Glamour and Siege!

[Cohen]

I noticed glamour troops are invisible too when sieging.

I believe this should be changed, isn't assumed they're surrounding your castle when besieging?

Even if they assume a peasant aspect, I know they're enemies besieging my castle!!! And they shoulb be "fighting" every month to crack the entrance with ladders, battering ram, and so on ...

[Norfleet]

Maybe they're sapping instead. That's why you can't see them, they're digging underground.

[Cheezeninja]

I could still see glamour troops being invisible while besieging. All you know is that when your not looking your gate keeps getting worse, and troops you sally out dont come back.

[Vynd]

Originally posted by Cheezeninja:
I could still see glamour troops being invisible while besieging. All you know is that when your not looking your gate keeps getting worse, and troops you sally out dont come back.

Yeah! I like this. Sounds very appropriate for being under seige by the shapechangers/elves/Fair Folk/etc. Every time you turn around, someone else is dead. And you're not sure why, exactly. Pretty spooky...

[Cohen]

I believe there should be very stupid commanders to not to keep guards on towers behind wall protection, to control the gate, and since you know the enemy forces has entered the province (you've a report that your 1 point of PD has been defeated and your castle is under siege).
The sieging army shoul stay in fron of the castle and surround it. I never ever saw a different siege (well exceptions are flying units that should be allowed to storm the first turn, but only the flying ones)

If you damage the gate of the castle they see it's damaged and repair.

This isn't an assassin that climb the castle walls, backstab some guards til the chamber of the victim and strike.
This is an armed group that should take a castle ...

[ May 23, 2004, 14:09: Message edited by: Cohen ]

[Cheezeninja]

The whole way 'sieging' is done in dominions takes a little artistic liscense to make it viable in the game, as opposed to how it really went. In reality you could siege a castle without ever firing a shot, just plop your larger army outside and wait for the defenders to starve, or just bring some trebuchets or catapults and lob some rocks and diseased cattle over the wall. You could also immediately assault if you had the proper equipment (ladders, siege towers, etc..) With the battering of the gate happening during the actual assault, instead of being required for the assault. Its kind of implausible to assume any army can batter down ANY sort of gate without taking any losses whatsover, but for the sake of a non overly complex sieging system in the game it gets simplified alot. If anything, someone with a glamour would be better at sieging by virtue of the fact that they could walk in before the gates were shut, then simply overpower a few guards and open the gates when the army shows up.

[PvK]

Yes, the seiging is abstract, but not too bad if you use your imagination creatively to think of reasons how the way it works can make sense, instead of thinking of ways in which a literal interpretation does not fit.

You can certainly starve out the defenders in Dominions, unless they somehow don't need to eat...

Seige engine issues are abstractly handled it the defense rating, even if the "break the gate" metaphor may read literally. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me unless you insist that it has to all be about literally breaking a gate. A large enough army showing up at a weak enough fort can storm it on the next turn. A fort with enough defense can be seen as representing a well-situated fort with good walls and so on that make hasty attacks pointless until the advantage can be sufficiently reduced by seige combat techniques. "Breaking the gate" would really involve low-intensity struggles such as building better seige equipment to reduce the defenses and provide access - probably often not actually involving breaking the main gate. The basic mechanic of comparing forces on both sides, the strength of the fort, the supplies remaining inside (and their effects), and time, seem like reasonable abstractions to me.

The lack of casualties to attackers during a seige seems ok to me, since I can easily imagine that if risky activities were involved in preparing for an assault (which wouldn't always be the case, especially if the attackers were content to let the fort stand), that un-tracked auxilliaries and coerced locals might be used for hazardous duties. I do happen to enjoy minute tactical micromanagement, but not all players do, and for an abstract system that requires no management, I think it makes sense not to have attacker losses, or at least, not many. Adding a few hits just to a few of those troops ordered to "seige" and "defend" might be nice, though.

As for glamour during seige, I would say it would make sense to include them in the numbers of troops reducing a fort, but not to reveal their types. However I'd say it's ok if they don't even show up for numbers. It depends on one's imagination of how the magic effect works, so it seems it's really up to the designers' imaginations what makes sense.

PvK

[Cohen]

My post was only about that glamour troops should be seen when sieging ... at least defender can cast upon them spells ...

[Norfleet]

You don't have to see it to cast spells on them. Seeking Arrows, Fires, Flames, Murdering Winters, all work just fine even if you can't see your invisible targets.

Of course, it's distinctly possible that your target will sneak off and not get hit, but that's entirely seperate, since if he does that, you're no longer being sieged.

[Cheezeninja]

Originally posted by PvK:
Yes, the seiging is abstract, but not too bad if you use your imagination creatively to think of reasons how the way it works can make sense, instead of thinking of ways in which a literal interpretation does not fit.

You can certainly starve out the defenders in Dominions, unless they somehow don't need to eat...

Seige engine issues are abstractly handled it the defense rating, even if the "break the gate" metaphor may read literally. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me unless you insist that it has to all be about literally breaking a gate. A large enough army showing up at a weak enough fort can storm it on the next turn. A fort with enough defense can be seen as representing a well-situated fort with good walls and so on that make hasty attacks pointless until the advantage can be sufficiently reduced by seige combat techniques. "Breaking the gate" would really involve low-intensity struggles such as building better seige equipment to reduce the defenses and provide access - probably often not actually involving breaking the main gate. The basic mechanic of comparing forces on both sides, the strength of the fort, the supplies remaining inside (and their effects), and time, seem like reasonable abstractions to me.

The lack of casualties to attackers during a seige seems ok to me, since I can easily imagine that if risky activities were involved in preparing for an assault (which wouldn't always be the case, especially if the attackers were content to let the fort stand), that un-tracked auxilliaries and coerced locals might be used for hazardous duties. I do happen to enjoy minute tactical micromanagement, but not all players do, and for an abstract system that requires no management, I think it makes sense not to have attacker losses, or at least, not many. Adding a few hits just to a few of those troops ordered to "seige" and "defend" might be nice, though.

As for glamour during seige, I would say it would make sense to include them in the numbers of troops reducing a fort, but not to reveal their types. However I'd say it's ok if they don't even show up for numbers. It depends on one's imagination of how the magic effect works, so it seems it's really up to the designers' imaginations what makes sense.

PvK

Couldnt agree more. I was just trying to show how you can't always use the 'it would be more realistic to do this' line in videogames. In the end debates like this are all opinion anyway.