Armies walking right through my city redzone?

**Skyce** · September 17, 2019, 05:22 AM

Idk where to post this and since I use Dei and Im not sure if it has anything to do with it I decided for this forum.

Anyway,
Playing the Alexander campaign I conquered the first city on the Turkish peninsula (to the right of Pergamon).
I garrisoned my first army there and put 2 smaller armies behind it on the north side, but still on the turkish peninsula and within the redzone.

Ofcourse I'm at war with Persia and I hoped they would attack my city so I had 2 reinforcing armies .
They were coming from the south and the redzone reached up to the mountains so I was sure they couldnt get to my weaker armies behind the city...

And then, they did.
Three times, every reload again. Also with repositioning.

Am I crazy and have I misinterpreted the rules all these years? Or is this a bug or something?

**Swarbs** · September 17, 2019, 06:22 AM

Pretty sure armies can move through the zone of control (redzone) if they are attacking an army which is also in the redzone.

Basically if you have armies which are in range to reinforce the city, then attacking armies can choose which one to target. I think it's to prevent the AI getting confused, as otherwise they would still try to target the weaker army, but would end up trying to take the long way around the Black Sea due to the ZoC preventing them attacking directly.

**struckat** · September 17, 2019, 07:42 AM

Doesn’t the night commander trait allow one to attack an army outside of a city while not involving the garrison?

**Skyce** · September 17, 2019, 08:39 AM

Argh...

Well my main army in the city as well as the garrison also didn't join the battle.. im pretty fked over there now -_-

**Skyce** · September 17, 2019, 08:49 AM

How is it possible neither the garrison or my garrisoned army intervenes??

**Dresden** · September 17, 2019, 01:34 PM

Unfortunately I think the red zone issue has been a problem for a long time in Rome 2.

**Ekoten** · September 17, 2019, 01:48 PM

Dear Skyce. The reason why the leftmost Persian army in the picture can engage your two forces outside of the city is because the rightmost Persian army has besieged it. This does not alone render the citys Zone of Control void, it also prevents the garrison and any army within it from supporting friendly armies outside of it. Most likely the city was besieged first and the second army could then continue without worrying about the citys Zone of control, splitting your forces up instead of having to engage them all in one big battle. I know that is what I would have done in such a case.

**RecKooo** · September 17, 2019, 04:22 PM

On point Ekoten - besieging army not only stops city garrison / garrisoned army from reinforcing but also stays able to reinforce while besieging. Everything is fine here. AI played you with it's oldest trick here Skyce ^^

**Dresden** · September 17, 2019, 05:22 PM

Good point, I forgot to answer that part thanks guys

**Swarbs** · September 18, 2019, 12:10 PM

What they said!

You can resolve it by moving the garrisoned army outside the city and towards the Persian armies. That way it can't be taken out of the battle - the enemy can besiege the city but that will only stop the weak garrison units from engaging, who probably won't make any difference to the battle given how much cavalry you seem to have.

Unfortunately you won't get the benefits of a city battle, but I doubt you would anyway - with that many units around the AI probably will just siege you without trying to storm the walls. If you fortify the army you will get the benefit of a fort battle, and can use pikes to hold the gates whilst the reinforcing cav army routs from the rear, but that's the best you can get in that situation.

**Sagat** · September 18, 2019, 01:31 PM

Like the guys said it's because your city is besieged, once that happens whatever army you got in there is stuck in there, it's been like that forever.. you must be new to Total War.
This has bugged me for a long time because of how unrealistic it is, and I mentioned this a few months ago asking if it could be modded out of the game because of how terribly unhistorical it is.

The worst part about it is that army besieging you is actually ABLE to join the fight outside as well.... like.... HOW are you besieging a town, and fighting another battle outside of town at the same time, and yet the defenders are forced to sit inside the city, I mean WHO then is preventing the city army from sallying out ?? it makes no sense...

Historically throughout all of history sallying out for skirmishes was a regular part of siege warfare, and sallying out once friendly reinforcements arrive for a full scale battle, well that almost ALWAYS took place, only in unique cases did it work differently, like for example when Caesar's crazy ass built that double barricade wall at Alesia.

I understand what CA was trying to do with the town/city's "Zone of control" but it seems like they didn't have any military historians there to tell them the basics of how it actually worked. This is a mechanic that needs to be redone for future TW titles.

**antred** · September 21, 2019, 02:56 PM

Ironically, while your own cities' control zones won't necessarily stop enemy armies from moving through them, it takes your armies 3 to 4 turns to move around a friendly city that belongs to a faction you have an alliance and a military access treaty with, because reasons (God, I hate some of the design decisions the R2TW team made).