Take over anothers city

You may be correct, as razing does work.  For all I know capturing works sometimes as well.  I do wish we could have captured the city from our alliance's first siege, but I suppose it's not that big a deal in the long run.

I did read it, and I'm not convinced that there's a real balance problem.  But there will be if sieges that have to sit in place for days will consistently face the full might of every friend in Illyriad in a single massive attack.  That not only makes siege a no-go without first utterly dominating hundreds of players, it also completely voids the requirement for real human cooperation and coordination, letting a single player completely direct such a massive operation on his own.

Siege is already an operation that requires massive commitment and widespread collaboration, all of which is very vulnerable to meta-game interference, poor execution, and asymmetric retaliation.


Edited by HonoredMule - 02 Jun 2010 at 16:50

Wuzzel wrote: Well the GM's / Developers think it needs balance. And i agree with them. Defend as 1 group and attack as 1 group sounds fine to me.

Given how well you guys did out of the mechanic when defending Gay Paris against single player attacks the previous two times, the tears this time when you were on the receiving end are pretty pathetic.

I assume you have a similar petition in about being able to coordinate a massive multi player attack against a city as well. But oh wait, you only complain about stuff when it's not working in your favor so I guess not.

The whines on this forum about our commanders being high level are particularly ironic given the boasting from Diablito about his commanders being the best in game in global chat only 48 hours earlier.

Wuzzel wrote: Well the GM's / Developers think it needs balance. And i agree with them. Defend as 1 group and attack as 1 group sounds fine to me.

I would have a problem with both attacking as one and defending as one...currently it is neither.

Camps maintain defense as one once it is established, but so do cities.
 - Direct attacks are piecemeal, and counterattacks on camps are piecemeal.
 - Sieges arrive piecemeal in close proximity to the target, which has ample opportunity to provide a quick reaction before the siege can be established or had to be cleared at great expense beforehand (and without the town owner dodging the attacks either in reaction or by already occupying friendly territory elsewhere).  With a little spying, there's a good chance of being able to occupy the territory in strength before the siege arrives, destroying it as it arrives piecemeal.
 - Only one party actually performs the bombardment and subsequent final assault.  Defenders who maintain good intel and realize they cannot win can instead stack the city against the final assault.  The town may be decimated, but it and its research and commanders remain intact and the siege is broken without facing that huge camp.  There's another tactic that's greatly useful here and elsewhere, but I'm not going to mention it since so far White doesn't seem to have discovered it.
 - Sieges are able to damage cities without actually attacking (and this is the only part that may be a balance issue), but sit without any rune or wall defenses and thus require enough military force to maintain that a group must rely on either tighter coordination, greater strength than the combined enemy, or both in order to succeed.  Meanwhile that force is stranded for days, while the defending party can bide its time for a coordinated assault after gathering more troops.  Here there's a very good tradeoff between quick response and suffering damage while waiting for a much more powerful response...both tactics with merits.


Letting besieged troops rally from all around into the city and then counterattack as one does not makes sense from a realistic standpoint nor one of balance.  There may be a balance issue, but allowing a massive combined attack or counterattack in any form of battle mechanic is not only a disproportionate response but also a huge imbalance that will increase game volatility to unmanageable levels.  It would ultimately press all but one or a few alliances back to the stone age if used offensively, and pull the server to a halt if used defensively, as meaningful offensive actions become far too costly a gambit.

If there's a balance change to be made, it's this:  instead of automatically bombarding the city every hour, the besieging party should be allowed to manually bombard the city up to once every two hours with each siege engine firing two or three times, and make the bombarding army accompany that with a preceding assault against the towns' defenders.  That way reliance on teamwork and coordination is increased rather than decreased, and sieges have to be strong enough to defend themselves while still leaving enough strength to keep the city cleared.  In order to prevent this tweak from being a large overcompensation, however, cities under siege should not be allowed to erect new runes.  (You could say the mages can't get out in front of the walls.)  It's going to be hard enough for sieges to deal with the split front they would then face already, without runes in the equation.

Wuzzel wrote: I stated in the other thread you won and even congratulated you with it in the Global Chat.And you flame me for whine?Nice....I am not speaking for Diablito.I am speaking for myself here.Yes Diablito boasted on the Global Chat.And theoracle09 was also bragging in this thread about the siege.I would say the derailing of this thread began there after Crank supplied the needed info to the original poster.<span style="" id="userPro4373" title="View Drop Down"></span>

Wuzzel, do you honestly believe my boasting on this thread can possibly out-weigh D's smack talk in the global chat COMBINED with his useless forum posts? I admit, my postings may have been a little brash at first, but now, you're trying to prove a point that is non-existant. My original intention was to show the OP that siege mechanics were working nicely regardless of Herald postings. Like I said, people were having problems with the NPC upgrades even after release...maybe you missed that forum post. None-the-less, I admitted my post to be a little out there, but, my singular post was on topic, especially compared to D's sh*t talking in other parts of this forum.