The Castle Siege — 240 Soldiers Storm the Wall, Pour the Boiling Oil
You stand on a castle wall. 240 instanced enemy soldiers advance. Trebuchets fling stones. Siege ladders rise. Battering ram thuds the gate. Pour the boiling oil. Fire arrows. Hold for 10 minutes.
What this is
You stand on a stone wall above the castle gate. Behind you: castle interior with banners. In front: a hilly battlefield with 240 instanced enemy soldiers (3 InstancedMesh layers — body, head, shield) advancing from 200m out. Some carry siege ladders to plant against your wall. Eight carry a wheeled battering ram toward the gate. Archers stop at 80m and arc shots at you. Trebuchets in the distance lob slow heavy stones (visible parabola, dodge-able). Your bow has infinite arrows with real arc physics — left-click fires, right-click zooms. Press 2 to dump boiling oil from the cauldron above the gate (huge AOE, 30s cooldown). Press 3 to command your archers to focus fire. Press 4 to dispatch defenders to push siege ladders away. Gate integrity drops from ram + catapult hits. Hold for 10 minutes (in-game) to win.
Why this is mind-blowing
Total War: Medieval shipped on PC. Mount & Blade made millions. This is castle defense distilled to one HTML file with 240 enemies and real projectile arcs in 2221 lines. The role-based AI alone — soldiers, archers, ladder crews, ram crew of 8 — is more than most tower-defense games ship with.
First-person medieval castle siege defense. You stand on a stone wall
above the castle gate. Below: 200+ enemy soldiers advance with siege
ladders, battering rams, trebuchets in the distance. Command archers,
defenders, and pour boiling oil. Gate integrity = castle health.
Hold for 10 minutes.Paste this into Claude, Cursor, or Copilot. Change one thing that matters to you.
What I learned shipping it
- 240 instanced soldiers in 3 InstancedMesh layers (body/head/shield) is what makes the siege FEEL like a siege. Single-mesh instancing is the only way to render this many on a browser.
- Real arc physics on every projectile (your arrows, NPC volleys, enemy archer arrows, trebuchet stones) means the player learns to lead — and the catapult shots become things you visibly dodge.
- Role-based AI (soldiers / archers / ladder crews / ram crew of 8) gives 240 enemies actual variety. Killing carriers strands ladders and rams — emergent strategy.