I agree, the flavour added by the mod is great but sieges are just stress, the only option is to use the 'Weaker Garrisons' setting you they have less supplies to build towers or don't use the mod. The sieges get easier as you get more artillery, flying, etc later in the save but early turns and some races just can't handle them. Orion for example the auto-resolve loves his Wild Riders and will give you an easy victory on the early turn siege, but if try the siege manually good luck trying to get in. I've swapped back to vanilla just to make sure I'm not going crazy and it's definitely the changes to gate HP, tower damage, tower level and unit HP than makes siege unfun. Even if you wait for siege towers then fort towers can kill them before they even get the gates.

What specifically about sieges is harder? Don't play vanilla so I dont really have a point of reference for what you're experiencing but could hit you with some tips. I do think SFO demands that you outnumber the garrison forces generally though so you're def right on that front and honestly it makes sense to me; sieging ought to be difficult. Also remember that battles in general in SFO are longer, units have more health so that effect ends up compounding in sieges.

Just some general tips I can think of off the top of my head:

You say you bring arty so that's half the battle there, use them to blow down any towers that can range your army when you approach walls, then move them up and take out any arty or additional towers inside the city, then push up. If you don't have arty make lots of siege towers, they are your friend, might lose a couple on the way there but plenty should make it depending on what siege layout you're facing. Also don't expect to win fighting at 1:1 strength unless your army is juiced up.

The only time i'd recommend ladder rushing a wall is if most of your army has vanguard, usually gives you just enough gap close that you can throw down ladders without taking horrific loses. Beware though WH3 portions of walls on siege maps are HELLA bugged so sometimes they'll just sit at the wall for eternity and do nothing or throw up ladders before proceeding to do nothing.

Also never ladder a low health per model unit like gobbos/skanks vs much stronger infantry on walls if you can't push them off with arrows or arty first because they'll just execute them one at a time as they crest up.

If you have multiple armies and some of the other armies have lords you don't necessarily care about losing, or armies like waaghs, I would recommend giving it to the AI before the battle starts, let's you flood the map with more than 40 units and you also won't have to eat your own hair trying to micro it. Something I do versus other players alot and it works pretty well. Just make sure to attack from the same angle as your reinforcements otherwise they'll just get gutted by tower walls.

Lastly if your army comp is just crap versus sieging a certain faction, just siege the settlement a few turns instead while recruiting towers it will swing auto in your favor enough that you can prob just auto it. They also might just sally forth and then you can spank them on the battlefield.

Enable Weak Garrisons in mod menu. Should be better experience for you.

Thank you all for the suggestions, I will give them a try. Sieges were never a fun part of Total War games for me, and I do think that in most part that issue comes from how the AI is coded in this game, and not from the mod. The mod only amplifies some of that because battles last longer overall.
I do wonder if CA will ever get sieges right...

Originally posted by Venris:

Enable Weak Garrisons in mod menu. Should be better experience for you.

Thank you for creating this mod! Don't get me wrong, this is still incredible work! The overall changes are soo good, I love it.