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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 1984811" data-attributes="member: 8835">I think there's some room for clarification in definitions..As I see it:Siege = stand outside the castle and keep the enemy inside.  Only fight when they come out or people try to go in.Assualt = Helm's deep style, the attackers are actively trying to get into the castle with many troopsStealth = this is assassination and sneaky stuff.  A few guys sneak in and try to whack the leader.Aerial Attack = new category which did NOT exist in medieval times.  Can't fly.  Didn't have beasts that flew and could drop in people and attackers.  I'm excluding catapults and such as Aerial, because those are traditional Assault weapons.  Aerial means anything beyond throwing rocks.Stealth tactics are NOT sieges or Assaults and are available to both sides.  Basically they are not valid for discussion on what the impact of magic.  It's inherently obvious that both sides would be trying these tactics in addition to Siege or Assault tactics and would use any magic they had.  Basically, what keeps leaders from getting assinated has nothing to do with being in a castle or not.  Therefore castles aren't relevant (though a castle might be a little harder to get into...).That leaves Sieges and Assaults.  Based on my definitions, the siege style is intended to starve the defenders out.  It disrupts supply lines for cities, etc.  Having create food spells inside weakens the effect of a siege.  Since you're not actively spending resources (other than sitting outside the castle out of range), it's cheap and may work.  You might throw nasty spells at the castle (or feces) to demoralize and make the defenders expend resources, but this is a waiting game.That leaves Assaults.  Assuming a traditional castle build, it's true that many spells can do some nasty stuff to stone.  But many of them are higher level.  That means you have less access to them and the quantity is reduced.  From the defender's stand-point, doing nasty stuff to the enemy is pretty easy with magic. Stinking Cloud is cheap and effective to force the enemy away from certain areas.  The attacker is more exposed than the defender, so the defender always has the advantage.  Ultimately, the only reason to Assault a castle is because you have MORE resources than the defender.  And by resources, I mean spells or men.  If you don't have more, the defender has the same things you do, AND a better position to use them from.Lastly, we cover Aerial attacks.  In reality, we're talking about attack vectors that were not available in medieval times.  Some people touched on this  with the discussion of castle evolution in response to cannons.  But even with cannons, the attacks were launched from the ground. Thus, by controlling the shape of the ground, you could limit the effectiveness of attacks from the ground.  The air changes all that.  Assuming the attacker can get some aerial resources and the defenders can't, they can make bombing runs from high altitude and do a lot of damage for little risk.  Get a Roc or other trained "flying thing with payload capacity" and start dropping rocks and dung on the enemy.  Castles may have decent roofs to protect from catapults and such, but most areas are open.  They were designed to protect from missles flying along a horizontal plane.  Dropping stuff straight down really messes all that up.  At best, the defenders might have a squadron of flyers themselves to dogfight the attackers.  And that would be a cool scene.  But due to space limitations to house those flyers, the attacker can likely bring in more flyers than the defender has in total.  But then again, smart attackers ONLY attack when they think they have the advantage.  And that advantage is usually I have more XYZ than they do.And yeah, Wizards are likely to make more spells to help in sieges.  To be honest, why pay to make special walls.  Why not write a spell "Protect Walls" that gives walls a bonus to their numbers for a duration.  Far cheaper, and you only need to use it during an attack.In the same vein, Walls of Force could be placed as an aerial shield to protect from bombing runs.So to sum up: If the attackers are the same as the defenders, the attackers lose.  Combat always works that way.  It's when the attackers have something extra that gives them the edge.Janx</blockquote>

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