Siege Warfare

Ratya48

Join Date 09/2007

Siege Warfare

Complications with Multi-Tile Cities

In the traditional TBS format of exactly one tile per city, siege warfare is a straightforward modification to open-field combat, the only differences being the bonus to defence from city fortifications and the ability of siege units to reduce this bonus. However, since Elemental has multiple tiles in a single city, the system of warfare becomes much more problematic. In the traditional format, both attacker and defender are fighting over one tile. The same holds for open field battles in Elemental (I believe). However, in Elemental the city combat is not as simple due to the larger cities. A few issues I see that need to be addressed:

Garrisoned units
Blockading/strangulation of cities
Single combat vs. multi-stage battles
Who owns the city?

And here are my proposed solutions:

Garrisoned Units

In a one tile city, any unit on that tile could logically be assumed to be defending that city. In a multi-tile city, a unit on a tile only occupies a part of the city, and therefore can be assumed to be defending only that section of the city. This makes defense unfairly difficult. In order to adequately protect the city, there would have to be an entire unit on each tile of the city that borders the outside world. This would require many units for all except the most basic cities. Another plan that is both more realistic and simplifies game play is to give units the ability to directly occupy walls and other defensive structures. They would no longer have an icon on the cloth map; the building itself might change appearance to indicate the occupation. In the tactical battle, the attackers would have to drive the defenders from the buildings they occupy in order to take control of the city, adding strategic depth to the battle. Where does the defender position their forces? Do they hold the walls, or fall back to the palace/keep? The defending units could also simply occupy the individual tiles within the city, fighting the aggressors in the streets.

Blockading/Strangulation of Cities

In most TBS games that I've played, units can surround a city, cutting it off from the resources of the surrounding land and economically vital trade. IMHO, Elemental should have a similar system. Again, multi-tile cities provides complications. To have a city need to be completely surrounded to cut off trade forces the attacker to unfairly spread his resources thin. However, having any enemy unit adjacent to a city cut off all trade is both unrealistic and brutally unfair to the defender. I suggest that cities have a number of gates proportional to the geographic size of their city. Having enemy units block these entrances cuts off all significant trade and resource delivery to the city. A small amount of food can get through to the city by way of secret entrances and such, but the city will have to depend almost entirely on its existing stockpiles (question: will the economic system even support these, or will this be abstracted away?) to support the existing population and troops.

Single Combat vs. Multi-Stage Battles/ Who owns the city?

When cities are represented as one tile, the attackers capture the city when all of the defending units have either left the city or been defeated. With multi-tile cities, it is possible for attackers to be in the city while there are remaining defenders. I think it would be interesting for the defenders to be able to lose the walls but still hold the keep and the city streets, or have the attackers breach the walls only at one point, etc. But this raises the question of who controls city development/production at what point. Can the enemy use the city's infrastructure to bolster their own forces when they control all of the city but the keep? One solution is to have the city be considered 'contested' as soon as a single attacking unit enters the city. All production stops until one side or the other is completely driven from the city. This is simple and reasonably logical solution. However, since Elemental already keeps track of where exactly on the map the production buildings are, I think that as soon as attackers occupy the tile on which that building resides, they should be able to use it. Are the smithies right inside the city walls? If the attackers are able to grab them and hold them, they should be able to repair their weapons and armor. Conversely, the defenders would lose that ability. The defenders will control the city in name until they completely leave the city, but if the attackers continue to press forward they will slowly use the functionality of the city.

If you've read this far, thank you. Thoughts? Questions? Objections? Comments on the attractiveness of the author?

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Istari

Yea, it would be kind of lame for Seige and Walls to "only" confer bonuses, and not actual On the Field Weapons or Obstacles/Defensive positions respectively.

Both is probably the best choice. Units standing atop a wall, or within the walls of their own city, should have conferred bonuses (stackable too, so Defending Archer on a Wall gives more bonuses than an Attacking Archer on a wall). As well as these structures also be physical and tangible Defensive mechanisms that need to be destroyed in some way for enemy units to pass through.

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

this + plus gates vs battering rams/siege spells and in large forts catapults on the walls

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Aye, catapult/ballista variation on large walls of large forts would be nice.

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I know frogboy stated that when you attack a city its to take the entire city and not the individual tiles, which makes sense. Otherwise it'd become an overtly laborious undertaking to capture/destroy a city.

I do really like the idea of multi-stage city assault/siege battles. But it should be based on the towns level as to how many stages there are, and needs to be a fluid process.

The way I see it breaking down is based on the size of the city:

Outpost - 1 stage; Outposts would simply be too small to have multiple stages of assault, you either defend successfully or perish trying.

Village - 1 stage; While larger then outposts, villages still lack the size necessary to have more stages. again fight or die.

Town - 2 stages; Towns are large enough to warrant some type of central fortification along with an outer wall. If you successfully defend but lose the 1st stage of combat, the town takes a 50% production penalty for 1 turns.

City - 2 stages; Like towns, cities have a keep or castle for a last line of defense, with a wall for initial protection. If you successfully defend but lose the 1st stage of combat, the city takes a 50% production penalty for 1 turns.

Metropolis - 3 stages; A metropolis is a city that has grown so large it has both an outer and inner wall, as well as a keep for defense. If you successfully defend but lose the 1st stage of combat, the metropolis takes a 25% production penalty for 1 turn; if you lose 2 stages of combat the metropolis takes a 50% production penalty for 2 turns.

While defending you'd have the option of retreating, moving your forces back to the next line of defense if you have one. Should you be in your last line of defense, or the only one if its a village or outpost, the option to retreat is not available. Calling for a retreat automatically moves the combat to the next stage, and if the attacker has breached your defenses already when the call is made, your fleeing troops will take additional loses. If the defending force is killed entirely, the battle ends, and any remaining stages would be skipped. Should the defending forces defeat the attackers, the town suffers a production penalty based on the number of stages lost. For example; A city (lvl4) is being attacked and the wall is breached, so the defending player retreats to his keep and then proceeds to drive the attacking force off. The city takes a 50% production penalty for 1 turn, accounting for all the damage done in the attack. Had the defending force been killed in the first stage, there would have been no second stage, and conversely had the attackers been defeated in the first stage there would be no production penalty.

I feel like something of this nature would make the assault of a metropolis feel more epic, while also giving the players a greater sense of size for such a large city. At the very least capturing a metropolis should feel different, and be a more daunting task then taking village, beyond what units are simply stationed there.

Makes me think of some of the epic battles from Lord of the Rings.

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As to whether or not the Attacking Army could use Forges and Logistics buildings to reinforce/resupply their army?

No, definitely not. Here's why.

In history, when a Castle-City came under siege, Forge's and the like didn't survive beyond the enemy force showing up outside the wall. They were either moved to a more centrally defensible location, or the Forge itself was destroyed. (Read: Not the entire smithy building, just the Forging Equipment.) This wouldn't be hard to reflect in the math of the game either. A Forge being moved should obviously have a lower production value than a fully equipped Smithy, a far lower one. A destroyed Forge would be handled by the Smithy being unusable for X turns until the Forge is repaired/replaced. Basically, that means that for X turns, all Military units built in that city would lose access to whatever equipment the relevant building was giving them access to. (I.E., Smithy's, Fletcheries, Bowyers, etc etc.)

Multi-Stage sieges would be awesome, and they wouldn't be as impossible to handle as you're all assuming methinks. Multi-turn or not, even Turn-Based Tactical Battles lend themselves well to this style of combat. More-so than RTS games actually, since it's much easier to save the locations of units.

It could be handled, as I mentioned, either over the course of multiple turns, or even in a single battle.

If a multiple turn style was implemented it would be dependent on the size of the city first. If there are no walls to break down, then the only real stage should be the keep, since attackers could flood in from any number of directions on the city, making defending it unfeasible for the defenders. If there were walls, but it was a small city, then the walls would be the first stage, and the Keep/Palace the second and final stage. In larger cities the first turn would be dedicated to trying to take the walls and the City methinks. Urban combat wasn't really a big thing until the advent of Black Powder weaponry, since combat would be inefficient for both sides in such a tight space and whilst also having to deal with melee units blocking your firing zones. For there to be a third stage, the second stage would have to be an inner wall defending the Keep, with the third and final stage being the actual Keep. This would increase the need for Siege Equipment as well. Catapults and the like are obviously needed to take the outer wall, but unless you create a massive hole in the wall, or batter down the door, your Siege equipment would be stuck outside the Outer Wall... This wouldn't necessarily mean they couldn't hit the Inner Wall, it would just make them a lot less accurate methinks. This would make Battering Rams serve a thrice important purpose. Breaking the Outer Perimeter, Allowing Ranged Siege inside, and Breaking the Inner Perimeter. Catapults would become more strategically relevant, since their effectiveness could potentially be reduced before reaching the second stage of combat. This would also DRASTICALLY increase the importance of Siege Ladders, particularly in taking the Inner Wall, where your siege equipment might not reach.

At the same time, all this makes Siege Equipment the extremely valuable resource they should be. It's not like Catapults, Trebuchet's, and Siege Towers are all easy to build or anything. (I have actually built a Trebuchet before, so yes, I do have a frame of reference for saying that. They're sick btw. And no, -NOT- a full size Trebuchet, that really would be a nightmare... More like 1/4 or 1/3 size.)

Multi-Turn would be the best way to handle it though, because of the inevitability of retreat. Allowing you to recall troops to the Inner Wall/Keep when you're losing, thus sacrificing the Outer Wall, and by consequence, the City, adds a level of strategy I've not really seen in... Well... Any game I can think of. Stronghold did it half-way decently, and Lords of the Realm did it in an alright fashion too, but I wouldn't say either of those really captured the essence of what a Siege should be like.

A Single-Turn, Multi-Stage fight would be handled almost exactly the same, just remove the over-land turns in between. Outer Wall would be entirely the same, but after that, the pace would change for a few Tactical-Turns at least. Provided you still had the option to retreat to the Inner Wall, (Which would be a must in either method if you ask me,) once you did, the enemy would then traverse a number of City Tiles trying to reach your Inner Wall. This would simulate the time it takes to reach the Inner Wall, during which they take fire from the fortifications there. After that, it would continue to follow the model above again, with the battle for the Keep. (Or, more accurately, the Keep Grounds, unless we actually would get to fight -inside- the Keep, which would just be plain sick.)

The only real difference in these implementations would be Realism and Pacing. Multi-Turn would sacrifice some Pacing for Realism, while Single-Turn would sacrifice Realism for what I assume would be better game Pacing.

The other issue that would need to be addressed is how to handle retreat in Single-Overland-Turn implementation. I would prefer it be handled very fluidly, even in Turn-Based. Basically, you press the retreat button, and all surviving defenders retreat to the Inner Wall automatically, while all surviving attackers, barring Siege, advance to just inside the Outer Wall immediately. We bar Siege because of dealing with variables. That's not to say it wouldn't advance though, they would just be right outside the main gate, or a hole in the wall that they've created. The variables are, if you haven't broken down the gate or cleared away rubble, the chances of your heavier Siege Equipment actually being able to make it inside the city would be very low... And honestly, that's probably a good thing. Having Siege for two out of three stages of the fight would probably be a little imbalanced actually... So you might just 'abandon' Heavy Siege Equipment at that point, opting for nothing but Ladders and Battering Rams. ('Abandon' : Unavailable for the remainder of the Tactical Battle.) The abandonment wouldn't be hard to implement either, either just disable the Siege equipment, or make it impossible for them to get inside, and always have them be out of range of the Inner Wall. Siege Spells, however, should still work just fine, like Ladders and Rams. Actually, it would be imbalanced, and would completely defeat the purpose of retreating to the Inner Wall, so yes, no more Siege after the first stage.

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I hate Double Posting, but the friggen forums won't let me successfully edit my post.... So I'll just have to double post...

Edit: Btw, about the Urban Combat. That's not to say it didn't exist, just that it was generally on a smaller scale, with a few swordsmen and other melee guys generally getting caught and killed before being able to retreat. Some Urban Settings in the Medieval Era were made so that they were very easily defensible, even in the streets, by both Archers and Melee Fighters, just not very often. And then, sometimes, the city was the last line of defense, so that's where the brunt of the combat took place once the walls were down, but if there was a Keep or an Inner Wall, it generally wasn't the case. So if we look at the statistics, it'd be more realistic for an Outer Wall - Inner Wall - Keep system than a Wall - Streets - Keep system.

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