timing, storm castle?

[PvK]

I think you usually get two battles:

One battle outside the castle (no castle on the battlefield), between the arriving enemy relief force combined with enemy units trying to break the seige from within, against any units you have in the province who are NOT storming the castle (and who aren't hiding).

Another battle at the castle, with the defenders left inside the castle, and the troops you have ordered to storm the castle.

If you lose the first (exterior) battle, but win the interior battle (for example, if you send most or all of your forces to storm the castle), I think I have seen that what happens is you end up with your army inside the castle, but the relieving enemy army outside the castle. I also think the defense value of the fort gets restored at this point (which isn't unreasonable, if you imagine that the former attackers, once in control of the fort, are able to dismantle their siege towers, collapse their tunnels, set up their seige engines for defense, etc.

PvK

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PvK:
One battle outside the castle (no castle on the battlefield), between the arriving enemy relief force combined with enemy units trying to break the seige from within, against any units you have in the province who are NOT storming the castle (and who aren't hiding).

No, the first battle occurs with everyone, including the people who are storming, as well as the people who are not storming.

Another battle at the castle, with the defenders left inside the castle, and the troops you have ordered to storm the castle.

Correct.

If you lose the first (exterior) battle, but win the interior battle (for example, if you send most or all of your forces to storm the castle), I think I have seen that what happens is you end up with your army inside the castle, but the relieving enemy army outside the castle.

Incorrect. If you lose the first battle, outside the castle, your entire army is broken and there will BE no interior battle.

[mivayan]

I have just knocked down the walls of the Machaka Lich Lord's Mausoleum. If I now storm the castle, and he sends his large army into the province from next door, will I:

You will most likely:
First fight the large army + the lich lord.
Then fight the lich lord inside the castle.

Since he is immortal he will respawn after he dies in the first fight as long as he has positive dominion.

Also, once I kill the lich lord in his home province, does his army disappear ala the orc hordes who vaporized after Sauron was killed, or do they remain, but leaderless?

The lich dying will not effect his army at all, and even if it dies in its home province it can be called back by priests.

[Vynd]

Another thing you need to consider is that you might win the fight outside the castle, lose half your army in the process, and be left with too weak of an army to successfuylly storm the castle. Which would be bad news if your army is in fact set to do just that. So if the relieving force is big enough to hurt you, you might want to delay giving the order to storm the castle until it has attacked you, and you can see what you have left afterwards.

Of course that's risky, since you don't know how many more men are marching towards the capital to attack you. But it doesn't sound like you have any risk free options at this point.

[Norfleet]

Of course, if you delay storming the castle, the next turn, you may be attacked by yet ANOTHER relief force....or worse, the relief force never appears, as it turns out to be a decoy, and something nasty has taken advantage of your hesitation to build a lab and trapeze/teleport/gateway into the castle, so when you storm the harmless, nearly empty castle, you find something very unpleasant and fatal.