Siege Please!

[motherboard1]

Would you be in favor of a Rome:total war style siege system. where you could siege the city for a period of time, and eventually force the defender to attack outwards or send an army to lift the siege?

Many cities in History were forced into submission by siege (I assume ), it would be a nice alternative to the Catakazie and then attack the city method

 

[Ankh-f-n-Khonsu]

Would you be in favor of a Rome:total war style siege system. where you could siege the city for a period of time, and eventually force the defender to attack outwards or send an army to lift the siege?

Many cities in History were forced into submission by siege (I assume ), it would be a nice alternative to the Catakazie and then attack the city method

I like it. You could, of course, cover your enemy's BFC with units, since a square can't be worked if there's an enemy unit atop it, but that's laborious. It would be nice to be able to pick off population if they dare step into a field adjacent to one of your units; perhaps a ZOC where the population can't work any squares adjacent to an enemy unit, so that a few well-placed soldiers can effect a siege.

I don't have the slightest idea how it works in R:TW.

 

[Leeksoup]

In R:TW, you try to move a stack into an enemy city. It then is besieged by the stack. The stack can build siege engines while besieing, and the sieged city cannot trade, build, or recruit units. Depending on the level of walls, it takes between 2 and 12 turns for a city to fall to invaders from a siege. All the units inside are killed and the enemy stack takes the city with very minimal damage.
The benefit to doing this is that sometimes you can starve a superior force with just a small siege stack, plus you barely take any damage (compared to assaulting the walls). The downside is that armies besieging cities are taking money to support, and they aren't pillaging or doing anything that could bring in money to pay for themselves.

 

[Holycannoli]

Yes but it would drastically alter how combat works in this game, which coincidentally is something I'm all for IMO, a Civ game with R:TW-style battles would be the single best game ever made. But even without RTS battles a siege/sally system could work and could really spice up the game.

I really dislike the catakazie system. I mean really dislike; it's one of my major gripes. It's completely unrealistic. I actually prefer Civ III's artillery system.

In an improved Civ combat system, pre-gunpowder artillery would be used primarily for sieges and would prove highly ineffective vs units and shouldn't even get the ability to bombard nearby tiles (range is just too long for pre-gunpowder). Post-gunpower artillery wouldn't be used for sieges since siege warfare is no longer possible, but would prove very useful vs units due to bombard ability, and useful to attack enemy defensive fortifications such as we currently have in the game. But since it's a long-range weapon it cannot be used to attack close-range by moving the artillery onto an enemy unit (much like Civ III's system and nothing like Civ IV's).

Sieges themselves could work like this: If a city has walls, no unit can attack any defending units inside. The attacker has to 'lay siege' which would cut off that city from trade routes, worked tiles etc except for the city's tile. (BTW, if the city has no walls it's in deep trouble because it can be both besieged AND attacked by units at the same time!) The attacker pays extra upkeep for each besieging unit (sieges cost a lot!). The size of the city determines how many enemy units are needed to lay siege; large cities require quite a few units to lay siege! Every turn or two a city is besieged, the defending units lose a bit of strength and the attacking units cost a bit more upkeep.

Attacking catapults and trebuchets would be able to attack the city walls, not by bombardment but by actually moving the unit onto the city tile so that they can be counterattacked by defending artillery. Only defending artillery can counterattack. Defending catapults can only counterattack enemy catapults, not trebuchets. Defending trebuchets can counterattack both enemy catapults and trebuchets. It's due to range. Trebuchets will cost significantly more to build and maintain than catapults.

After a set number of turns, depending on the size of the besieged city, the city will fall. The amount of turns remaining will be displayed. The defender can choose to sally his units (by simply attacking with them as normal) or wait for reinforcements or maybe for the besieging army to just give up. Sallies are to the death for each unit that sallies; there is no retreating back into the city or surviving with casualties unless you completely destroy whichever enemy unit from the attacking stack is chosen to defend. The besieged defender cannot wait forever without sallying or sending reinforcements to break the siege since his units will slowly lose strength and ability to sally not to mention population loss (they are being cut off from supplies, and conditions in the city will slowly worsen). The attacker can either wait it out or use artillery to hasten the process by knocking down the walls so he can attack. Laying siege is expensive so simply waiting for the city to fall may not be the wisest choice; he may run out of money before the siege is successful. Besieging armies demand a lot of money to sit around doing nothing!

Once a civilization enters the industrial age or researches a tech I have yet to determine, they can no longer siege or be sieged, effectively rendering enemy catapults and trebuchets worthless to them, and mandating that their own be upgraded to cannon.

A bit long-winded but I hope you get the idea. It's totally possible for Civ 5 to have this kind of system.

EDIT: An attacker won't have to lay siege to every city with walls. He can try to just move to an adjacent tile and knock down the walls with artillery. But this method doesn't allow for a siege's benefit of isolating a city and preventing the use of tiles in it's fat cross.

 

[Sisiutil]

That's an intriguing idea, Holycannoli--very realistic, but it sounds kind of complicated. I mean, good luck explaining that to a beginner--even I had to think carefully about how it would all work!

I myself would settle for the siege units being able to do collateral damage without suiciding. That in and of itself would be infinitely more realistic. It could be balanced by reducing the amount of collateral damage inflicted by each individual siege unit. Enemy units should have to sally out of a city in order to kill siege units.

I'd also like to see some of the naval units (Frigates, Battleships) gain the ability to inflict collateral damage on land units located adjacent to coastal tiles.

 

[kristopherb]

yes i like the idea see this tread
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=199271&highlight=good+idea

 

[Holycannoli]

That's an intriguing idea, Holycannoli--very realistic, but it sounds kind of complicated. I mean, good luck explaining that to a beginner--even I had to think carefully about how it would all work!

I myself would settle for the siege units being able to do collateral damage without suiciding. That in and of itself would be infinitely more realistic. It could be balanced by reducing the amount of collateral damage inflicted by each individual siege unit. Enemy units should have to sally out of a city in order to kill siege units.

I'd also like to see some of the naval units (Frigates, Battleships) gain the ability to inflict collateral damage on land units located adjacent to coastal tiles.

That's good too Much simpler, and makes you wonder why it doesn't already work that way.

I like complicated though. That's just me. For me more complicated means more tactical and strategic options, and I love playing the role of a great general or warlord. That's why I love R:TW so much.

Sorry for my idea sounding confusing. I have how it would all work in my head, but it's not so easy to explain it when it's late at night.

 

[T.A JONES]

Attacking catapults and trebuchets would be able to attack the city walls, not by bombardment but by actually moving the unit onto the city tile so that they can be counterattacked by defending artillery. Only defending artillery can counterattack. Defending catapults can only counterattack enemy catapults, not trebuchets. Defending trebuchets can counterattack both enemy catapults and trebuchets. It's due to range. Trebuchets will cost significantly more to build and maintain than catapults.

I like your ideas as it does add a nice blend of realism and practicality. I can relate to this one item in particular.

Looking back In CIv3, AI artillery was useless on attack but was built and cooped up in Cities. These cannons and artillery would defend the city unharmed from attacker. Good Counter siege units much like you describe.

This got me thinking of ways to make sieges harder myself. The idea to make a pot of boiling oil unit ..Hear me out!, one that was unmovable and spawned from inside a building (wonder) at a rate of however many turns.(that being a key variable)

A city that stood for many years or had higher production value would have a better defense. It had collected many more pots of oil. This oil collecting up in a unguarded city was pointless and my plan useless, if it weren’t to coincide with another AI pattern I noticed.. The hoarding of many out dated units in a large part of its cities (excluding minor or outskirting towns to a higher degree)This gave me the hope it might work to the AI’s advantage.( Im currently trying to implement this in a 4 era ancient mod)

The attacking stack commiting the seige would fall victim more to oil over time then they did would the stack of useless, say spearmen or whatever. Essential the weaker unit becomes the guys that poured the oil. Over time this could halt a advance somewhat effectively without going to far out the bounds of reality for middle age warfare.

I never fully understood if this part would work with zero movement points or if even it was more of a potential exploit then a added benefit to gameplay.

Oh well I look forward to Civ5’s fresh approach needless to say what happens. I hate those dam Rambo Trebs myself.

 

[motherboard1]

the problem with new ideas for defensive bonuses is that the odds are stacked against the attacker already.

 

[Leeksoup]

the problem with new ideas for defensive bonuses is that the odds are stacked against the attacker already.

Exactly. We add boiling oil attrition, the attackers have got to get a buff as well.

 

[Duraska]

I started a thread about this issue several months ago. Here was my idea:

Hey everyone. As my legions were laying waste to Shaka's empire, it dawned on me that sieges could be made more interesting if you could "starve" the city out. Traditionally (talking VERY old school, pre-Alex-the-Great-times), a fortified city was *very* difficult to take by force alone. Most of the time, the invading army would simply seal off the city and wait for starvation and disease to force the city to surrender. In Civ IV, a big city may starve a little (if you destroy every food tile improvement around the city) but eventually the city will reach the pop level that is sustainable by the basic surrounding tiles and stay there.

I propose these ideas. What do you guys think?

1) An invading army can effectively stop the besieged city from working any tiles that the army currently occupies. Also, any tiles in a straight line *behind* the army are unworkable as well. A few examples:

C = City
A = Army
* = workable tile
X = unworkable tile

    City not under siege:

        ***
       *****
       **C**
       *****
        ***

    City under siege by 2 armies:

        *X*
       **A**
       XAC**   Note how the two armies prevent the city from working 
       *****     a total of four tiles.
        ***

Theoretically, it would take 8 separate armies (or one army split into 8 stacks) to completely block any workable tiles by the city. This would mean that the city would default to only working the city tile itself... i.e. massive starvation. To balance this, the inavading army would likely be spread thin enough that the garrison could attack and destroy bits of it, freeing up tiles for use again.

2) For each drop in the city's population caused by besiegement, the city gains 1 temporary . This simulates the diseases that often break out in a besieged city where the dead cannot be buried outside of the city limits (poisoning the water supply or burning dead bodies can also cause this sickness). This would also help increase the rate in which the city starves.

If a city drops to a point where it cannot even support 1 population (due to sickness being greater than its food intake), the city surrenders to the attacking force, and the attackers obtain the city in a state of rebellion (just like when you normally take a city).


What do you guys think? I know it's a bit complicated, but it just seems so odd that an army can theoretically "siege" a city for 2000 years in Civ IV, without the city being hurt all that much. Adding this feature (or a similar feature) might encourage more strategy on the sieging player's war-plan, while still allowing the defenders a fighting chance.

 

[Neoclast]

After some thought on this topic I have come to the conclusion that siege weapons are designed properly now.

The reason for this is that when siege weapons roll into range to attack a cities garrison of troops (not bombarding of def) the enemy troops would focus on the siege weapons and cause a lot of damage to them if not totally destroy them. The siege weapons however did their job and caused colateral damage to many of the defending units. There was a thread a couple months ago that talked about the range of a typical cat or tre and that longbows were simular in range. Not to mention that the Mongol bows could even outshoot English longbows in distance.

In conclusion, the siege weapons can safely attack a city's exterior defense from a safe range. However moving the weapons closer so that they can reach the troops inside puts them inside the defender's range. It all makes sense to me now, and I am quite happy with it. Most times after I attack a city I still have about half of my siege weapons still alive and after a couple turns of rest they are ready to roll again.

just my opinion.

 

[Holycannoli]

But why would you want to move your siege weapons into range to attack the defenders inside? And how can a melee unit inside a city defend vs a siege engine and destroy it?

The only thing that would make sense is if siege weapons could only be counterattacked by siege weapons or possibly archer units (I don't see archers being an effective counter though)

The problem is it's turn-based, and the attacking unit is forced to defend itself rather than a more suitable unit in the stack. In reality or at least in a RTS game that melee unit that sallied out of the city to destroy the siege weapons would get massacred by the attacking army. It would have to be an all-out sally or else it's just futile suicide, and chances are that unit won't even make it to the siege weapons before dying. Plus, the attacker would know that his siege weapons are vulnerable at that range and would probably not move his expensive siege weapons that close.

No army utilizing siege weapons would move those weapons into firing range and leave them to defend themselves.

 

[Neoclast]

You are right that the problem is that the game is turn based. Think about that for a moment. You attack with your stack, siege-melee-mounted-archers, and the city defends itself with their stack. If the battle were real then all of this would be happening at the same time. The defense would focus on knocking out the siege units which help the other side breach their defenses.

I think all to often we tend to overthink things and forget about meshing turn based time in to real time.

The way the siege are set up works for me. During times of siege they can safely lower defenses from max range. However when the battle starts and they need to hit the enemy deeper inthey need to move closer and become just as much of a target as anything else.

I do not think that the siege are perfect, but I think they are better at combat then the ones in Civ III.

 

[Naismith]

I myself would settle for the siege units being able to do collateral damage without suiciding. That in and of itself would be infinitely more realistic. It could be balanced by reducing the amount of collateral damage inflicted by each individual siege unit.

The easy way of dealing with that would be to increase the withdraw percentage on siege to 100%. As you mentioned, siege would be way overpowered unless some other kind of adjustment was also made.

 

[Bushface]

As things stand, I often use a kind of siege technique which I think of as the Steel Carpet (following on from the famous Iron Curtain). This entails bringing up some weaker units to occupy the outer tiles of the enemy's fat cross while the inner ones get not more than two units each, preferably a siege weapon and a good city-attacker which I am trying to feed with XPs. Note that I don't use a stack attack force, because the AI usually defends with quite a lot of cats/trebs/cannon etc. and just loves to hurl these at big stacks to cause collateral damage, which happens only rarely to two-unit mini-stacks. This leaves the defending siege units to be picked off "at leisure" for a few more XPs to my troops. It isn't necessary to carpet the whole fat cross, just enough to cause starvation and get the city population down - which saves time after the conquest while the city still has resistant citizens.

 

[Blaarg]

I really dislike the catakazie system. I mean really dislike; it's one of my major gripes. It's completely unrealistic. I actually prefer Civ III's artillery system.

Yea, but IMO, the Artillery system in Civ3 was way too powerful, especially when you had railroads.

In an improved Civ combat system, pre-gunpowder artillery would be used primarily for sieges and would prove highly ineffective vs units and shouldn't even get the ability to bombard nearby tiles (range is just too long for pre-gunpowder).

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there were pre-gunpowder seige engines (if you can call them that) designed to be anti-personal weaponry. Catapults that fired lots of smaller sized stones. Big enough to kill a man, but too small to damage fortifacations in any meaningful manor. You could build them in Age of Emires, or was it Age of Kings?

Post-gunpower artillery wouldn't be used for sieges since siege warfare is no longer possible, but would prove very useful vs units due to bombard ability, and useful to attack enemy defensive fortifications such as we currently have in the game. But since it's a long-range weapon it cannot be used to attack close-range by moving the artillery onto an enemy unit (much like Civ III's system and nothing like Civ IV's).

I'm not sure where you got the idea that sieges not longer occured after the invention of gunpowered

Fall of Constantinople (While the Byzentines didn't use Gunpowered, the Ottomans most certainly did.
Siege of Quebec City British and French Seven Years War - 1759
Siege of boston American Revolutionary War - 1775-1776
Siege of Yorktown American Revolutionary War - 1781
Siege of Saragossa Napoleonic Era - 1808
Battle of the Alamo Texas Revolutionary War - 1836
Battle of Vicksburg Amercian Civil War - 1863
Siege of Paris Franco-Prussian War - 1870-1871
Battle of Leningrad World War II - 1941-1944
Battle of Stalingrad World War II - 1942
Siege of Beirut Lebonon/Isreal War - 1982

Sieges themselves could work like this: If a city has walls, no unit can attack any defending units inside. The attacker has to 'lay siege' which would cut off that city from trade routes, worked tiles etc except for the city's tile. (BTW, if the city has no walls it's in deep trouble because it can be both besieged AND attacked by units at the same time!) The attacker pays extra upkeep for each besieging unit (sieges cost a lot!). The size of the city determines how many enemy units are needed to lay siege; large cities require quite a few units to lay siege! Every turn or two a city is besieged, the defending units lose a bit of strength and the attacking units cost a bit more upkeep.

*shrug* The current way it's done is more tangiable. You can it off from trade by pillaging the roads. You can reduce the productivity of a city by pillaging it's improvements. You can keep it from working entirely by placing units on all it's tiles.

Attacking catapults and trebuchets would be able to attack the city walls, not by bombardment but by actually moving the unit onto the city tile so that they can be counterattacked by defending artillery. Only defending artillery can counterattack. Defending catapults can only counterattack enemy catapults, not trebuchets. Defending trebuchets can counterattack both enemy catapults and trebuchets. It's due to range. Trebuchets will cost significantly more to build and maintain than catapults.

Interesting idea that only other siege weapons can defend a siege weapon.

After a set number of turns, depending on the size of the besieged city, the city will fall. The amount of turns remaining will be displayed. The defender can choose to sally his units (by simply attacking with them as normal) or wait for reinforcements or maybe for the besieging army to just give up. Sallies are to the death for each unit that sallies; there is no retreating back into the city or surviving with casualties unless you completely destroy whichever enemy unit from the attacking stack is chosen to defend. The besieged defender cannot wait forever without sallying or sending reinforcements to break the siege since his units will slowly lose strength and ability to sally not to mention population loss (they are being cut off from supplies, and conditions in the city will slowly worsen). The attacker can either wait it out or use artillery to hasten the process by knocking down the walls so he can attack. Laying siege is expensive so simply waiting for the city to fall may not be the wisest choice; he may run out of money before the siege is successful. Besieging armies demand a lot of money to sit around doing nothing!

Nah, the if the army thinks the seige will succede then custom dictated that they get 3 days to ransack whatever riches they can get from the city. Why wouldn't fast moving cavalry get to a chance to withdraw?

 

[Holycannoli]

There were 'engines' designed as anti-personnel, but they weren't siege weapons. You couldn't knock down walls or scale the top of walls with them. Mangonels, scorpions, ballista etc. We don't have any of those in Civ.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that sieges not longer occured after the invention of gunpowered

Well I mean by the time artillery arrives on the scene in Civ ancient sieges don't occur anymore.

Nah, the if the army thinks the seige will succede then custom dictated that they get 3 days to ransack whatever riches they can get from the city. Why wouldn't fast moving cavalry get to a chance to withdraw?

I mean defender's cavalry and units. Since the game is turn-based the rules of engagement have to work a bit differently. A defender isn't gonna send out a couple cavalry to attack the besieging army, then run back through the gates into the city. It would be a futile suicide attack if just a few cavalry or a few warriors sallied forth. In the game it can work and be simulated by the withdraw chance or the fact that neither unit is destroyed. But since that doesn't translate into anything realistic I wouldn't want that to be possible.

Of course attacking units can withdraw to a safe distance. And when I mentioned waiting for the attacking army to give up, I mean a siege that lasts so long that the attacking army either lifts the siege or the attacking general (meaning the civ leader not an actual unit) cannot afford the siege anymore. Higher population cities would cost more in the long run because they're larger and probably have granaries and sufficient water supplies/sanitation to hold out for a long time (hope they built granaries in their cities!)

I want a system where it's expensive for the attacker to lay siege for a long time especially when besieging large cities, and where if the defender waits too long his units will wind up too weak to defend and his city may be crippled due to population loss, disease etc. I want a system where you don't have to place a unit on every workable tile because simply surrounding the walls should be sufficient. A system where it's still possible to place a unit on every workable tile, but actually spending the money to lay siege can seriously weaken the defenders if they don't react fast enough (whereas just cutting off the workable tiles leaves the defending units in perfect health), so your unit losses will be minimal.

I want it to be an option, not a requirement, to lay siege with both benefits and drawbacks.

EDIT: I do take a lot of ideas from Rome: Total War's siege system. Other than the strange fact that siege engine strength (the ones you build after to lay siege, like siege towers and battering rams) is tied to the size of the walls, it's a great system. Barring of course the exploits you can use against the AI, like being able to sally just 1 unit of cavalry and have them retreat back into the city without being pursued.