NOVEL WEB Chapter 229: 228
With the siege setup begun, Julius retired to his command tent.
His forces planning to simply starve out this city at first since they did not have the ability to create many types of siege engines as of yet, aside from basic ladders or battering rams, as he was limited by the system.
But even with the reinforcements he'd received from the Carthaginian fleet his own army's numbers were still not any greater than the single legion he first set off with.
However as he settled into his chair his gaze flicked to his menu where he could see a general overview of his armies, and nation as a whole even abroad such as he was now.
While his menu was partially locked in that he could not spend his accumulated tech points on any civic advances for his country however this was not true for his military side of the tech tree.
Perhaps it was because he was with his army even outside his nation, but in this instance it matter very little to him, the Greecian forces were inferior to his own legionaires, but when his 5,000 men tried to take over a city their losses would be incredibly difficult and even if the soldiers could be taken down the surviving Romanus men would likely not be numerous enough to maintain control over the local population.
So in that case they'd need to find a way to increase the efficiency of capturing cities, without the cost of manpower, if they can take down the city gate without loss of life, then the legion can march in using their army tactics which especially in a cityscape will hamper the effectiveness of the greecian phalanx lines.
Still any invasion will come at a cost of life and well if a legionaire became injured in the city it would be near impossible to pull them back to safety where they could be mended or healed which would just further cause a greater cost of life, mixing that with the fact the local populace might join in as we advance on resulting in us being attack from the rear.
As he looked both at the menu and the number of tech points he had access to, Julius quickly selected to obtain a pair of military technologies, the first being a Siege Lvl 1 - Battering Ram, which allows for an upgrade to the existing carried battering ram, by building a structure to house the battering ram along with the men who'd man it.
The design that he'd unlocked was the same as the one from the game, a simple ram capable of housing the might of 10 men within the constructed raised hut, setup on a chassis set upon four log wheels with a larger ram being suspended from the hut frame and only needing to be rocked back and forth once the ram itself had been pushed up to the enemy wall or gate.
The slanted roof would help it depend against any dropped ordinance from the gatehouse or walls, but the design was still weak towards one type of defensive technique, thankfully this was one he'd yet to see get used anywhere on the Greecian penninsula as of yet.
And that one was of Boiling oil, since water proofing the siege engine was not exactly possible so there was always the chance if it were to be used a portion of the oil would still rain down upon the men who'd become trapped within, and worse yet oil being oil upon being poured out it could then be set alight causing not only the men but the engine itself to become alite.
The second technology he chose to unlock, was The Level 2 Tactical Training which would allow his men to have better chances to adapt and engage in urban warfare.
Since the scale of battle breaks the lines up into numerous different battlefields the overall command falls more to the captains or rather hundredmen leading within the legion rather than the legion commander who at best could follow a section of the battle as it traverses the city streets.
He had additional tech points to spare but he saved those since the number he still had and the number to be gained further while he was abroad would mean he'd have more than enough to increase the civic technologies
With his two choices made Julius quickly put the new designs to pen, before calling up the waiting guards outside to ferry his designs over to the engineers within his legion.
The battering ram would be entirely new to them but the construction of should be able to be completed within a single night if they chose to rush but he made sure his men knew there was no great hurry.
While the second design was an upgrade to the standard ladder and it was really just to place a catch bar onto the ladder which would prevent the enemy from pushing the ladders off the wall before they first hand managed to flip the catch bar back over the wall first.
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Those of us in the engineering corp were in an uproar for most of the night.
We received a missive from our majesty and once again our lord is a genius having found a way to save even more of his soldier's lives!
Ever he thinks of us, even though most of us are not even citizens from his original home of Aquitania, but that mattered little to him, Bridget, Roserun, Lunan, and Carthaginian are simply just places to him not enemy nations.
Sure they might have been at one point but as soon as those territories or peoples fell under his banner it was like they stopped being enemies and simply became his people at that point in time.
Wiping away all grudges of the past.
And that behaviour of our lord makes those of us in the army want to fight for him that much harder so we can bring many more people under his banner to rejoice in the splendour his majesty brings.
All of us in the corp ran around drawing up supplies from the wagons and got to work creating the first covered battering ram right away, while a few others got to work drilling holes into the already built ladders through which we could mount the new attachment to prevent our ladder from being pushed off the walls in the future.