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col0005 
Forum Warrior
Joined: 20 Apr 2010
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 238
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 Topic: Siege upkeep
Posted: 14 Jul 2010 at 02:41 |
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Ingame Siege engines are rather costly to maintain. However historically the costs of a siege wouldn't be in the operation of these machines but rather in the payment, and feeding of the army, and often the victor would not be determined by the fight itself but by who ran out of food first.
So I was think perhaps armies that are re-inforcing a city, and those within a siege encampment could in addition require a food upkeep equal to their gold upkeep.
If this was implemented it may be neccessary to introduce irregation as a structure within the castle to further increase food production as well as a grainary as it may become neccessary to store very large amounts of food before begining a siege.
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Larry
Wordsmith
Joined: 10 Mar 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 114
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Posted: 14 Jul 2010 at 03:19 |
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given that the increase in taxes needed to pay for the siege engines has a very significant affect on food production, I'd say that's already practically in effect.
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HonoredMule
Postmaster General
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 1650
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Posted: 14 Jul 2010 at 19:48 |
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What Larry said. Also, if you want to start crippling food supply in relation to army support, you should also do so to the defending city, setting the food gather rate to 0 during a siege or blockade.
Actually, that might not be a bad idea. It would make blockades more worthwhile an endeavor and prevent the besieged from rebuilding while under siege, which isn't very realistic.
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col0005
Forum Warrior
Joined: 20 Apr 2010
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 238
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Posted: 15 Jul 2010 at 13:51 |
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wait. what? how do you set the food gather rate to zero. at 100% tax you still have 25% resource production.
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HonoredMule
Postmaster General
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Location: Canada
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Points: 1650
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Posted: 15 Jul 2010 at 20:29 |
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"wait. what? how do you set the food gather rate to zero. at 100% tax you
still have 25% resource production."
Currently, you can't. What I'm proposing is that a city under siege or blockade cannot continue to gather resources...effectively setting the gather rate to 0 regardless of taxation.
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col0005
Forum Warrior
Joined: 20 Apr 2010
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 238
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Posted: 16 Jul 2010 at 01:10 |
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Yeah thats basically what I ment. Although it works both ways. Caravans are also needed to supply a siege encampment with food. And once the encampment runs out of food, it'll automatically disperses
However the number of food resource available in the siege square as well as the sov level would provide a percentage of the food upkeep required. That way blockades will become useful as the sieged town can be starved out but also the defending players attempt to use blockades to break the siege encampment.
It'd just allow another way to determine siege rather than mindlessly attacking each other (mindless once the siege encampment has been set up)
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col0005
Forum Warrior
Joined: 20 Apr 2010
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 238
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Posted: 16 Jul 2010 at 02:24 |
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It also means that a small but very well placed army can have a very significant impact on a war
Actually automatically dispersing wouldn't be good but perhaps the sieged armys will slowly begin to loose random units as they starve, where as the sieging army will not loose any troops, however troops will begin to return home at an increasing pace as moral begins to drop due to rationing of food.
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HonoredMule
Postmaster General
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 1650
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Posted: 16 Jul 2010 at 15:21 |
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I very much like the general gist of this idea. I think it is sufficient that siege and blockade have a resource-stopping effect, and that negative food income at the home of a any troops result in a "starving out" effect whereby those troops take a defensive penalty scaled by the magnitude of food deficit (when food is at 0) at their home town--no messing with caravans etc.
This keeps things very simple and straightforward both in understanding of the mechanics and their implementation. It also provides opportunity to benefit from well-coordinated ops, such as planning a bunch of blockades to land moments before a major Sally Forth or other counteroffensive.
It also makes food supply important for more than queuing up stuff, and closes a loophole whereby there's no need to have sufficient food income if you just sit at 0 and ship food in on demand for stuffing queues. Military-focused cities will still need to retain that balance.
Edited by HonoredMule - 16 Jul 2010 at 15:25
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Larry
Wordsmith
Joined: 10 Mar 2010
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Points: 114
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Posted: 16 Jul 2010 at 16:01 |
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The gist of the idea has merits, but I think putting all food income at 0 is a bit punishing, as large cities would be consuming 10k food / hour meaning that over the course of a couple day siege they're going to run essentially a 480k food deficit
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HonoredMule
Postmaster General
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 1650
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Posted: 16 Jul 2010 at 19:55 |
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The more effective a siege, the more quickly food consumption goes down. The specifics of balance can't really be found by speculation. Plenty of preliminary testing and simulation would be required to ensure that attackers and defenders face the same level of complications.
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