Siege bugged?

[Bertibums]

Hi folks!

Is it possible that I'm missing something about sieges? I have trapped a large CSA force (over 5000 Power) in Nashville, TN and have them under siege. I have 2 Corps and an Army HQ (combined about 7000 Power) maintaining that siege, the structure has been rendered useless by now.

Every turn i get messages from other sieges (we have inflicted x hits during the siege of XXX), but i never get those for Nashville. I have also conquered the whole area between (and including) Chattanooga, TN and Memphis, TN. I have blockade fleets on the Mississippi and the other river near Nashville. There can't be any supplies flowing into Nashville. I'm not sure for how long I have maintained that siege, but it's been at least from Sept. to March. And I've had siege artillery present for at least 2 months now.

Is it possible for such a large army to hold out that long? Is it normal that I don't get any messages about the siege? It's really holding me up and I'm not quite sure how to proceed. I'm not one for assaulting such a large body of men, especially since I can't be sure about the condition of the enemy army.

Thanks in advance!

[Jim-NC]

When you say "rendered useless by now", what do you mean? That the structure is totally breached and provides no benefit (as described in the game), or that you don't think it provides anything? My guess is that as your forces are split up, you are not getting breaches, and without breaches, you will not inflict any damage to the defender. At some point they will run out of supply and surrender to you. You will suffer appalling losses if you attack without the structure being breached (limited frontage means not a lot fighting on your side).

[Captain_Orso]

Ummmm.... no. In how many stacks your force(s) are split up has nothing to do with it; that's not taken into account in besieging, only the total strength of your side's artillery vs the total strength of the besieged side's artillery.

Since breaches were scored the besieging side must have some advantage in artillery, but not enough to score hits; but there is some chance involved too. Also "strength" can vary from turn to turn depending on cohesion, etc.

Pile all the offensive artillery (10lb-ers, 20lb-ers and Rodmans) you have into the region for a few turns --Siege artillery, if you have any available, works wonders ;--, one unit of Mortar boats adjacent will also give your siege factor a plus-1, a Pioneer (now in the Pontooneer unit), a leader with Siege Engineer and watch the hits pile up.

Nashville has a harbor. As long as the harbor is not blockaded supplies can get in.

Put enough gunboats into the Nashville harbor Exit-Point, and to be on the safe side, put all surrounding land regions under 100% MC and Nashville should be cut off from supply, which isn't to say that their supply stocks are going to run out any time too soon.

If you want to understand Sieges you'll want to read these two articles: AGE-Wiki: Overcrowding Rule and AGE-Wiki: Overcrowding Rule.

[Bertibums]

The error was between the chair and keyboard

Somehow I managed to miss that there was an enemy stack displayed - I guess that means that not the whole force was being sieged inside the structure. How I failed to notice that for so many turns is beyond me, but hey...

I apparently had all stacks set to blue, leading to some kind of Mexican stand-off. I still fail to see how the enemy forces were supplied, but in the end I just gathered all available corps and attacked, leading to 3 lopsided (120k vs. 60k) battles with somewhere between 40k and 50k enemy losses. After that, the siege was working as expected.

Thanks for the replies!


edit: and yes, I meant breached and not offering benefit as displayed in the game