. I usually do that to prevent misclickings.

Probably impossible for you NOW, because when you leave the game, you auto-save.

Well, I'm in a similar situation haha...2.5k Fierdsvain sieging my Javiksholm...prevented the 1st siege with army vs army, but now 2nd siege took much less time (a few hours only), while I thought I had time to get some more garrison from somewhere else...now the fightings already started, the 270 garrison is already down to 99, and I don't know what I should.
Javiksholm is really really bad to defend...
.................................................................
Is it just me, or is it that the siege defender AI is always totally a mess when the player defends on his own (not helping out)?
Archers not moving a few steps to shoot, infantry & cavalry not blocking the entry or (if you say "Charge!") charging down the ladder.

When sieging the AI, I know what the AI can do, so why the hell is it so messed up when we defend?

It's not helping that the AI never has to start re-building ladders/siege towers again after losing the 1st wave, leaving you no time to recover even a little.
..........................................
I guess there is not much you can do about Laria at the moment (since you probably "save & exit"-ed, thus already making a new save pt)...but try the backup thingy in case "weird" things happen again.

 

[IlluminaZer0]

The above two posts are likely correct. Either you fought them off but the siege was still technically going on, or the garrison was dramatically weakened and it was simply besieged again when while you were traveling.

The first scenario won't be an issue if you set it so both sides have infinite reinforcements. Killing 2000+ troops in one battle can be a real endurance contest though.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I lost the town and got captured 

Is it just me, or is it that the siege defender AI is always totally a mess when the player defends on his own (not helping out)?
Archers not moving a few steps to shoot, infantry & cavalry not blocking the entry or (if you say "Charge!") charging down the ladder.

When sieging the AI, I know what the AI can do, so why the hell is it so messed up when we defend?

It's not helping that the AI never has to start re-building ladders/siege towers again after losing the 1st wave, leaving you no time to recover even a little.

AI can be surprisingly incompetent when it comes to sieges.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

I will sometimes reposition my troops near the stairs leading within the city if the walls are useless. Archers kill pretty efficiently when they are shooting at the sides of enemies descending the stairs, and you can get a lot of kills yourself with a bow/polearm.

Spoiler

 

[noosers]

What KruniacZio said.

You warded off a single round, the siege wasn´t broken and you either left 0 active troops in your garrison or too little for the AI to take much time to resolve the battle.

@zykox:
As far as I understand, the pathfinding for AI troopers (which is provided by the scene) on the wall is pretty lousy. Something you can often observe if troops like archers don´t spread out to fire from the battlements, don´t take cover while reloading, force the player out of their way, just wait to be shot like bumholes at the entry point instead of automatically taking the flanking/cover position. Or - the most notorious one - beeing stopped dead by the unscalable ravine of death, the 1mm step/gap between ladder/siege tower and battlements.

The AI takes just as long as the player to build ladders or a siege tower. Only most sieging lords usually have rather high enineer themselves or some leader in the horde has it. Same goes for tactics and the obscene battle advantages the AI gets on those occasions.

 

[zykox]

The AI takes just as long as the player to build ladders or a siege tower. Only most sieging lords usually have rather high enineer themselves or some leader in the horde has it. Same goes for tactics and the obscene battle advantages the AI gets on those occasions.

No no, I meant the time to build ladders/siege towers AFTER you repulsed the 1st wave...

I mean, at engineer 10 I take 18 hours to build a siege tower, and sometimes I lose the 1st wave, because I'm fighting 2 vs 7 in the castle interiors, and have to build a siege tower 18 hours from scratch....to fight the surviving 30 guys.

On the other hand, even if the AI takes the usual hours to build siege tower, but after you repulse the 1st wave, there is no break at all and you have a 2nd, 3rd,...and so on battles until the AI gives up the siege or you're captured.
__________________________________
Btw, miraculously won the Javiksholm siege...  (FYI: I reloaded once, because I messed up my defense pt, so my troops spawned on the other side, and the camp inventory was also on the other side, hahaha)

So, to be fair, I was ready to enter siege, and defend, and get ready to be captured....and I knew AI would suck. So I figured, let's dish it out like men and send my guys down the ladder...fortunately everyone stuck it out in the middle of the ladder, so it was better than on the walls. Sometimes when they pushed ahead of the ladder, I'd say "10 paces back", then "charge!" again.

Still lost 200 top-tier troops (killed, with surgery 10), garrison and my entourage combined. Ah well, at least I stuck it out and escaped capture!
Tip: Don't let the Fierdsvain dominate the map...they have completely taken over Ravenstern + Avendor, and their average lord now numbers 300 troops (not to mention Koningur has 470 + 760 Burilgi)!!
I guess I was too busy around Ethos fighting the Dread Legion (several tries!) and Sarleon.
_______________________________________

OH RIGHT, you said "5 seconds"!? Then it's as KruniacZio said. If you're besieged, and you fight off the 1st wave, you shouldn't leave town...the 2nd fight starts immediately (no building time, like I said), so in order to defend again, you have to click "wait for some time".

And you were lucky that you could leave...often if you try to leave a losing siege, the surrounding lords will engage you (so it's not even auto-siege-battle)!
..........
And nice screens IlluminaZer0! Didn't know the AI would charge beyond ladder + tower like that (except when I'm the last attacker)!

 

[noosers]

You do know you can approach the castle commander and ask him to surrender?

As long as the siege isn´t broken ("under siege" has gone) the AI will siege again and once they rebuilt the ladders/tower dish it out. Which can be pretty fast, for the careless observer.

Having The Green Horde as last remaining faction can be quite a task. Strong Fierdsvain field a lot of decent troops, the longer they´re unmolested or succeed on their campaigns, the more hardened their armies become. So get your archers and cavalry ready.

I reckon you´re in for some fun.

 

[Umezawa]

The AI takes just as long as the player to build ladders or a siege tower. Only most sieging lords usually have rather high enineer themselves or some leader in the horde has it. Same goes for tactics and the obscene battle advantages the AI gets on those occasions.

As long as the siege isn´t broken ("under siege" has gone) the AI will siege again and once they rebuilt the ladders/tower dish it out. Which can be pretty fast, for the careless observer.

Yeah you're wrong. What he said is in fact true. When Sieging with a giant Mob the AI will be able to attack again immedeatly after you've beaten a wave. They're not rebuilding their ladders, they're not waiting two hours (minimum time to build ladders) the battle just goes on. They just don't do it everytime. Often they abandon the siege shortly after getting beaten for the first time anyway and maybe sometimes they want to take some time to heal their wounded soldiers as well.

Also Lords don't seem to differentiate between ladder and siege tower sieges. They take about 5-10 hours (probably depending on their engineering skill) to get ready no matter what you're sieging. Which is why the most efficient tactic to conquer siege tower fiefs is to go around with one fairly strong lord and tell him to go siege the fief, then after a few hours tell him that together you can take this **** cause the power of your friendship can't be beaten. This also allows you to immedeatly attack again after you've been knocked unconcious and told your troops to retreat instead of having to wait until the ladders/siege Towers are built again. Considering that building a siege tower takes about 1.5 days even with Engineering 11 or so, this tactic is a lot more efficient.

 

[Filou]

After you win a siege defense against a large host you'll notice the message saying something like "The assault has been repulsed, but the siege continues". 
Depending on your settings you kill around 500 guys in an average siege battle, so in your case that leaves 1100 attackers ready for battle.

At that point it's important to stay in the fief a few hours to see if the AI is going for a second assault. As mentioned above, the AI can launch another wave immediately.  You being in the garrison might delay the second wave, or ward it off completely.  But if they do come at least you're part of the fight.
If you leave make sure the amount of non-wounded soldiers in your garrison can do the job.

 

[noosers]

I remember it differently but I haven´t played the game for quite some time.

Whenever I was actively defending a siege and not knocked out the AI would take some time till it would attack again - if I surived long enough for the message telling my I sucessfully warded off the assault. I mean I used to sneak out between siege assaults to lure away stragglers and divide the assaulting armies or avoiding the fight until I was healed enough to actively participate again.

If you´re knocked out the AI just attacks and attacks and attacks like it would in a field battle and you must calc it out.

ninja´d by Filou

 

[skullmasher]

You had 270 troops?

My bet is you emptied the garrison and left with averyone in your party, leaving zero men behind.

That's why you "lost" the fief.

Empty garrison after siege -> lost battle

 

[noosers]

Empty means no active soldiers left in the garrison (=all dead or wounded).