The main aim is to make sieges more exciting and realistic both in the campaign and battles aspects. Holdout time has been increased, attrition for both attackers and defenders has been reduced to extend the time of maintaining the siege and allow to make more siege equipment (which amount have been decreased for player to make it similar to Rome 1 mechanics), battering ram has been enabled as well. For now, if you want to take a walled settlement you have to maintain a siege for at least 2/3 turns. Now it's harder to ignite the siege equipment, so remember to have more missle units in your garrision.
How is the AI handling the new system? So far it works pretty well, the AI maintains a siege for at least 2 turns and then attacks with a lot of siege equipment.
Another feature is our new barricade system which allows you to put a lot of deployables in strategic points of the city, so you can decide to defend inside of the city rather than get smashed by AI forces on the walls.
Campaign changes
1. Siege
- autoresolving system in siege battles has been overhauled:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
First turn (20% win chance, 0% army after battle)
Third turn (50% win chance, 45% army after battle)
- siege attrition for attacking army reduced to 5% per turn from 15%
- siege attrition for defending army increased to 8% per turn from 5%.
- available number of siege equipment has been changed for player to force armies to wait 1-2 turns more before the attack:
~ 2 ladders (-2)
~ 1 ram (+0)
~ 2 different siege towers (+0)
~ 3 galleries (-1)
- available number of siege equipment has been increased for AI to make it more effective in battle and simply to make siege battles more exciting and challenging:
~ 5 ladders (+1)
~ 1 ram (+0)
~ 4/5 different siege towers (+2/3)
~ 5 galleries (+1)
- Settlement holdout time increased by 5 - light battering ram enabled without having technology for both AI and players
- siege towers enabled for AI
2. Technology tree
- an old "Battering ram" technology replaced with new "Better siege tactics" one:
~ -2 enemy siege hold-out time
~ Pre-siege: tortoise (only for those cultures that had it before)
~ Enables building of: workshop (culture specific)
- getting the holdout effect (to make enemy's settlement last shorter) has been changed and now it can be gained only by researching the "Better siege tactics" technology (-2 holdout) and by unlocking segments of the siege technology tree.
I - gives -2 holdout effect
II - gives -3 holdout effect
III - gives -5 holdout effect
- various fixes to other siege technologies to fit the new holdout value.
[SS] AI army attacked after 3 turns of waiting and building siege engines.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Battle changes
1. Durability of siege engines and walls, other battle features
- ignition threshold has been increased by 40% to make siege equipment harder to destroy and also because before this change it was nearly impossible to make any ladders/siege towers reach the walls.
- hit points have been increased by 55% to make siege equipment harder to destroy with onagers and ballistas.
- settlement structures, such as walls and gates, now have 100% more durability, also, the ignition threshold has been increased by 60%.
- damage of watch tower has been reduced but its fire rate has been increased
- damage of battering ram has been increased by 30% - time needed to capture towers, gates and other strategic points has been extended by 80%
2. Deployables
- increased number of deployables to use (as a response for CA's Attila barricades!)
- changed size of different deployables (in some cases a size of deployables have been reduced, but in return you can spread more of them in strategic points): type | lenght | vanilla lenght | number of deployables | vanilla number of deployables
~ barricades | 15 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
~ stakes | 10 | 15 | 1 | 2 |
~ caltrops | 15 | 25 | 1 | 2 |
~ sharp stones | 15 | 30 | 1 | 2 |
~ spike trap | 10 | 15 | 1 | 1 |
~ fireballs | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
~ birmstone pits | 8 | 20 | 2 | 1 |
[SS] More barricades to use in siege battles! Let's barricade your army properly inside of the city. (the following screen shows an old amount of deployables which has been changed to fit the table above)
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
[SS] AI used its siege engines pretty well, both ladders and ram reached the walls.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
[SS] Nothing can stop barbarian horde...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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Fixed vanilla bugs
-galleries are moving too fast, so the result is that the units that should be covered are walking ~200m away from it. (fixed)
Last edited by Dresden; January 09, 2015 at 10:47 PM.
This looks glorious. You should call DeI 1.0 "Rome 2 - Total Immersion". These features make sieges so much more lively, vivid.. there might be this or that surprise around the next corner for the attacker. And finally, siege equipment. Finally, not just 4 ladders and torches. Also, consistency with graphics also in all the equipments.
Both thumbs up. I'd raise more, but I only have two, and I want to remain appropiate. Awesome!
I think you should increase the barricade hit points, they are too easy to destroy, if they have more hit points, they would be more important in the battle. (to flank them, not charge through) An average soldier should not be able to go over a barricade in 2 seconds.
Last edited by terzer; December 11, 2014 at 03:44 PM.
Holy ****, this is what I've been wanting since the game was released. Great job guys!
August Strindberg: "There's a view, current at the moment even among quite sensible people, that women, that secondary form of humanity (second to men, the lords and shapers of human civilisation) should in some way become equal with men, or could so be; this is leading to a struggle which is both bizarre and doomed. It's bizarre because a secondary form, by the laws of science, is always going to be a secondary form. Imagine two people, A (a man) and B (a woman). They start to run a race from the same point, C. A (the man) has a speed of, let's say, 100; B (the woman) has a speed of 60. Now, the question is 'Can B ever overtake A?" and the answer is 'Never!'. Whatever training, encouragement or self-denial is applied, the proposition is as impossible as that two parallel lines should ever meet."
I think you should increase the barricade hit points, they are too easy to destroy, if they have more hit points, they would be more important in the battle. (to flank them, not charge through) An average soldier should not be able to go over a barricade in 2 seconds.
Yup, the hit points are already increased, just forgot to post it.
I always wondered why the attrition for the attacker was so high, while the defending one was so low... it practically forces the attacker to storm the city ASAP, and does nothing to encourage the defender to sally out or send in reinforcements, so thanks for making it reasonable - the way it should have been in the first place.
Interesting changes overall, good job, as always. Much love
Great preview, one point that I didn't fully understand.
siege towers enabled for AI
Does this mean that the AI will get the towers from the beginning? Or with the required technology? I haven't played for a while the game so I don't know how the Vanilla handle this anyway.
Does this mean that the AI will get the towers from the beginning? Or with the required technology? I haven't played for a while the game so I don't know how the Vanilla handle this anyway.
The AI has never been researching this technology before so you would never see the siege towers in game. But it doesn't mean that AI is using them in every single battle, to be honest, it's very rare. It's always nice to see something different on the battlefield, I guess.
Not playing the game at the moment so forgive me if this is already implemented but do defenders get deployables in unwalled settlements ? Feel like this is where barricades really shine, no big walls so you have to set up temporary ones
Also what have you noticed in the AI, if i siege one of their settlements for several turns do they tend to send reinforcements from outside?
Is the table for the deployables accurate? The number of deployables only increased by one (12, up from 11) while the max length was cut from 201 units to 130. I don't mind, but the summary and actual numbers don't really seem to line up, as there was a cut in deployable length in literally everything but barricades. How are these changes affected by the Stalwart Defender trait? I'm sort of surprised you left the fancier ones, like Brimstone pits, as useable.
This looks great, looks like a promising fix to siege battles. In regards to attacker attrition for civilized cultures, would it make sense to reduce attrition to nil and instead increase upkeep for that army while besieging? Would this better represent the 'costs' of planning and maintaining a siege? ie. logistics and construction
[PREVIEW] Siege battles overhaul for 1.0
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