Thoughts on Sieges

[Gil R.]

As one of you has already pointed out, sieges go quite quickly now. During beta-testing one of our bigger areas of debate was how to get sieges just right, and finally we decided to get a lot more input on this issue. With sieges quicker, the "Faster Sieges" option is now much faster than anything you've previously seen, while the middle option (if you click neither) is roughly what "Faster Sieges" used to be. Note that forts now fall more easily than cities do, which is meant to reflect that most forts in the Civil War wouldn't hold out too long, whereas a city like Vicksburg could do so far much longer. (One thing to remember, though, is that "forts" in the game represent not just specific forts, but also an abstract amount of fortifications in the area, so it should take a bit longer to take one out.)

Please try the different settings -- faster/slower/neither -- as well as the different siege options, and give us an idea of what, if anything, needs changing.

[Erik Rutins]

Gil,

ORIGINAL: Gil R.
Note that forts now fall more easily than cities do, which is meant to reflect that most forts in the Civil War wouldn't hold out too long, whereas a city like Vicksburg could do so far much longer.

Huh? Actually, cities fall faster than forts in the new version, which was by design. Vicksburg though is represented by a Level 3 fort, not a city, which seems appropriate.

Regards,

- Erik

[Gil R.]

Sorry, I flipped them. Normally, I'm not even awake at this time.

My reference to Vicksburg was to the real one.

[Gil R.]

And a related question: with sieges going faster (especially for cities), is there a need to lower the prices of forts, at least of Fort I's? We initially made them expensive so that the game wouldn't become nothing but a series of sieges, but with the change to sieges perhaps it makes sense to give cities such as Knoxville, Jackson, Little Rock, etc. a better chance by letting the player throw up minor forts in the area.

[LarryP]

I am playing with the siege options now in my game of Southern Steel as the North. I looked the siege\options up in the manuals (both downloaded and the one sent with CD's) and I see one item added that's NOT explained: Attack The Fort. How is this one different from Aggressive Siege?

Once I check these options out I will post my thoughts.

By the way, GREAT job on this patch\update, I love it! The FUN level at my PC since downloading it has been extremely high. [:D]

[Gil R.]

I'm glad to see the patch is having its desired effect.

"Attack the Fort" lets you fight out the siege in detailed combat.

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

And a related question: with sieges going faster (especially for cities), is there a need to lower the prices of forts, at least of Fort I's? We initially made them expensive so that the game wouldn't become nothing but a series of sieges, but with the change to sieges perhaps it makes sense to give cities such as Knoxville, Jackson, Little Rock, etc. a better chance by letting the player throw up minor forts in the area.

This seems exactly right to me. A Fort I now represents reasonably modest defensive works, and should not be all that expensive. For the same reason, there should be a reduction in the costs of Forts II and III. With the current costs, I have only managed to build a couple of forts I in a game, and have never built II or III.

[General Quarters]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

I'm glad to see the patch is having its desired effect.

"Attack the Fort" lets you fight out the siege in detailed combat.

It would be neat if someone tried that option and posted a report about how it went.

[Greyhunterlp]

I've just had this report come through for a seige,

Not bad seeing I had only 2 brigades holding the city.

[Erik Rutins]

Hm, minor bug there. It's displaying the full potential defender losses rather than displaying only what the defenders could take - i.e. two brigades' worth. They did give good account of themselves though, but Aggressive Sieges can be risky that way for besiegers with few advantages.

[Hard Sarge]

for what ever reason, it does not look like it is stopping when the enemy is killed off, it keeps rolling for damage for both sides (which the way the code works, the side that is dead, should not be doing more damage, that was already done)
 
 

[Zakouski]

Playing as North, I just tried the "Attack fort" option on Fort Harris (lvl 1), which is resolved via a detailed battle.

I had +- 20.000 men, no artillery at all, no engineers.

Computer defender had garrisons, and brought a division as reinforcements.

- First time, I won by breaking the morale of the defending units, and took one victory point (a city hex). 2000 casualties for me, 8.000 for south.

But the fort was not taken.

- Second time, I was careful to capture all three victory hexes, and captured the fort after more less the same casualties on both sides. I discovered the fortification victory hex was defended by a garrison with a Dalgren gun, but it did not kill so many attackers (40 deads by shot).

So it was quite easy, when i found i had to take all victory hexes.

I noticed the AI did not send any troops to defend the victory hexes, and waited behing the river while I was crushing the garrisons.

So it was quite (too ?) easy.

PS: I noticed that I cannot change the type of siege after having defined "attack fort" ; the next turn, I had no other option available.

[christof139]

Yeah, I saw that too in my new game, and determined that the game engine was just continuously computing away.

No biggie. The Devs. will fix that. It was rather intersting though.

Chris

[Mike13z50]

I lost Pennsacola to a CSA division, on the turn reinforcements (2BDE) arrived, the two brigades unloaded, and I fought a quick battle. One Bde surrendered, the other was transported by the fleet back to Washington. One note on moving troops by sea, the fleet moved only one or two sea areas per turn, I've seen this before but didn't think about it. Is the movement rate of transports slowed by the fact that the infantry can only move two provinces a turn? It seems to be. (going to post this seperately)

I also just used "Attack the Fort" to capture Ft. Drewry in the James River, and also got Richmond at the same time. I did an instant battle because it was winter, didn't have much Artillery, and had overwelming numbers (80,000-20,000).

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Mike13z50
I lost Pennsacola to a CSA division, on the turn reinforcements (2BDE) arrived, the two brigades unloaded, and I fought a quick battle. One Bde surrendered, the other was transported by the fleet back to Washington. One note on moving troops by sea, the fleet moved only one or two sea areas per turn, I've seen this before but didn't think about it. Is the movement rate of transports slowed by the fact that the infantry can only move two provinces a turn? It seems to be. (going to post this seperately)

I've seen that slow movement too and I think it must be a bug. I know it's on Eric's list to check but there wasn't time to investigate it before the public beta.

I also just used "Attack the Fort" to capture Ft. Drewry in the James River, and also got Richmond at the same time. I did an instant battle because it was winter, didn't have much Artillery, and had overwelming numbers (80,000-20,000).

Aha, that answers my question. I didn't realize it would give you both Fort Drewry and Richmond at the same time though, that's interesting, I wonder if it works that way for multiple forts too or only for a fort + city combo.

Regards,

- Erik

[Alex Gilbert]

I had a separate siege issue, which may just be a matter of getting used to the faster sieges.  After several traditional sieges, I tried an "encircle" which I thought was supposed to be a slower, but less risky siege option.  After 1 turn (about 40,000 men with 1 siege art, no engineers) the fort (a level 2 fort) was reduced from 100 to about 45.  Next turn the fort fell.  This seemed awfully fast, especially for an encircle type.  Perhaps it was just a "lucky roll", but has anyone else noticed this?
 
Alex
 

[christof139]

Aha, that answers my question. I didn't realize it would give you both Fort Drewry and Richmond at the same time though, that's interesting, I wonder if it works that way for multiple forts too or only for a fort + city combo.

Regards, - Erik

I also like the idea of cheaper Forts.

In the Nov. 1861 Sothern Steel scenario there is a string of forts (glad you put those there too!!) north of Memphis, Island No. 10 etc., and when playing the CSA the USA attacked the province and I was driven from Memphis even though I didn't pull the Memphis garrison to the field to fight, at least i think I didn't. Well, the USA won and took Memphis, so the USA AI must have started a siege and attacked with the Attack Fort option right off-the-bat?? It's unfortunate I don't remember exactly what happened, but my puny forces in Memphis and one or two forts were quickly ejected in one to two turns, but I got Memphis back a few turns later. The thing is that the Forts dissappeared after the USA captured Memphis.

Then down at Pensacola, using Encircle for the siege option, Bragg not only took the Province in a few turn but also totally destoyed the Fort. Bragg didn't even have a Siege Gun, and Pensacola was besieged by him for about 4 - 5 or so turns. bragg had about 16,000 troops and the Fort's garrison was the one brigade of about 2,500.

Also, it would be neat and historic to have a city in Pensacola province since there was a navy yard there and a town and the CSA captured a considerable amount of material at that place. A couple more towns would be good for both the USA and CSA. Monroe, LA was another important town for the CSA, as was Helena and Camden, AK. Just a thought.

The game plays well and I like it.

Thanx, Chris