[All] Siege Countdown Timer

[velenne]

[The mechanic]
Sieges of keeps are canonically long affairs wherein the besieged are hunkered behind walls with only the supplies on hand to survive the ordeal. With enough time and bloodshed (and maybe a few diseased cows) the hope of the aggressors is to outlast their enemies' provisions and force a surrender.

In RoR, damage done to a keep door (or lord, if both doors are down) triggers a 10-minute timer whereby the defenders are unable to upgrade their keep's ranking via supply box turn-in. A 2-star keep is earned with enough turn-ins, and with this level comes the ability to spawn a ram and take the fight to one's enemy, thus progressing the campaign toward its conclusion and victory.

The desired effect seems to be to force the defenders to patrol the area around their keep and ensure it stays utterly devoid of any enemy activity, lest the race to upgrade one's keep be lost. It is also to ensure that attackers have more than a single chance to siege a keep, as the timer simulates the verisimilitude of regrouping after an attack. Without the timer, a siege could be lost with a single mistake and momentum shift immediately to the other realm.

[The Issue]
A meta-game has developed which exploits the 10-minute timer of keep doors to any damage, no matter how petty. The meta-game is to spawn a single siege weapon and utilize stealth and surprise to fire off a single shot on the enemy door. A succession of such shots in sub-10-minuted intervals prevents the opposing realm from upgrading their keep at all and ensures the advantage.

Sadly, none of this has any basis in lore or real life sieges and seems rather to be an unintended manipulation of incomplete rules. Imagine the agents of Chaos sending a lone cannon, manned by a single Chosen, to the walls of Altdorf, firing a single shot, and laughing in triumph as they run away and hide. "We have the capitol besieged! The armies of Karl Franz tremble in fear!" For indeed, then imagine that Karl Franz does tremble within Altdorf, cowed by a single cannon shot from a single enemy. That's not the War as I envision it.

[Solutions]
I propose foremost that a single shot should not be sufficient to engage a 10-minute timer on the entire enemy realm, a timer that cannot be mitigated or shortened in any way. A siege should be a continuous effort, not a one-and-done, represented by agents in the field at the keep, not cowering in the wings. Once a siege is properly engaged with a ram, this effect is achieved under the current rule set. Below are 3 possible solutions to "door tagging":

- (1) When a Door or Lord has taken less than equivalent damage to a ram's strong hit (97%), the return of a supply box will raise the health to 100%. If 97% or below, normal 10-minute timer. This could be achieved with multiple cannon shots on the door, which at least represents a more concerted effort by the attackers and a greater chance for a defense than a lone cannoneer sneaking around. Coupled with this is (1a), below.
--- (1a) Returning a supply to the keep when the health is at 100% removes the tag immediately.

Thus an attacking force needs to maintain enough presence to prevent the defenders from capturing 2 battlefield objectives and securing a supply to the keep during the siege, or at least maintain an initial siege long enough for a stored supply to decay on a defender within (6 minutes; assuming they're in there in with one in the first place).

- (2) Returning a supply box to the keep when the health of a Door (or Lord if the doors are down) is at 100% removes the tag after 60 seconds unless the door/Lord isn't subsequently damaged again. This implies that the siege is still going, even if the defenders oil is up, requiring the attackers to maintain their siege equipment and damage on the door.

- (3) Shorten the timer of all siege effects to 5 minutes.