Newbie questions about Sieges

[jonp]

All,

I have a few questions about sieges

1) I assume in order to take over a province and be able to get it in the peace treaty, I need to successfully besiege a city, right?

2) How long will this take and how will I know when it is successful (I assume the game will tell me)

3) If I trying to siege a city, why am I out of supply (assume the city I am sieging is in a province right next to one of my provinces)?

4) I noticed that when I attack a province, I get 3 choices (assault, cover and besiege). If I select besiege more then one time, my army keeps getting split (I did this by mistake). How can I get them all grouped together again?

TIA

 

[Dark Knight]

1) To take a province in a peace treaty, you must have control of it, meaning control of the fortress.

2) Length of time of a siege depends on a multitude of factors, especially whether one decides just to besiege the fortress or to take it by assault. Artillery is the primary factor in reducing siege length. When you have reduced a fortification, the picture of army will change from besieging to normal, your flag will appear on the map over the city, and if you click on the province you will see that your shield appears in the upper-left corner of the info screen. You should get a message saying that your forces have conquered the province, and you can make these messages pop-up boxes, if you want.

3)You must be suffering from attrition. Provinces can only support a limited number of troops and armies over this number lose men from attrition at the end of each month.

4) You can't group them again until you take the fort. It's best to never use the besiege option. Your army automatically besieges a province as soon as it enters it. You can continue sieging, try to take the fort by assault (if this fails, your troops resume a normal siege), or use 'cover' if you just want your troops to wait and not besiege the fortress.