Enjoying Siege warfare

[vaalen]

I never thought I would say this, but I am really enjoying the siege warfare component in the First Punic War scenario. Cities that are not ports will eventually run out of supply and surrender if you keep them besieged. Sometimes your siege will breach the defenses, but other times it will not. Ports are more difficult. As the Romans, I besieged Lilybaeum for over a year, finally realizing that I was not going to take this level four fort unless I blockaded the port. I also had to supply my besieging army.

I thoroughly enjoyed increasing the size of my fleet, and implementing the corvus decision, which enabled me to win a huge naval victory against a huge Carthaginian fleet which was carrying a large relief army. I had to rotate blockading squadrons, deal with storm damage, but managed to keep the blockade up. Quite a challenge at times, but very satisfying. My large besieging army was starting to suffer from supply shortages, after plundering the area, but I managed to solve that by building additional depot levels in adjoining cities, and rotating supply wagons.

Blockading was tense, as there was always the danger of storms, though I got a feel for the general weather patterns. Several times, Carthaginian relief fleets sailed up to my blockade, but fell back after scouting the size of my force. I do not think their fleet ever recovered from my great naval victory, though I did not know what they had.

Late in the siege, I began to get breaches. After a level three breach, the starving Carthaginians surrendered the city. The siege took almost two years. It might have ended sooner if I had blockaded earlier, but there was a huge storm in the area before I blockaded it that might have taken out my fleet, enabling the Carthaginians to relieve the city.

No actual combat, except for the naval battle, yet one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had with a wargame.

As I said before, this game is a masterpiece!

[Durk]

Yes, very realistic and lots of fun.