Can't avoid war

[Casus_Belli]

I (France) was besieging Zurich and the Brits gave me an ultimatum. I picked Stop the War, but now I'm at war with Britain anyway, which I didn't want to be.

[Casus_Belli]

I am at war with Italia (I want to be), and I have forces in Italia, but they are not besieging Bologna. Why not?

You might say, "look in the manual", but it's hard to find stuff in the manual. You don't want to have to read the whole damn thing every time you need some clarification.

Wonderful game, by the way.

[jimwinsor]

A couple of reasons Bologna is not being sieged right away:

1) Just had a battle there (cannot siege a city same turn enemy forces outside city present.)

2) Not enough "siege points." See manual pg. 19...goes into a little discussion, but short version: you need X number of guys sieging to get a siege check, and you might not have that many.

[Casus_Belli]

Thanks very much, Jim. That explains it.

Now I have had a unit surrounded for more than a day, pouring shot into it from six of my units (including two artillery units which only take ten casualties sometimes - a little light on for arty at point-blank range, I would've thought), and it still has morale at 4 and is holding out, no fortifications, no nothing. Seems a tad unrealistic.

[jimwinsor]

Yeah it is a bit odd for a unit in tactical combat surrounded like that not to start to lose morale big time. If you surrounded it right...you should get a lot of "flankers" which are points which cause extra morale loss when you shoot at a unit. Right click on the enemy unit to see how many flankers you got on him. Each good order unit facing a unit (has to be directly facing) = one flanker on that enemy unit.

There is this cool rule, "combined arms," which *doubles* your flanker points if you have each of art, inf and cav as your facing units. Also the Flanking Tactics upgrade doubles things too. Not sure if these are cumulative (I imagine they are).

It's learning how to use these tactical tricks, remembering them, and then realizing the opportunity to employ them which makes the tactical game so fun fun fun IMO! After you've played around a bit, when you get a chance you should give the rulebook a good reading; it'll be worth your while!

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: Casus_Belli

Thanks very much, Jim. That explains it.

Now I have had a unit surrounded for more than a day, pouring shot into it from six of my units (including two artillery units which only take ten casualties sometimes - a little light on for arty at point-blank range, I would've thought), and it still has morale at 4 and is holding out, no fortifications, no nothing. Seems a tad unrealistic.

Are you artillery units in the 'in-line' formation? Also, if some of the fire is taking place during night turns, then that also reduces the amount of casualties taken.