Realism Rules for Buildings

These rules are designed to enable players to know what ways and with which materials players can build. This will be organized in the best way that I can think of, but I'm sure it will still be confusing. However, as a player in siegecraft, you do not have to entirely understand these rules. One (or more) player(s) per team will become an Architect/Mason, and they will need to understand these rules completely in order to perform their function.

Additionally, this is obviously not completed. I wanted to get posted what I've written today, because I've got to stop typing for the night, but I really wanted to post this. So instead, I'll be replying to the OP to add more rules until we have it all flushed out. If you have anything to input, please feel free. But remember that the primary consideration for buildings things in siegecraft is making them realistic, as if they could have existed in medieval times.

*General:

-Legality:
1: A building that is capable of being sieged or raided must adhere completely to these rules.
2: Non-siegable/raidable sites do not need to follow these rules.
3: When a siegable site has been built, it will be inspected by a mod or admin with the presence of that team's architect so that they can change anything that's messed up.

-Weight: In real life, certain materials are heavier or lighter, or stronger or weaker than others. This will be represented by two categories: Strength and Weight, each with two possibilities. for strength: strong or weak. For weight: light or heavy. Strong/Heavy materials can support all others, but can only be supported by themselves. Strong/Light materials can support all Weak materials, as well as all strong/light. Weak/Heavy can support all Weak materials. Weak/Light can only support Weak/Light.
Stone (all forms): Strong/Heavy
Trunks: Strong/Light
Planks: Weak/light
Dirt: Weak/light
Sand/Gravel: Weak/Heavy
All other materials: reply in this thread with ideas, until then use common sense.

*Stone:

-Total Height:I don't have this perfectly worked out yet. Essentially there is a maximum height (measured from the bottom of the foundation, even if underground) for any structure. For structures made entirely or predominantly of stone, this cap is going to start at 32 blocks.

-Support: Stone requires support if it is to be built high, or in a complicated shape. Any structure of stone measuring 1x1 in area may rise 2 blocks. 1x2 may rise 4, and 2x2 may rise 8. This continues to scale upward, but only for a length:width ratio of 1:1 or 1:2. In other words, if you make a stone structure that is 1x3, 1x4 or more, it can still only rise 4 blocks. An easy (but maybe not perfect) way to think of this is to say that stone can rise twice as high as it's smallest length or width measurement of that part. The height of a wall would be dictated by its thickness.

-Overhang: This refers to stone blocks being placed so that there is air immediately underneath them. For every block that the overhang moves out, it must also match that in thickness. So an overhang of one block can be one block tall, while a two block overhang must be 2 blocks tall.

Additionally there is another part that is harder to describe, so I'll just post a picture. The following are two examples of legal overhangs done first the way I mentioned above, and second in an alternative method. The shaded in squares represent the blocks that are "overhanging", and things they are attached to represent the supporting structure.


-Filling: For a construction that -appears- to be entirely stone, the inner blocks can be made of another raw, non organic material. This means you can fill your walls and buildings with something other than stone, so long as all the outside layers are stone. Materials that are allowed include dirt, sand, gravel, sandstone, and I might be forgetting a few. You cannot use Obsidian.

-Towers: Considering that the above rules would make nearly all useful iterations of towers illegal, a notable exception must be made. For all legal purposes, towers are always considered a solid structure, and not a hollow one. In other words, the "air blocks" filling the rooms inside the tower count as stone blocks for the purposes of legal-ness. A tower that is 8x8 at the base may, at it's tallest, be 32 blocks.

Crumbling: If, for some reason, a stone structure goes from a legal state (we inspect it and give it the okay) to an illegal state (it fails a followup inspection), and no cheating or foul play is included, then crumbling will be enacted upon the building. You remove, from the top down or the outside in, blocks until the building is legal again. This might not make a whole lot of sense, but it will become very important after a siege when repairs have to be done, and the structure of your castles change.

Once again: Anything that hasn't yet been covered by these rules needs your input. Siegecraft is still very much under development just like Minecraft is, and this post was made before James has had a chance to input his thoughts into the OP. Instead, they'll be in a reply. I'll try to edit this topic to include all changes to the rules made, so this should get stickied.

For all arguments sake, Akimitsu is Jamestown's lead architect. He and I discuss the construction of the buildings together, and with my love of history and his knack for practicality, we compile these rules to inspire creativity in a Fuedal European format. Thus, although your buildings will have to adhere to a strict code, you can still wow your players by using achitecture that was period accurate, but add your own flair like accurately supported balconies, real working aquaducts, or even an accurate collesium!

As for the non-siegable buildings, these can be built however you like. Keep in mind however that if the enemy team captures the surrounding territory, your buildings will fall under their ownership. So just as much focus will be needed on your outposts as your free style buildings.

A few things to note additionally: There is no limit to how many non-siegeable locations you can own. And inside each location of this sort, there is no limit to how many of whatever type of thing you can put in it. The thing to keep in mind is that if you put all your houses in one town next to an outpost, and your enemy takes that outpost, he just took all of your houses. This means that players should be expecting to own multiple homes in multiple such towns.

I'll be preparing more rules today and post them tonight, hopefully.

Welcome to Blitzkrieg Squadron’s official rule list for a scenario mod for the game Minecraft, which the clansmen affectionately call it, Siegecraft. Minecraft’s sandbox environment is expanded upon by setting up a balanced PvP system that can introduce more complex aspects to gameplay rather than the seemingly ‘goal-less’ objectives to vanilla Minecraft.

The spirit behind Siegecraft is a representation and intellectual strategies of politics, peace, and war from Medieval Europe. Before we gather into the rules of the particular game mode in question, first you must take a venture into the history of the peak of the Hundred Years War. It all started in the early 1300’s, as birth of kings will tear countries apart.

At this time, the French King, the Dauphin, would struggle to maintain power over the realm. Each county in France was run by a noble, and each noble felt no reason to conform to the Dauphin’s rule, only used his laws as guidelines. Thus, for the most part, each county was independent, had a large castle, and sizeable army.

England had a large army as well, and the Enligsh operated as one entire nation. That was their advantage to many of the sieges that had taken France by storm. The French castles, however, were so well designed that the English had to come up with new tricks to win the battles, including the use of sappers in the early 1400s.

French castles utilized confusing castle structures and traps, all of which included false drawbridges as seen in the castle Carcassonne. Knowledge like this was studied and learned by the siege engineers, which were the physics specialists of the day. In this mode, it is time for you to play the siege engineer, on both the defense and offense of castles. To make this scenario work, rigorous rules will have to be maintained, and the realistic structuring of the castles must also follow a particular code. Some rules are obvious, as in no lava built inside a wall. Others are more detailed, like the complexity of a cannon build, and the height of a siege tower.

First we will cover our rules for the walls, including some strategies for the defense of your castle, and or fort. The idea behind this game is to create a wall that accents your skills as a defender, not make walls that do all of the work. That being said, you cannot:

1. Build your wall out of Obsidian – First off Obsidian is not hard to make, you simply pour water on lava, and the difficulty of breaching the stone compared to the ease of its creation make it an unfair tool to use in the defense of your stronghold. The fun of a siege is to knock the walls down, take that away and no one will bother to siege your castle or even acknowledge playing with you. Especially since it cannot be destroyed by TnT.

2. Walls may not be filled with lava or water – The castles in the medieval ages were not filled with a dangerous chemical or substance, they were filled with mortar, sometimes sand and gravel to detour people breaking down the walls, and also to help act as a cushion to absorb the force from projectiles launched from catapults.

3. Make your walls low enough to fire from, but high enough that the attacking team will have difficulty firing at you – The range of arrows makes it difficult to judge the accuracy of the shots at a large range. Also, falling from them by accident from a height too unrealistic will be fatal.

4. Utilize creative defense of the ramparts – By using murder holes, crenulations, and even hollow walls that allow the defenders to fire from inside protected spaces.

5. Repairs between siege waves – Can only be built using wood planks, dirt, gravel, or sand. NO OTHER MATERIAL.

6. Cannons can be used against walls, but must be built within the confines of a 3x3 platform made of wood – Cannons can be constructed on towers, but not walls. Cannons can be placed outside the walls during a siege, but not moved after the construction. Due to their difficulty to make, they are not worth the effort.

7. Ladders, ladders can be built on walls but must be a continuous ladder that is not segmented – In other words, as you are scaling the wall, you must place a ladder on every part of the wall that you wish the scale.

8. Any picks or shovels can be used to attack the walls – I allow this because of the fact that the sieges will be small, so to compensate for the lack of attackers, diamond tools will be allowed.