How do I control troops?

[noobscifi]

I get that I click on to take control, and right drag to move from county to county, but how do I make them do anything? They more often than not end up standing there, not laying a siege, not breaking a siege on my own province, not raiding(an adjacent enemy province). Also how do I get my marshal to drop his administrative task and lead an army? And how do I relinquish my own marshal position?

[Hinterxgames]

FOr the 2nd question, on the screen that shows your ruler, there is a blue shield above his head. CLick on that and it forbids him from being a commander.
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As for the other, if you are raiding make sure the troops are set to looting. If you are in a war, you simply have to move them to where you want them to seige, but your army does have to be large enough to overcome the garrison in that county. Hope this helps.

[Ashwind]

Asking the obvious but have you declared war/in a war? Cant siege unless you are.

[noobscifi]

Another issue, I put my ruler as commander of an army but every time I move across a border I end up with an uncommanded army.

[noobscifi]

Ok I know why that happened. I accepted a commander position with liege and he put me in charge of one of his armies.

[quarre]

Originally posted by noobscifi:

how do I make them do anything?

siege window[ibb.co]
I started this war just for showing you those buttons, so all those deaths are on your conscience.
Button 1: on/off siege view. If you're attacking, siege view on allows you to attack. If you're defending, siege view off allows you to raise local levies.
Button 2: force attack. Fast way to deal with sh_t, but you're gonna loose some soldiers. Button is clickable both when you're sieging enemy's county and while de-sieging your occupied lands.
Not-a-button 3: number of soldiers (digits) and morale (green bar). You can just stand under walls without sieging, it's still gonna affect morale. When morale is 0, siege is auto-win or auto-loose depends on whose morale is 0. Mind games (standing near walls and waiting until enemy is moraly broken) si a slow way to deal things, but you'll save soldiers.

So, basically, click button 2 to force attack (quick escalation, more military losses) or dont (slow mode, less military losses).
And if enemy is sieging your county, you can toggle province view with button 1 to raise levies in this county to fight enemy immediately or at least delay county occupation long enough to bring your armies.
You can use manual levies raising for slowing enemies down, as well, if you wanna try to capture 'em.

[Exothermically Eclectic]

Worth noting that there are events that can fire when laying siege, some of which can be helpful (lowering the morale of the defenders, a failed sorty that kills a few attackers and a lot of defenders) but also negative ones, like a successful sorty killing a bunch of your dudes and a few defenders, bandits or diseases killing a bunch of your dudes, and stuff that raises the morale of the defenders.
Overall, it's generally negative; if nothing else, it makes it harder to calculate reliably.
These events don't fire when there's no commander in charge of the siege on the attacking side, that is no centre flank commander in any of the besieging armies.

[noobscifi]

Starting to get the hang of it but there's still one thing I don't understand, why do my troops sometimes idle in their destination instead of raiding? I get that you need to have loot toggled on, and that forts protect a % of wealth, but even if there's nothing to loot I should see a red torch in the corner.

[Loquitran]

About not laying siege on your territories...maybe is a war between your vassals?

If that so, you can't "unsiege" if you're not participating on the war.