Siege Battles: Unbalanced?

[Sextus Fabius Maximus]

Hey all, I've been playing the Roman campaign and siege battles just don't seem to be worth it. Seeing how units are even tougher now, prolonged melee fights generally favor the A.I. I'm finding that auto-resolve is giving me far better results in almost every siege battle. Am I doing something wrong?

[Dramatic Cat]

You bring siege engines to the party, son?
Make dedicated 'Siege' armies, with some 3-4 engines.

Some nice Stone Throwing Ballistae on flaming rounds will chop down at least an entire units worth of men. At most if you rain fire on the city square and if all units are huddled, then you can take over a thousand men with a single unit of ballistae.

Is it a full (zomgwtfbbqgarrisonscriptlol) stack that's defending? If it is then you're better off waiting them out.

The infantry melee grindowns are an effing pain the butt, so you'd better not have activated battle time limit or you'll have some very frustrating experiences. If your rig can handle it and if you must have grindowns then I recommend playing siege battles on 3x speed.

kthx

[Josura]

I also found that its good to use second stack (not full) to attack the city from oposite direction (ally AI is usually clever enough to leave their general outside). For that stack, use some medium infantry, skirmishers and siege weapons, it will force defenders to divide and also allow you to outnumber them.

[Zydrius]

Attacking cities is kinda tricky, expecially if you go into melee combat inside the streets. If you're playing with full garisson script - be prapared for doom! If often lay sieges until AI forths sally, enemy reinforcements attack together with garrison army (open field battle) or garisson army surrenders after running out of supplies. This (and less garisson sript) saves my time.

[Zydrius]

Attacking cities is kinda tricky, expecially if you go into melee combat inside the streets. If you're playing with full garisson script - be prapared for doom! I often lay sieges until AI forths sally, enemy reinforcements attack together with garrison army (open field battle) or garisson army surrenders after running out of supplies. This (and less garisson sript) saves my time.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Never found this an issue in all the testing.... (and, of course, playing with proper Garrison Script)...

1 - Bring artillery - assault at a classic 3:1 or higher odds (no more than 6/7 enemy units) and win handily within 45mins (if not, then you should lose) - or....

2 - Don't bring artillery and settle down to a prolonged siege - enemy surrender or sally forth and die.

Think Gergovia for (1) or Alesia for (2) - classic Caesar-stuff.

[Sertorio]

Either that or maybe try the Lethality mod for faster battles. As previously posted i tend the wait for the sally if facing a stack for garrison.

[Josura]

Also great thing is to bring archers/slinges with ladders to the flanks and when the melee starts, the archers climb the wall and attack sides and back of the engaged enemy units. This usually cause lot of casulties and speeds up melee grind :-)

[meerkatology]

i play with full garrison script... if you want to "cheat"

1. bring 3 stacks to siege 1 place, and auto resolve.

2. siege for x turns until they surrender or sally - you can siege multiple cities at the same time and just wait

3. attack an enemy army next to a city so that the city's army will reinforce, annhilate both armys and auto take the city.

4. siege and wait for enemy to send another stack to help their city, wipe both stacks, auto take city.

[Sextus Fabius Maximus]

Thanks so much guys! I'll remember to use siege engines in the future. I suppose endless stacks start to tire me out and auto-resolving always seems like a more attractive choice. I think i just need to relax and take my time.