Castles and siege warfare

[Endre Fodstad]

In the medieval period, especially from the 13th century onward few areas of the globe were as densely fortified as western and central europe. The scale of fortifications varied greatly, but the sheer amount of castles, forts and fortresses that popped up in medieval europe is quite staggering. Hollister claims more stone was hewn in high medieval France than in the entire 7000-year history of dynastic Egypt: though a lot of this was put into cathedrals, quite an impressive amount went into fortifications as well.

There's been a lot of attention on this board on battles and troop types. This is all well and good, but one must consider the fact that sieges in all likelihood were more important than field battles during the period: battles usually only being fought when one side saw a clear advantage in a pitched conflict. A battle was risky; many historians(usually drawing from Verbruggen) talk about the strategy of battle avoidance. That's probably going a bit far, but there's no doubt that the taking of a strongpoint was the only way to control an area properly.

How does Snowball/Paradox intend to model this? We hear of possible strategies one can use in a field battle, but almost nothing on how sieges are planned to work. With the many potential techniques used during the CK period for reducing a fortress, there should be plenty of opportunities in the game to come.

My worst fear is that it should turn out something like M:TW, where the developers promised "exciting castle sieges" that somehow turned into "time-limited stormings of a castle supported by artillery" or a very silly waiting-out affair were troops can invest a fortress for five years, all the while losing no troops to attrition.

EF

 

[unmerged(5361)]

Hmm.. certainly agree in your assesment of the sieges in M:TW.

I hope there will be a possibility to retreat your army to a castle if it is threatened and choose to sit it out or sortie against the enemy. Certainly also hope castles will be possible to build/upgrade/strengthen in conquered provinces.

The interviews with the designers talk of siege engines, maybe an army have to come with catapults and/or siegetowers to even be able to start a siege?

Should it be possible to direct 'covert action' against an enemy castle under siege. Maybe a bit cartoonish, but poisoning the water supply, carving tunnels under the walls etc would be cool to see.

Will it be like EU though? One province = one fortification, or will you be able to have several castles in the provinces? Probably not, but then you could situations were the countryside is effectively beyond your control as your armies have retreated to the castles as the rampaging hordes of the enemy approaches...

 

[Endre Fodstad]

Originally posted by Jarlen av Juks
The interviews with the designers talk of siege engines, maybe an army have to come with catapults and/or siegetowers to even be able to start a siege?

Should it be possible to direct 'covert action' against an enemy castle under siege. Maybe a bit cartoonish, but poisoning the water supply, carving tunnels under the walls etc would be cool to see.

Siege engines would usually be built on the spot, especially so with towers.
Sapping is not cartoonish at all - it's one of the reasons one see illustrations were people are attacking a stone wall with battering rams - the foundations of the walls have been collapsed.

EF

 

[Alhazen]

Im hoping we will see some sort of representation of many castles in one provinces, castle-building should be an important part of the game, especially in norman england and in france. We should be able to partiton out grants for knights and lords to build castles, be able to claim casltes from lords in times of need, gain CB against lords who build castles without our leave, etc..

Im also hoping castles dont take ridiculous amounts of time to build. depending on the types of castle, they can be built within several months to a year, based on historical examples.

 

[The Andy-Man]

I reckon it will be a one-castle-one province affair.

But AFAIK, provinces are MUCH smaller in ck

 

[unmerged(9506)]

I just hope that siege warfare is not as abstract as EU - it's definitely one of the most interesting aspects of medieval warfare, and I hope that the developers make it so. I know this isn't a tactical-level game, but hey, you can't have a medieval game without sappers and whatnot . . .

-ninja love

 

[unmerged(485)]

Originally posted by Alhazen
Im hoping we will see some sort of representation of many castles in one provinces, castle-building should be an important part of the game, especially in norman england and in france. We should be able to partiton out grants for knights and lords to build castles, be able to claim casltes from lords in times of need, gain CB against lords who build castles without our leave, etc..

Im also hoping castles dont take ridiculous amounts of time to build. depending on the types of castle, they can be built within several months to a year, based on historical examples.

There were also some pretty impressive castles built in Outremer.

 

[unmerged(5361)]

Originally posted by Endre Fodstad
Siege engines would usually be built on the spot, especially so with towers.
Sapping is not cartoonish at all - it's one of the reasons one see illustrations were people are attacking a stone wall with battering rams - the foundations of the walls have been collapsed. EF

You are right about the siege engines ofcourse (I have been playing to much RTS games where you can roll around with catapults and towers.. )

My reason for saying cartoonish, was that I thought implementing this would lead to having a 'special unit' that could go do this, it would not be done by your army (or did normal infantry units do this as well?)

I read that under the Turkish invasion of Malta (a bit later than the CK timeframe though) the Turks brought with them companies of slaves and laboreres (the same unfortunate who manned their galleys) to dig and sap under the fortifications..

Perhaps there could be 'worker/slave groups/companies' that had to accompany an army if you wanted to erect siege engines/sap enemy fortifications in an enemy province?

Or should an army sieging a castle automatically build siege weapons (the number/speed dependant on how large the army is?)

 

[Alhazen]

Id like to have to buy the siege engineers before being able to even research siege weapons, especially larger machines. Id also like to be able to build ditches and counter-fortifications

 

[unmerged(1862)]

This could just be my stupid false memory again, but didn't one of those crazy russians at some point mention something about seige trains, to the effect of you'd have to bring one along if you felt like tackling anything reasonably heavy and that they'd be rather costly?

(Not that I don't love those crazy russians, mind you )

 

[unmerged(485)]

Originally posted by Wheels
This could just be my stupid false memory again, but didn't one of those crazy russians at some point mention something about seige trains, to the effect of you'd have to bring one along if you felt like tackling anything reasonably heavy and that they'd be rather costly?

(Not that I don't love those crazy russians, mind you )

I think it was Greven in the interview who mentioned something like that. (I'm too lazy to look it up though.)

 

[Alhazen]

He was talking about baggage trains, if you wanted to march and stay on campaign for long amounts of time. And that they are luxuries, IIRC..

 

[Winkelried]

Wheren't they speaking about supply trains in that interview?

 

[crazy canuck]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
I reckon it will be a one-castle-one province affair.

But AFAIK, provinces are MUCH smaller in ck

You are probably right but it would be nice to have game system recognize that strongholds, forts, castles, and other non military centres such as monastaries, churches and cathedrals were what mattered. I may be that the only way to absract this is by the use of a "province" although I don't think people thought in terms of who controlled what province. It was more in terms of who controled the revenue, whether provided in terms of manpower or materials or both. Whithin any one area control of those revenue streams could be split amoung many competing interests. That is what makes a fuedal political model so complex and intriging.

As I said I hope this can be modelled in the game, but I may be asking for too much.

 

[unmerged(11633)]

I wonder whether castles will be garrisoned on a permanent basis by troops as in EU II or whether or not a player would have to garrison them and pay the troops inside etc.

Does anyone remember an old game called Lords of the Realm? It was turn based, but you could set your men to build trebuchets, ladders, rams and catapults, or send them to forage for food, or organise them into assault parties. You would then either bombard the castle, fill in the moat, or assault the castle with ladders. If the garrison ran out of food, sooner or ater they'd surrender. It didn't have sappers digging tunnels, but still.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Originally posted by Gjerg Kastrioti
I wonder whether castles will be garrisoned on a permanent basis by troops as in EU II or whether or not a player would have to garrison them and pay the troops inside etc.

What I have read/heard is, you can garrison recently taken castles with field army contingents (and of course you have to pay these).
I don't know however whether your own castles are garrisoned automatically by your counts or not...

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Originally posted by Endre Fodstad
There's been a lot of attention on this board on battles and troop types. This is all well and good, but one must consider the fact that sieges in all likelihood were more important than field battles during the period: battles usually only being fought when one side saw a clear advantage in a pitched conflict. A battle was risky; many historians(usually drawing from Verbruggen) talk about the strategy of battle avoidance. That's probably going a bit far, but there's no doubt that the taking of a strongpoint was the only way to control an area properly.
EF

You're absolutely right. Most modern military historians will agree that medieval warfare was, from a varying but early date depending on the region, all about the proper application of pillage and the control of strategic points. Alfred lost more battles than he won but it didn't matter because the infrastructure benefits his system of burhs conferred cemented his hold over southern England in such a way that no defeat in the field could subvert his position. That system was carried onto the offensive by the massively underrated Edward the Elder - the Saxon conquest of the Danelaw and the North, one of the most significant developments of the medieval age, was an inching strategy of advancing key points to undermine the foundations of Danish power. But Athelstan, victor in the only significant pitched battle of the whole process, gets all the credit.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

I can think of sieges where sappers played a decisive role. At Rochester King John's men successfully collapsed one corner of the keep - no mean feat since it was the best-designed in England at the time. Even then, the rebels fought on - the keep had a lateral wall dividing the structure into two autonomous and defensible halves - but this undermining doomed them (you can see the damage to this day). Even at the end of our period and the greatest fortress in Christendom Serbian sappers undermined the walls of Constantinople.

I like the famous legend that the Saracen commander of Jerusalem, warned the Franks were coming to kick his ass, ordered all the area's trees to be felled and hidden in caves, the crusaders turned up but were unhappy to find there was nothing with which to build siege equipment. One of their leaders, I forget which, went to heed nature's call in a shallow dell and found himself staring into a cave full of newly cut timber

 

[unmerged(5459)]

I'd have thought that castles could be garrisoned on a permanent basis, though this force (made up of local peasants, militia etc. afraid of the invader) should be quite small and weak, unless the fortress was a fortified city.

Then this garrison can be bolstered by 'regular' troops.

btw,
If this is possible i.e. provincial garrisons are independantly garrisoned permanently by a local noble or militia, then would they have the choice to surrender to the enemy of their own accord?
And could this give you a CB on that fortress etc. for doing so?