Breaking Siege Exploit

[Canon]

Bought and fired up Hannibal, decided to go ahistorical route and invade Sicily by sea. Took Drepanum as the beachhead, moved to besiege Lilybaeum and it's depot. Defeated the Legion deployed in the province, set up my siege works against the Level 3 walls. Wanting a quick result, I decided to use my 3 siege cards to enable a quick assault. The first turn went fine, but on the next turn you can imagine my surprise to see the siege broken and two precious siege cards gone to waste by a single squadron of cavalry!!! I wasn't able to even bring them to battle! This has to be adjusted. The siege and any breaches made should only be removed by a reversal in Military Control. If the besieged brings a relief force that manages to beat back the besiegers and wrestle over 50% M.C., then yes, the siege was indeed broken. But this is just a little ridiculous...

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[rominet]

The same kind of trouble happened to me.

[Ebbingford]

This has been an issue with sieges across all AGEOD games for ages.....

[Franciscus]

A save game would be helpful

Some points, though:

- siege works RGD can fail. And the defenders can repair the damage (a function of the CP of the defenders, Level of supply, unblockaded port, etc)
- I suppose the siege has not been "lifted". You are still outside the Walls. A breach was even made.
- what is the effective MC of the region. I would say it is still not overwhelming in your favor but it is increasing (seeing the message). It takes time and force to gain 100% MC.


Finally: sieges in HAN take (many) time, more so for non-roman factions. That is both intended and historical. Besieging a Level 3+ fort, With an unblockaded port is very hard to succeed.

Regards

[Franciscus]

Hi again

Also, IIRC, ONLY one siege RGD per turn can be played in a region

Regards

[Canon]

A save game would be helpful

Some points, though:

(1)- siege works RGD can fail. And the defenders can repair the damage (a function of the CP of the defenders, Level of supply, unblockaded port, etc)
(2)- I suppose the siege has not been "lifted". You are still outside the Walls. A breach was even made.
(3)- what is the effective MC of the region. I would say it is still not overwhelming in your favor but it is increasing (seeing the message). It takes time and force to gain 100% MC.


(4)Finally: sieges in HAN take (many) time, more so for non-roman factions. That is both intended and historical. Besieging a Level 3+ fort, With an unblockaded port is very hard to succeed.

Regards

Frankly I'm a little disheartened by your response. You seem to be implying that the game is handling this situation appropriately when in reality it goes against all common sense! Perhaps it is working "properly" according to the game engine, but this has to be fixed then to create a more accurate presentation of history.

1. Siege works can fail, but didn't in this case. I had 1 successful breach the turn before, and according to the log, 1 successful breach this turn, so I should have been sitting pretty with 2 breaches. Any repairs to the wall would have been recorded in the log, and none have been. So the breaches have been removed because the siege has been lifted.

2. By "lifted" I mean the city is no longer besieged. The presence of Roman Cavalry outside the city means I cannot set up siege works against the city, can't starve them out, and really can't do anything to force a takeover.

3. I have 95% Military Control. No, not 100%, but if 95% isn't overwhelming then I don't know what is. And if one cavalry squadron can steal as much as 10%
(100-10+5=95) from a 50,000+ men/ 3000+ power army we have another engine problem...

4. Yes, I agree! That is why I loved Birth of Rome! The time consuming, grueling sieges made for a very interesting strategic game where victories in the field did not necessarily guarantee victory. But in this case I get frustrated because I have chosen to use the siege cards early, meaning I will have a tougher time in the late game, only to have them wiped out by a flaw in the engine.

[Franciscus]

Hi

I loaded your game. and tried your backup1, before the roman "attack"

Your whole army under Hannibal is in defensive posture. If you put it in offensive posture, you will see very different results if roman AI attacks: either the cavalry are defeated or avoids completely the battle and retreats. The siege goes on, of course

Other way: you can split your forces, of you want: you can split your army in Lilybaeum: Hannibal can stay in defensive posture, with the bulk of infantry, while your cavalry can be put in another second stack, in offensive (ie, think of it as in patrol duties, in the Lilybaeum region - that represents many square miles of "real" terrain).

(PS: The "tactical" element in AJE/HAN can be rather "fun" and "historic". The various ROE stances and orders are there for something...
For example, if you want to bypass a besieged city, you can split your forces, leaving a "covering" force in siege duty while a second force with evade combat orders may advance to an adjacent region. One problem unfortunately is that the AI is not very adept at this kind of manouevres...)

Anyhow, I will see if Pocus has some time to look into why the siege was lifted anyhow, with Hannibal in defensive

Regards

[Canon]

Thanks for the work-around suggestions. Those should work fine for me to continue playing, but I could see some potential problems coming up later in the campaign, so I would appreciate hearing what Pocus has to say on this matter.

Going offensive should give me a better chance to engage, but I then lose the advantages of the defensive stance. Against a small force it isn't an issue, but if Rome brings up a large army I would like to be able to fight them from an entrenched position while maintaining the siege. Which brings up another thing. Shouldn't the enemy be forced into an offensive posture because of my military control? A battle should still trigger regardless, no?

The same theory applies to splitting. Works well and efficiently if only small forces are around, but if you want to concentrate to fend off a larger army, it might cost you the siege progress...

But thanks for taking the time to look into this. This is my favourite game series, and a big part of it is you guys working one-on-one with us to fix these problems!