by Robben_DuMarsch » Tue Oct 10, 2017 2:37 am As you said, siege system balance is probably one of the most difficult things to "get right."
My major qualm is that currently, it requires far too large of a time investment. Understandable, however, as losing a siege is rather devastating.
I understand you are balancing the effort in sieging a city, vis a vis the time investment that a regular defender need spend to defend his city, and what the defender has to lose (most of everything).
Here's yet another proposal:
Brimstone/siege engines/etc, should be balanced so that this remains available to smaller groups, putting the onus on the larger groups to actually defend against them, and cheap enough that it removes a lot of the benefit that could be gained by simply setting up your claims to have many smaller ones (which would force the enemy to burn down many more resources for no reason other than the fact that the defender used many small claims.)
Ultimately, this would still make a total victory from siege a substantial time/resource investment that would not be easily accomplished, but it would spread that out over a period of 6 RL weeks with perhaps an hour or two at each "stage", rather than a period of 48 hours of nolifing semi-afk.
It would allow conflict to occur at all sizes, rather than reserved for large factions.
It would allow ample time to appeal to others (swear vassalage in return for protection from a larger group?) from those that wanted it. It would have interesting play/counterplay with thiefs jumping your walls. Perhaps you let them in, thinking they are going to get some nice loot, but instead you have a new road system built to your big brother's city, which promptly retaliates as they go through your cupboards?
It would allow land (and real property improvements) to actually change hands, rather than necessarily causing salting of the earth on successful breach in order for the attackers to maximize damage on property they can never wrest control of.
Defenders would have more than enough time to mitigate losses by transferring themselves to another location if they felt they were unable to respond appropriately.
My major qualm is that currently, it requires far too large of a time investment. Understandable, however, as losing a siege is rather devastating.
I understand you are balancing the effort in sieging a city, vis a vis the time investment that a regular defender need spend to defend his city, and what the defender has to lose (most of everything).
Here's yet another proposal:
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1. Defender picks a defense window of 2 hours (any time), on either Saturday or Sunday.
2. Passerbys may inspect any object or tile on claimed land, and see the defense window.
3. Attacker arrives and constructs a ram on the property, with a 30 minute drying time, and attacks the wall for some moderate amount of damage during the window.
4. If Attacker passes the damage threshhold, the claim receives +1 to a progressive debuff from the following list:
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0. No Debuff
1. The claim is frozen (it may not be expanded or deleted.)
2. Attackers may hop the wall at any time by using a "Rope and Hook," which requires 15 minutes to attach (remains 1 hour), and 15 minutes to climb up. However, they still have a visitor debuff that stops them from performing any criminal acts except up to 15 thefts per day (globally on the claim, not per visitor.) Defenders may still attack them, in which case they and their party may fight back.
3. The visitor debuff now allows 1 vandalism act per day.
4. The visitor debuff now allows assault/murder, and there is no theft limit.
5. The claim loses all of its defensive power for 1 day, and the outer wall may be breached by the ram.
6. The claim ownership switches to the last individual to do damage to the claim.
7. If the city passes a defense period without the damage threshhold being met, the debuff value ticks -2 until 0.
Brimstone/siege engines/etc, should be balanced so that this remains available to smaller groups, putting the onus on the larger groups to actually defend against them, and cheap enough that it removes a lot of the benefit that could be gained by simply setting up your claims to have many smaller ones (which would force the enemy to burn down many more resources for no reason other than the fact that the defender used many small claims.)
Ultimately, this would still make a total victory from siege a substantial time/resource investment that would not be easily accomplished, but it would spread that out over a period of 6 RL weeks with perhaps an hour or two at each "stage", rather than a period of 48 hours of nolifing semi-afk.
It would allow conflict to occur at all sizes, rather than reserved for large factions.
It would allow ample time to appeal to others (swear vassalage in return for protection from a larger group?) from those that wanted it. It would have interesting play/counterplay with thiefs jumping your walls. Perhaps you let them in, thinking they are going to get some nice loot, but instead you have a new road system built to your big brother's city, which promptly retaliates as they go through your cupboards?
It would allow land (and real property improvements) to actually change hands, rather than necessarily causing salting of the earth on successful breach in order for the attackers to maximize damage on property they can never wrest control of.
Defenders would have more than enough time to mitigate losses by transferring themselves to another location if they felt they were unable to respond appropriately.
A female migrant from Syria is granted asylum in the United States, and is learning to drive. One day she travels down a one way street against the flow of traffic, but does not violate any law.
How is this possible?
(This is a riddle which requires no special knowledge.)
