Seige Warfare

[Fishdawg]

So I've never been a fan of Seige warfare since M2TW, Empire was pretty bad and there was almost no point to attacking a besieged city. What was worse was the AI always seemed to sit back when besieging you and do nothing, forcing you to either attack yourself or lose the city automatically. Also you could just sit back and starve them out, same with shogun 2 to a lesser extent. What I want to know is what peoples oppinions and hopes are for Rome 2. Personally I want a massive penalty to an invader who sits back and doesn't attack A city so if you starve them out and win all the buildings are destroyed and must be repaired.

[Dreagon]

There is always the time limit. I always enable the time limit when the ai attacks, especially in a siege situation. That way you can just wait them out and win. I do this ever since I lost a siege battle because my 2 militia units routed when I got out to fight 30 horsemen. I don't really understand that last sentence. Invaders don't have buildings and you can't starve them out. You can only do this to defenders. Or do you mean that there should be a penalty for starving out a city, which makes no sense at all. Why should I take massive casualties in a battle when I can just wait for a while and take over the city without casualties? As the attacker, time is on your side. There should be no penalty for waiting, the risk of getting attacked during the siege is penalty enough.

[Splatterfox]

Yes, I think he means a casualty for besieging a city, not for waiting in the battle itself.

I'm partly your opinion. On the one hand, the defender has a huge bonus because he of course has wall defences. Also, like Dreagon said, time is on the attackers side and waiting and hungering the defender is a common and historically anytime used tactic.
On the other side, the attacker has to (at least realistically) feed, pay and keep the mood of, in the worst case, thousands of soldiers. The defender is the one with supplies, and you can only be victorious if yours hold longer => you need more from time to time.

For this it maybe would be interesting to introduce a negative-mood system (by besieging a city the attacker gets morale minus for his troops the longer the siege is going) or a generally increased upkeep for armies who aren't in cities.

[Dreagon]

I assume it would be relatively easy to supply an attacking army because I assume you control most of the territory, otherwise a siege is too risky. Maybe if you besiege a province that isn't connected to your or allied territory there could be something like a support limit for the region, because an army can always live of the land.

[Dunadd]

So I've never been a fan of Seige warfare since M2TW, Empire was pretty bad and there was almost no point to attacking a besieged city. What was worse was the AI always seemed to sit back when besieging you and do nothing, forcing you to either attack yourself or lose the city automatically. Also you could just sit back and starve them out, same with shogun 2 to a lesser extent. What I want to know is what peoples oppinions and hopes are for Rome 2. Personally I want a massive penalty to an invader who sits back and doesn't attack A city so if you starve them out and win all the buildings are destroyed and must be repaired.

Well that was the main way cities were taken historically because unless the defences had gaps in them or the garrison was very weak or low quality troops the attackers would take heavy casualties in any assault. Can't see much justification for destroying buildings but much of the population of the city would die of starvation if it was taken by siege rather than by assault.

There are some more historically accurate ways you could give risks/penalties to besiegers - first that besiegers tended to take some casualties from archery/siege engines used by the defenders (though usually not that many). Second there was an increased risk of illnesses breaking out not only among the besieged but to a lesser extent among the besiegers (i'd imagine partly due to thousands of people crapping in the same place each day and partly due to difficulties in getting enough supplies if the army isnt on the move and getting some of its food from foraging / raiding / buying from villages they pass etc). Certainly dysentery broke out among besiegers in a lot of hundred years war battles and there was the plague in Athens during the siege of it.

So increased risk of plague breaking out in besieged cities and a lower but still increased risk of plague among besieging armies would be one option. Fall in the population of the besieged city each turn its besieged after so many (depending on how many turns there are to a year). And small numbers of casualties each turn among besieging troops if the garrison have slingers or archers or artillery and/or towers with artillery.

Damage to buildings - maybe for some - e.g markets

[Ichon]

Naval attacks on cities were not the most common and probably won't be in Rome 2 but they were possible and did happen often enough to be included in game as an option. I doubt it will be the easiest form of attack as it would require large fleet of expensive ships but the few times it happens will be quite fun.

There are very few sieges in which the defenders are near in size to the besieging force. Normally such an army would fight in the field because of the dangers of siege (starvation of civilians, no escape for defeated, etc). Alesia is one of the few instances if we believe Caesar that equal numbered army choose to wait for besiegers to fully encamp and build siege works... I personally think Caesar nearly always inflated the numbers but maybe not as bad as some others of ancient eras but would take with a grain of salt that the Gauls within Alesia outnumbered the legions surrounding them.

[Dreagon]

Naval attacks on cities were not the most common and probably won't be in Rome 2 but they were possible and did happen often enough to be included in game as an option. I doubt it will be the easiest form of attack as it would require large fleet of expensive ships but the few times it happens will be quite fun.

It can happen in Carthage, that's for sure. And I assume also other cities like Alexandria.

[Barbarian Nobility]

So I've never been a fan of Seige warfare since M2TW, Empire was pretty bad and there was almost no point to attacking a besieged city. What was worse was the AI always seemed to sit back when besieging you and do nothing, forcing you to either attack yourself or lose the city automatically. Also you could just sit back and starve them out, same with shogun 2 to a lesser extent. What I want to know is what peoples oppinions and hopes are for Rome 2. Personally I want a massive penalty to an invader who sits back and doesn't attack A city so if you starve them out and win all the buildings are destroyed and must be repaired.

My two cents...

Make it a catch 22 situation: If you assault the city, it would be far more likely that buildings and walls etc would be damaged. If you settle in for a long siege there should be a disease modifier for BOTH the besieged and the besieger, with the BESIEGER suffering the greater modifier...

This is something that is yet to be represented in a TW game. When ancient and medieval armies used to besiege cities, they were cramped in shoddily built camps living in terrible conditions. Disease was rife because everyone was eating, crapping and dying all in the same place. So the longer an army camps outside the city walls, the more the casualties add up. There would also be added casualties because of the back and forth of artillery between the city and the besiegers. When the enemy finally decides to assault the city, there will be a morale modifier for the BESIEGED garrison to represent them fighting for their lives, and a negative modifier for the attacking army if they have endured a long siege to signify their lack of morale from the terrible conditions they've endured.

Here is another idea I have;

Currently the only options you have when you attack a settlment are 'Assault' and 'Besiege'. Would be nice if you had the option of negotiation with the cities garrison - IE. You could offer to let the garrison fully withdraw from the city, thus letting the garrison escape into the nearest friendly territory whilst you take the city peacefully. Or you could bribe the garrison to switch sides or sell the city to you so to speak...would add a whole new dimension of having only trustworthy family members governing the city.

[Marcus Claudius Marcellus]

Currently the only options you have when you attack a settlment are 'Assault' and 'Besiege'. Would be nice if you had the option of negotiation with the cities garrison - IE. You could offer to let the garrison fully withdraw from the city, thus letting the garrison escape into the nearest friendly territory whilst you take the city peacefully. Or you could bribe the garrison to switch sides or sell the city to you so to speak...would add a whole new dimension of having only trustworthy family members governing the city.

Agreed, I've always wanted to have a feature such as this in the game. One other thing I've wanted to know is whether the siegeworks in the Carthage gameplay video will be present in all battles, the earthen mounds and wooden palisades for the attackers. I genuinely hope so. What besieging army forms up in perfect battle formation in open ground before an assault...

[Fishdawg]

This would be cool would add a new dimension to Seige warfar besides attack and defend. Like you said would then matter to who you put in charge of a city and the garrison

[Thunderbolt II]

A wider variety of siege engines would make sieges less boring. The old standard of ladders, towers and rams gets old after a while. They should bring back, or add things like:

1. Sappers (to undermine the walls)
2. Sambuca (a type of ladder designed by Damis of Colophon)
3. Fire Raiser (For burning down gates, used at the seige of Delium in 424 B.C.)
4. Siege ramps (to assault the walls, instead of siege towers)
5. Galleries (Covered corridors for protection when approaching the walls)
6. Mantlets (a mobile barricade, to protect soldiers approaching the walls)
7. Circumvallations (to surround and cut off a city)
8. Stigmata & pointed stake pits (to function like a mine field)
9. Heliopolis (a giant siege tower equipped with catapults)
10. Ship mounted siege towers (for naval assaults)

These are described in "De Bello Gallico" by Julius Caesar, and "Warfare in the Classical World" by John Warry.