Am I going completely insane or are sieges / siege engines just broken?

[Chicky Lumps]

So I've given this game a second chance, early game was pretty fun, and now I've hit a wall with sieges. So I have enough strength to besiege a city, whittle down enemy units, and the game says I can build my fancy latest siege engine as the battle goes on.
However, every siege without fail, no matter where I look, what I click on, what I do, how long I hold the siege, restart the siege, there is no indication anywhere anytime that I can do something to actually build the siege engine, nor does it appear ever. Ever. Never seen one or any evidence that it actually exists, or where in the UI I can go to summon one.

Now combine that with enemy citizens not seeming to count towards war support calculations. I kill 6 enemy militia and lose like 1 unit, it counts as positive for the enemy war support, I repeat sieges over and over, slaughtering militia over and over, but I can never quite win because siege engines just magically didn't exist, so the enemy barely survives the last turn, netting them basically no losses and tanking my war support. I'm at the point where this nonsensical loop has basically ruined my run despite having basically decimated my enemies in unit loss ratios, because militia just doesn't count so now I'm gonna be forced to surrender and go bankrupt when I would have gained territory had mechanics been working as intended.

[path2power]

Sounds like your game is bugged, when you atack a city they automatically start being built.
If you can't kill all enemy units, you have to capture the enemy flag and sit on it. If you're killing most of the militia, can't you just have your troops climb the walls and take the flag? You're not beseiging the city with all cavalry, are you?

[knighttemplar1960]

The entire concept of war support as implemented is broken/a bad idea/poorly implemented. Overwhelming military and a blitzkrieg always seems a better option than a siege.

[x8]

Originally posted by Nathrakh:

So I've given this game a second chance, early game was pretty fun, and now I've hit a wall with sieges. So I have enough strength to besiege a city, whittle down enemy units, and the game says I can build my fancy latest siege engine as the battle goes on.
However, every siege without fail, no matter where I look, what I click on, what I do, how long I hold the siege, restart the siege, there is no indication anywhere anytime that I can do something to actually build the siege engine, nor does it appear ever. Ever. Never seen one or any evidence that it actually exists, or where in the UI I can go to summon one.

Now combine that with enemy citizens not seeming to count towards war support calculations. I kill 6 enemy militia and lose like 1 unit, it counts as positive for the enemy war support, I repeat sieges over and over, slaughtering militia over and over, but I can never quite win because siege engines just magically didn't exist, so the enemy barely survives the last turn, netting them basically no losses and tanking my war support. I'm at the point where this nonsensical loop has basically ruined my run despite having basically decimated my enemies in unit loss ratios, because militia just doesn't count so now I'm gonna be forced to surrender and go bankrupt when I would have gained territory had mechanics been working as intended.

Siege engines are built over time if you 1) have the technology and 2) maintain a siege. When clicking into an on-going siege there's a box that clearly indicates how many turns it will take to build a siege engine and how many you currently have built (as opposed to the enemy's levy forces). Additionally, by maintaining a siege, you can reduce how many levies the enemy has over time. If you start the attack, however, you cannot get any more siege weapons.

Ultimately, it's not a very functional mechanic and you should almost never wait to build siege weapons. They are very under powered and you are better off just alpha striking their defenders.

[Chicky Lumps]

Originally posted by x8:

Originally posted by Nathrakh:

So I've given this game a second chance, early game was pretty fun, and now I've hit a wall with sieges. So I have enough strength to besiege a city, whittle down enemy units, and the game says I can build my fancy latest siege engine as the battle goes on.
However, every siege without fail, no matter where I look, what I click on, what I do, how long I hold the siege, restart the siege, there is no indication anywhere anytime that I can do something to actually build the siege engine, nor does it appear ever. Ever. Never seen one or any evidence that it actually exists, or where in the UI I can go to summon one.

Now combine that with enemy citizens not seeming to count towards war support calculations. I kill 6 enemy militia and lose like 1 unit, it counts as positive for the enemy war support, I repeat sieges over and over, slaughtering militia over and over, but I can never quite win because siege engines just magically didn't exist, so the enemy barely survives the last turn, netting them basically no losses and tanking my war support. I'm at the point where this nonsensical loop has basically ruined my run despite having basically decimated my enemies in unit loss ratios, because militia just doesn't count so now I'm gonna be forced to surrender and go bankrupt when I would have gained territory had mechanics been working as intended.

Siege engines are built over time if you 1) have the technology and 2) maintain a siege. When clicking into an on-going siege there's a box that clearly indicates how many turns it will take to build a siege engine and how many you currently have built (as opposed to the enemy's levy forces). Additionally, by maintaining a siege, you can reduce how many levies the enemy has over time. If you start the attack, however, you cannot get any more siege weapons.

Ultimately, it's not a very functional mechanic and you should almost never wait to build siege weapons. They are very under powered and you are better off just alpha striking their defenders.

But nowhere in all 4 turns of most sieges did I see any notification of this progress or see any units spawn. (I also relaunched a siege against one city, where it told me progress towards siege engines would continue, and even then nothing happened by the 8th turn / 24th round.)

Keep in mind most of these sieges were performed after already unlocking the 2nd siege unit in the tree, so that wasn't the reason.

[Chicky Lumps]

Originally posted by path2power:

Sounds like your game is bugged, when you atack a city they automatically start being built.
If you can't kill all enemy units, you have to capture the enemy flag and sit on it. If you're killing most of the militia, can't you just have your troops climb the walls and take the flag? You're not beseiging the city with all cavalry, are you?

I was using mostly Phananx and later pikemen. The reason I couldn't cap the cities was because I launched most sieges when I estimated I had enough strength to slowly kill off their militias playing defensively, with little or no losses. In most cases I estimated correctly, but since the siege engines just refused to ever appear, I didn't have enough strength to brute force win before the 4 turns.
After that the other major issue cropped up, which as I said before was sieges crippling my war support just because I didn't cap a city in 4 turns, even if I wrecked their militias.

[DNLH]

Originally posted by Nathrakh:

But nowhere in all 4 turns of most sieges did I see any notification of this progress or see any units spawn. (I also relaunched a siege against one city, where it told me progress towards siege engines would continue, and even then nothing happened by the 8th turn / 24th round.)

That tells me you weren't besieging them, but either went straight to assault or got attacked by forces inside making a sortie. In either case, siege engines are built and militias start to tick down only when you maintain siege.

Also, in the case of a latter yeah, this requires further tweaking from the devs, Sorties should, imo, last a single turn (three battle rounds) and then be put on gamespeed-dependant cooldown, so that defender can't just spam them, but so that they neither end only after every single defender is killed.

[x8]

Originally posted by Nathrakh:

Originally posted by x8:

Siege engines are built over time if you 1) have the technology and 2) maintain a siege. When clicking into an on-going siege there's a box that clearly indicates how many turns it will take to build a siege engine and how many you currently have built (as opposed to the enemy's levy forces). Additionally, by maintaining a siege, you can reduce how many levies the enemy has over time. If you start the attack, however, you cannot get any more siege weapons.

Ultimately, it's not a very functional mechanic and you should almost never wait to build siege weapons. They are very under powered and you are better off just alpha striking their defenders.

But nowhere in all 4 turns of most sieges did I see any notification of this progress or see any units spawn. (I also relaunched a siege against one city, where it told me progress towards siege engines would continue, and even then nothing happened by the 8th turn / 24th round.)

Keep in mind most of these sieges were performed after already unlocking the 2nd siege unit in the tree, so that wasn't the reason.

Yes, you are initiating an attack, not maintaining a siege. To maintain a siege, instead of clicking the Assault button, you must click the Maintain Siege button. Once you initiate the attack and deploy your units to the field you will not get any additional siege weapons help.

[Chicky Lumps]

Originally posted by x8:

Originally posted by Nathrakh:

But nowhere in all 4 turns of most sieges did I see any notification of this progress or see any units spawn. (I also relaunched a siege against one city, where it told me progress towards siege engines would continue, and even then nothing happened by the 8th turn / 24th round.)

Keep in mind most of these sieges were performed after already unlocking the 2nd siege unit in the tree, so that wasn't the reason.

Yes, you are initiating an attack, not maintaining a siege. To maintain a siege, instead of clicking the Assault button, you must click the Maintain Siege button. Once you initiate the attack and deploy your units to the field you will not get any additional siege weapons help.

Hold up, this might be my answer. Does initiating any attack, or deploying any unit(?), cancel an active siege? If so, that kinda makes sense, but the game doesn't explain this at all (it doesn't even tell you that your action stops a siege).

Also I'm not sure what you mean by deploying... does opening any battlefield with the units count as deploying?

[DNLH]

It's no longer a siege if you started a battle, it's an assault (or sortie, if started by defenders). When you besiege the city there are three options available to you, Abandon, which is retreat, Assault, which is initiating the battle and Maintain, which is, well, just besieging the city and building up siege engines/whittling down militia. Why Amplitude decided that third option doesn't deserve anything more than a tiny Trebuchet icon button when the other two are named, beats me.

But only by choosing the third option (and not having enemy initiate a sortie afterwards) will you start building any siege engines that can be then used by clicking 'Assault'.

[x8]

Originally posted by Nathrakh:

Originally posted by x8:

Yes, you are initiating an attack, not maintaining a siege. To maintain a siege, instead of clicking the Assault button, you must click the Maintain Siege button. Once you initiate the attack and deploy your units to the field you will not get any additional siege weapons help.

Hold up, this might be my answer. Does initiating any attack, or deploying any unit(?), cancel an active siege? If so, that kinda makes sense, but the game doesn't explain this at all (it doesn't even tell you that your action stops a siege).

Also I'm not sure what you mean by deploying... does opening any battlefield with the units count as deploying?

Yes, you're on the right track. @DNLH explains it well above too.

Definitely agree the game doesn't make this mechanic super clear.

[shakee]

But the tooltips explains them clearly?!
Tooltip Maintain: Continue the siege and progress towards your next siege weapon.
Tooltip Siege Works: The longer the besiegers maintain the siege, the more siege weapons they will be able to to spawn when the battle is launched.
Aussault: Launch an attack against the city.

[Spacesuit Spiff]

The real reason to maintain a siege is forcing them to sortie, at which point you can back up and fight them outside the walls. The siege engines and levy deaths are just a timer to enforce this.