teleporting into a besieged castle...

[tinkthank]

Wondering: Besieging an enemy Mountain Citadel, held by Ctis (Im pretty sure he's that Undead theme, forget the name, not miasma); it's taking me forever to break the defense, and although he cant recruit troops he can summon tons of these undead, and that citadel is hard to storm. +
I want to preach him out.
I have some decent mage priests who can teleport in and help in the preaching , but before I do, I am wondering:
If I teleport in, will (a) there be some funky battle with each individ teleport priest getting slaughtered individually by the huge undead army in the fort, or (b) are they ok -- they'll join my army there sieging and preaching, only to get attacked together with my whole army if they "break siege"? (Or something else?)
Thanks much

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
it's taking me forever to break the defense, and although he cant recruit troops he can summon tons of these undead, and that citadel is hard to storm.

Mindless units like most undead are almost worthless for defending a castle, so he's either summoning dispossesed spirits or has a lot of living troops inside. Reanimation is also impossible inside of a besieged castle.

[QUOTE[If I teleport in,[/quote]

Your units will appear outside the castle with your sieging force just like any unit that moved into the province. It's only when the _defender_ teleports into a besieged castle that they end up in the castle.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Wondering: Besieging an enemy Mountain Citadel, held by Ctis ......it's taking me forever to break the defense, and although he cant recruit troops ..........................
(Or something else?)
Thanks much

Something else... try the spell Crumble
and when you storm the Citadel bring one or two high level air mages which can do mass flight.

[ May 20, 2004, 22:03: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[tinkthank]

thanks!
Thanks both.
And NTJedi: I'm not going to storm. I hate those damn citadels. (And cant cast crumble anyhow.) I'm going to preach him out. Now that I know I can teleport in safely, he'll be outpreached and dead in 3 turns (I hope).

[Gandalf Parker]

Before you teleport them there are a couple of items that can help bring down walls. One is a two-handed weapon and the other is a horn. Not worth making and hauling around most of the time but this is a perfect cast since you are sending then directly there.

Also try to get some scouts there. When the walls come down send in 1 scout first so you can see whats inside. Sometimes you can even set him way back and retreat him safely. But be prepared to lose him and have to go thru a few.

[ May 21, 2004, 01:08: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[LintMan]

I love that defenders can teleport/gateway into besieged castles... In my current game, I had a built a castle as a lone outpost on the other side of some oceans, but I had a hard time staffing it because it had virtually no resources. Some time later, Pangaea parked its 300+ unit army of massed centaurs and minotaurs on my poor 15-man castle and instantly battered down the gates.

So I teleported/gatewayed in:
4 Juggernauts
2 Elephants
1 Abomination
12 Mandragoras
6 Ghosts
22 Living Statues
and 2 fully equipped trampling SC's. (All these troops were being built up at a distant castle as part of a planned sneak attack on a different nation)

All arriving just in time to defend Pangaea's castle strom the next turn. Woot! That was a fun battle!

[En Forcer]

AND you can have that scout carry the hammer (gatecleaver?) and the Horn when not in use. But I was also going to suggest having a scout or some high stealth unit sit on the castle and eyeball what defenders are present.

I've noticed that if I sit on a castle for a couple of turns the AI tends to sally forth and wear himself down. Which I promptly take care of.

[Cheezeninja]

Its better than that even. If your sitting on a enemy castle, especially their home castle it seems to draw the AI armies like a homing beacon. Thats my favorite tactic when i have 1 very powerful army and im at war with a nation that i have very porous borders with, i find a castle, preferably his home one, and sit on it with my powerful army. Inevitably he will try to break the siege and bring all his armies that could be rampaging my countryside right to where i want them, in battle with my 1 uber army. Just make sure you have superior forces, on occassion i have been surprised by what the computer can bring to bear and have lost whole armies because they routed with nowhere to retreat. This tactic especially works well when your powerful armies are composed of souped up commanders. In the game im currently playing im playing vanheim with a Earth9/Water9 bless, and im running around with the commander vans and no troops stomping down the enemy, i have almost zero actual troops, so breaking down gates is hard, but if i park 6 vans or so on a enemy castle all their armies will flock to it and be destroyed, and eventually it will wear down most castles. The exception right now in my game would be the machakan home province where they have a dark citadel and i've been besieging it for at least 20 turns. I eventually had to send over a king of elemental earth with a gate cleaver before i was doing any damage to the gate.

p.s. I've also come to believe its not always bad to have an enemy castle you can besiege forever without being able to conquer. The AI seems to take into account how many wars your already in before declaring war, as long as there is somebody still in that Last castle you are still at war with them and the other AI teams will be less likely to declare war. This gives me time to actually rebuild after a damaging war without having another AI immediately declare war on me.

[Firebreath]

Originally posted by Cheezeninja:
Its better than that even. If your sitting on a enemy castle, especially their home castle it seems to draw the AI armies like a homing beacon.

This is only true of the home province. Whatever the army strengh comparison is, they will always attack you there if they have adjacent provinces. They will only normally attack you elsewhere if they feel they can win (apart from probe attacks, which they sometimes do). However, the A.I. will never attack you with the army that's inside the castle - unless it thinks it's a lot stronger than you are - this is true for all A.I. castles - so you can exploit this by seiging it one turn, moving all your units out except a priest or a scout, then moving them back in the next turn for the enemy sally - they will sally with all their troups (except the pretender), leaving the castle defenseless.

p.s. I've also come to believe its not always bad to have an enemy castle you can besiege forever without being able to conquer. The AI seems to take into account how many wars your already in before declaring war, as long as there is somebody still in that Last castle you are still at war with them and the other AI teams will be less likely to declare war. This gives me time to actually rebuild after a damaging war without having another AI immediately declare war on me.

I have not found this to be the case. The A.I. is most likely to attack you if it is not already at war with someone else, and your provinces neighbouring it appear to have little defence. And, of course, they sometimes declare war on you randomly from halfway accross the world.

Regarding estimation of defending forces - yes you can send a scout, put him at the back and retreat, but I believe arcane probing also works (and arcosephales scrying dominion will also reveal the defending forces)

Oh, and finally - if you want to preach him out - why waste your mage priests who can research, cast and forge? Build a lot of temples in the adjacent provinces, and recruit indy priests. They're cheap, and the temples help too. Unless you have inquisitors, of course, which are far more effective.

[ May 22, 2004, 14:28: Message edited by: Firebreath ]