Excessive casualties for beseiging units

[Hard Sarge]

Roger, we can see what happens down the road, right now, all I can do is offer ideas or what not on what is going to happen with what we have now

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

So I guess for now, the game requires contact to start a siege. I guess I could just wait in the province for those garrisons to starve simply due to lack of a supply line (they're way down in Florida and at the start of the game supply by sea is going to be a bit difficult for the USA, I think).

Hopefully my suggestion in the wish list thread will materialize. There I asked if future patches could allow instant encircling strategy with no initial contact (just set up out of reach of the guns and wait for the garrison to starve). If I have roughly equal numbers of troops, the garrison shouldn't attack even to free up their supply line (the guns in the fort should be relatively immobile and hence useless in this counterattacking situation). And if they do attack, I would gladly welcome a defending situation with roughly equal numbers of troops.

Why would you expect any such thing?

You cannot besiege a force with the same number of troops. To besiege a fort, you must surround it - to do so out of gun range, you must do so at a substantital distance.

That means you are spread out - and in fact it is likely that a relatively small besieging force cannot really surround the fort at all, but rather is just patrolling the area, and trying to stop supplies from getting in.

So if the garrison sorties, they are going to do so en masse, and strike some msall part of your siege lines, where they will enjoy a very large local advantage.

I don't know if that is what the game is simulating, but I think the idea that you can besiege a fort with a couple of brigades is simply silly. If it was that easy, nobody would build forts to begin with.

[Berkut]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

I think I must be seriously doing something wrong here or the game is way too excessive in dishing out casualties for the first turn of a siege.

I started a July 1861 game as CSA and immediately besieged the Union fort in Northern Florida using the army of Pensacola. I thought I'd start the siege with the two infantry brigades present in the Army of Pensacola, bring in a few brigades from nearby Alabama and transport the siege artillery located in SC to join in.

When I got the siege message at the end of turn 1, I was dismayed at the number of casualties I sustained. I lost something like 3000 men straight away. One of the two initial brigades was apparently completely destroyed as I could not locate it anywhere. I wanted to test this to see if it was a bug or just a weird individual outcome, so I tried it again. The same thing happened.

Is this a bug, or does the game actually intend to simulate these high casualties?

Here is what happened:

The Union forces, well aware of your blundering approach, allowed your two brigades to set up a thin skirmish line just outside gun range. But your largely inept troops, unlearned in the art of siege warfare, lacking engineers or siege equipment, did a poor job of setting up local security, and the inadequate number of troops made a true encirclement impossible. Instead, the local commander was forced to disperse his two brigades into regimental sized conentrations, hoping that constant patrolling could keep the Union from resupplying the fort.

A pre-dawn sorty of one of the defnding brigades caught the out of position besiegers by surprise. Since they did not have adequate numbers to actually surround the position, the sallying brigade was able to hit elements of one of your brigades in turn, routing each regiment as they rolled up the pooorly sketched out siege lines.

By the time your second brigade was able to respond, your first brigade had been shattered, and the Union forces retreated back into the fort, largely unblooded by their mornings work.

Oops.

[Gil R.]

You can't sit in a province cutting off supply to a fort -- forts have an enormous amount of supplies stored away. So just sitting there does nothing, but an encirclement siege degrades their strength, which is an abstract way of recognizing that they physically deteriorate but also lose food, supplies, etc.

Also, I should note that Hard Sarge's nightmare of a fort is impossible to have at the beginning of a game -- it requires both the weapons research upgrade for Gatlings and the one for Spencers.

[Berkut]

Todays lesson: Concentrate your forces before moving into an attack. Do not assume your opponent is just going to sit there are wait until you concentrate after contact.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

You can't sit in a province cutting off supply to a fort -- forts have an enormous amount of supplies stored away. So just sitting there does nothing, but an encirclement siege degrades their strength, which is an abstract way of recognizing that they physically deteriorate but also lose food, supplies, etc.

Also, I should note that Hard Sarge's nightmare of a fort is impossible to have at the beginning of a game -- it requires both the weapons research upgrade for Gatlings and the one for Spencers.

Roger Gil, but I was saying down the road, it can be worse

[TimoN]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

but a Fort with a Heavy Gun, and 2 Rifle pits, and 3 Inf Bdes with decent training armmed with Spencers and Gattlings and Arty is going to be a mother to take

and it should be

LOL, I got shivers thinking about that Fort, I do not want to see that bugger

So lets pretend that this is your nightmare:

You start to besiege with three siege artillery units and ten infantry brigades.

In the first turn three defending brigades you described each randomly pick one of the siege artillery units and deals 4000 casualties to each of them thus completely destroying them. Your siege is over before it even started.

[Gil R.]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

You can't sit in a province cutting off supply to a fort -- forts have an enormous amount of supplies stored away. So just sitting there does nothing, but an encirclement siege degrades their strength, which is an abstract way of recognizing that they physically deteriorate but also lose food, supplies, etc.

Also, I should note that Hard Sarge's nightmare of a fort is impossible to have at the beginning of a game -- it requires both the weapons research upgrade for Gatlings and the one for Spencers.

Roger Gil, but I was saying down the road, it can be worse

I hear you. But as a developer, I needed to make sure that there wasn't some destructive meme spreading on all of the war-gaming boards that those idiots at WCS and Matrix have equipped garrisons with Gatling guns...

[Hard Sarge]

I hear you. But as a developer, I needed to make sure that there wasn't some destructive meme spreading on all of the war-gaming boards that those idiots at WCS and Matrix have equipped garrisons with Gatling guns...

hehe, one of my tricks is to place a Spencer armmed unit, with a double gattlings upgrade dugin in front of one of my big Arty guns, the first shot is bad, the 2nd shot is deadly

Soooooo

Forts down the road can be nasty

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: TimoN

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

but a Fort with a Heavy Gun, and 2 Rifle pits, and 3 Inf Bdes with decent training armmed with Spencers and Gattlings and Arty is going to be a mother to take

and it should be

LOL, I got shivers thinking about that Fort, I do not want to see that bugger

So lets pretend that this is your nightmare:

You start to besiege with three siege artillery units and ten infantry brigades.

In the first turn three defending brigades you described each randomly pick one of the siege artillery units and deals 4000 casualties to each of them thus completely destroying them. Your siege is over before it even started.

to be honest, no, I do not think that will happen, Seige guns are not normal combat units, so I do not think they would be treated the same as the other units

for what ever reason, I do see Gunboats take heavy losses, but I not seen Seige guns

and as always, there are other tricks that can be pulled

hitting a Fort like that head on, is asking for hurts

[Sheytan]

nice thing about forts and something quite realistic is the ability to actually capture it and use it yourself :} I like that.

[Hard Sarge]

you got to watch how much power you use in attack them, you can destroy them too

[Sheytan]

if I have the numbers instead of encircle I use normal siege, I can kill off the defenders quicker and preserve the fort.

[Proton250]

I'm playing the basic game.  I've got two seiges going at the same time, one with a division of infantry, the other with a division of 4 infantry and an artillery brigade and a gunboat.  I've encircled with my infantry division and things are working great.  The division with artillery and the gunboat are doing absolutely nothing.  I've tried normal, bomard and encircle and the city is actually getting stronger.  What am I doing wrong?
By the way I love this game!!

[Hard Sarge]

need more info on what is going on, how many defenders, what do the end of turn reports look like, do both seiges show a seige works ?

[Proton250]

3000 defenders in each city. The seige works are there. The artillery and gunboat was brought in after the beginning of the seige. When I had infantry things were going fine. As soon as the gunboat and artillery showed the city stopped taking damage.

[Hard Sarge]

okay for the one, it looks like it is just too few troops, the gunboat should help though, the Arty Bde will not really add anything to the seige, if the losses are not too bad, I would put it on encircle and wait for more troops to be able to join it

if you starting to lose too many troops, I would break it off and wait for help

4 Bdes is not enough with out alot of side skills added to them