Fortifications

Olympia: The Age of Gods PBEM (Oct 4 2000)

### 5.8.1: Fortifications

Structures which may aid fighters in battle are rated for their defensive bonus.

      Castle Imperius [gx56], castle, defense 25

During battle, the fortification rating is added to the defense number for the men who fit inside the structure.

      structure               men protected           default bonus
      ---------               -------------           -------------
      Castle                  first 500		    40
      Tower                   first 100		    20
      Other structures        first 50		     0

Attacking fighters may randomly select the structure instead of an enemy fighter. The attack is resolved in the same way as for two fighters, using the attacker's attack rating and the structure's defense rating. If the attacker is successful the structure's defense rating will be lowered by one point.

Once the defense rating reaches zero, further hits will cause the building to become damaged. A fully damaged building (100% damage) will collapse, ejecting its occupants.

Siege engines always select the structure as a target.

      engine          attack  defense   missile  weight
      ------          ------  -------   -------  ------
      catapult          25      200       25      3000
      battering ram     30      250               3000
      siege tower        0      100               3000

These siege engines do 5-10 points of damage to the structure per hit. Note that catapults are missile weapons and may attack from the back rows. Catapults are not affected by moats.

Note that siege towers have no attack capability. Instead, siege towers permit attackers to easily scale defensive fortifications. Unlike catapults and battering rams, siege towers do not attack the structure. Instead, they reduce the defensive bonus of the structure. Each siege tower in the front row reduces the opposing defensive bonus by the following amount:

      engine          castle  tower  other
      ------          ------  -----  -----
      siege tower       1       5     10

For example, an army attacking a castle with 10 siege towers would reduce the defensive bonus of the castle from +25 to +15.

Although siege towers have no attack capability, they can still be chosen in the combat algorithm as an attack; in which case the attack fails.

Siege engines are not used in combat at sea. However, siege engines can be used against docked ships.