Roman / 73 / 74 CE
Masada
Watch a supply line build an earthen approach over the western spur. When the surface is ready, a timber tower can climb toward the casemate wall.
OTTOMAN / VENETIAN CRETE / 1648–1669 CE
Candia.
Trenches and batteries.
Digging crews push zigzag trenches toward the Venetian bastions. Supply carriers move between the camp and batteries while cannon exchange fire over the earthworks.
Play the Candia siege simulation
What to watch.
Digging crews extend a zigzag approach toward the bastioned city. Finished cells lower the trench floor and build up the protective edges.
After the works are ready, the cannon moves into its firing position. Watch impacts, dust, and the defenders’ responses around the front wall.
Candia was a long Ottoman siege of a Venetian city. This model isolates the engineering of an approach; it does not compress the full historical campaign into a claimed chronology.
The historical setting.
Candia, present-day Heraklion, was a Venetian city besieged by Ottoman forces from 1648 to 1669. Contemporary maps show the fortified city and siege operations.
How the model simplifies it
The star-shaped walls and trench system are schematic, not a tracing of a historical map. This compressed scenario does not reproduce twenty-one years of fighting or the underground mining campaign.
Three.js renders the scene, while cannon-es handles dynamic bodies, gravity, collisions, pickup constraints, and projectiles. Workers follow local job routines. Siege engines and ships use controlled movement. This is a playable engineering visualization, not an archaeological survey or a calibrated battle model.
Play in your browser.
Construction begins automatically. Choose Overview, Works, City, or Camp to move closer. Drag to orbit and scroll or pinch to zoom. Click a person to inspect their job, then choose Follow this person if you want to stay with them.
Grab & toss lifts workers and soldiers. Release slowly to drop or flick to throw. Shockwave knocks nearby people off balance. Space pauses; 1×, 4×, and 12× change the simulation speed. Advance works moves you to the later phase. Progress is saved separately for each siege in this browser.
Open CandiaSources and further reading.
These links support the historical context. The miniature’s geometry, agents, and physical parameters are original simplified implementations.
Explore another siege.
Roman / 52 BCE
Alesia
Builders extend two defensive circuits around the hilltop settlement. Roman patrols hold the space between them while a relief force approaches from outside.
Roman / 70 CE
Jerusalem
Work crews build approach terraces beneath the northern defenses. Towers and artillery support an assault against several walls around a dense urban model.
Macedonian / 332 BCE
Tyre
Haulers carry rubble from the shore and extend a causeway toward an island city. Ships circle the works and towers advance as the stone surface emerges from the water.
Ottoman / 1453 CE
Constantinople
Crews prepare protected gun positions and bring ammunition forward. Heavy cannon fire physical projectiles toward a miniature section of the layered land walls.