Siege Mining

[Noncommunist]

Is there any chance of mining showing up in Empire Total War? I'm not entirely sure how important it was in that period considering the last siege that I know of that included it was the Siege of Vienna in 1683 which was before Empire. (However, I don't know that much about sieges in the period in general) But if it was important, how would it be incorporated into Empire? I was thinking maybe it could be an option on the siege window. Then, it would switch to battle mode in a way where you see some diggers and you have some soldiers guard them. The digging would probably have to be sped to be interesting but if counter miners would discover the tunnel, all of it would be slowed down so the battle could take place. Perhaps since the numbers of men down there would be so small, perhaps the men could be controlled like in the Myth Series. Also, maybe the estimation of how close the wall is could be left to the player who has to guess where the charge should be placed.

Any thoughts on the idea?

[PBI]

I would imagine it could be done the same as sapping in RTW, except that instead of the wall collapsing, it will explode. I imagine all the siege equipment options, like siege towers, rams etc will be replaced by more relevant siege preparations, such as trenches, artillery emplacements etc.

And I know mining was used in WWI and the American civil war. If as you say it was also used before the time period, then I see no reason why it couldn't have been used during the period, even if it never actually was.

[CBR]

Mining and countermining was certainly an important part of siege warfare throughout the era.

I think it is possible to create a more complex siege battle than what has been seen so far in Total War games. The question is how to make it happen in a fun way. If at least each fortification could be unique so the player would actually have to think a bit...


CBR

[Noncommunist]

Do you think they would actually include siege mining in the game? Since they didn't have it in MTW2, would that be a bit of a precedent for Empire or would they have the power to do it now?

[Fadly]

I would imagine it could be done the same as sapping in RTW, except that instead of the wall collapsing, it will explode. I imagine all the siege equipment options, like siege towers, rams etc will be replaced by more relevant siege preparations, such as trenches, artillery emplacements etc.

that depend on the scale of the battle. in M2TW, the size of the army are pretty small, around 2000 units max, while the size of the fortification are enormous. in a real world, such a siege would've been done by at least 10000 strong army. you can't really surround the whole fortifications with just 2000. it's more like knocking on the front door.

[Noncommunist]

I think one of the other threads said that 10,000 man armies would exist in Empire so a fortification may actually be able to be surrounded

Though in the Americas campaign as the Aztecs, I had so many stacks that I often was able to fully surround a city before besieging it.