what the? seiging a coastal settlement

**RedGuard** · April 01, 2015, 08:41 PM

Just had a situation where I had the settlement under seige by land and blockaded by sea. the army inside the settlement sallys out and destroyed my blockade, and then went about the ocean like there never was a seige to begin with. (my army is still seiging)

I call bs. If I hadn't been blockading with my navy that army never would have been able to move.

**RexJayden** · April 01, 2015, 08:57 PM

Those are some crafty defenders!

**RedGuard** · April 01, 2015, 09:10 PM

I know right. thats some really good ai, there. (sarcasm) lol.

Not sure if its possible to do as the player or not (never been in a seige in 80 hours of play that lasted longer than one turn) but I think if it is it should be made impossible for both. This wasn't in Rome 2.

**Butan** · April 02, 2015, 06:29 AM

So they sallied out on sea, and attacked your blockading navy with their total garrisoned forces, and won? (Was your besieging army in the battle too?)

Actually a good thing which forbids blockading a coastal settlement with a token navy force. The bad thing is that they literaly abandonned their settlement then? Were you able to capture it easily next turn?

**RedGuard** · April 02, 2015, 11:52 AM

Originally Posted by Butan

So they sallied out on sea, and attacked your blockading navy with their total garrisoned forces, and won? (Was your besieging army in the battle too?)

Actually a good thing which forbids blockading a coastal settlement with a token navy force. The bad thing is that they literaly abandonned their settlement then? Were you able to capture it easily next turn?

yes. when I realized that the blockade was going to be destroyed (I auto calc naval battles because I can't stand to play them) I retreated the blockade and then the army that was in the city attacked it agian, then went on its merry way leaving behind the seige to god knows where.

**Huberto** · April 02, 2015, 06:43 AM

The beseiged should still be "trapped" by the besieging army's ZOC, but obviously they aren't. That said, 'real' naval units should never be trapped by the ZOC of a land army. Once CA went down the rabbit hole of instant transports all sorts of stupid stuff like this was going to happen.

**Humble Warrior** · April 02, 2015, 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by Huberto

The beseiged should still be "trapped" by the besieging army's ZOC, but obviously they aren't. That said, 'real' naval units should never be trapped by the ZOC of a land army. Once CA went down the rabbit hole of instant transports all sorts of stupid stuff like this was going to happen.

Sea blockades should work.
It is not a good idea having insta-ship armies. It does nothing but cause all kinds of unintuitive nonsense to happen. Just having them landlocked to ports and using actual ships made the AI act better for most games, especially Shogun 2. This insta-ship crap is ruining their games. Stop copying other games, CA and stay with what worked better.

I mean do we have to castigate CA all over again for every bit of nonsense they don`t bother fixing?

**Huberto** · April 02, 2015, 09:09 AM

A 'fix' could be for CA to disable insta-transport ability for any land units under siege. The real fix is for CA to abandon this feature all together is has ruined the experience of playing these games.

Look at the ERE

**Orthrus** · April 02, 2015, 09:11 AM

One thing I find odd is how the CAI seems to try to spend their entire "labor force" pool on a siege, and end up rarely attacking. ( unless they are steamrolling the settlement )

I've noticed this a few times when taking advantage of, for example; An AI faction X is has AI faction Y's port settlement under siege from land. Meanwhile, I blockade the same settlement from the sea, and initiate battle. I haven't yet seen the AI decline joining the battle, and being the one who initiated the fight, the outcome, regardless of who did the footwork, is of my choosing. No negative penalties from the AI in diplomacy, it may even reward a bonus from aiding in battle.

Whoop got side tracked, that's a different issue for a different day

. Back to what I was getting to; When first blockading that port settlement, you can see what siege equipment the AI decided to invest in, since I believe now that queue is shared between all attacking forces ( haven't tried messing with their queue, not sure if you have that much control ). Well, the AI seems to plan for the long haul in every similar situation. Just fills up the entire queue; Tower, ram, ladder, ladder, ram, tower, over and over, often having to scroll to the right to see the whole queue.

But hey, a free coastal capitol for the small inconvenience of parking my boats ( technically only need the Admiral... ) in their port for a turn? And the AI is covering the manpower and whatnot? Well, I don't know. I mean, it just seems so.... Yes. Yes I will accept this offer, but you drive a hard bargain, Sir! You owe me one buddy! ( Baw-ha-ha-ha free money yey *dives into money pit* )

**Orthrus** · April 02, 2015, 09:15 AM

Whoops, excuse the overlooked typos, can't edit the previous post and too much trouble to be specific

**Slaists** · April 02, 2015, 12:25 PM

Well, sounds pretty realistic to me. You had their city blockaded from the land and the sea. They took to the sea, destroyed your ships and, from there, were free to leave. This happened, on occasion, historically as well. I believe, even Caesar was fooled like this by Gauls on more than one occasion.

**RedGuard** · April 02, 2015, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Slaists

Well, sounds pretty realistic to me. You had their city blockaded from the land and the sea. They took to the sea, destroyed your ships and, from there, were free to leave. This happened, on occasion, historically as well. I believe, even Caesar was fooled like this by Gauls on more than one occasion.

in game though, it was their last settlement, and now they're a horde getting sea sickness, to which I have to go hunt them down, yet again.

**Huberto** · April 02, 2015, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by Slaists

Well, sounds pretty realistic to me. You had their city blockaded from the land and the sea. They took to the sea, destroyed your ships and, from there, were free to leave. This happened, on occasion, historically as well. I believe, even Caesar was fooled like this by Gauls on more than one occasion.

They took to the sea? How? Can you build naval units while you are besieged?

**RGA** · April 02, 2015, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by Huberto

They took to the sea? How? Can you build naval units while you are besieged?

Have you ever seen a port city without ship?

**Huberto** · April 02, 2015, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by RGA

Have you ever seen a port city without ship?

Every port city happens to always have on hand enough fishing ships or other non military craft that allows an entire besieged army to get away...? Seems like a stretch.

**RGA** · April 02, 2015, 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by Huberto

Every port city happens to always have on hand enough fishing ships or other non military craft that allows an entire besieged army to get away...? Seems like a stretch.

I'm sure there would be more than 20 ships in every port city

**Slaists** · April 02, 2015, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by Huberto

They took to the sea? How? Can you build naval units while you are besieged? How do they get the equipment to build a fleet of ships surrounded by land and by sea? How can they always build such a fleet undetected? Shouldn't the besieger get a warning or something?

In the case of Caesar, Gauls (Veneti) had their boats ready in the harbors while Caesar laid siege to their strongholds from the land. In one case, Veneti escaped from a besieged stronghold via a cave system while the boats were brought in from some remote islands by their tribesmen. I guess, in that case, the stronghold even was not on the coast.

Here, even wiki has a page on Veneti escapades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneti_%28Gaul%29

**Butan** · April 02, 2015, 12:29 PM

Aye, but they could also have used their army to help relieve the siege. Maybe it was not an important settlement.

**Butan** · April 03, 2015, 12:04 PM

Its possible that the path from the settlement to the port (in a coastal settlement) is considered land thus blocked by the besieging army. But if its considered as the same entity, then the besieging army ZoC cannot block an army going into the sea, because land-sea ZoC doesnt interfere.