Looking for information about supporting out of cities.

[Rakashan]

I see old threads about not being able to sally forth to support a nearby army on defense. I see that CA does not think that this is a bug (which I think is stupid but ok, I'll try and cope).

Has anyone found a way to defend that is not utterly stupid? After some testing I can say definitively that the AI can move past an army to start a siege so they can fight armies individually so apparently the only way to guarantee that I can support my armies is to... Wait... ABANDON MY CITIES?!?!?!

Surely someone has found a better solution, right? If so, what is it?

[Butter Bot]

I don't understand what you mean.

[Darklordnj]

Originally posted by Butter Bot:

I don't understand what you mean.

[Captain T1]

I'm guessing something to do with reinforcing armies with garrisons.

[SomeGuy1]

I think OP is talking about how:
you have an army next to a city
an enemy besieges that city with one army
they they attack your army outside the city with a second army
the sieging army will reinforce the enemy, but the besieged city will not reinforce yours

[Butter Bot]

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

I think OP is talking about how:
you have an army next to a city
an enemy besieges that city with one army
they they attack your army outside the city with a second army
the sieging army will reinforce the enemy, but the besieged city will not reinforce yours

This is a specific situation for sure

[SomeGuy1]

Originally posted by Butter Bot:

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

I think OP is talking about how:
you have an army next to a city
an enemy besieges that city with one army
they they attack your army outside the city with a second army
the sieging army will reinforce the enemy, but the besieged city will not reinforce yours

This is a specific situation for sure

it actually comes up a fair bit. I use it too. It comes up more and more as empires get larger and field more stacks.

[SBA77]

Originally posted by Rakashan:

Has anyone found a way to defend that is not utterly stupid?

Parking the army in the city?

[MrSoul]

Try putting your supporting stacks in ambush. If two or more find pretty rare AI will detect them all, and that’ll least give you some odds of entrapping first one that comes up to besiege.

Also not a bug, it’s an intended design feature far as I know. Can do exact same thing to the AI.

[Simple Kind of Man]

Originally posted by Mr.Soul:

Try putting your supporting stacks in ambush. If two or more find pretty rare AI will detect them all, and that’ll least give you some odds of entrapping first one that comes up to besiege.

Also not a bug, it’s an intended design feature far as I know. Can do exact same thing to the AI.

yup working as intended you can do this as far back as i can remember in TW games

[Rakashan]

Oh, I agree that it is working as intended. I looked at the bug lists here and on the CA forums and it is clearly mentioned by the players but not considered a bug by CA. The thing is, I've played TW: Warhammer for 4-5 years and I've never seen an army run through an enemy army to lay siege to a city.

I literally reloaded a turn back and tried everything I could think of to defend the city. It's early game and the enemy and I are fairly evenly matched. It's a city in the mountains so there is a narrow pass in front of it. I ran my supporting army up to the city and waited to see what the enemy did (he sieged and then killed both armies one at a time). So I reloaded and ran my supporting army past the city and blocked the pass still in range of the city (and this is what I think has changed)... The enemy literally ran *through* my supporting army to siege the city and killed my armies piecemeal again.

The only thing I could find that resulted in both my armies joining the battle at the same time was to abandon the city and march them both out. As a result of that choice I took a close loss with survivors and held the city. That is a nonsensical tactic that makes building the basic defenses in a city meaningless given that both the AI and human opponents rapidly build to multi-army deathballs.

I'm marginally willing to accept the ambush argument but it does not account for the fact that visibility, particularly in the early game, is such that an enemy can often get from out of site to support range of a city in less than two turns so you have exactly one turn's warning that you need to get a supporting army somewhere to defend. And as you move into later game it becomes a case of rock/paper/scissors where magic items and research can horribly skew movement rates and ambush probabilities making it a crap-shoot not a tactical playing field.

As for the argument that this is a specific situation... Yes, it is. It's not exactly rare, though, as I have seen it used by the AI four consecutive games against both players and other AI. I have yet to apply it myself, only just now grokking the actual mechanics, but as nobody seem to think there is no counter to it....

[Falaris]

The attacking army presumably has Lightning Strike, which is a specific skill that lets them fight a battle without reinforcing armies. (But then, neither army gets reinforcements.).

(Lightning strike at lvl 1-2 just delay reinforcements. Lvl 3 cancels them entirely however.).

It will say so in the pre-battle screen, though, but it's easy to miss.

Basically, that gives an advantage that can be really useful, as you've now seen. And yes, the best 'fix' for that is ambushing them, or attacking them before they attack you (it's a skill that only works on attack).

You say you blocked the pass, but you obviously didn't, you just wish you did. Armies can move through ZoC if they do so to attack something (If they couldn't, they would not be able to move at all if in one or more army's ZoC), and while an army can still physically block a path - as can agents - that's a far smaller area and you can't usually block an approach with just one army.

[Lamp]

Pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about and it's just a normal mechanic. I've used it plenty of times myself to trap an enemy army in their city while my backup army/ies kill off their other stacks.

Start using ambushes right outside the city so the AI doesn't think to trap your garrisoned army. Even if the ambush doesn't work they won't be putting their best foot forward and may bring less stacks or commit to a failing attack.

[MulticornRB]

If in movement range an enemy can attack every other target inside an opposing army’s/city’s zone of control.

The AI likes to lock down cities and deny reinforcements that way. You don’t have to abandon the city, just place the second army outside of it as well. That way only the garrison is denied.

There is a sweet spot though: On the edge outside zone of control where the enemy can’t run trough but you get reinforcements.

[Jukelo]

You can step into an enemy zone of control to attack a target that is inside, that's entirely normal. You can't *stop* inside an enemy ZoC and you can't go all the way through without first suppressing that ZoC (like besieging a town).
You're correct that if you want to defend a city with two armies, your best bet is to position them both just outside so that one of them isn't trapped inside while the other ends up fighting alone outside.