

Any attempts to turn up the heat with more aggressive battle tactics only make the destruction worse, as the system depopulates and loses buildings. On each turn, a defender can issue a "Draft" strategy, and replenish enough manpower to keep on fighting, turn after turn (potentially for a few dozen turns). The second reason is that the developers mindfully set up the numbers so that sieging can be used to opt out of a "death spiral" that frequently happens when assaulting a system the enemy truly does not want to lose.

killing populations or system improvements), unlike most types of invasion strategies. The first reason for this is that sieging, itself, does no "collateral damage" whilst in progress (i.e.


ℹ️"Hostile" here means either the two empires are at War, or they're in Cold War with the besieger having the "Righteous Fury" Religious automatic law, or they're in Cold War with the defender's system being within the besieger's cultural boundary, or the defender is an always-hostile minor faction like Pirates. While a system is sieged, it can't refill its, send or receive any civilian ships, or produce any strategic or luxury resources for the empire. If a hostile fleet orbits an enemy system with no other enemy fleets distracting them, they automatically lay siege to the system, reducing the system's defensive manpower every turn.
