[Stryke11]

I always wondered why my armies would mop the floor with the AI, but then I'd storm a fort and I'd lose like 10X the amount of men as the enemy and lose the fight. Turns out it's all about morale.

My guys were in enemy domain and starving. I even had the prophet Sermon of Couraging but still the majority of my elite troops had morale 5.

So the moral of the story is when seiging, especially if the enemy pretender has fear and you're in their domain, keep an eye on morale.