Siege mechanics
Specialized rules for assaulting or defending fortified positions — walls, gates, towers — usually involving siege equipment, breaching, and asymmetric attacker/defender dynamics. Total War's settlement battles and Mount & Blade's castle sieges turn fortifications into distinct tactical set-pieces where walls must be scaled, breached, or bypassed. Designers use siege mechanics to make fortifications strategically meaningful (a well-defended position is a real obstacle), to create dramatic asymmetric battles, and to give defensive play and infrastructure investment payoff. Key decisions: breaching methods (ladders, rams, artillery, sappers) and their counters, the attacker/defender balance (sieges should favor defenders but be winnable), chokepoint and killzone design, whether sieges are their own battle mode or continuous with field combat, and time pressure (attrition, reinforcements). Pitfall: sieges often become tedious or one-sided — attackers grinding through a single chokepoint, or defenders helplessly outranged — so the design must give both sides meaningful decisions throughout, with multiple approach options and counterplay rather than a single scripted breach.
- Dev effort: Large
- Timing: Real-time
- Common in: strategy, wargame
Seen in
- Total War: Warhammer III
- Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord