A note about the Siege Escalation System

[Nico CA]

Hi guys!

The brand new siege escalation system in Total War: ATTILA, shown off in this split screen shot, really affects how you play the campaign. Siege a settlement for longer, and you’ll cause more damage to it over time, lowering the morale of the defending troops, weakening walls, and causing civilians to flee the field when you decide to fight the battle. Likewise, any damage caused to buildings in your battles carries back to the campaign map – so do you take a city with high defences, or do you wear down the walls first? It’s your choice.



Also, if you’ve already ordered Total War: ATTILA on Steam, you can pre-load now, ready for when it goes live at 8am GMT on the 17th. Look out for Reviews hitting from today.

- Nico

[Cadian Guardsman]

Que massive rage in 3... 2... 1...

On a more serious note, looks good. I like the idea of gaining tangible benifits from waiting and from a purely game play perspective is looking like a great feature.

[damien007]

I really like the feature. But I think it would be alot better if you made some changes to make it more interactive. Like having it take longer/quicker depending on research and siege artillery in the army.

[Nico CA]

I really like the feature. But I think it would be alot better if you made some changes to make it more interactive. Like having it take longer/quicker depending on research and siege artillery in the army.

A player with siege artillery might want to attack straight away too, nah? However the defending army would have full moral.
Also remember that damages done during the battles will be transferred to the campaign map. So strategies during the battle may be different if players plan to loot, occupy or raze settlements, etc...

I personally prefer using my siege artillery to burn everything during the battles and raze what's left from the campaign map

[Sheridan]

A player with siege artillery might want to attack straight away too, nah? However the defending army would have full moral.
Also remember that damages done during the battles will be transferred to the campaign map. So strategies during the battle may be different if players plan to loot, occupy or raze settlements, etc...

I personally prefer using my siege artillery to burn everything during the battles and raze what's left from the campaign map

Yeah but, for example, is siege escalation as effective if you're sieging with 1 unit as if you're sieging with a full 20 unit stack? (e.g. if it takes 8 turns to start creating holes in the enemy walls with a full army, does it take 8 turns if you just bring a single unit too?)

[TomR199]

Nick please do the community a favor and clearly tell us what is the state of torches in the game and how sieges are affected by them or not.

[Nico CA]

Yeah but, for example, is siege escalation as effective if you're sieging with 1 unit as if you're sieging with a full 20 unit stack? (e.g. if it takes 8 turns to start creating holes in the enemy walls with a full army, does it take 8 turns if you just bring a single unit too?)

I won't get into very specific examples but the answer is no: the size and setup of your armies will have an impact on how important the damages are. All the necessary details regarding the siege escalation and expected results will be provided from the siege interface (the one you get when you give an army the order to attack a settlement).

[barry12]

Are there many instances in history where a besieging army didn't pillage and destroy most of the town once they'd breached the walls and engaged the defenders? I'm big on medieval history and most sieges in those times ended in rape, fire and death for those in the town. It was nigh-on impossible to control thousands of blood-drunk and sometimes alcohol-drunk soldiers once they'd finished the main part of the battle. Soldiers want loot and women.

However I'm inclined to think that Roman soldiers, receiving a steady salary, and having a much more complex chain of command, would have perhaps been more disciplined after sieges.

Would be interesting to hear of occasions on which towns/cities were spared (not talking enslaved, i mean genuinely free to go after)

[Sheridan]

Alright, appreciate the answer, Nico. It's good to hear that these things have an impact, otherwise some rather funny things could happen.

[AnthoniusII]

Yeah but, for example, is siege escalation as effective if you're sieging with 1 unit as if you're sieging with a full 20 unit stack? (e.g. if it takes 8 turns to start creating holes in the enemy walls with a full army, does it take 8 turns if you just bring a single unit too?)

Creating holes with WHAT? That is the crusial question here not the holes themselvs!!

[damien007]

Creating holes with WHAT? That is the crusial question here not the holes themselvs!!

Siege artillery and / or sapping. It's an abstraction and this has been answered a milllion times now Anthonius. If you choose to believe that it's "Letters to Santa Klaus" bringing down the walls when there are perfectly logical explanation, then that's your choice.

[Sheridan]

Creating holes with WHAT? That is the crusial question here not the holes themselvs!!

At this point we know it's an abstraction, the holes are created by sapping and perhaps even artillery that is built on site. This isn't a problem by itself as it makes a lot of sense, but the fact that anyone can siege anything and knock down the walls makes it less interesting, accurate and unique than what it surely could have been.

[AnthoniusII]

Siege artillery and / or sapping. It's an abstraction and this has been answered a milllion times now Anthonius. If you choose to believe that it's "Letters to Santa Klaus" bringing down the walls when there are perfectly logical explanation, then that's your choice.

Where did you see sapping in the siege escalation??
The text says

Siege a settlement for longer, and you’ll cause more damage to it over time, lowering the morale of the defending troops, weakening walls, and causing civilians to flee the field when you decide to fight the battle.

and mentions NOTHING about sapping! Stop hummiliating your self trying despertly to defend CA with all costs and without any real prouf!
Find a single post here in TWC or in TW Official site that mentions sapping!!!
The problem , wise guy, is this!! The lack of such siege additions in that stupid feature! CA simple says..."wait and everything will colapse"...
READ CA's posts more carefully before defend them again!

[Sheridan]

Easy now. Whether sapping has officially been stated as the cause for siege escalation or not, it's very fair to assume this would be one of the methods in use. The feature is meant to represent something, after all; in this case damage to cities following continuous attempts by the aggressor to get inside over the course of months or years. The aggressor has got to use some method to cause all this destruction, and that's what siege escalation implies. What precisely this is isn't specified and needs not be as it may well vary from case to case.

[geala]

It's not that unrealistic that during a longer siege parts of the fortification are destroyed, even without special artillery. So if they don't mention sapping (sometimes an effective way of destruction) we can imagine it. CA should only be bashed if justified, and when, in appropiate words without insults. The mere fact that you and the AI have to wait if no artillery is available is a nice feature. One of the reasons I did f.e. not play S2TW was the instant attack ability that diminished heavily the strategic importance of fortresses (to buy you time).

[AnthoniusII]

Easy now. Whether sapping has officially been stated as the cause for siege escalation or not, it's very fair to assume this would be one of the methods in use. The feature is meant to represent something, after all; in this case damage to cities following continuous attempts by the aggressor to get inside over the course of months or years. The aggressor has got to use some method to cause all this destruction, and that's what siege escalation implies. What precisely this is isn't specified and needs not be as it may well vary from case to case.

That something is your wish...to exist...not CA's real feature existance! This is a huge diference! 3 hours ago...I was few feet away from the Theodosian Walls of Thessalonike...1600 years later there are still there!!! According to your prospective they should be disapear!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You see....???? You can defend a stupid -in consept- feature as long as you like..That does not mean that its logical!

[Påsan]

Personally I'd wished they rethink artillery altogether. Heavy artillery like onagers and catapults could only be built during a siege alongside ladders and siege towers, and the Siege escalation" should only begin when the catapults are done representing the damage they do.

Then at the battle map during the assault, the holes in the walls is there as a result of the bombardment, and the catapults you have built could either be active or not, however they would effectively be wildly inaccurate and with slow reload times. Walls were not brought down in minutes or even hours and catapults are not anti personnel weapons.

[Sheridan]

That something is your wish...to exist...not CA's real feature existance! This is a huge diference! 3 hours ago...I was few feet away from the Theodosian Walls of Thessalonike...1600 years later there are still there!!! According to your prospective they should be disapear!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You see....???? You can defend a stupid -in consept- feature as long as you like..That does not mean that its logical!

Well actually it's not a stupid concept. You're sort of taking words out of my mouth, here. I'm not defending (or agreeing to) the fact that any walls can be taken out by anyone. That's one of the serious flaws with the implementation of the mechanic; no difference appears to have been made neither in regards to how good various factions are at sieging, nor how long it takes for walls to start taking damage if they're of different type and quality. But the core idea makes sense, that through engineering skill (something a fair deal of factions arguably should lack severally in), most walls will over time be subject to damage of varying nature.

I can very much see the complaints here though. As it stands, it seems to be a feature which you can barely interact with or affect, beyond bringing a larger force to the siege. Since no sapping points or artillery need to be built (in the case with the former, can be built) it's not surprising that people think this mechanic literally represents walls falling down from nothing - as the player will never see or interact with what brings the walls down, but merely see the consequences thereof. It could be implemented much better, but right should be right - it does make sense to a certain degree.

[Butan]

Siege engines can be modded for realistic accuracy/damage. No worries on that, let CA cater to the casual masses while hardcore players create oldschool battles.
But yea, would be better if they were built only while besieging (as ladders, rams, etc...!). Honestly I'm not even sure if its not the case in Attila, because even adding up every announcements on how Attila works there is still a lot of things to discover.

[damien007]

Siege engines can be modded for realistic accuracy/damage.

Well you say that but realistically siege engine took months to bring down walls. So to be realistic there no point in representing them at in battles or sieges at all. They should appear on the campaign map and do damage via siege escalation.