[quote=@Skallagrim]
<Snipped quote by GreivousKhan>

Where do you get this idea that melees are avoided?
[/quote]

Historical medieval combat, where the volume of sieges outweighs pitched battles in the open field by a significant margin. Some wars were won without any open field battles at all. The Saxons fighting the Franks for example avoided open battles like the plague because they got rekt, as me and Khan discussed a while back we figure it's because an open field battle requires both sides to have confidence that they can win, which is highly unlikely most of the time. 

To clarify open field battles were where most melees occurred if they were going to, when order fell apart during infantry clashes.