siege gameplay is near perfect

i just had my first two battles defending on the campaing map and it was as much fun defending as i have had attacking. i had to think about where to place my missile units and melee units, which units to place on the walls as opposed to the gates, and the plaza, which units to counter the different types of siege engines the enemy was bringing on, and where on the walls and ground to put my reinforcements.

1. it is great that you get to make siege engines at the city site instead of having to make them as separate military units and drag them around with your armies.

2. it is nice that you can use all the main methods used historically. towers, rams and ladders. sapping, which i thought would be very difficult to actually integrate, works seamlessly with the other options. my only little criticism of the whole siege aspect is i wish there was countersapping and it would penalize the defender because one of his units would be inactive while it was countersapping, and the countersap might not necessarily work. but again that is very minor.

3. i love the way you can fight over the various entry points and battles can flow back and forth over a certain section of the walls or a particular tower or a breach or the gate depending on where each side is committing its reserves.

4. the idea of troops fighting on the walls has been on CA's minds since shogun, but the implementation was always the kicker, i.e how to get men off an on the walls and show wall battles and i think they've done excellent work here.

5. walls do make a difference. it is much easier for a couple of hundred guys to hold off a much larger army if they're behind say stone walls as opposed to woodenwalls. i've never really understood historically how, as in the various sieges of constantinople, the defenders would be outnumbered by a huge margin and the attacker would throw everything at them, and yet the defenders would still be able to hold; or conversely the attacker gaining local superiority at just one entry point can cause the whole defense to collapse. being able to see this in game has made things like that a lot more plausible to me now, and sieges have become the most immersive part or rtw for me. well done.