Slitherine

Siege warfare is very tough to game out. I'm not sure it's ever been done really right. But if anyone can manage it, I'd put my money on Slitherine

Years ago there was an SPI boardgame called Art of Siege, which was really 4-games-in-one, covering Alexander's siege of Tyre, Richard The Lionheart's siege of Acre, Lille (the classic Vauban siege), and Sevastapol.

The latter two didn't interest me much, but Tyre and Acre were real gems.

If you consider it, a siege consists of 3 things -

1) The waiting around, and all its attendant strategic considerations

2) The war of engines, meaning the long slow battering of the walls by stone-throwing engines, the gradual digging of tunnels, parallels, etc.

3) The assault.

Now Slitherine has proven itself more than capable of making games which include both a strategic phase and a tactical phase, and pass back and forth between the two, smoothly integrating the results of one into the other.

Of the three things listed above, #2 could be rolled into #1 and called a strategic phase. And #3 is obviously a tactical phase...

So it seems to me that Slitherine has demonstrated the ability to do this sort of game.

The big question is, does the market for it exist?

Sieges are great but by nature each ones was different and there were so many exceptions to the rule that they are a bit of nightmare to make into a PC game. Would be cool though

A good way to simulate a siege, is to just not let either player go to the bathroom, while the siege is in efect. If the Besieged player caves first the garrison surrenders. If the investing player is off to the bathroom first, then the siege is lifted. If the defender is supposed to be short of supplies make him drink several glasses of lemonade or beer!!

The three stages of the siege, clarified, are:

1) Waiting around while everyone gets low on supplies and/or gets sick due to the masses of stressed organisms in close proximity for extended periods of time.

2) The war of engines in both directions, as the defender tries to harass the attacker with long-range artillery to delay the attacker's inevitable demolision of the defensive works with their own artillery (while everyone else is still stuck in stage 1).

3) The assault, if the attackers reach the point where they feel that they can no longer win by way of the first two stages, but still feel that the prize is worth the high cost of an assault.

Since many of the cities or fortresses were arranged as a series of inter-dependent towers, inner and outer rings, keeps, bastions, and other structures, the fall of the outer wall might or might not signal the end of the siege. Individual towers were known to have held out for weeks after the fall of the main fortification. This could be a major can of worms.

What about reinforcements for the defender, didn't it often happen that the attacker had to finish the siege within a certain period of time because the defender was going to receive reinforcements which would inevitably put the attacker in a bad position, as he would not only have to face the armies of the defender, but also the reinforcements?
And it might also be wise to iclude the defender raiding the attacker's camps & siege engines at night-time and at other tactial moments, as he probably couldn't fit enough artillery in his castle/fortified town/fort to harass the attacker properly. Then of course the attacker also needs supplies and if someone manages to block the attacker's supply routes or the attacker runs out of money he would probably have to lift the siege. These and various more things might be essential to include in the game to make it fun and realistic, so it would probably be very hard for Slitherine to make such a game. Nice idea though, might make for a good game if it were to be done properly.

Would love to see a Siege of Port Arthur game.