A great strategy-empire building game

GUIDE:

City Defense – The Basics

In The Great Siege, the two most important defense tools at your disposal are the City Wall and Catapult.

The City Wall blocks the enemies from entering the city and forces them to stay within the fire range of the Catapult. The wall can only take a certain amount of damage before breaking, but the player can repair it during battle with the Engineer unit. As the City Wall levels up, it is able to damage the enemy units as well. The City Wall can also hold Archers. Human Archers on the City Wall cannot fire long range like the Catapult or Elf Archers, but they are critical defenses assets in the beginning and middle stage of the game.

The Catapult is your most important weapon in your city defense. As long as the City Wall holds, the Catapult can attack any enemy on the field. The devastating fire power of Catapult can provide soldiers with great support on the battlefield. The player can upgrade the Catapult to give it stronger firepower and damage range. But the stronger the Catapult becomes, the longer the loading time becomes as well. Sometimes strongest firepower does not mean victory. In some battles, the player may want faster attack speed instead of higher firepower in order to stop enemies from swarming the City Wall. It is always the best to balance the level of your Catapult based on your strategy.

City Defense - Advanced

Certainly, the basic defense of the City Wall and Catapult are only good enough for you to get by and barely survive in battle. To claim final victory, you need a strong army and effective execution of strategy.  Using your battle units to their utmost potential will make you invincible on the battlefield.

Building barracks is a good place to start. With a great number of units, you will be able to destroy the enemy offensives more effectively. The soldiers can stop the enemy attacks and eliminate them before they are able to reach the City Wall. Also, the Foot Soldier unit can set up traps in the game. The trap can delay an enemy's attack and hold him in one spot so that the Catapult can eliminate him easily. Even after the death of soldiers, their spirits will stay with their home city and eventually come together to create the ultimate technique called “Holy Spirit”. The “Holy Spirit” is a forbidden technique created by ancient human sages to cleanse the evils from the world.

Archers are another important type of unit in the game. The Archers vow to die with the City Wall and will never falter even in the face of Armageddon. They will attack all enemies who come close enough to the City Wall and have a chance to knock them back.  However, although archers appear to be safe inside the City Wall, some advanced long-range enemies can effectively eliminate them in the later stage of the game.

When you find yourself deep into the game, only basic army units and the Catapult are not enough anymore. You must build advanced elite units in order to withstand stronger enemy attacks.  I recommend that most players have Foot Soldiers and Elite Guards for basic defense, then hire some Elf Warriors when you have enough resources. In difficult Boss Battles, Knights and Elf Archers are critical to victory.

Above all units, the Tank is a very special one. In its normal form, the Tank will run over enemies and often create a critical breakthrough for other units. In its tower form, it will randomly shoot at anything standing in its way while blocking enemy units from advancing. Although its defense is not as high as the city wall, it can provide temporary shelter to lessen defense pressure.

 Common Strategies

The most common strategies in The Great Siege are Army Strategy and Catapult Strategy.

The Army Strategy relies heavily on army units. You must consider the order of building in your Tech Tree very carefully. You should first concentrate your resources on the Palace and Mine. After building barracks, you must level up Farm to increase your population limit and always convert your bonus points to resources in order to build more units.

The Catapult Strategy is simpler than the Army Strategy because you will focus most of your resources on City Wall and Catapult. This strategy requires better control with Catapult attacks and using army units as decoys to delay enemy attacks. Smart use of traps and Foot Soldiers will make the Catapult Strategy more effective. Also, you should always make sure to have an Engineer as early as you can so that your City Wall can be repaired once damaged. Whenever you need more resources buildups, you should consider leveling up the Mine and Palace to have extra resources. Just as with the Army Strategy, you should always convert all your bonus points into resources through the Marketplace.

Other Tips

The Marketplace is an important part in the game that most people often overlook. As you might have already noticed in the game, the units you built in the previous battle do not carry on to the next battle. You will have to build them again. Of course, your surviving units did not just disappear from the game. They are converted into Bonus Points. The Bonus Points you earned from victorious battles can be traded in as resources in the Marketplace. Then you can use those resources again to build your new army. Utilizing the Marketplace effectively will allow you to progress more smoothly in the game.

The order of which unit you send first and how many of them you want to send into battle is also very important to your success in this game. Your army units will be sent into battle in the order of their rank, from lowest to highest. In the worst case, if you send many Foot Soldiers and an Elf Warrior to stop Rhinos at the City Wall, the Elf Warrior will not come out until all the Foot Soldiers have been sent into battle. This will mess up the timing of your strategy and potentially allow the enemy to destroy your City Wall before stronger units can stop the enemies.  

Resources Collection

For faster resource collection in the game, try the following tips:

1. - Build and level up these buildings that provide extra resources after each battle: Palace and Mine.
2. - Convert Bonus Points into resources in the Marketplace after every battle.
3. - Claim victory in every battle as quickly as possible and lose as few of your men as possible. You will receive extra bonus for a fast victory and low damage to your home city.
4. - Kill as many enemies as you can during the Boss Battles. Whenever you can, you should take advantage of the summon ability of all the Bosses, which allow them to summon an infinite number of their minions into battle. Killing those minions means extra bonuses for you. But do not try this unless you are totally in control of the situation.