Madelineblackbart: Created page with "When a campaign reaches the city walls the character of warfare changes completely. Rifled accuracy makes defense extraordinarily powerful: defenders behind walls pick off attackers at three to five hundred yards, and direct assault is suicidal. ; Starvation and supply cutting : Sieges are usually decided this way. Surround the city, cut the supply lines, wait. Time works against the besieger, whose army degrades in the field. ; Formal approaches : Trenches dug progress..."

2026-09-26T20:20:46Z

Created page with "When a campaign reaches the city walls the character of warfare changes completely. Rifled accuracy makes defense extraordinarily powerful: defenders behind walls pick off attackers at three to five hundred yards, and direct assault is suicidal. ; Starvation and supply cutting : Sieges are usually decided this way. Surround the city, cut the supply lines, wait. Time works against the besieger, whose army degrades in the field. ; Formal approaches : Trenches dug progress..."

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When a campaign reaches the city walls the character of warfare changes completely. Rifled accuracy makes defense extraordinarily powerful: defenders behind walls pick off attackers at three to five hundred yards, and direct assault is suicidal.

; Starvation and supply cutting
: Sieges are usually decided this way. Surround the city, cut the supply lines, wait. Time works against the besieger, whose army degrades in the field.
; Formal approaches
: Trenches dug progressively closer are more essential than they were in the smoothbore era, not less.
; Bombardment
: Still matters and costs more than it used to. Defenders suppress gun crews at longer range, and counter-battery fire from a wall is genuinely effective.

And the defenders are motivated past anything an attacker can match. They are defending their actual city, their home and family; civilians take part; surrender feels like the deepest betrayal of everything that matters. Sieges in the Known World are fought with desperate determination by the people inside the walls. See [[Why City-State Wars Are Rare#No mechanism for total victory]].

== See also ==

* [[Land Warfare]] · [[The Six City-States#What they have in common]] — the walls

Siege - Revision history