IF i say siege i mean assault.
Preparation on CCNet is quite literally pre-game-friendly right now. The difference is physical assets are lost and it leads to a lot of fights being decided before the battle, See Alliance vs Coalition at the Pacific was because of preparation time the points were skewed to alliance when they should have been more even.

I think the movecraft window should be reduced to 30 minutes (starting after the hour hits XX:30 to help people coming back from work or events), with the attacker nation having to declare intention 5-10 minutes before the region through /assault intention ____, this means no time is actually wasted and makes movecraft hours easier as regions are all weekends and therefore no time is wasted so there is a healthier balance of play and time to do other stuff.

The preparation window would then be 5 minutes for all regions, during this period ships could cap Void points, these void points however would make all ships region-tagged and therefore the same sort of combat would apply (1 void point = 0.5 actual points). Void points won through capping would be reset when prep ends, however void points for sinks during prep would carry over, and each ship sunk during prep would therefore in actuality give half points. This therefore Keeps the aim on the main battle time but also prevents scummy tactics such as printing mass fleets and using more ships to do damage during prep and then repoliting before the timer. (moreover, the ten-minute delay to repilot would start as soon as your ship is region tagged reducing the overall amount of ships needed to be competitive).

Surprise attacks: Suprise attacks begin when a nation does not use the /Assault intention before carrying out an assault, this means they could still hypothethetically win the region however would only take 60% of the regions payout and non of the theatre benefits. Therefore useful but the lower risk means lower reward. This would apply to those attempting to enforce strategic denial instead of those trying to outright profit.

The outcome:
- Both sides waste less time.
- less fatigue for those who want to attend (Time is maximised toward fighting instead of playing chicken over regions).
- Less ships required for regions (Closer to the goal of one ship per region).
- Battles in prep time arent voided of value but also balanced with the main event.
- Rewards skill over 'pit stops'.