I am not saying in any degree that sieges should be the only mode of battle as they certainly werent. I think one great thing would be to mix the two. How about enemy army attacking your besieging force, while the castle garrison would sally out from the castle? How would that sound for a challence? I cant see how this could be anyway impossible for the engine, but then i dont know the limits of it. Pesonally i would love these kind of scenarios as it would be lot more harder to decide how many men would you have to leave to contain the garrison, while with how many and how to fight the agressor.
I like this idea, sounds better than the M2TW siege practice. But how would the 3d map be implemented in such a scenario? Or even 2D for that matter? I suppose if you were attacked on a 2D map you could be given the option to sally or remain inside, you wouldn't need many maps though (depending on the number of castles of course). I actually like the 2D map so I would have no problem with this. You just might loose terrain variances, choke points, rivers and the like. History aside, such things made the TWs of the past entertaining. There must be a nice way to blend the two, historically accurate sieges and less historical field battles. Perhaps garrisons and field armies could be recruited seperately? Produce troops for the garrison that can only be used during a siege and troops produced exclusivly for the field (who could retreat to a castle if defeated on the field, well, what was left of them). This might blend the two, I don't really know. What do you think?