Questions on Game Mechanics from a Newb

[SuitedQueens]

After reading the manual, watching tutorials and let's plays on YT and browsing through the forum I still have some questions left. I hope to see regulars respond to all these question without providing much details rather than covering any particular question and ignoring the others. All of those topics are quite murky, but very important and come up a lot during my recent games. More is always appreciated, altho you are in control of the amount time and efforts you are willing to invest in this thread. I'm being sensible here and I know that I'm not entitled to any answers at all. Without further ado here's my questions:

1. Attacking enemy stationary defenders with multiple stacks over span of 1 turn:
   
   Only one battle can occur per region in a given impulse. And what does that mean exactly? How Empires turn is broken into 12 Impulses? I don't get if 1 Impulse = 1 MP always, so move order over the Hills with no roads will cost 3 Impulses? How do you get to that 12 limit then? Light Horse stack has only 8 MP and if I understand it right, then Force March and General bonuses executed before all other stacks impulses. That only amounts to 1 or 2 bonus MP max anyway.
   
   Now to the more practical part. What do I need to do if I want to split my stack into 2 armies and attack with them subsequently? Am I supposed to move them into target region simultaneously and won't they merge automatically in that case? Or I need to move with stack 1 into target region right away, while order stack 2 to move back and forth and only then attack targeted region (if MP allow for that maneuver)?
   
   Specific scenario #1:
   If all aforementioned is true, then does it mean that if the enemy wins last impulse fight (3/3 MP) when both armies move into Hill region, will he take on the role of an attacker if we have more forces and it benefits him to be a defender?
   
   Specific scenario #2:
   My army marches through cost 2 region into cost 3 target region, so 5 total MP required to get there. Enemy needs just 3 total MP to get there and lay siege to our city. We arrive two impulses later (or 2 MP later, right?) and now considered to be an attacker? Why this region is pillaged despite we catch them so fast or any region, where fight occurs will be pillaged on this turn?
2. On roads and merging armies:
   
   Specific scenario #1:
   Our army located in Plains region with roads will move into another Plains with roads, while opponent armies moves into this region from regular plains (no roads). We arrive first (why from mechanical standpoint?) and game assumes that we will be attacker, defender or it depends on stacks power rating?
   
   Excerpt from the manual:
   So if two stacks are adjacent to the same region, they will arrive in that region at the same time (regardless of their total movement points) unless one benefits from being able to follow a road.
   
   How do you time merging before attack properly if stacks start in different regions? Do you have to move frontier army back and forth 1 time before going into target region to allow your second stack to catch up or you have to rely on RNG luck? Or RNG isn't even possible, because it decides only which faction gets impulse first and all stacks within one faction move simultaneously?
   
   Specific example #2:
   So its possible to catch-up only if frontier stack needs 3 MP to move into target region while stack that attempts to merge requires 2 MP to move into frontier stack region?
3. Various food mechanics.
   
   Forage value of the region, pillaging.
   Your army will prioritize foraging region each turn or to drain food supply first? If food supply ends, then army will be supplied from aligned controlled region or it will forage every turn? If your army moves into enemy region and fights there, then region will be pillaged on that turn no matter the result (it seem to happen every time)? Food usage checked every region your army goes through or only for the last region where army stays at the end of it move order?
   
   Food when in occupied regions and besieging enemy region.
   Army stays in occupied region that don't produce any food due to severe unrest and don't have any food stack left. So, food will be provided from aligned region or army will be starving (if forage is not sufficient)? If you besiege enemy city and you have adjacent controlled region, then food will be supplied from there? If you don't have nearby region, then besieging army will use foraging value of this region?
   
   Naval food mechanics.
   Any regions aligned to sea that you occupy or control will supply food to your ships or some kind of port have to be built there? While laying siege on island regions do you have to place any type of ship in any of the surrounding naval regions? How those ships feed themselves and how you supposed to block enemy ports if your ships are not self-sustainable?
4. Small questions:
   
   Industry overflow and max Industry stack size.
   Industry stack size has any limits or you can store as much points as you want theoretically? If enemy conquers that region does he get all those accumulated points or they simply disappear?
   
   Forces healing cost and conditions.
   How much you have to pay for your army to leak their wounds and how can you predict these numbers? Manual states that regions should have at least 50 loyalty to heal your army, but many occupied regions do so too despite their loyalty being way lower than that. Healing works on every damaged unit and activates at the start of the next turn before combats begin? So harassing enemy army over long period of time with skirmishers and light horses stacks strategy is not very effective in practice?
   
   Cavalry effectiveness in pursuit phase.
   Talking about skirmishers + cavalry stacks, how do I know what to expect during retreat pursuit phase? Will your front line be completely destroyed every time or light horses will provide enough protection? Same with judging aggressive pursuit - how much your cavalry really mattes there? Isn't that action is very effective even without them?

[Gray Fox]

1. Only one battle can occur per region in a given impulse is rather obvious. Your real question seems to be about the impulses being 12. A light cavalry unit has movement speed of 10, not 8, and a General with the Relentless trait grants +2 movement speed (See the pic below).

To have more than one battle in the same region, your stacks have to split their arrival impulse. Let's say three regions (A, B & C) are all connected to each other. So if you have region A with two of your stacks and region B with the enemy stack, then one of your stacks can move directly into B and the second stack would move into C first and then into B. Then you get two battles in B, if you didn't win the first.

So scenario #1 is not true.

In scenario #2, you seem to ask two things. When your force arrives in one of your regions under siege, then you are attacking the enemy force laying siege.

About foraging causing a region to be pillaged, from the manual:

6.5.4. Foraging
If a region does not have enough supply points for the military force
present then the army will forage the land, unless it is already pillaged.
Each unit foraging might pillage the region, and if this happens, food
production will be reduced until the region recovers.

[Gray Fox]

2. Scenario #1

From the manual:

Right clicking on a hostile army will instruct your army to attempt
to intercept that army. Right clicking on another of your own armies
will also attempt to intercept that army and merge with it.

So, if you click on the enemy stack, then your stack would pursue it into the adjacent region, and your stack would be the attacker. I've done this to stacks of barbarians that I pursued. If you just move into the region, you may end up the defender.

Scenario #2
Not to my experience, so no. Merging stacks that then attack in the same turn is very difficult. Usually this does not happen as hoped. I've chosen to merge first, so that I can see that the right General was chosen and then attack the next turn.

3. Each individual unit requires a fraction of a Food unit. Most require 0.5, with some only needing 0.17 to 0.83. So I have always taken the food requirement literally. The one food unit to 5 supply points may equate to the fractions used.

Looks like a stack would drain food supplies first in the region it occupies at the beginning of its turn. A stack in an enemy region draws supply from an adjacent friendly region or naval stack. A naval stack provides one supply point per ship. If a stack is out of supply, then foraging occurs. Naval supply is tricky. You must rotate a stack of ships to maintain a blockade so that they return to an adjacent source of supply at least every other turn. This is what the manual states:

6.5.1. Supply
Supply for your military units in Field of Glory: Empires relies on the
production of sufficient supply either in the region they occupy or an
adjacent region (if it is friendly). Failure to keep an army supplied will
lead to first a loss of combat efficiency and then the destruction of units.
Food is converted to supply points automatically when needed,
with one food giving 5 points, and this ratio can be altered depending
on your buildings, ruler or decisions. In addition, some powerful
buildings generate ‘free supply’ each turn. If this is not required by
units in the surrounding regions, the conversion does not happen.
Having a big army standing in a region will significantly slow its growth (it
might even trigger a famine), as the soldiers are served before the population.
Provinces do not provide immediate benefits over a region regarding
supplying the troops, although since food is partially averaged each
turn across a province, the logistics should be easier to cope with.78
6.5.2. Effect of lack of Supply
If a unit is out of supply then in the first turn it will lose one point of
effectiveness (10.5., once it has lost all its effectiveness it will start to
lose hit points. If an army can’t be maintained due to lack of resources
(such as money) a similar process will be followed.
Play note: This means that weak units (such as skirmishers) are particularly
vulnerable to the effects of being out of supply or a lack of maintenance.
6.5.3. Naval Resupply
Ships will also provide 1 free supply point per ship to an adjacent land
unit (if this is needed after other sources of food have been used).
This supply can be provided both to units being moved by sea and
to land units in a region adjacent to the coast.
6.5.4. Foraging
If a region does not have enough supply points for the military force
present then the army will forage the land, unless it is already pillaged.
Each unit foraging might pillage the region, and if this happens, food
production will be reduced until the region recovers.

[SuitedQueens]

Edited out some questions that I tested extensively today. I really appreciate your help Gray Fox. I browsed through your guides and AAR's to find some optimization strategies and you gave me a lot of ideas. I'm kind of person who are willing to micro everything down to the point to reading majority of the detailed message reports every turn.

Can you provide info on the early game diplomacy usage. I read your posts on Client States tips, Relinquishing worthless objectives, sending gifts to open up a lot of opportunities quickly. What do I need to do to improve base relations relatively fast without sending a ton of gifts? I want to try to abuse diplomacy with many nations at the same time from the beginning, so I proly won't have enough economy to bribe them all.

My 2nd general question would be on pop growth. In many 4x games its the most important part of the early game and beyond. Reading your tips it doesn't appear to be that important. Do you have any points where you are speeding up past typical 10+, but less than 20 food surplus balance? I mean beside the points when you don't have any free building slots left.

[Gray Fox]

Glad to help!

Clausewitz noted that a General is called a genius for turning an enemy's flank. Of course, a mere Lieutenant knows the advantage of doing this. The General is a genius, because he ignored all the confusion and distractions of a great battle and focused on doing what was absolutely necessary to win. So, focus your diplomatic efforts on achieving the most important goal first. As Burgundii, after I made the Picts into a CS, everything else was easy.

A region's population can boom right into rampant unrest and too many populous regions in unrest can cause civil wars. Specialize your provinces so that you get the most out of a population of 25 or so. You need Culture to reach region Legacy milestones. Money, manpower and metal are necessary for a strong military. Make one province into an arsenal to take advantage of the bonus from multiple buildings that provide experienced units. I've won with less than 90 regions under my control. Here's a pop. 27 region pumping out 405 culture and 3 Legacy per turn. Good luck!

[SuitedQueens]

I read those pages from the manual (related to food) couple of times before posting my questions. Can you clarify these particular aspects sorted in order of importance. Can you confirm or disapprove my conclusions too (simple yes or no will do):

1) Food usage and healing occurs at the beginning of the next turn before any movement happens or is it checked in the last region where army stays at the end of their move order?

Conclusion #1: if my army can't reach enemy region in one turn and I want to weaken enemy army before the fight it can be viable to harass them with cheap suicidal skirmishers+light horses stack to drain their effectiveness and health.

2) Does pillage has a chance to happen in the region you are attacking that aligned to your own region? Why am I asking this? Because I had similar situation couple of times already. I know that someone will besiege me next turn. I move my army back and forth to be an attacker against their 2-1 general and export battle to FoG 2. They spend 1-2 impulses max on my territory and it becomes pillaged despite enemy army in no need of foraging due to supplies that can be provided from aligned enemy region.

Conclusion #2: Harassing with skirmishers+light horses an army that stays on occupied region that produces less food can cut off their foraging options and incur pillage penalty on the region to reduce food production even more.

3) If food supply in the region ends, pop can't produce more and region is pillaged, then army will be supplied from this region or aligned one?

Conclusion #3: If I understand this right, former is true. Altho doesn't make a lot of sense, it can be a good way to starve enemy army or force them out of that region.

4) How do you supply army that besieging enemy region which doesn't have any of your own nearby, no naval regions close and besieged region being pillaged last turn after the foraging action?

Conclusion #4: By mistake (garrisoning my army) I lured enemy stacks into laying siege on my deep regions and they become under supplied right away despite region having enough forage value to supply they army? Why and is it viable tactic for save scummers (if you are going for the quickest wins), cause it too unreliable otherwise?

5) Any region aligned to sea that you occupy or control will supply food to your ships or some kind of port have to be built there? How ships feed themselves in the open ocean?

Conclusion #5: When we are staying in the open ocean with land units and naval units stack, then naval units feed land units and starve themselves? Is there any tactic to increase ports food supply further into the ocean? I don't see how you supposed to block enemy ports if your ships are not self-sustainable. Enemy can easily bring in his own fresh fleet to crush you. What is it I miss here? That must be viable somehow.

6) Just to be sure: under loyalty 50 regions can't restore your troops hitpoints, but still restore effectiveness?

7) What is your acceptable growth rate? Anything beyond about 18 turns is too long? Let's say I have big region that don't have a lot of slaves and my food surplus is around +18, so it takes some time to grow a new pop. Do I redistribute my citizens to produce more food or take building slots to create food and health buildings?

Again, its about rate. In those situations do you recommend to stay in 10-20 food surplus area or increase it to the point where it takes 18 or less turns to grow a new pop?

[Gray Fox]

1.

1) Supply, and therefore healing, happens at the end of the turn.
Conclusion #1: When you lose a battle, even a skirmish, it counts against you in the War Score. So losing skirmishes won't help you in the long run.

2) The enemy stacks, like your own, have the pillage command. So the AI used the command to pillage your region. See the pic below.
Conclusion #2: I believe you must be alone in the region to pillage it, so no.

3) In a desolated region, an army would draw supply from a friendly adjacent region or fleet.
Conclusion #3: as above.

4) In that situation, you might switch out the force laying siege with a relief force. Good Generals discuss tactics, great ones discuss logistics. You should seldom lay siege without a supply base.
Conclusion #4: The AI made the mistake I described. You bought the game, so you can exploit the AI as you wish.

5) Port structures are more for trade. A fleet in a sea region next to a friendly region with food draws supply normally right off the shore.
Conclusion #5: A naval blockade does very little, actually. It's necessary to enforce a siege, but otherwise trade still flows. To enforce a siege, you must rotate in supplied ships each turn.

6) Yes, from the manual:
10.5.9. Recovering Losses
If a unit takes hits or losses in combat it can recover if there are
sufficient global resources (manpower, money and metal) and it is
resting in a region with positive loyalty (i.e. over 50) and positive food
production.
The presence of the hospital building will speed this process.
If a unit has lost effectiveness, then this will be recovered first
(unless it is in a region with a hospital). Effectiveness can be recovered
in any region as long as sufficient food is available.

7) Food averages out in a province. You should be able to grow a small region in a province as quick as you want by having other regions essentially growing food for it. Remember that winning battles also wins your slave market regions or your Capital more population. However, you win the game with Legacy points. A region can reach culture milestones that then generate Legacy points every turn. You get culture primarily from citizens and/or structures. The goal is not to increase the population, but to increase the Legacy score. Yes, you want excess food and infrastructure points, but you want to generate culture and Legacy as quickly as possible.

[Swuul]

I'll go through your list later (when I happen to have time), but a few things first.

Supply, just as attrition, random events etc are checked at the *start* of the turn, not at the end like Gray Fox claims (he has been told this several times, but for some reason chooses to believe his "alternate truth"). In effect, when you get a new turn, you are seeing the situation between the previous turn and the situation before the new turn; you then give orders, press End turn, and the turn actually begins (random events, decissions, weather, supply, attrition and replacements, movement impulses).

Thus if you see you are unsupplied and are in a region without supplies, you wll suffer attrition, there is nothing you can do about it. Likewise, you may see your stack has the unsupplied flag, but is in a region with enough supplies -> the stack will not suffer (more) attrition (and if it has suffered attrition losses during past turn(s) it will regenerate).

There are 12 impulses in a turn, of which the two first only happen in regions where there are leader(s) who have +2 movement (if the leader has +1 movemet, then the first impulse nothing happens, but they take action on impulse #2). All unit stacks who are not led by a leader with movement malus (ie not a leader with -1 MP) start acting on impulse #3. Stacks with a leader with a movement malus (MP-1) start acting on impulse #4. Stacks act in each impulse from that on, until the movement limit of the stack is reached (the slowest unit in the stack determines the movement limit).
For example, a stack with 10 Light Cavalry and 1 Heavy Infantry, led by a MP-1 leader, act on impulses 4 to 8.
NB! If there is enemies in the region, then if necessary all impulses are played out due to combat. Combat is checked for at the start of each impulse, if there is enemies in region, movement is locked (and both stacks in essence lose that movement point, if they still had movement points left or not) and combat happens -> if combat ends in draw, then both sides are still locked in combat at the start of the next impulse, and so on.

[SuitedQueens]

I figured out that most actions and events happen at the very start of the turn. Otherwise, it would be too easy to catch these constantly failing raiders at low effectiveness.

I employed harassing tactic and it's pretty effective, altho not the most optimal solution as Gray Fox said. What makes it so efficient? I usually have better attack score general and this fact coupled with damaged enemy units tips the scales in my favor way too much, because I export most of my battles to FoG 2 (with Rise of AI mod for fun and realistic gameplay). That also mean that I don't get any draws in serious battles and can capture regions with big garrisons with smaller armies that doesn't even cover the full frontage (unless enemy army hides in the garrison, so I can't export).

Impulse system is very intuitive and easy to follow actually. Most of my confusion came from the false assumption that Light Horse units has 8 AP instead of 10. Thx for clarifying it and I think you can't really affect it. I just wanted to know how to interact with it in meaningful way. I saw your tip on movement speed bonuses in the other thread and abused the hell out of it already. One of the most powerful mechanics IMO.

On pillaging: enemies must hate me, because when the battle takes place on my territory, they issue pillage order almost every time even when they have adjacent regions which can easily supply them.

On naval sieges and supply: that is the part I don't understand. Why adjacent ships can feed your land units in the sea and on the land mass, but can't feed your regular fleet in the same way? When they do that, then they provide infinite 1 food supply per ship and starve themselves at the same time?

So, by rotating supplying or besieging fleet you mean returning starving ships back to the port and moving fresh ones into supplying role? And while these fresh ships slowly starve you repair your retreated fleet to replace starving fleet in time?

On question 3: are you sure? Same scenario happened to me again. My army stayed stationary in the occupied region that had 0 food supply and 0 forage value. My fully developed region with enough food to feed couple of armies was right next to it, but despite that fact army in the occupied region starved.

On side note, can someone explain how that happened? I began a new campaign with Rome and this chain of events taken place.

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[Gray Fox]

@Swuul At the beginning of a turn, you can see that all the units moved, all the battles were fought and some stacks may be out of supply. That is a direct result of the units that moved, fought battles and were out of supply at the last turn's end.

UitedQueens posted:

"On question 3: are you sure? Same scenario happened to me again. My army stayed stationary in the occupied region that had 0 food supply and 0 forage value. My fully developed region with enough food to feed couple of armies was right next to it, but despite that fact army in the occupied region starved."

Was the adjacent region that had extra food in a province that did not? Was it pillaged? Was a storm perhaps preventing movement?

As to the pics, your texts correctly describe what I see. The enemy had a meeting engagement with your force set to retaliate. The enemy fled Picanum by sea because your force moved into Aemilia. Your navy eliminated their damaged units.

So why did your force take Aemilia and not retaliate? A force that has lost it's General in battle can no longer retaliate. So if your force in Aemilia no longer has a General, that's what happened. Or after fighting the enemy in Picanum, your force had been switched from retaliate by a game mechanic and assaulted Aemilia instead. If not, the faction may have just simply collapsed. So their units became neutral.

[SuitedQueens]

I think I found effective way to ramping up relationship score pretty much for free. As I said earlier I like to scroll through world map with detailed reports activated to see what's going on. Each turn I look through all battles that happened for every faction, new factions appearing, new regions being discovered, who in war with who, relationship change messages, deserters due to upkeep and regional decisions. I wondered how can I exploit this info right away?

And there is very effective way actually. Insult Emissary option lands you great returns and always successful. Those big Diadochi nations love to get into wars against everyone from the get go. By watching how well they do and how many enemies they have you can gauge your "insult" option efficiency. And it's not like 1 point of relationships improved. Usually it's 10 relations penalty with insulted faction and +5 bonus with all their enemies. It is instantaneous action too, so you don't have to wait extra turn. Easy way of being aggressive with Diplomacy from turn 1.

[Gray Fox]

The obvious question becomes, "What happens when all of the insulted factions declare war on you?" I believe that it is wise to focus on exactly what needs to be done to win and exclude whatever doesn't get you across the finish line. However, good luck with that plan!

[Swuul]

@Swuul At the beginning of a turn, you can see that all the units moved, all the battles were fought and some stacks may be out of supply. That is a direct result of the units that moved, fought battles and were out of supply at the last turn's end.

For heavens sake. Look at the game code if you don't believe what you are told. Supply is checked at the start of the turn, not at the end as you falsely claim. Repeating a lie does not make it true.

[SuitedQueens]

The obvious question becomes, "What happens when all of the insulted factions declare war on you?" I believe that it is wise to focus on exactly what needs to be done to win and exclude whatever doesn't get you across the finish line. However, good luck with that plan!

It works because you don't insult nations nearby unless you will be going to war with them soon. You are not scared taunting nations that are very far or losing the wars and will be eliminated soon. Most of the time big nations has multiple wars going on, so by insulting them you drop relationships by -10 and increase their enemies by 5. Then you insult 2 or more of their smaller enemies you don't care about (+5-10=-5), which in turn reverts relationship with big nation back to 0 (-10+5+5=0) and you still gain +5 with those nations who matter every turn.

As you can imagine nations like Carthage have multiple enemies and by insulting all of them you gain 10-15 relationship boost per turn. That way I can dump my non-slave pop into Gold production to support multiple big armies in the very early game and buy Manpower from the other nations.

[Gray Fox]

Sounds like a plan.

[SuitedQueens]

I got a new bunch of questions:

1) I found an old thread dedicated to overseas invasions and fleet supply strategies, so I don't need any more help on that topic.

2) Health buildings - if I understand this correctly they provide bonuses only to the region where they are built. Are they really that effective or only worth their slot usage in the big cities? I can't imagine focusing region on the health building tho.
I guess they can provide those bonus +1 pop events and some decisions can benefit from having only one of them. I saw that some of the tier 2 and 3 buildings offer % bonuses, but is it worthwhile to spend so many slots on them?

3) Military buildings - you get the full effect from the first Military building built anywhere in your province and + half effect for each identical building? Or it's very important to have one of those 4 in your province capital to receive any bonuses at all?

4) Movement rules - attacking with multiple armies one target on the same turn. Let's say we have 2 stacks:
1 suicidal harassers composed of skirmishers that will spend 2 MP to attack target army stationed in the region with no walls and lose on the first impulse. Main stack moves 1 MP sideways (using roads), spends 1 MP to return back into original position, and then 2 MP to attack the target. The question is - stack that lost the battle retreats immediately or stays in the target region, where it will be merged with main stack?

5) Movement rules, assaults - Is it possible to include 1 assault of the walled city as a part of your movement order? So, if you have enough MP to assault one city (does every fight drain 1 MP?) and move into another enemy region with no walls next, is the second fight going to take place?
If thats the case, is it true that you can perform only one assault of the walled city per turn? And if you move with assault command on from the one walled city region to another, then the first assault will happen and you lay siege on the second region?

6) Movement rules, assaults while besieging - IIRC siege damage is one of those events that happens at the beginning of the next turn. So, if your enemy has developed nice road connections, but build walls only in the frontier regions. Is it possible starting in the frontier region which you besieging since the last turn to move in the enemy unwalled region, take it, then proceed to the second unwalled region, take it too and return to the original region to continue your siege? Obviously you should do that with no assault command to not attack original region right away.

7) Why pillaging is important? IIRC pillaging destroys only the forage value of the land. How does it help against enemies who can supply their armies from adjustment regions? It doesn't incur any penalties like raid does too, right? I read somewhere that it can turn your enemy logistics to hell, but I don't quite see how.

8) Just to be sure:
-Taking objectives reduces your decadence age penalty by 20%?
- Open terrain affects food output (I think I saw that in the manual)? Or is it better to specialize these regions to food production because of the building requirements?
- Stationing your forces in the provincial capital provides 25% upkeep bonus?
- Units experience affects their upkeep cost and doesn't account for anything when exporting battles to FoG 2?
- Only highest % bonus per province applies, so no stacking from different buildings possible? Or it works like military, where only identical buildings from the different regions will provide half effect?
- Every fights drains 1 MP or more if it continues for more than 1 round? If after the battle your stack has 1 MP left and continuing with the original plan costs 2 MP, then your stack won't move further?

[Swuul]

Regarding assault and movement. Using the Assault order the stack attacks first eligible city, checked after movement is completed.

A stack can not assault several cities with a single assault city order during same turn.

If a stack is in a region with a city it could assault, and you give orders to move on from the region, but it takes exactly 1 MP to leave the region, then the stack will not assault that city, but whatever city happens to be next on their path.

[SuitedQueens]

If a stack is in a region with a city it could assault, and you give orders to move on from the region, but it takes exactly 1 MP to leave the region, then the stack will not assault that city, but whatever city happens to be next on their path.

Quick follow up question: I have stack that has 6 MP and laying siege on the enemy city. Let's assume enemy has roads everywhere. I activate assault order, move in to the walled enemy region (costs 1 MP) and take it from them. I move to the right next to attack the region with no walls (another 1 MP) and capture it. After that my stack returns to original region (1+1 = 2 MP). Total cost is 4 MP.

Or every fight during this path will consume 1 MP if I able to win them in 1 impulse? Every draw will add another 1 MP on top? If I win both fights right away, then total cost equals to 4+2=6 MP and I will return to continue my siege in time? But if one of those fights takes 2 rounds, then I won't have enough to return to the original position?

[Swuul]

It would take 4 MP (move&assault, move, battle (unwalled towns can't be assaulted), move. However, this is an extremely risky manouver, because if the defender of the first region puts out even a single slinger (be it out from the besieged city or because of a random event or what ever reason), or your stack is delayed for some reason (for example random event, or leader retires due to old age, or sudden weather change, etc) you will end up assaulting that city (which sounds like it is a heavily fortified city, so it would end up in a massacre). In MP's you can expect the other players do this nearly guaranteed, and the AI does this occasionally too (though I am not sure if it is by design or by wonkiness in the code, but the result is often very good for the AI so I for one haven't thought of it as a bug). Thus personally I would avoid this kind of a move unless absolutely desperate.

[SuitedQueens]

Tell me why that's wrong. Drawing some conclusions from your previous answers: any action like assault, combat, etc is checked after impulse is complete. Otherwise assault order will be executed right away and that 1 MP trick won't work.

Proly I misunderstand your previous messages. Movement cost is 1 everywhere, stack finish moving into the region after the impulse 3/12 ends, battle takes place during impulse 4/12 (assault of the walled city), you spend 1 MP to move into the next region on impulse 5/12, win on impulse 6/12 and use impulses 7, 8/12 to move back into original region. At the end of impulse 8/12 your stack besieges enemy town again, which is checked at the very beginning of the next turn.

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And about that skirmisher strat - why would that work? At the end of the impulse 3/12 our stack will be in the other region or do you mean they will catch me on 8/12? Let's say it's the same situation, but with no assault order. Can I export battle to FoG 2 or attacking that one skirmisher viewed as assaulting the city anyway? And we can't assault two cities per turn no matter what, right?