Besieged

[shaitarn]

Just wondering if anyone would be interested in a siege-type game, with people playing either the besieged defenders or the attackers (or both!)

I was thinking of some sort of fantasy setting originally, and have two ideas:

1/ a fort on the absolute edge of an empire, which is basically where the unwanted troops get sent - those either too old or very young and inexperienced or those who have just screwed up in some major way. The young soldiers are sent to do a couple of months there to weed out the weak, the old are sent there to be forgotten and rot out the rest of their careers without troubling the empire.

2/ a tavern in a small middle of nowhere village. A group of travellers, strangers to each other, have been forced to seek shelter by the freak blizzard conditions when the building's attacked from outside. If they try to flee they'll die of exposure within a few hours - they have no choice but to stay and fight.

If anyone's interested but has a suggestion for a different setting then just say.

[Obscene Symphony]

I'm getting a very strong M*A*S*H vibe from your first idea. I'll keep an eye on this one ^_^

[babbysama]

I would be interested in this, especially the first idea.

Gritty, low-fantasy, lots of character development? I'm in.

[Pripovednik]

This sounds fun (y) Lets kick some attackerorotherwisedefender ASS!

[RIGHTEOUSwench]

Love the #1 idea. How many soldiers would be in the fort? And if its being besieged, what's keeping them from retreating?

Usually the edges of the empire would be carefully maintained by March counts, who would ensure tried and true soldiers alone would battle against the hordes beyond. Why the careless strategy here? Did no one expect the neighboring kingdom to attack?

[shaitarn]

@RIGHEOUSwench

How many soldiers are in the fort? It fluctuates as recruits come and go, but I'd estimate somewhere between 500 - 700 (which means it is woefully undermanned as it was built to accommodate about 1,200 mean comfortably, 1,500 at a push). Three quarters of these are regular soldiers, the rest are ranger/scout types who patrol the nearby mountain passes.

There's a couple of reasons why the fort is so poorly maintained:

It's built in a mountain pass, blocking the only entry from the mountains into the empire; the tribes that live in the mountain are a fairly crude people. The last time they were a real threat to the empire was almost a century ago, when they last united under a single leader. After some fierce fighting they were eventually defeated and split apart into a dozen squabbling tribes fighting amongst themselves. No one ever thought they would be united again.

The empire has been weakened by complacency and internal strife: there was a struggle for the leadership between the previous emperor's descendants 15 years ago, and many of the old soldiers in the fort are decent men who happened to be on the wrong side when the fighting was over. As they swear an oath of loyalty to the people of the empire not the emperor they're still loyal men, but their posting to the fort is simply to get them out of the way and let them rot, and they know it - more than one has taken a leap from the battlements before now.

If the soldiers retreated and let the fort be overrun the tribes would have a direct road straight into the wide farmlands of the north - the tribes could spread out and overwhelm the soldiers pretty quick in the wider lands, and it would take time for the empire to get a large enough force together to defeat them - time in which civilians will be slaughtered and their lands razed. The fort in the mountain pass is the only place narrow enough for them to stand a chance of defeating them.

(If you've ever read Legend by David Gemmell it should give you an idea of what I'm thinking of here.)