Glamour and Siege!

[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.