Siege factors

[Southern Hunter]

IMHO, the attacker should get +1 per turn of continuous siege, representing the possibility of starving the defenders out (eventually).

Related, I cannot quite work out the role of navies in a siege. Is there one?

[devoncop]

Navies are hugely important in cities on the coast. They blockade the defenders from receiving supplies by sea and dramatically shorten the hold out time of the garrison.

[Southern Hunter]

That makes perfect sense...but how do you tell that they do that?

[loki100]

open the region tab - if you don't have any ships they will be marked as 'harbour smuggling', if you have ships they will be blockaded (tooltips tell you what these mean). Also you stop harbours/fish etc working.

[vakarr]

Note that you have to block every sea exit from the place that is under siege and a fleet of any size will do it. You don't need +1 per turn of siege as each siege turn there is a chance that you will damage the besieged army and the walls. In addition, if they are under a full siege their army will be eating up their food supply and once that is gone the army starts to die of lack of food. Note that to do all this you need troops with the siege attribute (medium/regular infantry, mercenary infantry, Romans, and special provincial types. Some generals also get up to +2 in sieges in addition to the normal bonus but even a 0-0 general gets you a +1 in sieges.


If you are using a fleet in an enemy dominated area, keep checking its status - if its flag gets bedraggled, get it out of there immediately or it will die. In such a case you will need to cycle your fleet with another fleet so that each moves from friendly territory to the besieging area and back one turn after the other. Fleets also supply armies in adjacent land areas.

[Southern Hunter]

I recently sat my Spartan army outside Athens for lots of turns. I didn't do any damage to them, they didn't seem to be in any discomfort at all. I cannot guarantee that the sea blockade was in place every turn...I was trying, but it was patchy. If there is a turn without sea blockade, does the food reset?

[Soar]

Check the region screen to see how much food they have stockpiled - it's the same pool as the one used for population growth. Besieged regions can still produce food, at only a -25% penalty if they have an unblockaded harbor exit, but at a rather crippling -75% if they don't. Supply consumption of armies within the region factors in too, but isn't reflected in the consumption listed in the region screen, and some of the food production in the region goes towards feeding the besieging army.

[loki100]

also worth checking if buildings that allow stockpiles of supply are present, these can help improve an otherwise dire supply situation

[vakarr]

Also check how many of your troops have the siege ability

[Southern Hunter]

Also check how many of your troops have the siege ability

None whatsoever (I am Sparta). I presume they still can starve them out though? OK, I don't assume, I am trying to figure it out.

[Soar]

Yeah, if the city is out of food, the defending units should start taking effectiveness hits, then health hits and eventually die of starvation.