teleporting into a besieged castle...

[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 ]