Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
Can Sieges De-Level Nodes via Damage, or Only Outright Destroy Nodes? Which Is Better?
Tyranthraxus
Member
So, yours truly is trying to read between the lines of the AoC Wiki pages and info on Sieges and their fallout; I'm trying to decipher whether or not successfully Defending a Node against a siege can still directly result in the Node de-levelling.
The first few links support "making it harder" for a Node that was defended in a Siege to keep it's level, then the last bit more-supports a direct ability to de-level a Node by doing damage as the Attackers, even if you lose:
First, regarding just making it harder to maintain a Sieged Node's level:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Siege_objectives
Attackers may not be capable of destroying a node during a siege. Instead they may carry out precision attacks to disable specific service-oriented buildings within the node. These buildings can be targeted with siege weapons and bombs.[18]
If the node still exists after the siege has ended, citizens will need to obtain the resources needed to repair and rebuild any damaged infrastructure.[7][19]
This also ties into the "just making it harder":
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
As the attackers are sieging a city you know they have obviously a win condition- a win objective- but additionally there can be casualties from a structural standpoint during that process. So let's say if the... attackers were to not succeed in completely destroying the node they could still affect damage across multiple types of buildings that are present within the node, which disables services for that those citizens and also will require some type of reconstruction effort on behalf of the citizens.[64] – Steven Sharif
More supporting information::
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Siege_aftermath
You could be more precision oriented in the decision to attack a city. Let's say it's a rival node that's trying to reach you know a node stage five or something and you want to disable their ability for the religious system to progress so you target the temple during the attack, or you want to disable their scholars academy from reaching a higher level so that your nodes can; or you want to disable multiple buildings that allow for experience and quests to be undertaken by its citizenship, which prevents them from keeping up in pace of experience gained with your node. These can be more precision oriented and don't have to effectualize an actual takeover of the node.[75] – Steven Sharif
Here's where the wording of the Wiki starts to insinuate that an unsuccessful Siege may still de-level a Node:
(From the same section)
Impact on in-node housing
Following a node siege, static housing will be scaled back or destroyed based on the advancement of the node.[78]
If the housing was purchased at a higher advancement than the node currently is then it will be destroyed, otherwise the housing will be scaled back.
This bit of info is - again - in the same section as the Siege Aftermath section.
HOWEVER!
Yours truly is still seeing posts and threads in which to-be players still perceive Sieges as Win-only or Lose-only, with the Node only de-levelling is the attackers win the Siege - at which point it goes to level 0.
I'm not able to find a definitive answer, so had thought to post this as a discussion thread - since there might NOT be an absolute answer, at this point.
In summation - can anyone point to something specifically that states that if the Defenders win a Siege, can the Node still be delevelled for the damage done by the Attackers, or that only the Attackers winning will delevel a Node(to 0)?
Also, which way should it be? Yours truly would favor being able to seek to de-level an opposing Node via damage if it's complete destruction become impossible, during the Siege battle. This way, smaller guilds and organizations might seek to win a "minor victory" by attacking a much larger Node, even if they can't outright win the Siege.
Or should it be the case that a Node ONLY loses a level (all of them) if the Attackers completely win a Siege?
The first few links support "making it harder" for a Node that was defended in a Siege to keep it's level, then the last bit more-supports a direct ability to de-level a Node by doing damage as the Attackers, even if you lose:
First, regarding just making it harder to maintain a Sieged Node's level:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Siege_objectives
Attackers may not be capable of destroying a node during a siege. Instead they may carry out precision attacks to disable specific service-oriented buildings within the node. These buildings can be targeted with siege weapons and bombs.[18]
If the node still exists after the siege has ended, citizens will need to obtain the resources needed to repair and rebuild any damaged infrastructure.[7][19]
This also ties into the "just making it harder":
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges
As the attackers are sieging a city you know they have obviously a win condition- a win objective- but additionally there can be casualties from a structural standpoint during that process. So let's say if the... attackers were to not succeed in completely destroying the node they could still affect damage across multiple types of buildings that are present within the node, which disables services for that those citizens and also will require some type of reconstruction effort on behalf of the citizens.[64] – Steven Sharif
More supporting information::
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Siege_aftermath
You could be more precision oriented in the decision to attack a city. Let's say it's a rival node that's trying to reach you know a node stage five or something and you want to disable their ability for the religious system to progress so you target the temple during the attack, or you want to disable their scholars academy from reaching a higher level so that your nodes can; or you want to disable multiple buildings that allow for experience and quests to be undertaken by its citizenship, which prevents them from keeping up in pace of experience gained with your node. These can be more precision oriented and don't have to effectualize an actual takeover of the node.[75] – Steven Sharif
Here's where the wording of the Wiki starts to insinuate that an unsuccessful Siege may still de-level a Node:
(From the same section)
Impact on in-node housing
Following a node siege, static housing will be scaled back or destroyed based on the advancement of the node.[78]
If the housing was purchased at a higher advancement than the node currently is then it will be destroyed, otherwise the housing will be scaled back.
This bit of info is - again - in the same section as the Siege Aftermath section.
HOWEVER!
Yours truly is still seeing posts and threads in which to-be players still perceive Sieges as Win-only or Lose-only, with the Node only de-levelling is the attackers win the Siege - at which point it goes to level 0.
I'm not able to find a definitive answer, so had thought to post this as a discussion thread - since there might NOT be an absolute answer, at this point.
In summation - can anyone point to something specifically that states that if the Defenders win a Siege, can the Node still be delevelled for the damage done by the Attackers, or that only the Attackers winning will delevel a Node(to 0)?
Also, which way should it be? Yours truly would favor being able to seek to de-level an opposing Node via damage if it's complete destruction become impossible, during the Siege battle. This way, smaller guilds and organizations might seek to win a "minor victory" by attacking a much larger Node, even if they can't outright win the Siege.
Or should it be the case that a Node ONLY loses a level (all of them) if the Attackers completely win a Siege?
1
Comments
The original idea of sieges in Ashes was that they would delevel a node if successful.
Intrepid saw that this would create all sorts of issues, and decided to alter it so that the node was destroyed instead. This happened at the same time as the change to a node not keeping up with it's upkeep shifting from deleveling the node, to having the node start to lose a number of it's services.
The wiki still have information on there from both plans, which is clearly confusing.
As far as I know, we should currently assume that nodes will never delevel. They may lose services if they fail to maintain their upkeep, or if a siege manages to achieve some objectives but not outright win, but the actual level of the node will remain the same until it loses a siege completely.
So because of this, Intrepid decided that nodes will just be outright reset to level 0 and not delevel.
Yours truly would still argue there should be objectives that the Attackers can complete that could de-level a Node by just 1 level, even if they can't outright win the Siege. It feels like it would give would-be successors a better chance to compete to level their own Nodes.