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Message: <blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 8538882" data-attributes="member: 6937590">[USER=7030132]@Ixal[/USER] I think I allowed my point to drift in the post you quoted above.My claim, agreeing with the OP was:Principally, I think the most secure cities would be underground ones. Powerful polities would prefer to use underground cities as their centers of government (and have fair sized defensive forces for them). I didn't intend to argue that there wouldn't be above ground cities or above ground fortifications.So, let me reply with that context in mind.If it's the capital city of a large and powerful state, the expense of multiple secure and spread out entrances is justified. The advantage of having a warded underground fortress in a world where scry and fry tactics are possible is that you can attack your opponent's leadership and administrate structures while they can't retaliate. The selection pressure of aerial and teleportation attacks would gradually eliminate all polities that weren't able to afford the system, just like the expense of cannons eliminated the small states of the early modern period.The attacker likely would not have complete control of the above ground territory, since the defender can attack the surface via sally gates or teleporting attacks. In a D&D world, this is a problem that all besiegers have, whether they're attacking a castle, city, or underground city--they cannot keep the defenders bottled up easily. In an above ground siege that equalizes since the defender's walls can't easily keep the attackers out, but the defenders of an underground city can keep the attackers out.This doesn't differ dramatically from a castle or a walled city. The parts of a wall that don't have gates aren't a high priority to blockade. Most sieges are not undertaken in the style of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Alesia" target="_blank">Alesia</a>.True enough.This is something that would be anticipated in the design of an underground city. Though I can imagine it being a tactic that--occasionally in the history of realistic-D&D-land--would be decisively war winning.But again... diverting rivers is a common <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Xiapi#Siege_of_Xiapi" target="_blank">siege</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Aachen_(1248)" target="_blank">tactic</a> against above ground cities too.You could perhaps build castles with more <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_tactics" target="_blank">tactical</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_operation_plan" target="_blank">operational</a> value, but nothing beats the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_strategy" target="_blank">strategic</a> value of protecting yourself from leadership decapitation.My comment in post #80 crept a bit here from cities to point defenses. I don't think it would be that valuable to have a bunch of bunkers in place of castles. Neither would be particularly secure. And a lot of the arguments I made about underground cities in this post wouldn't apply to smaller bunkers--the point about multiple entrances doesn't, for example.I still feel I made a pretty good case that a bunker can do what a castle can do.</blockquote>

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