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Secuter

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May 13, 2012
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Hello everybody!

TLDR: The Siege mechanics should be deepened so that they act as battlefields where both the attacking commander, and also the defending commander will come to shine. This could look like the murder scheme system where "dots" are filled after each successful phase. The defenders will attempt to counter this by using their defense tactics and if successful the "dot" won't be filled. The attackers win when all "dots" have been filled. In essence, a dot is filled when the attackers make progress and the defenders fail to stop them.
How the "dots" from schemes look like: https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/515775/ongoing murder scheme USABLE.PNG

Introduction:
In Crusader Kings 2 you spent a lot of time besieging provinces. Occupying territory was one of the primary ways to win wars. However, the system was less than inspiring. Indeed, the "timer" would progress by a set amount every 12 days or so, and it paid no heed to who defended the castle. It was just a matter of waiting the needed time..

I think another system should be created. One which is more interesting where different tactics matter. The besieging commander will obviously play a big role in taking down the castle. However the defending commander - who was completely ignored in CK2, should also play a role. For it hardly makes sense that my stellar commander, who defends my bastion, is as skilled as an inbred farmer at defending the castle.

The proposed siege system:
The system could look like your system for scheming a murder with progression "dots". The more fortified the castle is the more "dots" will need to be filled. Depending on technology, siege weaponry and the siege commander different tactics could be used which potentially could fill more than 1 dot at a time. The castle defenders will naturally try to repel the attackers thus removing any attempt to "fill" the dots at that attempt.

It could look like these examples:

Siege army:
Decides to build proper mobile shields to cover the soldiers while they fill the moat.
Defending army:
The defender, commanded by an unproven rookie, decided to remain on the walls, his archers unable to find many targets.
Result:
Since the defending commander was an incompetent rookie he didn't know what to do. He elected to just stay on the walls, which allowed the enemy to create a path for siege towers. A more prepared commander might have used mangonels (if at disposal) or maybe sallied out to disrupt the attackers, making them easy targets for the archers.

The defending rookie commander has now been replaced with your own character who returned home to defend his family. He is (of course) great at commanding. It could now look like this:
Siege army:
Decides that the gate is the best point of entry and storms the gate with a ram.
Defending army:
The defenders realize what happens. They orderly concentrates their forces around the gate and pour boiling tar onto the attackers.
Result:
The attack made no progress and therefor they didn't fill the next "dot".

And my last example:
The great siege commander decides to:
Feint an attack from both sides of the castle. Though one side is made of mainly strawmen attached to spears. In reality he focus his attack on just one side.
The defending commander:
Splits his army in two equal parts, completely falling for the ruse.
Result:
The walls on one side of the castle has been completely overrun and the attackers manages to cling on to several towers. This fills two dots because of how great the tactic worked. The castle is now even closer to falling.

Naturally, different tactics will be available the better the besieging/defending commander is which will greatly help attack/defend the castle.

You could even argue that the defenders should be able to retake "dots" by for instance pushing the attackers out of the city. In this way siege battles will become battlefields too where the commanders will use different tactics. It also means that a capable castle commander can bog down the enemy for a long time while weak commanders might make stupid blunders or cave-in without much fighting.


Conclusion:
Events will make better sense; it's no longer just an annoying event of the defenders sallying out successfully against the worlds' best commander who apparently was too stupid to create a proper camp. No, now the sally might be repelled exactly because he is the greatest siege commander. Or maybe one of the best generals on the defender side managed to repel the attackers from the walls. As always, the defenders are limited on time, supplies and soldiers. Though, strong fortifications and a good commander will make supplies and man power matter and last a lot longer. Hopefully such a system will make it more interesting than merely looking at a bar ticking down. It will also visualize the struggle over the castle.

Alright, I won't risk repeating myself (too much) and thus make my post boring. I hope such a system will make it into the game so that strong fortification truly will get to shine and make sieges something interesting and also a viable strategy to hunker down.

With Best regards
Secuter
 
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Potentially, it could be made so that if no progress had been made after 8 tics (96 days) then the dot will fill it self out because the defenders will run out of men/supplies etc to keep that area out. This means that a castle with 5 dots will take 480 days to fall if the attackers makes zero progress during any of the phases. Though, if that is the case the attacker should maybe just withdraw, as they've now lost plenty of soldiers and supplies.
Or maybe that shouldn't be the case, I don't know.

I just really hope that the devs will re-consider the use of that boring system that was present in CK2. I hope that they will maybe take inspiration from this.
 
I like this thinking.

The choice of how you attack / defend in sieges is also quite cool. You could include the option for defenders to just hunker down, if they have lots of food and wait to be relieved by a reinforcing army - the commanders could agree that if there was no relief by a certain time, they would surrender the fortress, as often happened I believe. Likewise, you could build up to a breach in the wall (through tunneling, or bombardment, and then launch a siege). Would make this aspect of warfare much more interesting!

Additionally, you could have sneaky moves - like the Black Douglas was fond of (pretending to be sheep to sneak up close to the walls and then scale them at night with a small group, rather than a traditional siege).

I hope PDX reads these - lots of good ideas in the forums at the moment.
 
You could include the option for defenders to just hunker down, if they have lots of food and wait to be relieved by a reinforcing army - the commanders could agree that if there was no relief by a certain time, they would surrender the fortress, as often happened I believe.
In the end people mostly just want to survive so the attacker could for example give the option of surrender now and you all will be spared and maybe be able to leave without becoming prisoners, but harsh consequences if you choose to resist.
 
In the end people mostly just want to survive so the attacker could for example give the option of surrender now and you all will be spared and maybe be able to leave without becoming prisoners, but harsh consequences if you choose to resist.

Yeah I agree. Depending on the defense commander he might actually accept. However, a brave and skilled siege commander would naturally not surrender immediately. Though, as the siege progresses, he too might be more inclined to surrender instead of risking a slaughter.

The choice of how you attack / defend in sieges is also quite cool. You could include the option for defenders to just hunker down, if they have lots of food and wait to be relieved by a reinforcing army - the commanders could agree that if there was no relief by a certain time, they would surrender the fortress, as often happened I believe. Likewise, you could build up to a breach in the wall (through tunneling, or bombardment, and then launch a siege). Would make this aspect of warfare much more interesting!

Additionally, you could have sneaky moves - like the Black Douglas was fond of (pretending to be sheep to sneak up close to the walls and then scale them at night with a small group, rather than a traditional siege).

Thank you. I hope to see the sieges come alive, to have different tactics and that the commander of the defense also get some agency. In CK2 you would look at a bar ticking down by X% every 12 days. Not only was it boring to look at, no events really happened aside from the un/succesful sallying out now and then. This way the defenders will have agency too, and the sieges will come alive. It will allow a lot more interesting events to happen, which will make more fun and easier to immerse yourself into being besieged.

Another thing I want to add; the system I propose will also allow for the terrain to be integrated and not just a boring x modifier. A castle strategically placed on a river will naturally be a lot harder to siege down than a castle placed on the steppe. The events available should/could reflect that as well.
 
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Yeah I agree. Depending on the defense commander he might actually accept. However, a brave and skilled siege commander would naturally not surrender immediately. Though, as the siege progresses, he too might be more inclined to surrender instead of risking a slaughter.
It would also depend on previous actions, if the defender don't feel that the attacker would keep their promis, they would probably not be as keen on surrendering.
 
Thank you. I hope to see the sieges come alive, to have different tactics and that the commander of the defense also get some agency.

Well it was possible for defenders to "win" the siege, by the attacker failing to take the fortress/city - either by being forced to break the siege, such as another army showing up and forcing them off, or the attackers losing morale by failing to breach/assault the fortress after such an amount of time, and the defenders holding fast. This is not in CK2 at the moment at all, and some player agenda in actually winning/losing these through the decisions you make, instead of random event, would make it much more interesting!
 
I quite like the idea of expanding out siege events compared to ck2, but I'm very skeptical about how practically this could be implemented.

Siege army:
Decides to build proper mobile shields to cover the soldiers while they fill the moat.
Defending army:
The defender, commanded by an unproven rookie, decided to remain on the walls, his archers unable to find many targets.
Result:
Since the defending commander was an incompetent rookie he didn't know what to do. He elected to just stay on the walls, which allowed the enemy to create a path for siege towers. A more prepared commander might have used mangonels (if at disposal) or maybe sallied out to disrupt the attackers, making them easy targets for the archers.

The defending rookie commander has now been replaced with your own character who returned home to defend his family. He is (of course) great at commanding. It could now look like this:
Siege army:
Decides that the gate is the best point of entry and storms the gate with a ram.
Defending army:
The defenders realize what happens. They orderly concentrates their forces around the gate and pour boiling tar onto the attackers.
Result:
The attack made no progress and therefor they didn't fill the next "dot".

And my last example:
The great siege commander decides to:
Feint an attack from both sides of the castle. Though one side is made of mainly strawmen attached to spears. In reality he focus his attack on just one side.
The defending commander:
Splits his army in two equal parts, completely falling for the ruse.
Result:
The walls on one side of the castle has been completely overrun and the attackers manages to cling on to several towers. This fills two dots because of how great the tactic worked. The castle is now even closer to falling.
Now, maybe I'm misinterpreting here, but this sounds quite interactive/reactive if there are interdependent decisions to be made during the course of a siege for both attacker and defender. This is of course, paradox's single greatest red line they do not want to cross, for good reason. Some decision-making in sieges could be fun when you're a single province count, but what about when you're an emperor with a dozen simultaneous sieges (some attacking, some defending) taking place across your domain?

How is the defending commander chosen? The title holder? What about someone who holds multiple counties that are concurrently besieged? Which one gets the lord as commander? What happens with the others? Okay, maybe he's got a marshal and some commanders who can step up! But what about when they are already off leading armies elsewhere?

You could even argue that the defenders should be able to retake "dots" by for instance pushing the attackers out of the city. In this way siege battles will become battlefields too where the commanders will use different tactics. It also means that a capable castle commander can bog down the enemy for a long time while weak commanders might make stupid blunders or cave-in without much fighting.
You also seem to be somewhat conflating the siege with the siege assault. They aren't the same thing and the regular siege is supposed to represent the wait them out option, with minor skirmishing and sallies etc represented through the background losses and events - this is the bit that I think could be expanded on, with just more flavourful events.
But the siege assault when undertaken is completed in a matter of days. You're not going to have some big push that captures a tower or a gatehouse then just go back to chilling out in the siege for another few weeks while your enemy still holds the rest of the walls. And the timeframe is too short for events that push back on a taken tower or the like. Although maybe for more advanced castles there could be a separate keep siege sometimes? Meh, not worth the hassle of that.

In the end people mostly just want to survive so the attacker could for example give the option of surrender now and you all will be spared and maybe be able to leave without becoming prisoners, but harsh consequences if you choose to resist.
This now would be quite cool for flavour, but I suspect players would just learn how to abuse it too easily and it would wind up being something like 1 or 2 sieges at the start of wars then everyone else just surrendering right away if you've show your chivalry towards surrendering towns. Although in a way you could interpret the new system, where taking all of the fortified holdings in a province gives you control of all of it, as representing the unfortified towns surrendering to avoid bloodshed.

All that said, this:
The Siege mechanics should be deepened so that they act as battlefields where both the attacking commander, and also the defending commander will come to shine. This could look like the murder scheme system where "dots" are filled after each successful phase. The defenders will attempt to counter this by using their defense tactics and if successful the "dot" won't be filled. The attackers win when all "dots" have been filled. In essence, a dot is filled when the attackers make progress and the defenders fail to stop them.
Without the defending commanders, does not sound too far off the description of CK3 sieges from the war DD:
Each Fort level increases the amount of Siege Progress you need to get before it gets occupied. You gain a base amount of Siege Progress every tick, which can be increased further by heavily outnumbering the garrison or having Siege Weapons. This constant progress won’t change over the course of a siege. It allows you to know what the maximum duration of the siege will be and you can take that into account as you plan your next move. Sieges also have what we call ‘siege events’, which occur with a fixed interval, and can make the siege progress faster by giving you a one time Siege Progress bonus, or increase your base Siege Progress. Siege Weapons are required to get the ‘breached walls’ event, which in turn allow you to directly assault the holding. This is a risky maneuver since it will cost you troops, at the benefit of vastly increasing your daily Siege Progress.
There's no mention of events that can undo siege progress, but I would imagine at the least that there are ones which do not progress it, representing minor victories for the defenders. I'm happy with that level of abstraction for sieges.
 
Thank you for your questions and feedback! I will try to give you some, hopefully, fulfilling answers.
So, I don't think I explained this well enough; the events - or tactics, that are chosen is something that you should only be able to see when you open the siege panel of a province. It should by no means be a pop-up event. It will work much like when armies battle it out in the field, where you can only see the tactics chosen by clicking your army. Otherwise it's just two figures beating each other. In case of siege it's a guy standing on a province - like in CK2.

I quite like the idea of expanding out siege events compared to ck2, but I'm very skeptical about how practically this could be implemented.

Now, maybe I'm misinterpreting here, but this sounds quite interactive/reactive if there are interdependent decisions to be made during the course of a siege for both attacker and defender. This is of course, paradox's single greatest red line they do not want to cross, for good reason. Some decision-making in sieges could be fun when you're a single province count, but what about when you're an emperor with a dozen simultaneous sieges (some attacking, some defending) taking place across your domain?

Yeah, you misinterpreting a little bit. You don't take a multitude of decisions; it is still as it was in CK2. The main difference with my proposal is that we give the defenders and also the attackers some agency - which will translate into different tactics. That is that the commander on the defensive side will choose a suitable tactic much like the attackers would. After all, being on the defensive side takes a lot of brain too. Your skilled commander wouldn't just sit around doing nothing while under siege. As explained they could use the "dots" which would be the siege progress. They would be filled as the siege progresses and the attackers comes closer at bringing down the castle. It would basically work like a battle where two armies meet - only that now there are different tactics because - well, the castle. The two commanders will still make their own decisions without your meddling. It just looks more alive than that of CK2 and allows the defenders some options where they in time could hopefully make the siege so painful for the attackers that they would either leave or that reinforcements would arrive.

How is the defending commander chosen? The title holder? What about someone who holds multiple counties that are concurrently besieged? Which one gets the lord as commander? What happens with the others? Okay, maybe he's got a marshal and some commanders who can step up! But what about when they are already off leading armies elsewhere?

Good question! So I think that it could be like in CK2 in this regard. At first your character would be chosen, then the martial, then one of your commanders and in the end just a random courtier would be chosen. If neither is available then there won't be a commander. That is of course the worst scenario for the defender because much like a field army it will be left to some kind of captain - aka "no character".

I'll answer the next bit in two responses.
You also seem to be somewhat conflating the siege with the siege assault. They aren't the same thing and the regular siege is supposed to represent the wait them out option, with minor skirmishing and sallies etc represented through the background losses and events - this is the bit that I think could be expanded on, with just more flavourful events.

I've spent way too much time in CK2 to conflate any of that sort. Yes, the CK2 option represents the wait out option - to an extend. Because if they only waited them out, then how do you explain that it ticks faster when more soldiers are besieging? I mean, the walls doesn't start to crumble faster if the number of soldiers staring at them increase. And yes, the rest is background losses with small events etc. Thing is that I don't like "background" losses which carries no explanation at all. You don't take losses by staring a wall from a safe distance, you take losses when you try to progress the siege by destroying the defenses. Further more, I want the sieges to be a live. I want to give the defenders agency, and lastly the attackers didn't always have time to starve out a castle - albeit that is not really portrait very well in CK2 anywhere but in some few places with low supply. You would usually try to bring down the defenses which as the defenders weaken could give you some opportunities to act on.

But the siege assault when undertaken is completed in a matter of days. You're not going to have some big push that captures a tower or a gatehouse then just go back to chilling out in the siege for another few weeks while your enemy still holds the rest of the walls. And the timeframe is too short for events that push back on a taken tower or the like. Although maybe for more advanced castles there could be a separate keep siege sometimes? Meh, not worth the hassle of that.

Indeed, the assault is something in the game only takes a couple of days. You can still assault the castle at potentially great losses once you've broken the wall - as they said in the DD.

My examples were just that - examples. It's to say that there should be a progression and that the defenders as well as attackers will influence that. For instance; the first thing to do would logically be to fill the moat if any such exist - successfully doing that would progress the siege because you've now circumvented the first of the defenses.
Naturally you're not just going to wreck the gate just to go back to camp. The idea is that the gate has now been so wrecked that the siege has progressed yet again because the attackers will be able to break through it without much hassle next time. Anyway, my examples are not really that important, the point was to say that whatever the attackers do that progress the siege and brings the defenders closer to breaking will fill a dot. On the other hand, should the defenders manage to sneak out and burn down the siege towers that was meant to be used the next day, well then the dot won't be filled (the Jews actually did that during the Roman siege of Jerusalem IIRC). It's to create a sense of progression and struggle over the castle where the defenses will matter. In CK2 the defenses was simply a click of the button and they were only X % modifier while besieged.

Without the defending commanders, does not sound too far off the description of CK3 sieges from the war DD
I mean, what they've described is just like the CK2 system, which was an incredibly boring waiting game of watching the bar tick down by X every 12 days. Again, it completely ignored the agency of the defenders, the system wasn't very alive and it in my opinion it needs a change especially considering how much time you spend besieging holdings. Even more, in CK3 you need to besiege a lot more, because castles has a lot more strategic importance which can block you from passing by and make you take attrition. Any sort of strategical placement is to an extend ignored by the CK2 system, because you're still going to just wait until the bar has ticked down. I think that with the dots you can give castles that rests in the mountain, on a river or other places that are hard to siege more dots. Further more, the different tactics could also reflect the environment.

There's no mention of events that can undo siege progress, but I would imagine at the least that there are ones which do not progress it, representing minor victories for the defenders. I'm happy with that level of abstraction for sieges.

I'm not optimistic about that. I think it'll be just like in CK2, which was a boring waiting game. Basically, there was never ever an incentive for the attackers to leave once the siege was in place. Even if it was a simple minded, blind, dwarf leading the siege army against Julius Caesar himself, the siege would still progress the same every 12 days - the defenders would apparently just sit around, and the attackers would never run out of supplies or troops (because the defenders wasn't a part of the equation).
So, in short, what I propose is that Sieges will be treated like the battlefield it is, where both the defenders and attackers pick their tactics hoping to counter each other. Of course it's a longer battle than those of field battles and happen on completely different terms as well. Through the dot system you can also include the surrounding area - is it flat, wooded, hilly etc to make other tactics for the defenders and attackers a like.