The or-or challenges

[Dalinar]

Hey guys,
I have a situation, where PCs will find themselves in a besieged town. Town is actively being besieged as bresiegers are launching incineary projectiles into town and setting it on fire. In this situation, I would like to present the PCs with a few situations, where they may contribute to the town being saved/defended by picking between several choices, given to them by the local leaders.

I have in mind simple things like:
- Hey, wise adventurers, should we place the militia on the town walls or assign more men to put out the fires?
- Hey wise adventurers, the town orphanage and granary are on fire. Which one should we save? We can only save one.
- Hey, wise adventurers. We have a number of badly burnt victims in a local temple - should we distribute potions of healing evenly, or give all of them to those who can man the walls?

Disclaimers: PCs may find solutions of their own to these challenges, but I would like for then to be properly conceptually challenged - not just "we split the party, one third sets out to put out the orphanage fire, the second third the granary fire, the remaining third of the party will help man the walls".
There will be no "muahaha, the granary has burnt down, hunger sets in", but I would like some challenges that challebge party a bit, so the duality might be needed to be written a bit smarter then an average CRPG style "sell the child or kill the mother" with a 60 sec timer. Even if PCs find the solutions of their own, I would like to give them the run for their money as much as I can.

Any other ideas on what choices I could present to them?

Thanks!

Speaking as a player here: the first campaign I was ever in had a fairly similar situation come up a few times. When the town was under direct attack, we essentially ran it as a combat encounter on a very large map, but that may or may not be feasible for your table/workflow. Particularly memorable was the flying archer who shot fire arrows into the roof of the nursery. Twice. You bet we tracked that guy down and buried him. (The party was low enough level to not be reasonably equipped for dealing with that sort of thing.)

To throw another idea out there for a hard choice, provided you have an already-established NPC this works for: the PCs run into a local dignitary, maybe a baron or whatever, who selfishly demands to be escorted out of town to safety. This will waste the PCs' time with helping someone deeply unlikeable that ought to be used for greater purposes. On the other hand, if they refuse, it risks their reputation being run through the mud by this guy--especially if said NPC bites it during the fighting and some ally of theirs steps up to do the trashing. Or, worse, the NPC takes it out on the townies later.

If it's the party-splitting that has you worried, here is another possible wrinkle to add: gang violence. There's been a problem with opportunistic crime since the siege started, as the self-centered look to enrich themselves before bailing out. Presumably the PCs will make obvious targets. Splitting up is therefore a risk to their safety. Let them take said risk, though what the follow-through looks like is up to you.