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Sieging cities

azile0

By azile0
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azile0 Contributor

azile0

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Now, most of us have run the Imperial/Stormcloak questlines and found that to 'conquer' cities you just.. capture a nearby fort. It isn't until the final mission / Whiterun that you actually assault a city. Now, I'm curious as to why you don't do that for every city? Cities like Markarth would have been amazing to charge through and conquer. I'm sure I'm not the only person who felt somewhat jaded by the fact that you just take a fort (which is still fun, but not very epic since you can do it on your own anyway) and then the city nearby just happens to switch to your side.

 

I assume this is because the city surrenders. Now, I highly doubt that a city such as Markarth would just give up because an army is nearby. They constantly claim to be the safest city in Skyrim. And yet they just fall over without a fight? That just doesn't fit. So, I'm sure that I would be one of many people who would appreciate a mod that has you conquer a fort near the city, then the city itself. You'd need to fight through the front gates, the streets, all the way to the Jarl's palace and then inside and defeat the Jarl's guards. Once all of them were dead, the Jarl would surrender and be sent to either Winterhold or Solitude's prison.

 

It's as if the Imperial / Stormcloak campaigns were rushed at the end. For the last fort before taking the enemy capital, they don't even say its name. They just say 'the enemy fort'. Not to mention the fact that both storylines are exactly the same (same story missions, same forts to fight over, etc.) I want my military campaigns to feel epic and satisfying. As it stands, they just aren't.

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Jennifur68 Collaborator

Jennifur68

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I would have enjoyed longer, drawn out sieges...I think defending Whiterun took all of 10 minutes if that and the Stormcloak army was broken and retreating. It would have been better in my opinion if after that intial attack the Imperial officer in command would have said something like, "Good job repelling thier skirmishers...I fear the main attack will be much larger. Prepare you soldiers!" Then have the catapults start up again after a while and a few more attempts to take the city with pauses between...maybe they could attack from different sides like from the damaged walls on the west side or have one of the east wall breached by catapults and Stormcloaks pouring in. Something to make it feel like it was a hard won victory holding the city and the losses suffered in the attempts to take it cause the Stormcloaks to retreat rather than be crushed by a counter attack from the city. The battle to capture Windhelm wasn't any more spectacular really. I realize they have to take into account peoples PCs and what they can handle but maybe have it scale based on your PCs graphics setting. Markarth would have been fun to defend too, though I might have accidentally shot a Thalmore or two "accidentally". ^^ Edited by Jennifur68
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bluesmurph

bluesmurph

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I think a game that pulls off siege mechanics well is Mount and Blade: Warband, that would be an excellent game to base the mechanics off of.

 

For the siege you could go to the city and activate the siege. Once activated you have the options to attack instantly, build catapults/ladders that take X number of days to build, or wait X number of days. All of these choices have different effects:

 

Attack Instantly
- Your army begins the siege instantly but the defending army is at its full potential and will have full strength.

Build Catapults
- It takes X number of days to build them but once completed the defending army will be a little weaker. The amount of days waited to build the catapults PLUS the catapults themselves effect the strength of the enemy army.

Wait
- Waiting lets you wait a certain number of days. The longer you wait the weaker the enemy becomes until after a set number of days they surrender... BUT the longer you wait the more likely an enemy army will come in for support and attack you. If this happens then a large battle takes place outside the city and you must kill everyone and kill or capture their general in order to continue with the siege. If you loose troops during the battle then it will effect the number of troops you have to fight in the city.

 

Maybe also add some other things to do while sieging that take a couple of days to effect the strength of your army and the enemies army... (call in for support for extra troops, raid enemy farms or merchants to cause havoc on them and improve your stregth, ect)

 

But if you get bored of sitting you can attack the city whenever you want and have the battle separated by waves:

1. First battle is outside the city as you fight to get through the gates. Many archers in parapets and soldiers on foot outside the gate

2. Second battle is after you defeat the people outside and get inside the gate. Lots of foot soldiers and archers on rooftops.

3. Third battle would be inside the Jarl's Palace with butt loads of special "Jarl Guards" and maybe some court wizards and such. Like you said, once the guards are defeated the Jarl Surrenders.

 

These are just some ideas and if you really like them then go play Mount and Blade: Warband... I stole all the ideas from them. This is pretty much how the sieging works and its really fun and i could see it being fun in skyrim too. Of course you don't have to follow this but i like the system and by adding a bunch of more options on improving armies and such this mod could turn out very well. Now the only problem is someone needs to make it XD. its always easier said then done correct?

 

Well post what you guys think and try M&B out for yourselves if you haven't. Its extremely fun PLUS theirs a free demo version that lets you play up to level 7... but you probably cant siege at level 7 unless you get cheats to buy more troops. Download the demo HERE

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azile0 Contributor

azile0

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I love Mount and Blade, but honestly I can't see something like that being done. It would certainly be awesome, but that's a huge mechanic to add. I would just like to see an extension of the existing campaign via battles to actually take the cities. Increasing the amount of enemies in these battles would certainly make it more challenging, as I agree that as it stands, Whiterun is very easy to take / defend.
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Trucidation Enthusiast

Trucidation

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This is a great idea. One of the things we gotta worry about though is making sure civilians stay indoors during the siege, it's just horribly annoying when some obscure quest-giver gets killed because he happened to step out of the inn at a bad time. Maybe for the duration of the siege the city is just populated by nameless guards.

 

Time limit + killcounter = determines whether siege was successful. Man, this would be so nice to have >_> Anyone else play the Dynasty Warrior games? Heh.

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acidzebra Mentor

acidzebra

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What's really weird is

 

 

if you look at the Markarth gates in the CK there's this huge complex scene with catapult impacts, tons of CW troops, arrow volleys fired from the walls (!), and lots of other things going on.

 

Now maybe I'm playing skyrim all wrong, but I never got to see any of that ingame and I've run through both the imperial and sons CW campaign. There's a whole set of stages for Markarth, right up from Markarth pass (over the bridge) up to the city gates, all of which look awesome.

http://i49.tinypic.com/zy9eb.jpg

 

I see the same kind of complex scene near Riften

 

 

 

Spoiler tags added in case I'm wrong and there is actually a siege of Markarth.

Edited by acidzebra
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