I'm all for this. We've been discussing this and other options here and here.

This would also allow for the implementation of siege weapons.  Either as a means of reducing the fortification value such that the units in the city can be attacked (if an actual siege system is implemented, per se), or the construction of siege weapons used to assault the defenders (ie, it takes 3 turns to build siege weapons when attacking a city (once the appropriate research is completed)).

On a related note.  Another method of making attacking cities more difficult would be to simply alter the terrain such that the attacking army must attack through a bottleneck (such as a main gate or breach in the wall) whereby an attacking unit effectively must fight all of the defending units at once (just as an attacking army that can only send a column of people 8 abreast through a gate, must have their column face a mob of however many hundred people when they come out of the gate column).

Cities automatically having archer towers might not be something I would be opposed to either.

cheers,

-tid242

Not to nit pick, but while superior armies are critical to effectively concluding a siege, their increased size actually increases the time it takes to set them up - often a small army can work more effectively and quickly (of course if the defenders are few)... see what happened to Winterfell in GoT

I would keep siege timings distinct from army size (after all, army size has a direct counterpart to defender size) and limit it to things like city size, specific buildings, special troops like sappers (I love that idea!) or siege engines etc.

Cauldyth, I love your proposed game mechanics!

One thing could be a little bit unbalanced, though: If the army inside the city could restore the defence in the proposed way, cities could literally never be taken, mayhap! Because:

1. Armies in cities can not be attacked by the sieging army without braking the defence. So, there is no possibiity to reduce their strength and the defender could sit in the city forever, if the restoration rate is high enough.

2. Armies in cities have no limit in army size. They may build up the defence way faster than the attacker will reduce it.

If you want to keep the "restoration mechanic" (which I like, in general), maybe tweak it in a way, that it is not possible to restore all city defence up to the original city fortification strength. Maybe there should be a certain and accumulating amount of damage persistent, as long as the siege lasts. Like this, even with the strongest defending army, the city defence will fall after a certain time, which is based on the original fortificaton value.

This should solve both problems: longer lasting sieges, but no impregnable cities.

Yes, some sort of delay is needed, and a system that does not make siege weapons compulsory is probably better for the AI.

There is a problem with this which I think maybe you guys aren't realizing. If you have to siege a town for 1 or 2 turns it would be way too easy to repulse the enemies with certain spells. If you are a fire mage and have those fire spells that attack armies on the map, do you know how much damage you could do in 1 or 2 extra turns with those fire spells? I forgot what it is called but if you could hit them with it 2 or 3 times before they can attack your city, they are pretty much done for. You could hit them with the attack spells 1 or 2 times before they reach your city and then another 1 to 2 times sieging.

There is also an Earth spell which paralyzes an army, etc. How do you balance for these things?

I agree that would be nice, but the dev´s have confirmed on several occasions it is never going to happen for FE. The engine is not capable of handling it, or the AI couldn't handle it, or both, I'm not sure. It might be looked at for an expansion, or more likely a sequel if it is ever made.

I disagree it would be cumbersome. It gives the AI an opportunity to put up a real fight. Taking a town would take more than just walking an army up to it and press auto-resolve. You'll either have to bring a second army to intercept potential reinforcements, break off part of the army for that duty and have them back before the battle, or risk facing stronger opposition. This decision alone would make the process more interesting and engaging.

And yes, you'll be vulnerable to nasty spells, as you should be. The solution lies in balancing the spells, either through mana costs, adjusting the effectiveness, or protection and counterspell abilities.

Just imagine; after a long and bloody war, you have finally gained the upper hand. Enemy forces have been removed from your country, and you've gathered an army to end this war once and for all. You send it off to take the enemy capital where your rival, a fire archmage, is holed up with a large part of his army. While you have a few skilled wizards serving you, the only one who can truly protect your army from the enemies firestorms is you, the sovereign. During the siege you are focused on maintaining the shield protecting your army. Your second in command is preparing your troops for the coming battle by casting blessings to protect them from fire. Two other heroes are send off with a small force, to keep enemy reinforcements from his other cities away.

That's just way more epic than sending in a few stacks, maybe have one of them hit with a fire strom, auto-resolve the first few battles, sacrificing a few stacks to grind down the enemy, and then finally send in your killer stack.

You could just as easily do this without a siege system though, and in fact that's exactly what a smart player would do if he saw a large enemy force coming straight at one of his cities. The only reason the AI doesn't do this to your armies already, without a siege system, is that it's not smart enough and good enough at identifying threats. The main point of having a siege system is to help the AI in this regard, to mark out certain  enemies as priority threats and force them to deal with them.

To be honest actually, the idea of sieges as action packed hotspots, with both factions piling on fire damage attacks, earthquakes, wards and counterspells actually strikes me as being really fun.

Not exactly true.

When talking about spells that are limited to territory.  The current mechanics allow you to charge a city and avoid any of these spells, even more likely so since by the time these spells are available with a pool to cast them, armies are going to have 3x moves and access to roads to the city.  There would be no chance to cast them.

And other spells effectively have a limit of casts per turn.  Quite often this limit could only be available for one turn.  (for a bee-lineing army)

If you add siege time, this adds a huge opportunity to be the target of all and any spells and for far more turns than they normally would be subject to.  AND even more likely, since there is no doubt at that time what it is that army is "up to."

Definitely disagree. I already pummel the AI as it is with spells. I use outposts and such to make sure I know when they are coming.