Soliciting thoughts: Siege & Sally Forth

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a) Dramatically reduce to-hit numbers for Siege Engines
Yes, seems reasonable, accuracy could increase as siege goes on and/or by research bonus.
b) Reduce the blanket 6H Sally Forth timer
Instead of a timer...  allow players to Sally Forth as much as they want, but, have a factor in 'organization'.  The longer a player waits, the more 'organized' the Sally Forth is.  

Perk of allowing the organization to be high is that you commit more of your army into the 'Raid'.  A more decisive outcome, more likely to get at the siege engines.

While having a low organization, the 'Raid' is less conclusive.  Just small skirmishes that won't get you to the siege engines.
c)
 Only allow a city to be sieged from one surrounding square, *or* allow 
Sally Forth to continue to be a 6H timer, but operating on *each* 
sieging army
Allow Sally Forth on *each* sieging army.  Give Siegers the option to risk spreading out their forces for a faster siege.  May go well with 'b'?
e) Extend the 12H pre-siege timer
There should be factors that effect this.  Perhaps allow players to send saboteurs to increase the timer by -30 to 30 minutes at a time?  New commander skill or expand Uncanny Sense to act as a preventive for siege sabotage.
f) Increase the gap between bombardments upwards from 1H to xH
See 'a', if you reduce to-hit, you won't need to increase the time gap.
g) Only allow sieges on cities within a certain size differential (either alliance pop or individual pop)
Keep the siege range... high.  Smaller players can siege anyone bigger.  But, bigger players cannot siege players less then 25%, 20%, or 10% lower then them.  Scale it so the off-limit % goes up as you grow?  Or lowers as you grow? 
h)
 Limit the number of siege engines in any one army, perhaps as a 
function of target city population, or as a function of "supporting army
 size", or both (or other!)
See 'j'
i) Allow players to Sally Forth *before* the siege bombardment begins
See 'Other Suggestion' and 'b'
j) Increase upkeep cost on Siege Engines, dramatically
This alone should keep the number of siege engines down.  Especially when its enough to force the player to make their army smaller or increase taxes to support the 'same number'.
EDIT: Instead, in light of HonoredMule's comment... scale the upkeep of Siege Engines up.  The more a settlement has, the bigger the upkeep ratio.
k) Allow neighbouring cities to also Sally Forth against hostile armies, regardless of the hostile armies' target
No, PBs already have its inherent bonuses... And making too many changes favoring would make even more alliances rely on PBs.
l)
 Give buildings in the city "hit points", so when hit by a siege engine 
they're not instantly levelled-down.  There could be skills (and/or 
additional construction options when constructing a building to 
influence building hit points), and the higher the building level, the 
more hitpoints
This seems like a good idea to go along with 'a'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other Suggestion:
For army movement, allow players to delay arrival time of their armies. 

So, for example: Sieging...
Player A sends army to set-up siege.  It'll land on 01JAN13:00.

Player B wants to reinforce the siege, but also wants to go to sleep.  His army would land on 01JAN11:00.  He sends his army out to reinforce, but orders them to delay arrival to 01JAN13:05.  Then Player B goes to bed, not having to stay up 2 more hours or coming in later.

More casual friendly.  And what with all the potential changes here favoring defenders.

(Though, with spies, 'clearing armies' can also time their arrival for right after the siege lands... if not occupying the land with defensive troops.)

Comment: Is it me or is this an over-reaction?  Pushing all changes favoring the Defenders?

EDIT 1: See 'j'

Edited by Zangi - 23 Jul 2010 at 01:57

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Zangi Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Forum Warrior Joined: 15 Jul 2010 Status: Offline Points: 295	Posted: 23 Jul 2010 at 01:33
	a) Dramatically reduce to-hit numbers for Siege Engines Yes, seems reasonable, accuracy could increase as siege goes on and/or by research bonus. b) Reduce the blanket 6H Sally Forth timer Instead of a timer... allow players to Sally Forth as much as they want, but, have a factor in 'organization'. The longer a player waits, the more 'organized' the Sally Forth is. Perk of allowing the organization to be high is that you commit more of your army into the 'Raid'. A more decisive outcome, more likely to get at the siege engines. While having a low organization, the 'Raid' is less conclusive. Just small skirmishes that won't get you to the siege engines. *c) Only allow a city to be sieged from one surrounding square, or* allow Sally Forth to continue to be a 6H timer, but operating on each sieging army** Allow Sally Forth on each sieging army. Give Siegers the option to risk spreading out their forces for a faster siege. May go well with 'b'? e) Extend the 12H pre-siege timer There should be factors that effect this. Perhaps allow players to send saboteurs to increase the timer by -30 to 30 minutes at a time? New commander skill or expand Uncanny Sense to act as a preventive for siege sabotage. f) Increase the gap between bombardments upwards from 1H to xH See 'a', if you reduce to-hit, you won't need to increase the time gap. g) Only allow sieges on cities within a certain size differential (either alliance pop or individual pop) Keep the siege range... high. Smaller players can siege anyone bigger. But, bigger players cannot siege players less then 25%, 20%, or 10% lower then them. Scale it so the off-limit % goes up as you grow? Or lowers as you grow? h) Limit the number of siege engines in any one army, perhaps as a function of target city population, or as a function of "supporting army size", or both (or other!) See 'j' *i) Allow players to Sally Forth before* the siege bombardment begins See 'Other Suggestion' and 'b' j) Increase upkeep cost on Siege Engines, dramatically This alone should keep the number of siege engines down. Especially when its enough to force the player to make their army smaller or increase taxes to support the 'same number'. EDIT: Instead, in light of HonoredMule's comment... scale the upkeep of Siege Engines up. The more a settlement has, the bigger the upkeep ratio. k) Allow neighbouring cities to also Sally Forth against hostile armies, regardless of the hostile armies' target** No, PBs already have its inherent bonuses... And making too many changes favoring would make even more alliances rely on PBs. l) Give buildings in the city "hit points", so when hit by a siege engine they're not instantly levelled-down. There could be skills (and/or additional construction options when constructing a building to influence building hit points), and the higher the building level, the more hitpoints This seems like a good idea to go along with 'a'. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Other Suggestion: For army movement, allow players to delay arrival time of their armies. So, for example: Sieging... Player A sends army to set-up siege. It'll land on 01JAN13:00. Player B wants to reinforce the siege, but also wants to go to sleep. His army would land on 01JAN11:00. He sends his army out to reinforce, but orders them to delay arrival to 01JAN13:05. Then Player B goes to bed, not having to stay up 2 more hours or coming in later. More casual friendly. And what with all the potential changes here favoring defenders. (Though, with spies, 'clearing armies' can also time their arrival for right after the siege lands... if not occupying the land with defensive troops.) Comment: Is it me or is this an over-reaction? Pushing all changes favoring the Defenders? EDIT 1: See 'j' Edited by Zangi - 23 Jul 2010 at 01:57

Selon Far Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List New Poster Joined: 12 Apr 2010 Status: Offline Points: 8	Posted: 23 Jul 2010 at 00:24
	Stormcrow, I agree with both of your points. However, IMHO, I think the too much manual intervention / planning and coordinating is above the other issues. However that being said, I have some general comments on the siege/sally mechanics, then I will address some of the specifics as well. On something you didn't cover, I think if someone comes under siege, an alliance mail should be issued by the system so that all alliance members can get notice a siege has been setup. Right now, with a little research (access to historical population/rank data, or a spy in the enemy alliance) you can determine people who are away from the game and send out a siege and never be challenged because no one ever hears about it. An email from the system to all members of the sieged party's alliance would be very helpful in that regard. Generally, right now the siege and sally mechanics work pretty good if you are doing one siege on a town. If the defenders are of equal size to the sieging army the defenders can most likely hold off the siege army and not lose the city. There may be some minor tweaking that could be done, but I believe it's pretty close to spot on as long as you limit the siege armies to a single army. Now I say this having seen siege armies with a range of 18 to 30 building de-levelers. It doesn't seem to be a problem for me with some of my towns to be able to support as many as 50 'catapults' (which I believe would be too strong). So I guess I should say a single army with no more than 30 building de-levelers seems to be about the sweet spot right now for attacks on 8k+ pop cities. If you placed limits right now on number of sieges to 1 and max siege engines at 30, I think it would be a reasonable limit for cities in the 8k+ pop range. Smaller cities take longer given that the pop damage per hit is lower relative to the 75% pop goal, so it probably works okay for smaller cities as well (favoring the defender a bit as initial population shrinks). Now for some of the specifics I had comments on: b) reducing the blanket 6 H sally forth timer. Given that sieges already tax both players on the attacking side as well as defending side, making someone check every <6 hours (that alarm clock gets some nice workout) just adds to the manual intervention issue. So unless you also added the ability to set the game to sally as soon as it's ready without intervention, I think this would be a bad thing. e) extend the 12 hour pre-siege timer. I think you could maybe mix sov in here with this. Maybe have different sov levels extend the time it takes to setup a siege (sabotage of the siege camp by locals, etc.). I really would like to see some advantage from holding sov with regards to attacks and sieges and I think this would be a good way to implement this. f) Increase the gap between bombardments upwards from 1H to xH I don't like this at all. Already in this game too many things take too long. One of the fun parts of siege is checking your mail to see all the damage done to or against you. I would far prefer to see hit rates reduced than see inter-volley delays extended. g) Only allow sieges on cities within a certain size differential (either alliance pop or individual pop) I can think of several ways to game this that would be bad for the game overall. i) Allow players to Sally Forth before the siege bombardment begins This would be overwhelming for single army sieges with the current setup/sally timers. While this sounds good in the scenario of multiple sieges, it doesn't back-scale to one siege well. This would push sieging out of the grip of smaller players/alliances and make it the realm of large alliances who can field multiple siege armies and reinforcements. I don't like the idea that smaller players get sidelined due to trying to resolve issues with larger forces. k) Allow neighbouring cities to also Sally Forth against hostile armies, regardless of the hostile armies' target I think this is a horrible idea, as it fosters the creation of clusters. Clusters are a nice defense mechanism gaming the system to prevent siege armies from having a square to siege from. Adding in the ability to attack sieges in adjacent squares to this just makes it more powerful. You could game this by surrounding your important cluster/cities with towns built specifically to endure sieges (all structures leveled to maybe 8/9 or so) and then move armies into them and hit the sieging armies. IMHO, anything that promotes clustering should not be implemented as it's already a pretty strong defense mechanism. l) Give buildings in the city "hit points", so when hit by a siege engine they're not instantly levelled-down. There could be skills (and/or additional construction options when constructing a building to influence building hit points), and the higher the building level, the more hitpoints I would think this would get complicated pretty quickly, but might be something worth thinking about. I'm not sure I want more mouse clicks in this game, it's already pretty intensive as it is. -Selon

GM Stormcrow Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group GM Joined: 23 Feb 2010 Location: Illyria Status: Offline Points: 3820	Posted: 22 Jul 2010 at 23:10
	Hi all, Now that we're fully into the swing of Siege & Sally Forth between large forces (and those attacks appear to be working as intended ) I'd like to solicit some thoughts. If the issues I'm discussing here aren't clear to you, or you don't understand what I'm talking about in any detail then - without wishing to seem rude - this thread isn't for you, and whilst your comments are interesting, this isn't a Q&A thread. This thread is specifically aimed at those players who have experienced sieges on either side, but I'd also like these players to consider these questions from not only the perspective of their own alliance or personal perspective, but also from the perspective of "the game as a whole" (ie everything from the siege-capable bully wailing on the new player "just because he can" to the all-out wars we're currently seeing). I've spoken with a number of players involved in these big sieges, and two major threads seem to run through their comments. Problem A. Sieges are concluding too fast already - and it'll only get faster Given that there are no actual physical restrictions on army size - accelerated by the fact that the "food/tax" bar is shortly to be raised substantially - there will come a time where cities, regardless of their size and defences can be "instapopped". This isn't right. *Problem B. Sieging (and defending against sieges) requires far too much* manual manipulation** The effort of co-ordinating siege armies and siege defenders is immensely time-consuming and burn-out isn't good for anyone. I agree with both sentiments, and have some thoughts on what we can do to make things better for everyone now, and in the future. And I'd like feedback on these thoughts, along with other suggestions in case there are any issues/solutions I've missed. Please note that most of my suggestions below are concerned with problem A. But I'd still like thoughts from players on solving problem B as well. The likelihood is that getting a solution to problem A is going to be quicker than getting a solution to problem B. There are short-term fixes, and longer term fixes. This is a pick-and-mix menu, it's not an either/or - many of these things can (and should) be done in tandem if they're the right solution. Possible solutions (short-term and longer-term) include (and please use this numbering if responding directly): a) Dramatically reduce to-hit numbers for Siege Engines b) Reduce the blanket 6H Sally Forth timer c) Only allow a city to be sieged from one surrounding square, or allow Sally Forth to continue to be a 6H timer, but operating on each sieging army e) Extend the 12H pre-siege timer f) Increase the gap between bombardments upwards from 1H to xH g) Only allow sieges on cities within a certain size differential (either alliance pop or individual pop) h) Limit the number of siege engines in any one army, perhaps as a function of target city population, or as a function of "supporting army size", or both (or other!) i) Allow players to Sally Forth before the siege bombardment begins j) Increase upkeep cost on Siege Engines, dramatically k) Allow neighbouring cities to also Sally Forth against hostile armies, regardless of the hostile armies' target l) Give buildings in the city "hit points", so when hit by a siege engine they're not instantly levelled-down. There could be skills (and/or additional construction options when constructing a building to influence building hit points), and the higher the building level, the more hitpoints I'm sure there are many more options - these are just the ones that have been kicked around by the dev team, and some are already based on suggestions from the players. I'd be delighted to hear people's thoughts on this; either the suggestions made above or other suggestions. Bear in mind that I'd like some short-term "quick" fixes as well as some longer term fixes. And please leave Alliance Politics at the door on this one! Best, SC Edited by GM Stormcrow - 22 Jul 2010 at 23:18