Siege and Assault

[SkiRich]

The warfare wiki mentions that eventually your units that are sieging can then assualt the garrison.
It made it sound like thats my option I need to manually do, but in all the wars I was in, I never did anything other than point my troops at a county and eventually owned it.
The wiki also makes mention about choosing tactics. I never saw any options to influence the army to do anything once the war starts. It feels to me like once engaged it all on autopilot.
Am I missing something here?

[Crash [LV]]

Assault is the button with sword and arrow right side of the siege title. When it becomes colored, you can assault. You can also see the time for assault if you hold your cursor over said button when it's still greyed out. That being said, you can only use assault in all cases IF you have set in game options assaults to "unlimited". Otherwise there might be other restrictions.

You influence tactics chosen by:
+ choosing commanders that command flanks
+ choosing tactical traits for characters when you are given such option in events
+ choosing the composition of your army
+ choosing the placement (flanks) of units in your army

[SkiRich]

When would I use assault then. I mean in what case, if its not unlimited and i9 I do nothing I still wind up the victor. What benefits does assault give you versus not assaulting?

[Wokelander]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

When would I use assault then. I mean in what case, if its not unlimited and i9 I do nothing I still wind up the victor. What benefits does assault give you versus not assaulting?

Assault is a lot faster than sieging but will cost you a larger number of casualties, which is probably affected by the holding's fort level or whatever it's called. It's useful if you're in a hurry to move on, for example if you want to wrap up a small conquest before your enemy's allies get there, or if you're trying to make score for crusades

[Crash [LV]]

but will cost you a larger number of casualties

Long siege can sometimes do the same, if you get a lot of bad siege events.

When would I use assault then.

I use it by the old rule of 10 to 1. I.e., if I outnumber the sieged forces ten times, then I assault.

What benefits does assault give you versus not assaulting?

Saves time. And there are some special assault events for extra carnage, if you fancy demolishing the holding a bit too.

[Malus]

Oftentimes its better to assault poorly defended holdings in counties that give pagan attrition to your armies, makes you loose less units.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

After the unit rebalance patch, Assaulting isn't quite as 10:1 as it used to be.

Previously Assaulting used skirmish strength with most garrisons/levies having a lot of Skirmish troops, who just aren't that strong unless they have a battle tactic buffing them (which doesn't apply in sieges).


However when they swapped Sieges to use melee strength, it became MUCH easier to assault with minimal casualties, as you're using multiple holdings worth of HI/Pike/HC instead of a single holding's worth, and all those Skirmish units they have are now just tissue paper.

Especially true if you're running a melee phase focused retinue which can melt garrisons during assaulting.


However it does somewhat depend on the fort level of the holding. The higher the fort level, the more defensive the garrison is, giving them a bit of a force multiplier (especially vs Defensive Pagans/unyeilding reform who keep their defensive strength bonus even in sieges, if the province religion allows it, also terrain bonuses apply to unit strength)). nation who get strong cultural buildings with lots of HI/Pikes can be a bit harder to assault through, since their garrison/levy is a bit more lopsided towards melee units, but they're still pretty heavily mixed and limited in number, though you will see higher casualties than vs nations whose cultural buildings give LI/archers).

Assaulting castles is usually pretty costly except at the earliest tech levels (not including Constantiople and nearby counties), but assaulting temples/cities can usually be done without too much issue.

Also depending on your game rules, if the total fort level of the province is above a certain level (around 13 or so iirc), you can't assault at all until you've sieged a few holdings normally.


Generally, if you've got a giant army, and your enemy only has a few holdings, you can win the war before his allies can get to you by simply assaulting everything down. or if he's larger, get a solid hold over his territory and start ticking warscore while you deal with the enemy. Since you can't win with battles alone, it does make sense to get the siege portion done first, if you can, so you can end the war sooner.

Siege duration has a diminishing return for outnumbering it, but assault speed keeps getting lower and lower until it's almost instant (only need a couple days before you can assault) depending on how much you outnumber the garrison.


Sacking also allows you to make money during war. Usually levy are expensive to keep up unless you've got a significant vassal levy, but by assaulting through the holdings quickly, you can make more money in looting pay, rather than waiting for months for the sieges to fall and having to pay the levy for it.

[flicking]

I'm going to focus on why you would choose to assault instead of waiting out a siege when your forces are strong enough to do either.

1. If your forces are mercenary and you are running low on money, assaulting means a faster win (before you run out, and a cash windfall when the siege succeeds) and also lower costs because maintenance is based on the merc army that is alive at any given time, so if you kill some they cost less.

2. If your opponent is geographically large and/or has allies/defensive alliances you can sometimes win a war before they really can concentrate forces against you, but only if you rack up warscore very quickly. Assaulting all across the front can get you into the high 90% quickly, meaning you only need to win one battle against a medium sized army to win the war, which might be a tiny fraction of what the enemy could field against you if you waited for them to show up as the cities slowly starved.

3. If you are attacking a country in civil war or involved in other wars you want to win as fast as possible or your CB might become invalid before you win.

4. If your enemy is geographically small, but powerful (from allies, mercenaries or any other reason) you can sometimes win by ignoring their armies and taking all of their holdings, usually with swift assaults, often getting forces enough to do so with expensive mercenaries (see #1) that you can't field for long.

Slow siege is not optional if the fortification level is high enough, and not desirable if your armies are what keeps your realm stable (eg, if you have factions forming or strong enemies that need to be deterred from an attack by the number of troops you have available). But there are enough situations where winning quick at higher cost leads to a better outcome than trying to minimize casualties with a slow siege that assault is a very common tactical choice for me.

[Yxklyx]

Assault is usually the way to go because you usually end up losing more troops to siege events (if those are enabled). I always use a 10-1 rule - maybe less than that if their morale is almost spent. You can't assault castles with fort level of 6 though.