[Guide] Siegemaster's Handbook

[Richter]

The Siegemaster's Handbook

Hello reader. I'm trying to educate people here! Please point out any ideas, tactics, or strategies regarding siege, and I'll decided whether or not to include them in the opening post here. Please, read on.

Principles of Siege:
 Siege is a game-mode with a single conflicting objective, the flag, which must be defended or taken in a certain duration of time.
This implies that Siege is a very different breed of gameplay than battle(I.E. Kill the enemy), and thus requires a different strategy to succeed.
Siege maps are designed with a specific balance of difficulty for the attackers. The difficulty of a castle is usually about the same. The perfect siege map will give both teams an equal inherent chance of victory.
As a rule, the attackers will never lose, given enough time, simply because they respawn faster than the enemy. The defenders will always be making a fighting retreat, if they're smart.
You can quite accurately say which team is more likely to win by how far into the enemy castle the attackers have advanced, and how many obstacles remain in their path to the flag, based on the time left.
Defense:
 I'll start here because it will allow everything else to flow after it.
When you are the defender, your only goal is to make sure the attacking team doesn't take the flag before the timer empties. This means also that it is best if the enemy is kept as far away from the flag as possible, for as long as possible.
Some foolish players will tell you that the whole defending team should mob up on the flag. Anyone who listens to them is helping their team to lose.
The best defense against an infinite enemy who is defeated by time, is to delay them as long as possible from getting to the flag.

Think of it like this; If the whole team groups together at the flag, like they would in a battle, they allow the enemy to get past all the fortifications in record time, and simply go straight to the flag, kill the defenders(they WILL do this, unless they never stood a chance in the first place), and take the flag while the defenders wait for respawn.
This is option A. It is the incorrect answer to this problem.

Option B is as follows:
 Majority of team actively moves about the walls and from gates to ladders, according to where the enemy is making his assault. The defender will have the advantage of being ready and waiting for any attacker behind a chokepoint. Eventually though, the first line of defense almost always falls, unless the defenders are extremely organized, or the enemy is pathetic, which shouldn't happen with the autobalance. A few members of the team may wish to stay at the flag to defend against enemies unnoticed by the rest of the team, or to protect the gate house; this is especially the case on a map with few choke-points before the flag.

 If there is another chokepoint, or line of defense which the defenders can fall back to and delay the enemy at, without being instantly killed or scattered, then that position should be defended. It is the duty of the defender to know the ground, and be actively scanning the entrances and places the enemy can come into the castle through.

If the defenders have multiple they are able to defend, then the enemy likely has more time in which to take the flag. Essentially, you must base where your team makes their stands on where the enemy is going to attack, and be able to be stopped. Places like ladders, gates, the tops of walls, all chokepoints where you can delay the attacker.
Stopping the enemy at chokes rather than at the flag allows you to respawn before the attackers get to the flag, thus enabling you to give more resistance, thus delaying the enemy more. It is hard for me to stress this enough.

Summary:

• Hold the enemy at chokepoints.
  
• Put the mass of your defenders in the way of the mass of the attackers.
  
• You don't need to kill the enemy, but you do need to distract, halt, and delay them.
  
• Stay on the flag only when the enemy has reached it, or better yet, just a little before they do.
  

Attack:
Attack is simple. GET TO THE FLAG! And do it quickly. Therefore, go by the shortest and least defended path. A good defense will do their best to make these paths to victory slower, and heavily defended.

 To take the flag, you must be creative, aggressive, and most of all, fast. Actively scan for weak-spots in the enemy's defense, either through a back-door, going around the side, or simply killing an enemy that's slowing your team-mates down. The worst attack is a predictable one. The enemy will be easily able to delay you if they know where and when you're going to assault.

 Usually though, it's best to open up the fastest path to the flag. Best, but hardest. The enemy is almost always defending the main gate or path. You will need to concentrate your attack to get past a chokepoint. But having one or two light troops to go around the other side can help distract the enemy, and completely unweave a thick defense.
Go with the flow of the majority if you are heavy infantry, and you can help push your team that last step more towards the flag. Light infantry or mounted units should be enablers and aids to the heavy troops. The heavy infantry should be attacking from the front while the fast units should be coming from everywhere else.

Summary: Whoever has the best placement of their troops at any given time is going to win. Defend where the enemy is, wherever he is, to stop him from getting to the flag. The best combination for defense is; some troops working to slow the enemy, and some troops stopping them at the flag. The ratio to one or the other depends entirely on how far the enemy has advanced.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

Not bad but I would say that the answer lies between both A and B. A small unit needs to hold the flag on a great deal of maps give the sneaky access points. But you have to find choke/killing points and hold them up at those for as long as possible.

[Richter]

Not bad but I would say that the answer lies between both A and B. A small unit needs to hold the flag on a great deal of maps give the sneaky access points. But you have to find choke/killing points and hold them up at those for as long as possible.

Agreed. Having a reliable fellow or two at the flag to kill any stray enemies who attempt to ninja the flag can be quite useful.

[Elindor]

I honestly agree with most of this....ideally.

The reason that the common strategy has become "ALL DEFEND FLAG" is because people do not properly do what you describe above - probably most notably the part about falling back from chokepoint 1 to chokepoint 2 and/or flag at the correct times. 

Therefore, in an effort to "herd cats" (organize people that are not paying attention and often strategically challenged) - people have just started saying "JUST GET TO THE FLAG".

---

Also, what you are describing, although correct largely - requires defense doing this together.  If 20 people go to Ladder A to defend it and try to kill steal from each other, and only 2 people go to Ladder B, then Ladder B will probably get overwhelmed and those attackers will flood the flag while the defenders at Ladder A are picking their noses . 

"Flag capped?  Whaaaa?"

---

But who knows - maybe enough people will read this guide and get a clue. 

Until then, most applicable strategy for defense is "FLAG" because of incompetence and lack of teamwork to accomplish what you describe above. 

[Turboflex]

The reason its often desirable to mostly just defend flag is because:
1) Attacker time from spawn to conflict is longest. If you the conflict is on the flag it would take him 30-40 seconds to get there. If the conflict is on an outer chokepoint it might only take him 10-20 seconds.

2) The flag is usually a strongpoint, so there's an advantage to defending it. If the defenders suddenly take too many losses holding an outer choke, the attackers can rush flag and array themselves in a defensive posture around it while they run it down. At this point alive defenders would be rushing back, but it can be very difficult to dislodge the attackers. A lot of maps have the flags at the top of some stairs too, which adds to the strength of the position.

There is some risk of course to holding flag in strength, like you said it creates an all-or nothing battle situation where the defenders HAVE to win each time, but on a lot of maps its the only suitable strongpoint.

Better maps usually have a mid-castle gate control, control of which is key to more manageable pressure on flag, or attackers opening it creates an unmanageable situation. Giving defenders something critical to defend besides flag.

[Richter]

The reason its often desirable to mostly just defend flag is because:
1) Attacker time from spawn to conflict is longest. If you the conflict is on the flag it would take him 30-40 seconds to get there. If the conflict is on an outer chokepoint it might only take him 10-20 seconds.

I'm not sure you understood the opening-post.
I clearly described why this simply isn't the case.

If you let an enemy get all the way to the flag, he only needs to kill you once. This is especially important on large maps. On smaller maps, in which you have few chokepoints to hold the enemy at before the flag, does your statement apply.
It depends on the map.

If the attackers can cross just one chokepoint, and then be able to get to the flag in 35 seconds, then it is best to hold at the flag.
However, if they cannot, then it is best to layer your defenses accordingly. This is never static, either, because a siege door or gate might be broken/opened, forcing the defenders to return to the flag and if possible, push the attackers back to previous positions, and close the gate.

 For example, I might take the very flat map which has a small, square palisade, in which the flag is at the rear.
The defenders would be wise to only spend one life at the walls to delay the attackers, and then fall back to an intermediate position, between the enemy and the flag, and prevent them from getting near the little mound on which it stands, surrounded by tents.

Simply put, if your team isn't doomed to failure from the start, then you should be able to hold at least one position before the flag is reached, and delay the enemy longer.
If you let them waltz over to the flag, then you are giving yourself only one life to stop the enemy advance. That never works.

[Turboflex]

Most maps take much less than 30 seconds for attackers to get from any part of the inside castle to flag. So if too many defenders get wiped out at an outer choke point, that same rush could easily be on flag before said defenders respawn.

Layering is nice in theory, in reality it doesn't happen much on public teams. Also it's harder to layer when the server has less than 50 players, which has mostly been case on NA since Diablo 3 came out.

[Elindor]

D3 truly is the devil.