Yurie - Profile

You will have a big round of fire fighting this first time. After that there will be next to nothing flammable in range. Thus it can be more or less ignored after this.

It is also no longer a 300 000 population city. Meaning fresh water is less of a concern and quantity of food needing to be transported isn't as bad as it would have been a few centuries earlier.

Stalemate where they only block the land side. As long as they keep dominion on the water it will last until the Ottomans have to give up due to border friction or rebellions. Even if you break through a wall in a spot you can repair it so it is hard to assault.

3 reasons. He is the general in charge coordinating the various fronts. If he is fighting he can't do that as well. He is the strategic reserve that can fix a problem. If he is on a specific front the enemy can hit another one since they know where he is. If he kills opponents he gets minimal xp and skill levels. If he lets his younger members do it they climb in power while pushing. Same reason the ants aren't going all in at the start.

Think it is a bad call, even if they kill the entire enemy army the losses are not worth it. (A sailor is much harder to train than a soldier.) The Romans also has to trade 10:1 or better to win long term due to population.

2 ways to lose a siege like this. Disease and time. If a plague sweeps through you lose many more people in the army outside since you lack good infrastructure. Time, 100k men is not exactly cheap to keep in the field. As you do you are also losing income since they are not working. Thus you go broke in a year or two.

I think one important reason to have canons in siege warfare is that it pushes the enemy war machines further back, especially siege towers this is important for. If your catapults have 500m range they will put their heavy and hard to move weapons at 600-700m range. If your canon can hit 1km they need to put them at 1.2km range. These extra 600 meters is a lot when you are trying to move something tall enough to crest a wall. Meaning you need more animals and they will be more tired when they arrive. Increasing the time from start of offensive until it hits also means you have more time to get ready (though normally you do see them start lining up well in advance).

This is something that I don't think would have worked. Forming the Varangian guard under rule of a general is basically declaring you want to take over the empire.

Next time you send 1 person instead. That way nobody gets beheaded, or at least you can behead whoever he sends back with the message.

Imagine being at a modern day industrial slaughter house near a mega city. Would have a million souls a day. Large scale animal husbandry has to be the best way to farm this.