Advance Notice - Limited Siege Warfare

The White Company will not lumber themselves with such large and bulky siege machines, like television, computers and the internet before them this will be nothing more than a worthless fad.

LIMITED SIEGE WARFARE

With effect from Thursday the 8th of April, we're going to reduce the pre-requisite requirement for both the:

• Siege Engineering technology, and the
  
• War Machines technology
  

to Barracks Level 15.

For those who haven't looked this far ahead, Siege Engineering allows you to build fearsome weapons of war, capable of tearing down an opponent's City Wall.

The War Machines technology allows you to build even more massive and terrifying machines - capable of flinging missiles over the walls of your opponent's city and destroying the buildings inside.

This means that players will be able to build Siege Engines and War Machines with Barracks Level 15 onwards (if they have sufficient Siege Blocks to build the unit).

Whilst you cannot deploy Siege Engines or War Machines in a Siege Encampment (and thereby capture or raze a city) until you have Barracks Level 20, from Barracks Level 15 onwards you will be able to attach these units to an attacking army.

Armies sent out against another City, operating under standard Attack orders with Siege Engines or War Machines attached to the army will be able to destroy opponents' walls and buildings with the effect that:

• Each attacking Siege Engine attached to the army will level down the target's City Wall by 1 Level, if the attackers are victorious

• Each attacking War Machine attached to the army will level down one building, selected at random, by one level, if the attackers are victorious

• If the attackers are not victorious because a sufficient force of defenders are present - or they run into a defensive Rune of sufficient power to kill all the units in the attacking army -  then all the attacking siege weaponry is destroyed
  

The order for Attack alone - not Raid, Blockade, or heaven forbid, Reinforce - is the only valid army order for using this kind of limited siege mechanic.

Siege units will be counted as defenders - with a zero defence value - if they are caught sitting at home or in an encampment/occupy situation.  So, if you build them, you really, really need to defend them.

Siege Engines and War Machines cost a substantial amount of resources (Siege Blocks) to construct.  They are also very expensive to maintain as they require expertly trained engineers to operate and maintain them.

These siege units will move slowly, and the army moves at the pace of the slowest unit, so defenders should have enough time to either organise a defence... or take what's coming to them.

We hope you like.


Edited by GM Stormcrow - 05 Apr 2010 at 00:01