Siege Battles offer a perfect blend of both matchmaking and Territory Wars, and their experience and immersion are what have enabled us to accomplish as much as we have with Conqueror’s Blade. We've received plenty of feedback and used this to improve current maps, release new ones, and design new events and modes to keep the experience fresh.
Siege Battles have been with us for years and have stood the test of time, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still work to do. Thanks to your feedback, we know that we must make more fundamental changes to help Siege Battles remain fun in the long run, and truly tap into more of the potential the mode holds.
The Core of Siege Battles
A staple of Siege has always been that you choose your units before the battle begins. You might make an informed choice based on what map you're playing, and whether you're playing as the attacker or defender. Once made, you cannot change your choice for this match.
This integral ruleset has created a few unique setups.
Unit Setup & Strategic Stagnation
Being unable to tell which Units the enemy will be bringing to the fray means most players rely on past experience and tend to favour meta Units that are expected to perform well. Over time, this has led to stagnation in terms of Unit and strategy variety. One player may even play dozens of matches with the exact same setup, which detracts from the fun over the long run.
High Teamwork Requirements
As each player can only bring a limited number of Units, the 10–15 players of each team must quickly begin to cooperate in terms of Unit selection and strategy. How else will they ensure to have the Units required to counter the enemy's forces and win?
Little In-Match Strategising
As your Unit options are limited to what you chose before the match, it's difficult to adjust your strategy based on the situation. This has made battles inflexible and lacking in intensity. Most players go for the 'best' Unit setup ahead of time, something which largely decides the outcome of a match before the battle has already begun. Perhaps you’ve experienced the enemy suddenly charging a point of interest with a squadron of heavy cavalry in a match where you didn't bring any polearm Units to counter them. Things like that immediately put you and your team at a huge disadvantage.
How Can We Improve Variety?
For these experimental changes, we've decided to start by looking at our rules for Units. We want players to be freer in terms of Unit choices for more varied setups.
Owing to this, we've decided to launch a brand-new Siege mode: Escalation.
Escalation (Siege)
In Escalation, you can replace your Units at any time throughout a match! Within this new ruleset, the strategic choice of which Units to use will be an integral part of the battle itself. This will give you more means with which to counter your foe on the fly for more intense battles.
Escalation Unit Ruleset
- You only need to choose one Unit to start with in the Pre-Deployment menu.
- Whenever you draft Units in battle, you can choose among all of your unlocked Units.
- Leadership
- Each Unit you draft costs Leadership.
- Drafting Units you've previously used in that match doesn't require any Leadership. (Note: you'll draft the number of troops left alive in the Unit and enough troops must remain within a Unit for you to draft them again.)
- Leadership isn't affected by seasonal restrictions.
Escalation's First Map Pool
Harbour City, Kurak Castle, Sun City, White Elk Fort, Heilung Fjord, and Reginopolis.
The Future
Escalation is only our first step toward greater heights. We'll continue to improve and innovate the rules for Siege Battles and hopefully changes like this one will fundamentally alter how such battles are played and will lead to more fun for everyone. We'll still continue to work on the staple Siege Battle mode too!
We want Conqueror's Blade to provide new and fun gameplay experiences. Your feedback is incredibly important for us in our quest to improve the game further. Your ideas might well be what helps us set the course for where to take the game next. Share your thoughts with us via Discord!