Beckoning

[Bulain]

Does anyone know what happens when you use beckoning on a province containing a fortress? Are the people within the fortress safe?
As a corollary if you cast it on your own forest province with a fortress that is being sieged does it affect everyone or just those outside?

[Verjigorm]

In general (to confirm please test yourself):

A spell that targets a province with a castle in it will affect the units in that castle provided there is no sieging force.

If a castle is besieged, casting the spell on that province targets the sieging force rather than the besieged force.

Notably excepted iirc are things like Vengeance of the Dead that target the "most powerful" unit in the province.

[chrispedersen]

if you are a third party, remote assassination spells will randomly target either the sieger or the besieged.

[Gregstrom]

If a castle is besieged, casting the spell on that province targets the sieging force rather than the besieged force.

...unless you're the sieging force, of course. In which case most spells will avoid you (but not Leprosy IIRC - beware!).

TBH, I had believed that in the case of a siege where neither side involved was yours, the target army for ritual damaging spells like FFTS was chosen randomly.

While I've never used Beckoning, I don't think castles will provide any great protection.

[rdonj]

Gregstrom is correct, it is random. Excepting the case where an enemy crone pretender is the one besieging, out of dominion, and laden with artifacts.

[Bulain]

Thanks a lot for the information. I tried testing with the debug mod, but it was like the AI knew what I was planning, and refused to siege my forest fortresses. :(

[Lingchih]

Unfortunately, even with the debug mod, the AI does not become smarter. You need to make the province attractive for the AI.

[thejeff]

Or just play multiple nations and siege it yourself.