How to create a siege scenario - by Mashek

Siege scenarios rarely come in on a grand scale in the Blacksmith, nor in a very detailed manner, and so I have written this tutorial in hope that it will help people create and achieve more complex and ‘vast’ scenarios whereby the player is under siege by an insurmountable foe.

Firstly, before we begin with how to achieve a siege scenario, I will explain with what a siege scenario is. The basic premise of a siege scenario is usually that the player is under siege by an enemy at least twice as strong as he is, if not stronger. The player must fend off this engrossing force by whatever means possible, and this may become accomplished by fighting from strategic fronts, such as a narrow causeway, or by the positioning of your troops in which they become highly fighting effective and with which will surely result in the enemy’s withdrawal or annihilation. Throughout this siege the player will come under some hot assaults and must think on his feet and in a matter of seconds to counter whatever is brought against him.

Remember that a siege does not have to be the ‘simple’ defence of a city, but can be the defence of anything. A siege can go across frozen lakes, whereby you defend the island centering it. It can be that you are defending an un-walled village, a gold mine or perhaps even a river, whereby the bridge is what you must hold. It can be anything!
In just five easy-to-follow, albeit detailed steps, I will show you how you may be able to make a grand siege scenario that will surely rate highly in the Blacksmith.

Story:

If you are going to create a siege scenario, you first need a story. Open the window, sit down at the desk and grab pen and paper. I find using a small notepad best for brain storming ideas and with which I can take with me to the computer desk so that I may be able to go off from my ideas and incorporate them in my scenario. Remember, for most people it is quite hard to come up with ideas from the top of your head while sitting at the computer. Me included. You need room, you need space and good thinking conditions. Most of all, you need a clear mind. Write down your interests for a siege scenario. What kind of enemy do you like? The one that is purely evil, bent mad on world domination, bent on your destruction? Or is it one that more fits today’s scene, and is an army just like you, fighting for a cause, though maybe as alien as yours, still just in their own right? What kind of defender do you want to be? One that is noble and Just, threatened by an evil army, the typical Good Vs Bad theme, or one that is just there at the wrong place and time? Or is it the defender whose enemy has a grudge against her for what she had committed against them in past days? Now, what would you like to defend from? A forest, a farm, a hill, a mountain or a settlement? A tomb that is underground perhaps? Now all you need is a back-story to go along with your siege. If you are defending an underground tomb, did you stumble upon it like in The Lord of the Rings, and now have to fend off hundreds of awakened Goblins and Orcs? Trolls even? If you are defending a farm yard, perhaps your small force heard of a Goblin presence and so moved to the small settlement and arrived by night, suddenly having to fend off a Goblin army pouring out of the nearby wood line in all their hundreds? Maybe the enemy are not goblins, but demons or zombies, perhaps even humans? Perhaps maybe you are defending a city, hoping to fight off the enemy army come to eradicate all in its path? Or perhaps you are being pursued by a vast enemy force, and when you suddenly encounter an old, abandoned stockade, with your small force you must quickly occupy it, fix the damaged gateway and perhaps some old walls in a matter of minutes, and then fight off the enemy force quickly closing in? Who is your enemy? Is it an evil force of zombies, skeletons and demons? Or just men from a land far away? Where does this enemy force come from? Now who is the enemy leader? Is he a devil? A Demon? A Vampire? Or is he a man? Maybe your enemy leader is not male but female? Is she some ugly old witch, or one that is beautiful? Perhaps she is just like Joan of Arc, fighting for a cause just like your army? Now who are the characters in your scenario? The defending characters? This becomes very important if you are to convey a good story with strong, indepth backstory and to more draw people in and to interest them. Who leads your army? What of the other characters like the captains? What are thier names, their strengths and weaknesses? Why do they fight this war? What of their lives? The way they talk? The way they fight? Imagine who your characters are, connect to them and you will be on your way with a scenario that has a heart at its centre.
There could certainly be a lot more to this, but hopefully this has given you a good kick-start.

Concerning a Siege:

What happens in your siege? Are you defending a settlement, such as a village, a town or a city? Or are you holding your position against the sudden arrival of the enemy’s force? From this you may be holding a forest, whereby the narrowness in between the trees trunks offer a narrow advantage and inevitably neutralizes the enemy force’s advantageous numbers. Or maybe you are fighting from a mountainside, withdrawing to the top while killing the engrossing enemy as they charge up-hill? However, sometimes the battle is not won because of the strategic advantage of the landscape, but because of superior equipment. Your men, perhaps a patrol stuck behind enemy lines, suddenly encountered by an enemy force far outnumbering that of your own, have superior armour and weapons. Thus, all you need do is hold your lines and be able to slaughter the enemy army whose light armour and weapons are ineffective against your own. Or maybe your army are lightly armed and armoured, making for highly mobile troops with which you are able to make a fighting retreat, swiftly attacking the enemy’s strategic troops and withdrawing before any harm is done to your men?
Perhaps you will go for the traditional story and have it so you are defending from your Kingdom’s last hope of survival –the capital.

Defending a settlement is perhaps the most tiring form of a siege, one that can take a long time to create in the map editor. However I have never created a scenario whereby you are holding a hill, or perhaps a marshland, and so I do not know if it is just as tiring creating a siege there. However, I do believe defending from a settlement is the most fun. Here, you must defend with what territory you have. The limits of your boundary are confined. You are trapped in a square, with the enemy outside, attempting to break the settlement gates down. In the settlement you and your force are one. You must learn to work with your settlement in order to overcome the attacker. You must use what your settlement provides and use it well, to your advantage and to your enemy’s disadvantage. Perhaps you will fight from within its narrow streets, or using what elevation is inside of it? Perhaps the settlement is a fortress, with big stone causeways protruding from the sides, to where it connects to the fortress’s main gateways. Maybe it is here that you defend from, less the enemy merge victorious? Or are you defending from a village, one where it has a few dozen houses, some farmlands and some measly palisade walls and trenches? Perhaps the trenches cause the enemy horses to break their legs and die? Perhaps the palisades act as stakes and impale the enemy if they get too close to them? Maybe the centre of the village is a square, and the streets connecting to it are narrow and confined by the houses lining the sides, thus offering a great "narrow" advantage to the small defender battling the large attacker.

A city defence is much different to that of a fortress, but this depends on what your fortress is like. Your fortress could be a hastily built stockade, made from wood, or perhaps it has been standing for decades or centuries, and thus has been reinforced with stone walls. Whatever it is, it is unlikely that any siege here will require the enemy to use siege towers. Perhaps they will use ladders? Nevertheless the primary way of meeting the defender is for the attacker to go through the gates, and so you should focus more on this aspect than the rest. Remember, the enemy needs to continuously assault the player, and to keep attacking no matter where the defender may be defending from within the fortress, less the gameplay become anti-climactic and thus lose its momentum and fun.

In a city defence, things become so much grander, the techniques of breaking through the walls become much more diverse. Here you might want the enemy, apart from surging through the settlement’s gateways, to also come by ladders and perhaps even siege towers. Perhaps the enemy is undermining the walls, and thus it is only a matter of time until the walls collapse, seemingly by an unforeseen force. But all this is what a mortal army would use, a human army. Maybe the head of the attacker is a necromancer, one like the Witch King, and who, uses his powers to hurl your gateways and or walls down in a cloud of smoke and glowing embers? Remember, the limits of your siege are the limits of your imagination. You can technically do whatever you like so long as it is within the boundaries of the map editor. If you want a dragon to burn your defenders up while they fend off the enemy horde then you can do that. You just need to manipulate the triggers in such a way that it will actually seem like you are being assaulted by a Dragon. Remember that sound effects will very much come handy here.

Perhaps, while defending your settlement, the enemy is so strong that you can only hold certain parts of the area before withdrawing to the next line and so forth? Perhaps the story is set in such a way, that the purpose of the game is to inflict upon the enemy great deaths before dying yourself? Maybe there never was a chance to win, just a chance to fight and leave your mark? Maybe you must defend until reinforcements arrive to relieve your burden?
To win or ‘break’ the siege one will have to either inflict massive casualties on the enemy to force him to withdraw, or by slaying key figures such as the General, King and or Captains. If you are going for the realistic approach, usually all you need do is slay so much of the enemy force before he will break and run. Once again more could have been listed here, but I dare not go any further. I hope this has given you some idea on what you need to incorporate and or think about when making a siege scenario.

Also, here are some pictures of the latest siege I am creating. Hopefully what you see in them will give you a taste of a "full-on" siege battle. Note how I have positioned the defenders in between the two causeways, the "narrow fronts of the Fortress", and it is there that I am going to hold off the myriad of enemy troops. After all, it is the only way possible if I am going to win.

| Pic 1 | Pic 2 | Pic 3 |

Terrain:

How you achieve the atmosphere or detail and quality of your siege scenario depends on the terrain you use and how you use it. The use of a lot of dirts and mud paths from the Gaia list will achieve a very dark feel, whereas the use of much grass and flowers used from the Gaia list will probably achieve the idea of a darkness overcoming a beautiful land. If you are being besieged during summer, make the terrain in such a way that one gets the impression of summer. Such being a harsh land, effected by heat. Here you will probably use plenty of grass 3 and dirt 1, 2 and 3 to convey this. Perhaps your trees will be leafless, exhausted from the heat? And maybe to help convey the summer heat even more, you will go with Marko crnigoj’s idea from Hattin 1187 and periodically drain the Hp of your men to convey thirst? However this only works, I would think, for battles whereby the Hp and Ap of your men is extended greatly. Perhaps this siege begins in the summer, but you will make it last a long time, and thus go into autumn, whereby things get a little cooler, and the trees begin to turn all sorts of colours. Here leaves will cover much of the ground. The siege will perhaps transcend even until winter, whereby, depending on what part of the world you’re on, it will begin to snow, or perhaps just rain a lot. Or perhaps, like here where I live, it will rain in like two days out of the entire 3 months time, and the rest of winter is more like spring, the flowers already blooming!!! Heck we got more rain in three days here in spring than we did winter!!! Maybe the siege continues until spring and that at the same time when the flowers are beginning to bloom, reinforcements arrive, slaughtering the exhausted attacker before them. And this would have a great feel because the enemy force would be broken when the land is beginning to get more warm and full of colour, representing hope. However such an idea would probably span several separate scenarios, or one big one, just set in such a way that you cannot see the other fortresses placed on the map, but this may cause lag depending on how you like to place things.

But the main point of terrain in a siege scenario is to design what type of settlement you are defending from. How many gateways does your settlement have? Does it even have walls? If so what kind of walls? Stonewalls? Fortified walls? TWALs? Palisades? Is it not a settlement, but out in the forest as I said before? A mountain? If so you will need to design your terrain in such a way that it conveys this. Using rocks, plants, flowers and whatever other Gaia object is ideal if you wish to get the best result. But be sure to use your Gaia objects and terrain moderately as to not over do it making for a gross looking design. Terrain mixing is important here too (as well as elevation). It is basically just mixing several terrains together in detailed forms to achieve a great look. I usually just apply big amounts of road-broken (for example) with the small-sized brush, and then with the tiny brush, add in more detail such as road-snow and a tab of road to highlight various crevices etc, but that is ideal for a fortress or city in the winter. Grass is ideal to mix with the various dirts and other grasses. Perhaps the fortress you are defending from had been abandoned for a long time before your sudden occupation, and so has much road-fungus and road-broken to convey the ‘desolation’ of the settlement. The walls would even be damaged and with much grass, plants and foliage overcoming the walls, buildings and pathways. In all, your terrain should be in accordance to what season of the year your siege is in, the history of the area and or the theme of your scenario.

Here is a single picture on some terrain mixing I did for my cut-scene I am currently making. The sharp use of road-snow, road-broken, snow-dirt, dirt-1 and dirt 3 develop a dark atmosphere and looks very eye catching. Note how the houses and trees blend in well too. Also I have used craters, skeletons, rubble and 'piles of stone' from the Gaia list to help enhance the idea. Everythere there suits my winter scheme and is not unrealistic. This is what you should go for when trying to design -keeping it all realistic and eye catching.

Music/ Sound Effects:

Music in a siege scenario is entirely vital if you are to convey despair, glory or hope and also to grasp the idea and theme of your story. Music also helps to ‘involve’ the player, to keep him interested, thrilled, and, feeling the heat, the joy and the spine-shivering madness. Music is inevitably connected to atmosphere. How you use your music and sounds helps to convey whatever type of atmosphere you are after. Whether you are after an evil or dark atmosphere, a cold or spring-like atmosphere -all this will become possible by the smart use of music and sounds.

Heavy, hard hitting music that is both dark and thrilling is exemplary for a siege scenario because it conveys despair and chaos. When the enemy at last breaks, it is ideal to have music that is perhaps loud, maybe even sad (representing the great loss of the moment, also the relief of victory) or joyful, pure joyful, representing a triumphant victory! The music and sounds you use should play in accordance to the mood and theme of your siege scenario. It should not be there just for looks.

A good example of a siege-like scenario with a great use of music that really helps to enhance the theme and mood is in my opinion, The Battle of Lake Peipus by Duncan Hardy. There during gameplay you will see how the stunning use of music and sounds helps to enhance the 'moment of glory' about to be committed by Alexandre and his men, but also helps to enhance that icy coldness of winter. I call this scenario a siege because it requires the player to defend his position until he can take the fight elsewhere.

Concerning Lag:

Lag is a siege scenario’s worst nightmare next to playability-ruining bugs. How to counter this is by creating a trigger system whereby it spawns the enemy force in waves and haves them tasked to the designated area where they will attack the defending force. This is much better rather than just pre-setting the enemy force of three thousand units on the map because this will just create a hell of a lot of lag. The spawning will decrease the lag by a thousand-fold and make the game much more lag free and enjoyable. Just remember to deactivate the spawns everynow and then (before re-activating them) so that too many troops aren’t being spawned on the battlefield. Also be sure to make the spawns out of sight so that the player doesn’t see all these soldiers coming out of nowhere.

One notable technique that is ideal for spawns and decreasing lag is the trigger system that a good friend called Oliver made me.

Trigger 1 - starting state off
Effect 1 - deactivate trigger 2
Effect 2 - deactivate trigger 3
Effect 3 - activate trigger 4
Effect 4 - activate trigger 5

Trigger 2 - starting state on, looping on
Effect 1 - activate trigger 1

Trigger 3 - starting state on, looping on
Condition 1 - objects in area, pl 2 military units, 50
Effect 1 - deactivate trigger 1

Trigger 4 - starting state off, looping on, "spawn units trigger"
[add create unit and task effects here]

Trigger 5 - starting state off, looping off
Condition 1 - object in area, pl 2 military units, 150
Effect 1 - deactivate trigger 4
Effect 2 - activate trigger 2
Effect 3 - activate trigger 3

Basically what happens here is that the enemy is spawned whenever there is only at least 50 of its men left in that one area where the main battle takes place around. The spawns will spawn up a good 150 military units, however this number should be decreased to avoid lag, and they are all tasked to the battle. The trigger system is one giant loop, and can be called off at any time. Use it, for it is ideal for any designer trying to cut back on lag in his siege scenario.

A good example of a siege scenario plagued by lag and presents a good example of what not to do is A Day of Hatred and Lost Memories by Me. It is a good example for why you NEVER put down one thousand units and over on the battlefield as it causes lag, and nothing but.

Conclusion:

So much more could have gone into this tutorial, so much more, but I didn't want it to go forever. I truly hope this tutorial has helped anyone who may be trying to create a siege scenario whereby the player is the defender, fighting off an engrossing force. While this tutorial remains a little rough even after my recent update, I will probably edit it sometime early in the future.
Well, that’s it for now, take care, and comments will be greatly appreciated for!

[This message has been edited by Mashek331 (edited 10-04-2006 @ 05:37 AM).]