Pre-Announcement: Siege Changes

[jorb]

I don't think we should stare ourselves too blind on the 12 hours number, as it is highly theoretical. It assumes infinite catapults. If you babysit a siege from start to finish the actual number lies somewhere in-between 12 and 36 hours, and most likely toward the farther end of that scale.

[VDZ]

I don't think we should stare ourselves too blind on the 12 hours number, as it is highly theoretical. It assumes infinite catapults. If you babysit a siege from start to finish the actual number lies somewhere in-between 12 and 36 hours, and most likely toward the farther end of that scale.

While I partially agree with you, you should not underestimate the crazy lengths people go to to achieve things in this game. While small villages will likely not be the victim of them, 12 hour raids will definitely happen if they're possible.

[ven]

What I can concede is that I think it would be nice for them if there was something they *could* do during the siege to slow the process down.

Siege isnt just a matter of breaking walls, its also about who can last longer and has a stronger economy. Historically, sieges would often end when the attacker ran out of money and supplies to maintain his army, or when the defender could no longer sustain himself enclosed in his walls and surrendered. Siege was often about conquest, not about destruction.

If you stop seeing pvp in terms of combat you could rework the siege system in that direction. For example: after declaring war, both villages would receive a new monitor that would require random items with increasing quality over time (similar to the w7 numen system). This would represent the upkeep/supply line to the attacking and defending groups. When one group fails to provide the request supply item, its siege engines are damaged or its shield is lowered and its wall soak drops.

This means siege would be a more interactive activity. More importantly, it would take a villages development level in account for its attack or defense power, as it should. This kind of thing cant be either 0's or 1's, ending in total destruction if you miss a 12 hour window.

[thesourceofsadness]

Some sort of "war declaration" may resolve a problem of possible "12 hours siege fast run". It may be a "siege totem", or "siege claim" like it was in Salem, or something else what should let deffenders know that they will be under attack after some period of time (let's say - 24 hours), and have to prepare to fight, to flee, or to negotiate and pay.

While "losing is fun", it's not really funny to wake up in the morning and see your village destroyed in one night. I don't even mention that not everyone here want or can be in game every single day - don't force people to be no-lifers.

[jorb]

The whole "sieges being too binary" argument has merit, and I am tempted to agree that a wall breach wrecks you harder than it ideally should. I think there are at least some counter-factors presently...

• Livestock have several lives
• The shield bounces back after a while (I need to reconsider the time with the new regen numbers, it occurs to me), so there is only a window of attack. The breach itself doesn't heal itself automatically, however, so this might not be too relevant.
• The amount of sulphur is capped globally, so there are at least some economic incentives to not raze things that cannot be bashed by hand.

There are however several problem areas as well...

• Containers and stockpiles can be wrecked easily, which causes a ton of damage. Possible changes include increased compartmentalization through being able to put locks on both containers themselves, as well as on houses, and scaling the cost per crime better. One SHP per crime is perhaps not much of a deterrence when the vandalism required to smash a container is just one crime.
• Important economic buildings can be bashed by hand. A possible change could perhaps be destruction implying some sort of rubble-state for buildings, from which they can be repaired, and in which they can be traversed. Introducing some sort of cost for the destruction is also an option.
• Attackers suffer no real impediments once inside a compound, so the incentives to attempt to fend off an attacker -- almost by definition a stronger party -- are low. Possible changes could be to reduce the movement speed of trespassers, introducing some sort of defensive structures or NPCs (Guard dogs, traps, defensive towers, &c), and/or giving defenders some sort of combat buff.
• There is no real incentive to break off an attack. The more effort required to get into a compound, the more reason you will also have to remove it completely and salt the earth, as you do not want to have to go through the siege phase again when the compound bounces back. Possible changes could be some sort of vassalization mechanic.

While changes along those lines could perhaps create more scenarios where attackers actually break off an attack after having caused some -- but not total -- destruction, and where attackers suffer some casualties in the attack, I'm not sure they really remove the more fundamental fact that wars have winners and losers, and I'm not sure I can visualize a regime where this is not the case.

I also think that there is some argument to be made that an environment where sieges are actually possible may cause the population to coalesce into factions and groupings that are actually viable in that kind of a climate. I imagine that some level of adaptation to a more aggressive ruleset is both possible and reasonable.

If a big scary faction cannot through any amount of effort remove hermitages, then there is no siege warfare to speak of in the game. If we give up on the ambition that there should be siege warfare in the game, then we have taken the game down a path which I suspect will lead to what we have seen in the past, i.e. stale farmville worlds with no political dynamism to speak of. I am sure that game can have its merits -- Farmville is fun -- but it isn't the game I have dreamed of building.

Fundamentally: I want war and armies to be features of the game.

[strpk0]

I think similar things have been suggested in the past, but I'll drop off a few ideas here:

1. Make it so you can't (completely) instantly destroy objects inside of a village claim you're sieging. Maybe arsony could be a thing where, instead of simply being able to destroy objects, you can only instead light them on fire and have them lose their health over a set period of time. You could even expand on this by allowing defenders to throw buckets of water (or some other fancy craftable liquid) on them, dousing the flames out and temporarily making them invulnerable to being relit for a set duration aswell, makes sense as they would be wet and all.
2. Maybe there should be some form of drain to any attacker's health/stamina (as in, a drain that takes place along the entire village claim) that gradually increases in potency from the moment a shield is broken (or a wall is broken into, whatever works best). This would hopefully deter people from camping sieged villages and instead focusing on doing as much damage as they can / stealing all they can and then going away before the drain becomes too strong. The drain's potency could also reset upon the village having regained a set percentage of its shield back.

[Enjoyment]

The whole "sieges being too binary" argument has merit, and I am tempted to agree that a wall breach wrecks you harder than it ideally should. I think there are at least some counter-factors presently...

• Livestock have several lives
• The shield bounces back after a while (I need to reconsider the time with the new regen numbers, it occurs to me), so there is only a window of attack. The breach itself doesn't heal itself automatically, however, so this might not be too relevant.
• The amount of sulphur is capped globally, so there are at least some economic incentives to not raze things that cannot be bashed by hand.

There are however several problem areas as well...

• Containers and stockpiles can be wrecked easily, which causes a ton of damage. Possible changes include increased compartmentalization through being able to put locks on both containers themselves, as well as on houses, and scaling the cost per crime better. One SHP per crime is perhaps not much of a deterrence when the vandalism required to smash a container is just one crime.
• Important economic buildings can be bashed by hand. A possible change could perhaps be destruction implying some sort of rubble-state for buildings, from which they can be repaired, and in which they can be traversed. Introducing some sort of cost for the destruction is also an option.
• Attackers suffer no real impediments once inside a compound, so the incentives to attempt to fend off an attacker -- almost by definition a stronger party -- are low. Possible changes could be to reduce the movement speed of trespassers, introducing some sort of defensive structures or NPCs (Guard dogs, traps, defensive towers, &c), and/or giving defenders some sort of combat buff.
• There is no real incentive to break off an attack. The more effort required to get into a compound, the more reason you will also have to remove it completely and salt the earth, as you do not want to have to go through the siege phase again when the compound bounces back. Possible changes could be some sort of vassalization mechanic.

While changes along those lines could perhaps create more scenarios where attackers actually break off an attack after having caused some -- but not total -- destruction, and where attackers suffer some casualties in the attack, I'm not sure they really remove the more fundamental fact that wars have winners and losers, and I'm not sure I can visualize a regime where this is not the case.

I also think that there is some argument to be made that an environment where sieges are actually possible may cause the population to coalesce into factions and groupings that are actually viable in that kind of a climate. I imagine that some level of adaptation to a more aggressive ruleset is both possible and reasonable.

If a big scary faction cannot through any amount of effort remove hermitages, then there is no siege warfare to speak of in the game. If we give up on the ambition that there should be siege warfare in the game, then we have taken the game down a path which I suspect will lead to what we have seen in the past, i.e. stale farmville worlds with no political dynamism to speak of. I am sure that game can have its merits -- Farmville is fun -- but it isn't the game I have dreamed of building.

Fundamentally: I want war and armies to be features of the game.

It seems to me like you want ONLY war and armies to be features of the game... And I don't think you should force players to group. But I think there is a simple (maybe even elegant) solution - extend the world with some nuances - the cost of building vclaims scales with the distance from the world center and (as option) - localized resources is more rare far from center.
Than "big scary factions" could make their wars for rich lands, while hermits could get lost on world's edges, being suffering a lack of salt/icepickles/some cool stuff, but not be scared of being totally destroyed by the war of the strongest.

[Kaios]

While I partially agree with you, you should not underestimate the crazy lengths people go to to achieve things in this game.

he does it all the time, "hey I spiral 300 iron bars in a session just to get a couple good bars to increase my next anvil"

"300 WHAAAAAAAAAAT how can this be???????!!!!!!"

I'm with Ysh

''If someone can then they will, eventually.''

[jorb]

It seems to me like you want ONLY war and armies to be features of the game...

Does it? Not true, doe.

[jorb]

he does it all the time

Literally all the time. Kaios has this one example where jorb was impressed with something Kaios did, and clearly it was wrong of jorb to express this. Jorb should have expected precisely anything, even the Spanish inquisition.