This settlement can hold for X turns

[Julianus]

All good points, but I want to add a few.

1. A settlement's food storage should be determined by recent harvest.

2. And it should be influenced by the season when the enemies invade. For example, if an enemy army besieged one of your city in autumn and you cannot relieve it in time, then this city's autumn harvest should be lost, most grain will be reaped by enemies, that should hugely reduce the time the besieged city could last while prolong that of the besieging army. In fact, I remember reading quite a few of such cases in first chapters of Livy's History of Rome when Rome was still a small city/village, and waging minor wars with her neighbors.

[Foot]

All these suggestions are impossible. The only thing that effects turns to surrender under seige is the core_building in the settlement and this is hardcoded.

Foot

[Khan]

Can it not even be reduced? I think the size of the walls, or settement size (both are linked) determines how long a town/ city can withstand a siege. In TW games with 6 months per turn even a small town can hold out large forces for years. Is this realistic? I am inclined to say no. How are you getting around this, less months per turn?

[Foot]

Can it not even be reduced? I think the size of the walls, or settement size (both are linked) determines how long a town/ city can withstand a siege. In TW games with 6 months per turn even a small town can hold out large forces for years. Is this realistic? I am inclined to say no. How are you getting around this, less months per turn?

Hardcoded is hardcoded. we cannot do anything. However, as in EBI, turns in EB represent a three months not six, so a settlement that could hold out for four turns will now hold out for a year, and not two.

Foot

[Khan]

Ahh great that's much better. Thanks for clearing that up Foot.

[Cambyses]

Even if there was some way around the hardcoding there are so many factors that would impact on the length of time a siege would last, it would surely be impossible to implement to a satisfactory standard. I think we should be glad in this case that such hardcodes exist. The most notable issue being that sieges in the ancient world were often abandoned because the besieging army ran out of money/supplies or simply needed to return home and harvest their crops. ie, a well stocked defender would in practice almost never need to surrender.

I should add, I mean surrender in terms of they had run out of food - when no other socio-political factors were in play. And clearly, the more developed and "civilized" a faction was the longer the army could be actively maintained in foreign territory. Which is no doubt an element of realism we would prefer not to see in EB.