Siege System

Sieging is a complex and important mechanic in The Repopulation. Games that allow players to attack and potentially take cities from one another are rare, but we believe that this risk, coupled with the rewards that come with a city, will enhance the sandbox gameplay experience by establishing the importance of a nation's reputation. Those who wish to do business in peace will work to form solid alliances with other nations, and will avoid garnering a negative reputation with the hopes of avoiding sieges as well. Consequences are an important aspect of player cities, but solid siege mechanics that prevent cities from turning into worthless war camps, yet provide a fun PvP experience are crucial. We want to see cities turn into majestic hubs that both PvE and PvP focused players will enjoy. This consideration was foremost in our minds as we designed the mechanics for sieging in The Repopulation.

There are many other things to consider when looking at a sieging system including numbers, timing, and frequency. Zerging is a common tactic, because numbers tend to matter greatly. The frequency of sieging is an important aspect, as you have to design around it being a common or uncommon experience in running a city. Other people have concerns about waking up the next day to find their city has been taken over in the middle of the night with little to no warning. We took all of these things into consideration when designing our siege system.

In order to address most of the concerns above, we have to assign some kind of cost to sieging. If a congregation of players can just show up and lay waste to everything, it will quickly turn into a numbers game, and whomever can recruit the larger collection of players is going to quickly find themselves miles ahead. While you cannot completely get around this issue, adding a cost that is not measured in body count count will help. Also, having sieges impacted by other material costs puts significant impact onto the frequency of siege attempts, forcing it into something more than a numbers game. An organized group with flawless strategy will have the advantage over a mindless zerg, but for either side allies can make or break the siege. This cost also puts a heavy burden on conducting city sieges as they will often take away from the ability to invest in your own city or protect it from others looking to siege you. This makes sieges a risky proposition for attackers, and makes it extremely complicated to do it on more than one front.

The other primary concern a lot of people have is in their ability to defend their city if it is attacked during off-peak hours. Our design allows for strategic planning for both the attacker and defender. You simply cannot roll into a city and take it over. The process laid out below takes around 3 days and allows for plenty of confrontation and negotiations during the process. These mechanics give the defender a lot of control over when the siege happens, but the attacker has a few available options that can give them a leg up.

Another common concern is the general “safety” of a city when it is not being sieged. Part of our design is to allow smaller defense options such as turrets and armed guards to help police the city. The mayor of the city has control over these automated defenses, and can even allow unfriendly people in if desired. Another major part of the defense that ties into sieging is the energy grid for the city. Instead of having walls and other barriers as the primary form of protection for a city, we will be implementing an energy grid around the city. In and out of sieging it can be used for defense to keep hostile people out. While we realize that walls and other barriers are important, if we allow too much reliance on these as the primary method of defense, we will see cities that are nothing but mazes of walls and this entirely defeats their purpose.

During the sieging process, the energy grid needs to be depleted before the city can be attacked. It will be important to keep the grid stocked and ready just in case there is an attack. In order to attack the city, siege units will need to be created to drain down the grid along with help from players and vehicles. The siege units have a resource cost, and those resources are ones that might be needed to help defend your own city from a siege. It will require the help of these units to successfully take down a well prepared city, and there will also be the burden of getting resources to the siege to fuel these siege units.

Now that a lot of the precursory information has been covered, here is how the sieging process works. It is broken up over a 3 day process with the hours listed for each process. A mock example of the process will be listed after the details.

Declaration Phase - Day 1 - 0:00 - 24:00
Attacking Nation places Siege camp starting the declaration phase.
 * Siege camp is vulnerable for 2 hours and can be destroyed.
 * Destruction of the Siege camp automatically triggers the “Partial Successful Defense” Protection. This grants a 3 day window of protection from the attacking nation only.

Hour 2:00 - Siege camp becomes invulnerable
 * “Withdraw Declaration” button becomes active till the end of the day.
 * Only the leadership of the attacking nation can choose to do this. It triggers a “Partial Successful Defense” Protection
 * Any resources held by the siege camps are returned in full if a withdrawal is made.
 * Resources to drop siege camp (production cost) will not be returned
 * Kill or Capture Siege choice pops for the attacking leadership. They have till the end of the day to choose. It defaults to Kill and can only be changed once.
 * City is locked down. No new non-siege related structures/units can be placed.
 * Siege camp acts as a cloning facility for the attackers and can be upgraded to provide additional options.

Hour 2:00 - Energy Field is placed around the city.
 * Siege camp forces the field to come up, enemy players will not be able to enter the city till it is down.

Hour 2:01 - Siege camp can be used to stockpile resources
 * Players can transport materials in to use for creating the units. Materials cannot be destroyed or stolen, but players can be killed before they can transfer the materials.

Hour 2:01 - Additional Siege camps can be dropped by any nation (Support for friendly, Siege by enemies).
 * They are vulnerable for 2 hours and can be destroyed.
 * At the end of 2 hours they can stockpile resources as well.

Hour 12:00 - Ability to set Siege And Persecution Window Opens.

Hour 24:00 - Declaration Phase Ends

Build-up Phase Begins - Day 2 - 24:00 to 46:00
Hour 24:00 - Build-up Phase Begins
 * Unit production opens for Primary Siege/Support Camps
 * Units cannot be damaged/destroyed until the Persecution Phase or War Phase. The units are in standby as well and cannot cause any damage.
 * Players transporting goods or helping out around camp are still/always targets.
 * Attackers may now set the Persecution Window between Day 2 - 46:00 to Day 3 - 50:00.
 * Defenders may set the Siege Window between 54:00 on Day 3 to 66:00 on Day 3.

Hour 24:00 - Forfeit Declaration is available for all attackers.
 * All resources held by the camps are lost along with the units already built. If the leadership backs out, leadership is passed down to the 2nd successfully placed nation. If no enemy camps remain it triggers a “Successful Defense”. This grants 7 day siege protection for the city, 3 for the nation.

Hour 24:00 - Surrender Declaration is available to the city.
 * At any time the defenders can surrender the city instead of fighting it out; this option cedes the city to the attackers completely intact.

Hour 36:00 - Ability to set/change Persecution and Siege Window Ends.
 * If not selected the Siege window is set to D3 at 66:00.
 * If not selected the Persecution window is skipped.

Persecution Phase Begins (Day 2 46:00 to Day 3 50:00)

 * Phase is 2 hours long and the time is determined by the attacker. They can also choose the skip the Persecution phase by not setting a start time.
 * Defense can deploy their units to destroy the Attacker’s units or damage any siege camp by a total of 30% of their health
 * Attackers can deploy their units to deplete the Defense’s grid by 30%, destroy any enemy unit, or damage support camps by 30%
 * At the end of this phase attacking units/camps/grid is restricted.
 * Forfeit for attackers now despawns everything and no resources are returned.

Standoff Phase Begins (End of Persecution Phase)

 * New units may continue to be produced until the War Phase Begins.
 * Units may be repaired if they survived the Persecution phase. Camps and grids may not be repaired until the war phase begins.

War Phase Begins - 54:00 on Day 3 to 66:00 on Day 3

 * War Phase Opens with both sides up to attack. Camps and Control centers can be damaged and repaired at this time. This is the official start of the siege endgame process.
 * Destruction or forfeit of all Enemy Siege camps initiates the “Successful Defense” protection.
 * Destruction of the Control Center for a Kill siege grants victory leaving the city with no owner.
 * Area is placed under war-torn status. In a random time between 24 and 48 hours the city will become available for control. Whichever nation can place a control center and control it for 5 minutes wins the area. If the control center is destroyed the process begins again at some point 30 to 60 minutes later.
 * Capturing the Control Center for a Capture Siege grants victory.
 * After 4 hours if the city is not successfully seized the defense is successful and the siege ends.

Day 1 - Wednesday 6:00 PM

 * Nation A places down a siege camp at 6:00 PM on a Wednesday and successfully defends it from Nation B for 2 hours. At 8:00 PM the camp becomes invulnerable and the energy field is placed about the city protecting it from anyone coming in.
 * Nation A and Nation B sit down to talk about terms at 9:00 PM. Nothing is reached. Nation A declared the siege as a capture siege after the talk.
 * Nation C comes to the aid of Nation A and lays down a siege camp at 9:30 PM. It is destroyed at 10:30 PM by Nation B.
 * Nation A transports materials into their siege camp. Nation B sends out players to help disrupt this process by killing them as they come in. This continues well into the evening and during the early part of Thursday.

Day 2 - Thursday - 6:00 PM

 * The Build-up Phase begins and both sides can start building siege units. The defense can build units to help strengthen the grid or to attack back. The attackers build their siege units to help weaken down the grid so they can get in. Production starts on both and the fighting continues as Nation A tries to bring in more resources.
 * Nation A has an option to forfeit, has no plan on doing that. Nation B can now surrender, but has no plans of that either.
 * Nation A decides to set the Persecution Window and chooses 8:00 PM on Friday from the options of 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Shortly after Nation B decides the Siege will start at 11:00 AM on Saturday from the given range of Midnight to Noon on Saturday. If this was a weekday the time would most likely not of been good for either nation.

Day 3 - Friday - 8 PM

 * The Persecution Phase begins at 8:00 PM and both sides clash. Nation A loses 2 out of the 5 siege units it has, has their camp loses the max 30% of its health and manages to destroy 1 of Nation B’s units and deplete the grid by 12%. The Phase ends at 10:00 PM after 2 hours passes and the units/grid/camps are once again invulnerable.
 * Both sides get ready for the actual siege repairing surviving units and try to produce new units.

Day 3 - Saturday - 11 AM

 * The siege officially begins. 1 Hour into the fight Nation B routes all of Nation A’s units and destroyed their Siege camp leading to a “Successful Defense” protection and the end of the siege.
 * Alternative 2: Nation A successfully breaks down the grid shortly after 3 hours in the the fight but is unable to capture the control center after being repelled twice by Nation B and the siege ends after 4 hours passes.
 * Alternative 3: Nation A successfully breaks down the grid and takes control of the control center with 1 hour to spare. Control of the city is passed over to Nation A and all housing/shops are packed up and sent to the players of the city to be deployed elsewhere. The local city, its bank of resources, and public structures and buildings are now under control of Nation A.