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:
Well I for one like the idea of multistage battles for cities but lets be honest, not feasible for this game. They will probably make the assumption that any opposing force will be met at the gates by the defending army and apply a defensive bonus, depending on the attackers use of siege to prevent this.
That being said there is no current evidence of siege weapons in this game to my knowlege.
Latest beta has a siege works as a buildable city tile so I would assume that means they are planning on having them.
I'm hoping battles at cities zoom in like in total war and you see your entire city in the shape and configuration it appears on the map. Then you just move your units around, place them on wall, etc like in that game. I.e. there is no concept of a unit being in a single tile. This is my guess on what they plan. If the attacker wins that one big battle they own the city, if the defender wins they own it. I really don't see them trying have multiple people potentially own different parts of the city when not in a tactical battle. Basically it is the same as it has been in the past. The fact that the city covers multiple tiles doesn't need to matter if they don't want it to.
So sieging seems factual. I am both delighted and conflicted, you see i just preordered c and c 4. I cannot afford to beta and have only an inkling of the game's features. I hope sieging is implemented as a "you can destroy the walls but it wont help you otherwise" sort of tactic. I really get annoyed by games that allow a catapult to kill my solldiers, except when magic or grape shot is present.
There is also the question of whether sieges will be considered as any other battle. Meaning, will they have to be resolved in one combat/battle, having all units from one side either killed or made to flee or surrender (ala MoM), or will the sieges hold through multiple turns, such as in Lords of the Realm?
I would like to be able to cripple a city over time, until the resources can no longer support the population and garrisoned army. But if there are no city walls, or the walls have been breached, I think the battle should be resolved then and there, without prolonging it any further as far as combat sessions or game turns go.
In regards to the degree of city ownership during a siege, it doesn't seem likely that the level of depth being described here will be applicable, i.e. with being able to use a smithy or other improvement, unless the sieges are allowed to be drawn out once the walls are breached.
Other than that, I really like the ideas being put forward here, and I hope they get seriously considered.
Well, I like how in the total war games Seige engines had a relatively low accuracy rate. You could be aiming for the walls, and occasionally hit a building in the city or the ground in font of it.
Also, seige boulders usually CAN harm soldiers, only that actually AIMING at soldiers is near-impossible without Grapeshot as you say. However, even when aiming at buildings, if a boulder lands on some soldiers, it will certainly do high damage (AKA most would die I think) ... but most units are fast enough that Catapults attacking into soldiers isn't very feasable unless your attacking a giant clump of soldiers (army of many soldiers, a legion unit, ect)
I don't know if any of you have played Mount&Blade, but that game had a three-step siege battle. First you would fight for the walls, and then you would fight in the streets and it would culminate in a battle for the keep. So that's where I got some of my ideas for siege battles. Very different game, but I thought it was a good idea.
It just makes sense to me to give the player the option to hole up in his keep, denying the enemy the heart of the city until reinforcements arrive. The enemy would obviously decimate the city proper, but they wouldn't really have complete control of the city population while friendly troops remained in the city. Having there be only two options (come out of the keep and fight or hole up in the keep) would be an acceptable simplified alternative to a more freeform siege battle.
Never played the game, but the idea sounds very fun and like it could be worked into Elemental's combat mechanics and might be able to make the 'multi-tile city problem' moot by treating the outer perimeter (walls) and the main settlement as single tactical objects regardless of how large they are on the main map.
I'd even enjoy a field-battle analog with just two stages for an army attacking another one that has dug in and fortified in the middle of nowhere. Some kind of process where losing at the perimeter mostly, but not always, means that the camp proper is about to be destroyed and field commanders can make some tough choices among things like fleeing, mass officer suicides to prevent interrogations, and destruction of supplies/treasure to prevent them falling into enemy hands.
Well, personally, I would consider the battle for the Courtyard to be "One" battle, and the Defender can decide at any time to retreat to the keep. Any units cut off from the keep on the Field of Battle, however, should probably be lost, or have a 60+% chance for not making it inside the keep.
Then, the Second battle would be the fight for the keep "much harder" ... otherwise (if invading keep is impossible), the invading army simply has to starve them out over the course of several turns (3-5).
I have to say that I hope something that makes siege battles unique is developed. Sieges are supposed to be epic battles that take place as the attacker tries to drive the defender off the walls or break through the walls, then battles in the streets, and eventually battle for the keep/citadel.
I would be extremely disappointed if sieges are only regular land battles with a bonus to defendors for the walls and a bonus to attackers for siege equipment. Thats not epic at all, nor does it accurately depict the various nuances that make sieges so unique and a nice change from normal battles.
One of the things I always wished for was long, drawn out urban battle occuring over the course of many turns. A "Stalingrad" if you will. I'm always a little disappointed when city battles merely occur over the course of single turn. This was especially apparent in Gal Civ II. Wars involving literally billions of troops on either side were decided in a week.
Including this would add a lot. There would be tension as the fortunes of battle changed. It also allows for the possibility of relief forces and other tactical decisions.
yay for multi-turn urban seige battles.
I would personally support epic multi-turn battles. Look to the Battle for Helms Deep and Minas Tirith for inspiration. Both lasted long enough and was suitably epic to allow for reinforcements.
A simple turn limit ala Master of Magic would work for this. At first archers on the walls would shoot arrows down on the advancing armies, and siege weapons would fire at each other.Then the attacking force would arrive. Rams would seek to break down the doors(with some of the defenders soldiers trying to stop that), while ladders and such are used to climb onto the walls and attack the forces there. Either the line at the walls is breached or the doors are breached, forcing the defenders to retreat from the walls and fight in the streets.
If the turn limit goes over here, the battle is simply paused until next turn, allowing reinforcements and such to come in the nick of time. During this, the city of course can't build anything, being that the civilians have abandoned their buildings and went into hiding in the interior of the city. You could also not bother to break down the gates, simply waiting outside and preventing farming and such, although that should give ample time for reinforcements before the population inside is starved.
If that's too complicated, or too large, you could simply have each phase a turn of combat. Both forces can win by destroying the other sides forces, the attacking force can win each phase by completing specific objectives(usually move to a certain point on the map for all but the last phase).
Ratya, some intriguing ideas. Unfortunately, siege battles have never been very workable. Total War sieges made for some nice eyecandy, but they were dismal, tactically. It was waaay easy to game the AI, and is simply got too clunky and awkward. The siege systems I've enjoyed the most were from Lords of the Realm 1 and 2, but they were enjoyable because they were very, very simple. I would, of course, enjoy of more sophisticated siege system if they were workable.
That being said, I love the multi-turn element, very good idea. The whole point of withstanding a siege is to afford time for other armies or allies to arrive and bail you out. The Total War depiction of sieges--- resolves in a single day--- is just silly. I would like to see sieges last weeks and, in big cities, even seasons so that strategically, a player can't simply raid the borders of an empire, burn a heavily fortified city in one turn, and then run (unless the attacker is very, very, very well equipped and skilled).
Here here all in favor of drawn out, bloody, civilian trampling battles, say I!
I so much! Nothing would make me happier than watching my zombies casually reach out and snack on a convient civilian as they charge the enemy.
It's been outright stated by frogboy that you fight for the entire city, not individual sections of it. Can't find the post so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Going off of that...
Forcing the battles to be multi-staged a-la Mount & Blade would be retarded because it would allow the defender to park a relatively tiny force in the city and have it so the city holds out for 3 turns or whatever anyway. Makes no logical sense and adds arbitrary brakes to the game for no real gain. You never had to worry about that in M&B because fort/city garrisons were all fucking huge anyway, but it would be a serious problem in this game.
Multiple turn sieges should be a natural consequence of the defending force being pretty good.
E:TW was working with a pretty solid concept. Limit how long the combat can last, and the whole city and a big space outside it is the battlefield. First you scale/breach the walls and handle the guys on top of them, then you pour into the city proper and fight amongt all the buildings and streets. If people are holing up in the city hall (palace in Elemetal terms), you need to smash that up. Attackers start a fair distance out so that the defenders long range troops have time to do work.
Just fix its major execution problems, namely:
1) Things took too damn long to kill. In elemental, troops should just generally be more damaging.
2) Trecking to the city took too much real time; you did nothing but click forward and eat artillery fire for 5 minutes. As weak and inaccurate as guns were in that game, this was needed for artillery to rack up any damage at all, but if you follow 1) and buff that style of ranged attack, you can not only get away with shortening the distance a lot, you have to do it or attacking forces will just get ripped to shreds before they can land a blow.
3) If you hit the time limit, the battlefield troop positions were reset next turn. This is a common trope in games with tactical battles and it sucks ass. I mean, presumably the time limits are there because an overworld turn is only so much time, and if you spend enough time in tactical combat you've run that time out. It thus follows that battlefield positioning/status of participating troops should be saved between turns. Reinforcements start where they'd normally start, but everyone else stays in the thick of the combat they were participating in. This is much easier to implement in a TB game like elemental, where there's no arrows and giant rocks and spells flying around in real time to get lost in translation and gum everything up.
Indeed. Agree much.
Sword to gut should be lethal.
I shouldn't have to march my troops through artillery fire for long periods of time to attack. If folks want this, they can get their fix from a ww2 game with a Normandy landing map.
TBH, i have always hated time limits in tactical battles. Let it take as long as it takes. X-Com did this, where you could spend a minute or an hour in a tactical battle, but either way, 0 time would pass in the overland map, and it never really seemed to bug me. I doubt folks monitor the time/turn number that closely. If you want an example, start playing a TBS, and set a timer for 30 minutes. When it goes off, look away from the screen and try to remember what turn it was.
As for sieges, having your troops outside the city should mess with their trade/harvesting or whatever it is civilians do for their day jobs, but having full out multi-turn sieges with catapults you build there and stuff doesn't really seem to fit.
@Lavitage- I do remember Frogboy saying that attacking part of the city attacks the whole city. It makes me wonder what exactly he has in mind.
I do agree with the time limit I think, as long as it is meant to translate to how long the turn took or something, otherwise let the fight finish. However, the attacker should have to eat artillery fire, that's just part of assaulting fortified positions and castles. The attacker would have to start the battle out of range of the city walls, otherwise the besieging army should be taking small numbers of casualties even before the assault.
As noted, the fight will be for the City as a whole, or the only other choice, logically, seeing how currently Cities are grow/ are layed out, with adjacent buildings, it would force the attacker to breach the walls, then destroy each building be it House/Town Hall/Library etc. that lay between them and the Final City defeating building. The Citadel.
Seiging was a model based on demoralizing, starving and generally wearing down the opposing force until such time as they surrendered, or were force to come out and fight. Plus, you lost alot less men than doing what could become repeated frontal assaults to a heavily walled city.
I would also like to see Tactical Battle not end until one force retreats or is totally destroyed. Once Tact battles begin they should carry on to their conclusion. Assuming one would not last more than says 15 turns (guess) in board time, a spectator would not have to wait an overly long time to get back in the game.
If buildings took only half squares so the City could have Streets, then the 3 Phase approach could be inplemented and that would be very cool.
Does anyone think it is to late (due to graphic assets already created) to petition The Frog for Streets in our Cities? (hint hint)
You realize that these things "will" be for the most part flying about, simply on a continuous turn basis. I suppose since its not exactly real time, and instead everything does have an inherent turn, it will be much easier to simply "pause" a battle and save the data for the Next Tactical battle. However, it almost sounded like there would not be any fluidity to the tac combat system, however probably at least half of the people would like for a fluid tac battle, and it will be something of the sort, in Continuous turns. Merely needed to Iron that one point.
Mount and Blade only had multi-staged battles when numbers were extremely high on one or both sides. If you have 4 defenders vs 400, the battle is wrapped up in a single battle.
My main worry is that siege battles will just be land battles with an abstract bonus for the city defenses or that they form into battles outside the gates that determine the fate of the city. Such an implementation would seem to be takng the easy way out and avoiding all the special battles situations that make siege battles so fun.
I also see a special circumstance in besieged coastal cities. Coastal cites with harbors would have to be assumed to be receiving supplies from the sea and so the attacker would have to get naval superiority to starve the city, as blocking the land entrances would not be enough, or take the city by frontal assault on the walls.
I guess I am worried that I will not get to directly assualt the walls of a city and fight for control in the streets, but maybe my worry is premature or misplaced?
Aye Roman Guy, it would certainly be nice to be able to directly attack the walls and fight for the Streets, as opposed to playing an abstract land battle with arbitrary bonuses based upon walls and seige.
For instance, if walls/city gives bonuses, it should be for units within the City Walls of a City, with the Walls giving them the additional protection of blocking the enemy melee from attacking them until they can breach the city somehow (Seige Towers, Magic, Arrows, Battering Rams, Catapults) ... of course Arrows (and possibly magic) would be less accurate when targetting people inside the city or up on the Walls battlements.
As we currently have the option to build a siege workshop, I would find it very strange if we wouldn't be able to directly assault the walls. Why have siege engines without implementing a real siege?
My worst fear is that the sieges will take place similar to regular land battles with abstract bonuses to the armies based on the defender's city defenses and the attacker's siege engines. Nothing the devs have said has indicated they are going this way, but since they haven't really talked about sieges I wonder what they have planned. I am just stating what I would not like to see sieges turned into.
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