teleporting into a besieged castle...

[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 ]