Better Sieges.

[Pactrick Willis]

Sieges are difficult, but not enough. They do not mirror what sieges where like, They go insane during the siege and it does to little damage to your colony.

Sieges where meant, and always until very recent history, (Which, although we are dealing with people 3438 years in the future, and although they have the weapons that he have, they do not have the tactical sophistication that we have nor the larger artillery) have meant to starve out the besieged. This is done by surrounding and bombardment. A siege should start how it does now, and then after, say, a day, other camps start showing up on the map, then basic buildings are put up, and the siege intestines. They start building barracks, better defenses, and all in all make your life miserable. There goal is to starve you out, and that they will. Also, they would try and attack your colony, and even try and take parts of your colony. They would target buildings that are the closest and most important to them. For example. Lets say this siege has been going on for awhile and you're unphased because you're dug in, in a mountain, and using hydroponics to grow your crops. The besiegers see this, and they launch a assault (the besiegers would stop receiving reinforcements by day 10 of the siege, so said attack would be almost a sapper like attack) on your hydroponics. They tunnel in, and, after a due fire fight, take the hydroponics wing (This would require some smarter AI, an AI that can realize when it is losing, when to stop attacking and regroup, and how to treat the wounded.) and stay there. They setup a forward base in your base. Leading to some interesting "Stalingrad" style battles. (I say Stalingrad because during that siege, there would be buildings divied between Russia and Germany. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad#Fighting_in_the_city) "Combat raged for three days at the giant grain elevator in the south of the city. About fifty Red Army defenders, cut off from resupply, held the position for five days and fought off ten different assaults before running out of ammunition and water." this is what I could imagine the pirates holding the hydroponics to be like, or vise versa.) So, these pirates hold the hydroponics wing and try to take the rest of the colony bit by bit in a war of attrition. So, Sieges would be more like a real siege.

The attackers go insane during the siege, this is unacceptable. Not only does the AI not know how to rescue and treat, but, there is simply no reason why attackers need to go insane. Maybe add a buff "Sieging" which is like the "New Colony Optimism" Buff, but to siegers. If the AI built some basic buildings and tables, they would not go insane.

The siege right now, if you're prepared, does little damage. The mortars don't do enough damage, and, your colonists can fight fires and such. So, sorry for making this long, but, I hope I made you see how better sieges would impact the game. Thank you.

[Veneke]

Just some questions about where you're approaching this from:
- How do the pirates besieging your colony break? They regularly get supply drops of food/ammunition, and they shouldn't go berserk purely because they're missing stuff like beds. I think I've seen a besieger break the odd time, and I assumed it was a combination of bad traits and poor conditions.
- Mortars can do pretty hefty damage if you're out in the open and not in a mountain.

--

As for your suggestions:
- Bigger/more artillery: Eh... no. An open colony base can get rocked pretty bad already by 2-3 mortars if it isn't dealt with promptly.
- Besiegers build structures/beds/etc: I don't see the point other than to look cool/give the player more resources for defeating a siege.
- AI given better tactical options: Agreed in principle but not on most of the particulars. Going after a particularly important room will either be simplistic and easily exploitable, or robust and likely more difficult to code than the value it adds to the game. Regrouping for someone to receive first aid sounds cool but it's very rare for even highly wounded people to bleed out during a raid; enough time simply doesn't pass. You're really looking at getting incapacitated people back into the fight - and that suffers from the same problem.
- More besiegers/actually blockading the colony: Agreed. It can be a little too easy for a sniper team to roll out and wipe most/all of a siege force. They need a better counter to human sniper teams than their own ineffectual snipers. Plus with the next alpha bringing in ground caravans/traders a blockade would actually be a pretty solid and very different type of raid.

[JimmyAgnt007]

Maybe if they sent out forward observers, siege camps stay the same size ish but small groups with at least one sniper rifle are closer to the colony to deal with any counter attack.

Personally I just have a small artillery park I keep loaded and ready.  About a dozen mortars of my own that i can man quickly and level an entire siege camp in a few volleys. 

[erdrik]

The biggest problem I have with this suggestion is that it uses real world examples of warfare sieges.
Sieges that had the support of and faced opponents with partial to full armies backing them.

IIRC, The game is not designed around groups and organizations of that number.
Obviously the game does not exclude numbers that large, but I don't think the game is designed with those numbers in mind. Completely surrounding the base with huge numbers of siegers would be way too powerful if the colony is still limited to a handful of colonists.

The enemies we are talking about are barely organized pirates and brigands.
I don't think they are going to be organized enough to mount a siege like what is being suggested.

[Pactrick Willis]

The biggest problem I have with this suggestion is that it uses real world examples of warfare sieges.
Sieges that had the support of and faced opponents with partial to full armies backing them.

IIRC, The game is not designed around groups and organizations of that number.
Obviously the game does not exclude numbers that large, but I don't think the game is designed with those numbers in mind. Completely surrounding the base with huge numbers of siegers would be way too powerful if the colony is still limited to a handful of colonists.

The enemies we are talking about are barely organized pirates and brigands.
I don't think they are going to be organized enough to mount a siege like what is being suggested.

I used a example of a small group, Only 50-200 people, Which are numbers that take place in rim world. As for a colony being limited to a number of colonists, This event would not happen at that time, unless you are playing a very hard difficulty. I am not talking about 500 people surrounding your base, 10-100, depending on your colony's size. The point is is that they surround and attack key areas, making it seem less like a raid and more like a full multi day battle.

[erdrik]

...I used a example of a small group, Only 50-200 people, Which are numbers that take place in rim world.

As I said 50 - 200 can happen, but are you actually suggesting that those numbers are what the game is designed around?
If so you would be wrong. Just a quick look at the StoryTellerDef reveals:
Cassandra Classic

Code Select Expand

<desiredPopulationMin>4</desiredPopulationMin>
<desiredPopulationMax>13</desiredPopulationMax>
<desiredPopulationCritical>18</desiredPopulationCritical>
Phoebe Chillax

Code Select Expand

<desiredPopulationMin>4</desiredPopulationMin>
<desiredPopulationMax>13</desiredPopulationMax>
<desiredPopulationCritical>18</desiredPopulationCritical>
Randy Random

Code Select Expand

<desiredPopulationMin>4</desiredPopulationMin>
<desiredPopulationMax>13</desiredPopulationMax>
<desiredPopulationCritical>50</desiredPopulationCritical>

Even Randy(arguably vanilla's most difficult StoryTeller) has an intended Max population of 13.
50(the very lowest of the example numbers you posted) is considered a critical situation.
And Randy will be increasingly trying to reduce that number the closer it gets to max(13).

As for a colony being limited to a number of colonists, This event would not happen at that time, unless you are playing a very hard difficulty. I am not talking about 500 people surrounding your base, 10-100, depending on your colony's size. The point is is that they surround and attack key areas, making it seem less like a raid and more like a full multi day battle.

How are they going to surround your "key areas" from mortar range without numbers from the higher end of that spectrum? from the lower end its just the same as what sieges are now.

And if its not mortar range it may as well be a Sapper Raid, since that event already does that.

It sounds to me what you really want is just for the AI to pick better targets in a Siege, and better entry points for a Sapper Raid. Which I would fully agree with.

[Pactrick Willis]

...I used a example of a small group, Only 50-200 people, Which are numbers that take place in rim world.

As I said 50 - 200 can happen, but are you actually suggesting that those numbers are what the game is designed around?
If so you would be wrong. Just a quick look at the StoryTellerDef reveals:
Cassandra Classic

Code Select Expand

<desiredPopulationMin>4</desiredPopulationMin>
<desiredPopulationMax>13</desiredPopulationMax>
<desiredPopulationCritical>18</desiredPopulationCritical>
Phoebe Chillax

Code Select Expand

<desiredPopulationMin>4</desiredPopulationMin>
<desiredPopulationMax>13</desiredPopulationMax>
<desiredPopulationCritical>18</desiredPopulationCritical>
Randy Random

Code Select Expand

<desiredPopulationMin>4</desiredPopulationMin>
<desiredPopulationMax>13</desiredPopulationMax>
<desiredPopulationCritical>50</desiredPopulationCritical>

Even Randy(arguably vanilla's most difficult StoryTeller) has an intended Max population of 13.
50(the very lowest of the example numbers you posted) is considered a critical situation.
And Randy will be increasingly trying to reduce that number the closer it gets to max(13).

As for a colony being limited to a number of colonists, This event would not happen at that time, unless you are playing a very hard difficulty. I am not talking about 500 people surrounding your base, 10-100, depending on your colony's size. The point is is that they surround and attack key areas, making it seem less like a raid and more like a full multi day battle.

How are they going to surround your "key areas" from mortar range without numbers from the higher end of that spectrum? from the lower end its just the same as what sieges are now.

And if its not mortar range it may as well be a Sapper Raid, since that event already does that.

It sounds to me what you really want is just for the AI to pick better targets in a Siege, and better entry points for a Sapper Raid. Which I would fully agree with.

Which I would. I personally find that the pop cap is too low. However, I still stand that, a siege, should surround and out number you. 3-1. So if you have 13 colonists, 13x3=39 attackers. As for surrounding, it would be the same as sieges now, but they would setup multiple hard points around your base.

[Veneke]

Maybe if they sent out forward observers, siege camps stay the same size ish but small groups with at least one sniper rifle are closer to the colony to deal with any counter attack.

That would actually be a good change to sieges. Buff the siege number by 4-6 pawns, ensure that 2-3 of them carry sniper rifles, and have them deploy maybe half a sniper shot's distance away from their siege base in the direction of the colony, and have the AI pawns not using the mortar/doing something reinforce the position if it comes under attack.

Most of the mechanics exist for this already I think. Mechanoids already know how to defend a fixed position within a certain radius, the only change to be made would be have besiegers follow this logic as well. Although I'd prefer guard posts if it's easier to have an AI sniper/backup guy walk the perimeter instead of a fixed position that would work nicely too.

--
On numbers
You could probably get away with sieges having 3x the colonist's numbers if they were deployed as multiple independent forces. So you could have, say; 10 pawns manning the mortar pit, 10 pawns blockading the colony's north entrance, 10 people blockading the colony's south entrance, and 10 people patrolling between all the fixed positions. I'm using 'entrances' kinda loosely as they probably couldn't identify entrances but the idea would be that each of them would be covering a different area of the map making it difficult for visitors/traders to approach the colony unharmed.

The key though would be that the AI would have to treat them as three separate elements. The way combat works in Rimworld volume of fire is everything, and 3x the number of incoming shots vs. outgoing shots is only going to lead to one conclusion. It's the same problem that tribals pose - individually they're very weak but a late-game tribal raid without really well-prepared defences is usually a nightmare. Replicating that problem with pirates instead of tribals would only serve to further encourage people to build killboxes.

The more I think about it the more I think I'd prefer to see a new raid type - blockade - that had 2-3 groups of 10 pirates patrol the outskirts of the map for a few days intercepting visitors and traders rather than trying to flesh out the current siege mechanics.

[cameron908]

Sieges are difficult, but not enough. They do not mirror what sieges where like, They go insane during the siege and it does to little damage to your colony.

Sieges where meant, and always until very recent history, (Which, although we are dealing with people 3438 years in the future, and although they have the weapons that he have, they do not have the tactical sophistication that we have nor the larger artillery) have meant to starve out the besieged. This is done by surrounding and bombardment. A siege should start how it does now, and then after, say, a day, other camps start showing up on the map, then basic buildings are put up, and the siege intestines. They start building barracks, better defenses, and all in all make your life miserable. There goal is to starve you out, and that they will. Also, they would try and attack your colony, and even try and take parts of your colony. They would target buildings that are the closest and most important to them. For example. Lets say this siege has been going on for awhile and you're unphased because you're dug in, in a mountain, and using hydroponics to grow your crops. The besiegers see this, and they launch a assault (the besiegers would stop receiving reinforcements by day 10 of the siege, so said attack would be almost a sapper like attack) on your hydroponics. They tunnel in, and, after a due fire fight, take the hydroponics wing (This would require some smarter AI, an AI that can realize when it is losing, when to stop attacking and regroup, and how to treat the wounded.) and stay there. They setup a forward base in your base. Leading to some interesting "Stalingrad" style battles. (I say Stalingrad because during that siege, there would be buildings divied between Russia and Germany. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad#Fighting_in_the_city) "Combat raged for three days at the giant grain elevator in the south of the city. About fifty Red Army defenders, cut off from resupply, held the position for five days and fought off ten different assaults before running out of ammunition and water." this is what I could imagine the pirates holding the hydroponics to be like, or vise versa.) So, these pirates hold the hydroponics wing and try to take the rest of the colony bit by bit in a war of attrition. So, Sieges would be more like a real siege.

The attackers go insane during the siege, this is unacceptable. Not only does the AI not know how to rescue and treat, but, there is simply no reason why attackers need to go insane. Maybe add a buff "Sieging" which is like the "New Colony Optimism" Buff, but to siegers. If the AI built some basic buildings and tables, they would not go insane.

The siege right now, if you're prepared, does little damage. The mortars don't do enough damage, and, your colonists can fight fires and such. So, sorry for making this long, but, I hope I made you see how better sieges would impact the game. Thank you.

doubt we will see anything like that for a while if ever but for the moment an easier solution to intensify sieges is the combat realism mod https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=9759.0  not only makes pawns more "squishy" with all those vital organs vs Primarily "torso damage" but additionally makes standard mortar shells have a explosive epicenter and a extreme fragmentation effect around point of impact (if this lands inside your barracks your gonna have a bad and bloody time) and incendiary shells create a much more intense firestorm
(say goodbye to your farms, and goodbye to your oven baked pawns if it lands indoors)

[not_incline]

I agree on your point. Sieges imo are lacking impact in Rimworld. If this get included sieges would be so hardcore late in the game. I was thinking that if this get included, sieges must be nerfed slightly and less chance on occurring. but still i like the idea of  adding a harder challenge in the game.

The problem of the number of siegers/raiders does not really matter imo. But letting siegers build not only sandbags and mortars. Imagine them building walls and buildings it will not be that easy as sniping them at long range(which was boring) or raiding them instead (which was entertaining but really lacking) so imagine raiding the siegers with mortars backing you up. It might be hard early game still it adds pressure and thrill. (I like playing RR extreme/ challenge w/ all random)

[kingtyris]

I'd like to see escalation in sieges. So say, if a siege group deploys from your north, you would have to attack and rout them quickly, as after a given time (say a day maybe) another group would appear and simultaneously besiege you from the south. This would of course be later game sieges, where the AI actually IS trying to wreck your colony. The bigger your population, the more siege groups would attack.

[Limdood]

The game isn't built for it.

As was already mentioned, the population is MEANT to hover around 7-15.  You might disagree with that population, but that is the INTENTION of the game.  for a colony sim with bigger populations and focus on tactical combat, you'll just have to look elsewhere.  Rimworld is much more "gritty" with insanity and questionable morality...starvation, heat/cold, environmental dangers are a significant portion of the game, and those largely disappear with significant populations (even 15+ mostly eliminates those issues).

The real problem here is that the sniper rifle is the "solution" to all situations.  3 MUCH easier solutions to your problem exist (solves everything except the "impenetrable mountain base").

1)make mortars target individual pawns advancing on them (more accurate at shorter ranges would help mortars too) so that sniper is in serious danger of dying a shrapnel-y death.

2)have siege crews build a few turrets and adjust ranges of logest range weapons OR turrets to bring them much closer.

3)have the siegers build a roofless building to fire their mortar from....basically they lock themselves in their own killbox.  Terrain needn't even be an issue...they just need to build a simple square box structure with a gap or two in the back (nearest the map edge)....boom, building that can't be sniped easily, that won't roof itself, that can be shelled out of.

I DON'T want to see:
1) sieges get troops reinforcements...either to the same location or opening another front
2) the fundamental scale of the game be changed simply to accomodate some combat events (losing 1 of 50 pawns is a nonissue...losing 1 of 9 pawns is annoying...losing 1 of 4 pawns is a catastrophe)
3)crazy complex coding get attempted to accomodate a few combat events.  Simple coding keeps the game able to be run on a toaster, and keeps "gaming the system" from getting too ridiculous (i'll build 1 unpowered hydroponics basin here to lure in the "smart" attackers!)

[Mikhail Reign]

Could def have the amount of siegers increased to a number that is more 3-1 compared to ya colonists. I'd actually like it is attacking the seiging force was actually something that was mayve possible, and not just the norm. They should drastically outnumber the colony, and be more then capable of repelling an attack or 2.

Currently they are a non event. Normally I've already engaged them and am cutting them down before they have even built the mortar.

I would like to see sieges be a more long term event like the nuclear winter. Siegers would build their mortars, and maybe a couple of small buildings to sleep in to keep away the debuts - food/ammo resupplied like currently - but every few days more attackers would arrive and add to the siege defence.

[Limdood]

but siegers are well equipped pirates....pirates are always more equal to you in number (and they WOULD have the advantage, if players didn't always engage them with 100% snipers...they're behind sandbags, so will generally have superior cover).

Giving them tribal numbers, but pirate gear would be a bit ridiculous.  The only "surefire" solution i have for sieges atm is waiting in a mountain until they're asleep...then you can take them out with negligible risk (snipers is low risk, as siegers often have at least 1 sniper...and a lucky shot is a missing colonist limb).

[Mikhail Reign]

Even without snipers they are easy to engage as long as you focus fire (something the enemy doesn't do). AI in generally needs to massively outnumber the player just for there to even be a challenge (any RTS or strat game the AI 'cheats' - more resources, faster build, higher pop cap) simply because AI is t up to taking on a person.

Currently the AI only outnumber you about 2-1 which isn't even the 3-1 ratio that military's use to attack a defended position.