Seiges

[Mooks]

Unlike what the people at CA think. Seiges werent done in a day. If you had onagers and other seige engines you didnt say "This friday, we start bombarding", you bombarded them for days and months until those walls went down.

In other words, the seige needs revamped. Some scenarios like sneaking food in, or raiding (to destroy progress on seige towers and the like) and stuff like that. Or maybe even slipping the army out. The army in the castle also needs to have the ability to capitualate in exchange for their lives (With or without the king's permission, this would be done by loyalty).

[Furious Mental]

I don't know. I much as I like the realistic aspect of battering walls down over a period of many months, I also just happen to find it really enjoyable doing it on the battle map.

[screwtype]

The game turns are really too long to simulate what you are suggesting holybandit. But personally, I'd like to see it taking longer to actually batter those walls down. The way they just collapse after having a couple of rocks hit them is ludicrous. They should be much tougher to break down, which would give a correspondingly greater sense of achievement if and when you finally broke through.

[O'ETAIPOS]

There is one bigger issue - some fortreses were just imposible to capture by starvation with only the army. If there was a port on in city and attackers had weak navy then they could sit for decades without effect.

Other problem is that small army cant siege big city because they are not possible to cut it from suplies. This is Hannibal's problem - his 40000 strong army was not able to neither assault nor siege Rome because of the city size.

In RTW even one unit could starve huge city to death.

Another issue. Home defence. It would be great if during siege new units appear it city, according to it's size, to represent people living in city who defend they're homes. Those units would be automaticaly disbanded after the siege is over. And losses will affect city population.

[Mooks]

There is one bigger issue - some fortreses were just imposible to capture by starvation with only the army. If there was a port on in city and attackers had weak navy then they could sit for decades without effect.

Other problem is that small army cant siege big city because they are not possible to cut it from suplies. This is Hannibal's problem - his 40000 strong army was not able to neither assault nor siege Rome because of the city size.

In RTW even one unit could starve huge city to death.

Another issue. Home defence. It would be great if during siege new units appear it city, according to it's size, to represent people living in city who defend they're homes. Those units would be automaticaly disbanded after the siege is over. And losses will affect city population.

Your last idea...is great.

[soibean]

I agree...
I always though of the people in the towers in RTW as the home defence, and the defenders thank the gods that each archer is an expert sniper

I think low class militia units should appear during a siege, nothing too well trained but enough to have a minor effect... they are defending their homes and lives after all

[B-Wing]

...Home defence. It would be great if during siege new units appear it city, according to it's size, to represent people living in city who defend they're homes. Those units would be automaticaly disbanded after the siege is over. And losses will affect city population.

I think that's a great idea! Kind of like horde units from RTW:BI.

As for revamping the siege process, I'd like it to be more realistic. As Furious and screwtype mentioned, when artillery was used in sieges, they battered the walls continually for months. To represent this, I would make it so that each turn a town is under siege, its walls will take damage, determined by the amount and type of long-range artillery (catapults, trebuchets, cannons, etc.) and the "level" of the walls. This would have no relation to the amount of time it would take for the city to give in due to starvation. It could be shorter or longer. But once the defenses are sufficiently pounded, you could assault the city. In the battle, the walls would be just weak enough that you to still have to use a number of volleys from your siege equipment in real-time (which is just for show, really) to actually knock holes through them.

That way, you still get to use siege equipment in real-time battles, but successfuly besieging a city would require much more time than it takes to simply build the equipment and assault (as it is in RTW). Plus, if the siege was lifted for some reason, the city would still be damaged to varying degrees, requiring repairs.

[Kralizec]

As for revamping the siege process, I'd like it to be more realistic. As Furious and screwtype mentioned, when artillery was used in sieges, they battered the walls continually for months. To represent this, I would make it so that each turn a town is under siege, its walls will take damage, determined by the amount and type of long-range artillery (catapults, trebuchets, cannons, etc.) and the "level" of the walls. This would have no relation to the amount of time it would take for the city to give in due to starvation. It could be shorter or longer. But once the defenses are sufficiently pounded, you could assault the city. In the battle, the walls would be just weak enough that you to still have to use a number of volleys from your siege equipment in real-time (which is just for show, really) to actually knock holes through them.

Good idea, I was thinking of something very similar.
Different types of siege weapons accomplish this with different ways. If you use sappers, the walls will be breached at some locations but the towers are left intact (due to their deeper foundations). If you use cannons or trebuchets (I'm not sure the latter was historicly capable of breaching walls), some towers will be damaged too. If you use a ram, the gates will have been damaged, but your men will take more casualties during the campaign map siege.
Lastly if your stack has a cannon, trebuchet or a catapult, the defenders should take increased casualties. The main purpose of the last two would have been to continuously fire stones or even dead carcasses into the city to demoralise the enemy, afterall.
Siege towers require the least tweaking, they seem reasonably well depicted in RTW.

I'm not well versed in medieval history, so all this is IMHO

[Zalmoxis]

Those all sound pretty good, but then catapults and onagers will be unable to inflict damage when you attack the city with your army, correct?

[Captain Fishpants]

Unlike what the people at CA think. Seiges werent done in a day. If you had onagers and other seige engines you didnt say "This friday, we start bombarding", you bombarded them for days and months until those walls went down.

In other words, the seige needs revamped. Some scenarios like sneaking food in, or raiding (to destroy progress on seige towers and the like) and stuff like that. Or maybe even slipping the army out. The army in the castle also needs to have the ability to capitualate in exchange for their lives (With or without the king's permission, this would be done by loyalty).

Nobody thinks that sieges were done in a day. However, we do know that "simulating" weeks and weeks of careful bombardment would be extraordinarily dull and a miserable *game* experience.

I'm not in a position to comment on the suggestions in the second paragraph as far as M2TW is concerned, but RTW did include sallies by the besieged armies.

[Ignoramus]

Could you have the army split into four sections outside each of the four gates? I.e. If your army had 16 units, then when the sally occured, 4 units would automatically be placed outside each of the 4 gates, thus accuratly portraying the starvation of the city, and also representing the usefulness of a sally against an opponent whose forces are thinner over a larger area.

[screwtype]

Nobody thinks that sieges were done in a day. However, we do know that "simulating" weeks and weeks of careful bombardment would be extraordinarily dull and a miserable *game* experience.

Yes, but on the other hand you don't want to go overboard in the opposite direction and make it too easy to break down the walls. It was much too easy in RTW IMO.

I think, depending on the type of wall and the type of attacking siege weapon, it should take perhaps 50-100 shots to break down a wall. And that time is of course expiring while the attempt is being made, so that it detracts from the available battle time.

To make it more interesting, maybe you could have it that you have to aim and operate the siege equipment yourself, so that your own skill comes into how quick you get the walls down. And maybe units could also have a siege weapon skill factor that comes into play. Also if you can't get the wall down quick enough in one turn, you have to come back the next turn/year and resume where you left off (ie the walls don't get repaired in the interim).

I mean, there must be lots of ways to make sieging more interesting. They are just a few suggestions off the top of my head.

I'm not in a position to comment on the suggestions in the second paragraph as far as M2TW is concerned, but RTW did include sallies by the besieged armies.

I think the sally battles were a major problem in RTW. Instead of having to fight siege battles, I found that all I ever had to do was wait until the enemy sent a relieving force, which would trigger a sally battle where I could wipe out the salliers in open battle before the relievers could intervene, and then do the same to the relieving force itself. You then get to just walz into the undefended city afterwards, which means basically that you never have to fight a tough city battle.

Something needs to be done about this. Either the relieving force needs to be much larger, or it needs to appear closer to the city, so that you can't wipe out each army in turn, but have to fight them both together.

[econ21]

I always thought some of the defender attrition during the sieges represented the preparatory bombardments and assault attempts. The actual assault we play out is just the climax.

Personally, I would like to see a return of attacker attrition during sieges. It would add more to the trade-off between starving out and assaulting. It takes a long time to starve out a RTW city, so in principle there is the key trade-off already (time vs casualties). But often players can go at their own steady pace and so time is less of a factor. Then again, maybe the answer is to make the campaigns more tense so you can't afford to waste so much time.

[ShadesWolf]

Sieges are not my favourite, but I dont see how you can change this on a battle map.

If its campaign based then yes you can add all the ideas you have put forward. But in the BATTLE mode you need your battering ram and towers etc to get the job finished in the time allowed.

[econ21]

I have a hunch sieges will be improved in M2TW. They've come on in leaps and bounds since STW; I think that trend will continue.

RTW sieges can be rather fun - storming the walls, climbing up siege towers etc. I've started to enjoy them - particularly in BI, where you can have large, aggressive AI armies. MTWs sieges seemed lifeless by comparison and STWs were rather sad.

Requiring units to man castle defences - as M2TW apparently will - will go even further to enriching sieges. No more ghost archers, yay!

Having up to 3 rings of castle defence will make the largest sieges pretty epic. However, as Screwtype suggests, there may need to be more of an incentive to storm the castle rather than just starve it out - as storming a great castle does not sound easy.

[DukeofSerbia]

We need sieges in M2 TW. There were long sieges in medieval time. Many Byzantium cities were besieged in Minor Asia for many years by varius Turkic Ghazi states.

I can write a lot of exaples from Balkan peninsula where sieges were long.

Not to mention that Bayezid I "Thunderbolt" besieged Constantinopoles for some 10 years.

[Sir Robin]

Not to mention that Bayezid I "Thunderbolt" besieged Constantinopoles for some 10 years.

Yes Constantinople was besieged for a long time but wasn't the actual climax only six weeks? Memory a bit vague but I believe the big guns took that long to finally break the walls.

Personally I believe what needs to be fixed about sieges is not their length, though I would like to see casualties return, it should be what is going on around the siege.

I rarely see an effective AI army marching to relieve their besieged mates. I also rarely see them counter-siege one of mine to try and draw me back.

[Alim]

With respect to the OP I don't think there is a problem with sieges being too short. Under the current engine you have to spend at least a turn sieging a settlement which has any sort of wall, even if it is a 500-people village(if you spend the first turn building the siege equipment and then assault straight away). With RTW turn being about 6 months this is plenty long enough for a siege of almost any city, and since the MTW2 turn will be about 2 years there will not be a problem there.
As for the bombardment of the walls taking weeks and months, the only way to simulate this would be to have the walls already breached when you start the assault, but I don't think too many people would like that. Or perhaps you could start the assault with the walls badly damaged but still holding, and you would then deliver the final blow which brings them down. But then, you would have to attack a predetermined section of the wall?
By the way, o'etaipos makes an excellent point about the size of the sieging army. It is not realistic to be able to siege Constantinople with a three-unit army, even if the garrison is small.

[Hochmeister]

Having up to 3 rings of castle defence will make the largest sieges pretty epic. However, as Screwtype suggests, there may need to be more of an incentive to storm the castle rather than just starve it out - as storming a great castle does not sound easy.

Maybe if the new recruitment system is based on total population as is the rumour. Then during sieges if the attrition/starvation rate is reflected in the total population count it would be more of an incentive to assault earlier otherwise you could starve them out over a longer period but have no population to take over and therefore no economy or troops from that provence for several turns.

just a thought

[Divinus Arma]

I agree with with captain fishpants. That would be boring.

I also agree with duke john. Supply should be relevant.

Solution: "Daily" assaults per turn, with a loss of supplies per army per turn. Supplies should be an extra perishable commodity managed by army in foreign lands.

Yay. Ballsac smorgashbordbouttercup lessbion. Oh no. To the backroom... AND AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!

[Lord Adherbal]

Nobody thinks that sieges were done in a day. However, we do know that "simulating" weeks and weeks of careful bombardment would be extraordinarily dull and a miserable *game* experience.

why not just let walls take damage when the player sieges (not assaults) a city for several turns with an army that has siege weapons. If he waits long enough and then assaults the city, some parts of the walls will be weakened enough to be destroyed by concentrated artillery fire.
I think that's a much more realistic approach then catapults destroying a 6 meter thick stone wall with a few shots. You still get to blow holes, but it takes some time. If you think that's too slow/boring for some kids uhm... people then include uber catapult damage in the "arcade mode" option or something.

[Alien_Tortoise2345]

I agree with sneaking food in. However, the revamp I would most like to see is being able to place catapults/ballistae (or whatever they are called in Medieval II) on the walls to fire on siege towers and besieging troops. I would also like counter-sapping to be available.

[roman pleb]

I have a hunch sieges will be improved in M2TW. They've come on in leaps and bounds since STW; I think that trend will continue.

RTW sieges can be rather fun - storming the walls, climbing up siege towers etc. I've started to enjoy them - particularly in BI, where you can have large, aggressive AI armies. MTWs sieges seemed lifeless by comparison and STWs were rather sad.

Requiring units to man castle defences - as M2TW apparently will - will go even further to enriching sieges. No more ghost archers, yay!

Having up to 3 rings of castle defence will make the largest sieges pretty epic. However, as Screwtype suggests, there may need to be more of an incentive to storm the castle rather than just starve it out - as storming a great castle does not sound easy.

i agree with all of that.

[paullus]

There are some excellent ideas here. I hope CA has been looking at them, and perhaps it isn't too late to incorporate some very immersive elements into M2TW. We can at least hope some of these ideas will be applied in some form for the next TW iteration.

[Sabuti]

Acctually in RTW a turn is 6 months so if you are waitung a turn to build seige towers and the like, then its is technically a 6 month wait. From what I hear in MTW 2 a turn will be about 2 years. As far as battle length, all the battles happen in sped up time. Major engagements didn't generally last 45 min or less. So should we also have 12 hour battles to enhance realism. Seiges are pretty much on scale with other battles. Just a historical note, when Constantinople (now Istanbul), was assualted with cannon in 1400 or there abouts, The walls pretty much immediatly crumbled, that's why its now Istanbul and not Constantinople.

[Unforgivable-Fenrir]

I think that the day sieges work for me, but it could be cool to have a shoot out with the catapults.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Gah! If you call one of the vote options "no you're an idiot", it's really damn difficult to not fall for the temptation of choosing that option!

But I was strong, and managed to vote that I agree with some of your ideas.

[mfberg]

The GAH! button was left off this vote. It is required in all MTW polls, and should be included in the MTW2 polls for those of us who have nothing better to do than kvetch.

mfberg

[B-Wing]

I think Duke John and Divinus Arma have some great ideas. The "siege view" sounds simple and engaging enough to be worth implimenting while still providing the degree of realism needed to make sieges last longer than 1.5 turns. I think it'd be really awesome and satisfying to zoom into "siege view" to admire the damage you've done to a city with each passing turn.

To expand just a little, the sieges could also choose to target buildings, to worsen the condition of the defenders in situations where the sieging army is attempting to starve out the enemy rather than storm the city.

And I also agree with econ21 that the inability to knock down ladders is very strange.

[Trax]

The most important improvement would be AI that knows (from both tactical and strategic point of view) when to assault and when to starve out the defenders. This would improve the performance of strategic AI a lot.