Seiges

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

I have been watching my seiges very carefully. I have figured out if a unit attacks your besiegers, it breaks the siege. {However riduclous the attack} I see in the logs when the seige has "achieved nothing this month" Almost every turn, I have leaders that are active in the city but I get no seige message the next turn.

This month, I had 11 arms with active leaders in areas with cities. Of these armies, 8 were in the logs besieging their city. One was attacked and broke the seige. Two were not mentioned in the Log even though both were in the log besieging last turn.

What do I need to do to get these leaders/armies to siege the city?

[Captain_Orso]

A siege occurs if at the start of a turn you have a stack not in PP (Passive Posture) in a region with an enemy controlled city* with >= 1 enemy stack inside the city, if there are 0 enemy stacks not in PP in the region outside of the city.

[INDENT]Note: if you have >95% MC in a region, any non-partisan-/non-cavalry-only stack entering the region will automatically change its posture to OP, regardless of leader activation.[/INDENT]

If you have <95% MC in a region, to prevent the enemy from messing with your siege, set >=1 stack in OP to attack any enemy units entering the region. If a battle ensues and your side wins the battle, the enemy stack(s) will be changed to PP and retreat, which means your siege will not be disrupted.

If a non-PP enemy stack outside of the city manages to remain in the region until the end of the turn, the siege will not exist at the start of the next turn. Each time a siege is ends, any breaches are automatically repaired.

For details on how sieges work, you will want to read this: Siege combat (it's from the old AACW Wiki, but the rules are the same), and this AgeWiki: Sieges_and_breaches (check the parameters in the WON Settings folder as they may be different than in the Wiki example).

Management Summery: the more offensive artillery you have in a siege, the better.



* or other structure such as a depot, block house, etc.

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

A siege occurs if at the start of a turn you have a stack not in PP (Passive Posture) in a region with an enemy controlled city* with >= 1 enemy stack inside the city, if there are 0 enemy stacks not in PP in the region outside of the city.

[INDENT]Note: if you have >95% MC in a region, any non-partisan-/non-cavalry-only stack entering the region will automatically change its posture to OP, regardless of leader activation.[/INDENT]

If you have <95% MC in a region, to prevent the enemy from messing with your siege, set >=1 stack in OP to attack any enemy units entering the region. If a battle ensues and your side wins the battle, the enemy stack(s) will be changed to PP and retreat, which means your siege will not be disrupted.

If a non-PP enemy stack outside of the city manages to remain in the region until the end of the turn, the siege will not exist at the start of the next turn. Each time a siege is ends, any breaches are automatically repaired.

For details on how sieges work, you will want to read this: Siege combat (it's from the old AACW Wiki, but the rules are the same), and this AgeWiki: Sieges_and_breaches (check the parameters in the WON Settings folder as they may be different than in the Wiki example).

Management Summery: the more offensive artillery you have in a siege, the better.



* or other structure such as a depot, block house, etc.

Thank you for your reference articles. However, these do not apply, at least to the Feb 4th beta.

I am currently besieging 10 cities. With the exception of Wein, 7 of the cities have the "CityName is beisieged and totally breached. The structure doesn't provide any defensive benifit" which means that at least one round of sieging the SRV vaule was greater or equal to 3. But the log never showed any hits over 5. Not a single 15 or greater when the city had it breach vaule reduced.

I have done 34 successful sieges. I have gotton as many as 8 breaches but do 5 hits every time. The only exception was the Napleon stack acting besieging Wein. It started doing 10 hits but has dropped down to 5. {I pulled a unit out to try and build a supply line as he is steadly losing cohesion and his numbers are dropping. I noticed that the # of hits dropped about the same time as he went below 2000 CB.

Take Venezia as an example. I built a "City" besieging" unit. It has an HQ unit which gives it a Siege Expert. level 1. It has a Sapper unit with Siege Expert Level 2 It has Leader with the Engineer trait. {These don't stack, but it should have the bonus of the best one.} and mostly artillery. {I can't tell you the exact CB of the artillery because individual elements don't have a CB rating. I counted every element in the stack and 63% of the elements were artillery. Every element had the same CB rating {I know they don't, but I don't have a better way of estimating the CB} they would have a 600 DB. (207 Artillery Offensive FP) I think Venezia started with 3 units of ~ 200 CB. {I did not record these values so I don't know} In 15 turns of seiging, I breached all but 1 time. I have had as high as 8 breaches. Every time 5 units. Currrently, Venezia is showing 1 units and no power rating. Has for the last 3 turns.

In additon, I have one city Linz that has a unit outside. The pop-up when the mouse is over the city says (Besieged) on the top line. Not one time in 9 turns have a got a message about Linz. Not once. Not even a "but achieved nothing this month". In the 7 turns I have been besieging Prag, the log has showed 4 messages. One time there was a small (800 pt unit) Russian unit that was killed so that explains one. But the other two times, no attack and no message.

I guess I am going to have start recording units and power rating for besieged cities so I can tell if they are changing after taking the "5 unit hit". It is hard to beleive the Venezia has not surrended when it has 1 defending unit with NO power rating and taken 15 "hits.

I played a year under the January 19th patch and only once city took longer than 1 month to take. That was Innsbrook which held out for almost 3 months. Now I was't recording any values at the time so I don't know what the difference his.

I admint that I can't calulate the SRV value for a stack. But there is no way a stack with an artillery Offensive Fire Power of 207 {And as many siege bonues as possible) is geting an SRV value of 1 against a city with 1 unit defending without a Combat Power Rating.

[BruceASinger@gmail.com]

Thank you for your reference articles. However, these do not apply, at least to the Feb 4th beta.

I am currently besieging 10 cities. With the exception of Wein, 7 of the cities have the "CityName is beisieged and totally breached. The structure doesn't provide any defensive benifit" which means that at least one round of sieging the SRV vaule was greater or equal to 3. But the log never showed any hits over 5. Not a single 15 or greater when the city had it breach vaule reduced.

I have done 34 successful sieges. I have gotton as many as 8 breaches but do 5 hits every time. The only exception was the Napleon stack acting besieging Wein. It started doing 10 hits but has dropped down to 5. {I pulled a unit out to try and build a supply line as he is steadly losing cohesion and his numbers are dropping. I noticed that the # of hits dropped about the same time as he went below 2000 CB.

Take Venezia as an example. I built a "City" besieging" unit. It has an HQ unit which gives it a Siege Expert. level 1. It has a Sapper unit with Siege Expert Level 2 It has Leader with the Engineer trait. {These don't stack, but it should have the bonus of the best one.} and mostly artillery. {I can't tell you the exact CB of the artillery because individual elements don't have a CB rating. I counted every element in the stack and 63% of the elements were artillery. Every element had the same CB rating {I know they don't, but I don't have a better way of estimating the CB} they would have a 600 DB. (207 Artillery Offensive FP) I think Venezia started with 3 units of ~ 200 CB. {I did not record these values so I don't know} In 15 turns of seiging, I breached all but 1 time. I have had as high as 8 breaches. Every time 5 units. Currrently, Venezia is showing 1 units and no power rating. Has for the last 3 turns.

In additon, I have one city Linz that has a unit outside. The pop-up when the mouse is over the city says (Besieged) on the top line. Not one time in 9 turns have a got a message about Linz. Not once. Not even a "but achieved nothing this month". In the 7 turns I have been besieging Prag, the log has showed 4 messages. One time there was a small (800 pt unit) Russian unit that was killed so that explains one. But the other two times, no attack and no message.

I guess I am going to have start recording units and power rating for besieged cities so I can tell if they are changing after taking the "5 unit hit". It is hard to beleive the Venezia has not surrended when it has 1 defending unit with NO power rating and taken 15 "hits.

I played a year under the January 19th patch and only once city took longer than 1 month to take. That was Innsbrook which held out for almost 3 months. Now I was't recording any values at the time so I don't know what the difference his.

I admint that I can't calulate the SRV value for a stack. But there is no way a stack with an artillery Offensive Fire Power of 207 {And as many siege bonues as possible) is geting an SRV value of 1 against a city with 1 unit defending without a Combat Power Rating.

My game crashed while processing a turn so I restarted my computer and the game. The next turn I processed, almost all of my sieges got hits greater than 5, my stacks actually had battles in the cites and I ended up taking 7 of the 10 cities I was beseiging. In all the 3 cities I did not take, the leaders were inactive. And Veniza that had 1 unit with no pwr displayed, I took even though the leader was inactive.

It appears the Feb 4th patch game is working, it was my game in memory that had been corrupted. Makes me want to undo 2 months.

I guess I will go on with game until the beta patch comes out. It is supposed to fix the CB victory point loss.

Note to self, when the game is not doing what is supposed to do, try restarting it.

[Captain_Orso]

Do you understand that besieging a city at the very most represents an artillery duel between forces inside and outside the city? Even when the city is breached, there is not combat. You must actually assault the city to capture it, if the defenders do not surrender outright.

[sorta]

Do cities surrender due to lack of supply or is it just a factor of arty?

I'm attacking Jaipur and have 2 breaches due I believe to siege cards. Their army is huge at approx 900 strength. I'm assuming that they will surrender through lack of supply at some point but is this incorrect?[ATTACH]38899[/ATTACH]

[Captain_Orso]

Well, not exactly. Supply influences greatly a besieged force not surrendering, but a lack of supply does not actually cause them the surrender.

Basically, if your siege is causing hits, or even better, breaches, if supply runs out, the defenders will likely surrender. But even if your besieging force massively out powers the defenders, if they still have supply, there is at least a 95% that surrender will be averted.

Have a quick read through this: Manual:Siege combat; this is the old AACW Wiki, but the rules are the same, but some of the parameters are different. They can be found is the .\NGC\Settings\GameLogic.opt file:

Code: Select all

sieValueForSiegeBonus      = 10         // How many Artillery Combat Pts needed to get a +1/-1 modifier to siege
sieOutcomeDiceRollSides    = 12       // Sides of the Siege Outcome roll / compared to TQ/Discipline
sieWagonDepotProtectChance    = 95       // Chance  that a non empty depot/wagon protects against surrender
baseProdCoefLocked              = 25        // Percent of base supply when under siege with port unblocked
sieExtraModifier          = 1      // Extra Modifier (positive: help the besieger)   
sieSurrenderModEndangered      =- 3       // If structure breached, lack of supply and weaker than besieger, get this penalty to surrender


BTW, hits caused by a siege also cause some supply to be destroyed. I don't know how much per hit, but if the defender is not receiving supplies, it will certainly help.

Don't forget, cities can be producing supplies, even while under siege, but only 25% of their normal production, if the city has an unblockaded harbor: see 'baseProdCoefLocked' above. Also if the harbor is not blockaded, they might still be able to draw supplies from another friendly source.

AFAIK, if a city is besieged and it's harbor is blockaded, production if reduced by a further 50%.