City Siege

[RonHiler]

When you have a province under seige, there are two numbers displayed on either side of the city graphic on the info panel (where it shows the city with various states of fire).

I can find NO information anywhere on what those two numbers mean (although negative seems to be good when I'm the one doing the seiging!). Does anyone know what they are?

Ron

[Olaf_the_White]

Hole the mouse over the number on the left. A box will pop up and say "This city will surrender in _ months, oir, if you're lucky it will tell you the city will fall "any day now".

[Ramo]

They represent attrition, so it's good when your number is low, and theirs' is high.

[axi]

No, attrition is the small numbers with the skulls above. The numbers in circles are a mystery to me too.

Why the hell would anyone want to siege a castle? If one has enough men to last the increasing attrition that a year in foreign soil brings, one has enough men to storm the place. Just buy some cannons, keep a strong morale and all minimal fortresses will fall easily with 20k men. Assaulting allows for "blitzkrieg" tactics, where one goes in takes 2-3 provinces quickly and then goes for peace.

This is how Spain detached Gascogne and Poitou from France in my game. Everybody else had sent their enormous armies to slowly die outside the walls of Milan and Zurich (that bloody "center of the war" phenomenon) while I almost took half of France with two 20k armies.

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"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Tom DeMille]

It's got something to do with morale. Your assault is much more likely to succeed if the defender's number is negative

[Par4]

Assaulting the walls is totally ineffective later game, it requires armies of hundreds of thousands and attrition costs hundreds of coins. I usually have a few smaller armies of about 40 each and combine them later so attrition doesn't kick in all the time. Then I have an army of about 80 cannons(800 actual numbers) which brings down any province in within 6 months. Theres no point in storming the walls its a total waste later, unless you want to capture the nation and annex before they're army comes or something.

[Hans2]

Storming any fortress above 'minimal' is a messy task. What you have to remember is that no matter your tech in relation to your enemy, your siege will eventually suceed. An assualt, however, could very well fail miserably if your tech is inferior. Also remember there is no need to have a 60k army on a siege, it just increases attrition. Usually I keep my siege armies at about 20-25k, replacing attrition casualties with quickly built armies. I also keep one or two mobile armies of about 40k size with a high cavalry to infantry ratio to deal with any enemy army that could endanger my siege forces.

[Victor Galis]

I have taken a large fortress by assault before, and I assure you it was only messy for the defender; however, I had him out-teched, I had 400 cannon, and a size 80+ army, and I got lucky (A similar attack got very messy for me). Luck seems to play some role in this, because I've had similar situations end very differently. The first couple phases are crucial. I just hated when I attacked a Mighty fortress and got the defenders down to 342 men, then had to wait months to be able to attack again because my morale ran out During that time, my men all died, and I had to bring in new infantry to assault it (luckily the cannons survived.)