[PREVIEW] Siege battles overhaul for 1.0

[Ravos]

Damn guys, I may actually start fighting sieges now. These were probably one of the most disappointing parts of the game, but now it looks like they will be a blast.

Does deleting the victory point make the AI fight "naturally" instead of bum rushing to the VP?

[Butan]

Does deleting the victory point make the AI fight "naturally" instead of bum rushing to the VP?

Exactly. Although they are still relatively easy to flank if you properly pin them in important strategical places while you send a few men left and right to burn gates or scale with ladders etc, or flank using the settlement's streets to your advantage.
Without victory points they just use the settlement as they would a hill surrounded with barricades in an open field battle.

[stevehoos]

3 questions:

The galley and the tortoise Ram both do not work for the AI currently. I don't see CA endeavoring any fix in the future; could these be removed because they only sit in indolence on the battlefield?

Brimstone pits: I guess there is no way to mod these so they could be present outside the city? Seems rather a bad idea to risk killing your own troops with such devices.

Are we going to get barricade options defending non- walled settlements?

Good job on this stuff, you guys are relentless!

[ShadowMassa]

I can't w8 to play the 1.0!

[Rafkos]

Deployable are available in uwalled cities too. About the length, it's still WiP so it may change.

[geala]

Sounds great, especially concerning deployables in unwalled cities. As to attrition, I would leave it as planned. Also civilised nations should suffer as attackers because frankly said their medical knowledge and sanitary abilities in the field were not that impressive. If better equipped modern armies from more civilized nations suffered more (much more) casualties from diseases than wounds till about the 1890s AD, why should the Romans and Greeks and Parthians etc. with their partly really silly medical understanding fared better?

[Maetharin]

Sounds great, especially concerning deployables in unwalled cities. As to attrition, I would leave it as planned. Also civilised nations should suffer as attackers because frankly said their medical knowledge and sanitary abilities in the field were not that impressive. If better equipped modern armies from more civilized nations suffered more (much more) casualties from diseases than wounds till about the 1890s AD, why should the Romans and Greeks and Parthians etc. with their partly really silly medical understanding fared better?

Have you seen Roman army surgery Tools?

One of the reasons why so many people joined the legions and even auxiliary Units was their surgical expertise!

Soldiers expected to to survive their 25 years of service! I mean of course, one could always be crippled,
but flesh wounds? Army surgeons even had vein clamps! They sewed torn veins and muscles!

And concerning infection, medieval european armies lost the knowledge of proper encampment,
roman legionary camps had a dedicated latrine system, they were dug anew after a certain filling level!

And why do you think arabian armies never suffered as much of illness as european armies when on campaign?
Their knowledge came from the subjugated persian
cultures!

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

I love the idea of upping the upkeep of besieging armies! I'd generally increase campaign costs, since a standing army is very expensive, but a campaigning one needs to be provisioned extraordinarily!
Proper/inproper provision should even influence general attrition!

[Ritterlichvon86]

Hey, one important thing, when regarding investment strategies upon sieging, it was usually so that the attackers would build defenses too, much like you see on the scenario Carthago-battlemap.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumvallation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_%28military%29

Can you enable equipment such as spikes and barricades for the attackers too, to defend from sorties and enhance the blockade? To properly cover the open fields, it should be more than the defender can deploy. This would be another immersive feature, and even if it has almost no effect on gameplay or battlebalance, it will serve DeI 1.0's quest for immersion pretty thoroughly.

[suras333]

I didn't see this coming.. It looks awesome!

[geala]

Have you seen Roman army surgery Tools?

One of the reasons why so many people joined the legions and even auxiliary Units was their surgical expertise!

Soldiers expected to to survive their 25 years of service! I mean of course, one could always be crippled,
but flesh wounds? Army surgeons even had vein clamps! They sewed torn veins and muscles!

And concerning infection, medieval european armies lost the knowledge of proper encampment,
roman legionary camps had a dedicated latrine system, they were dug anew after a certain filling level!

And why do you think arabian armies never suffered as much of illness as european armies when on campaign?
Their knowledge came from the subjugated persian
cultures!



I love the idea of upping the upkeep of besieging armies! I'd generally increase campaign costs, since a standing army is very expensive, but a campaigning one needs to be provisioned extraordinarily!
Proper/inproper provision should even influence general attrition!

I know a little bit about Roman army medical organisation. It was much better than that of the Greeks and also the Parthian armies and also better than that of many modern armies prior to the 19th century AD. Also the surgery to cope with minor wounds was on a relatively high level. But as you know disease has nearly nothing to do with surgery. The near total lack of effective anti-bacterial medicaments coupled with improper hygienical possibilities in the field led to huge problems for the Romans too.

On a general level contrary to common misunderstandings the Greek and Roman medicine was semi-rational at best. The ruling theory was that of a balanced composition of humours (theory of the four humours, based on Hippokrates and Galenus), aka just bare nonsense. Infectious diseases which were the biggest killers of mankind ever before the advent of modern medicine in the later 19th century were as much a problem for the Romans as they were to the so-called barbarians. This is one reason for the fact that the Roman civilisation seemingly could not grant to its participants even a slightly longer average lifespan than other pre-industrial cultures.

As to the lesser losses for Arabian armies, do you mean the medieval times, especially the crusades? Do you have hard facts for this thesis? Sounds rather interesting.

[Maetharin]

I know a little bit about Roman army medical organisation. It was much better than that of the Greeks and also the Parthian armies and also better than that of many modern armies prior to the 19th century AD. Also the surgery to cope with minor wounds was on a relatively high level. But as you know disease has nearly nothing to do with surgery. The near total lack of effective anti-bacterial medicaments coupled with improper hygienical possibilities in the field led to huge problems for the Romans too.

On a general level contrary to common misunderstandings the Greek and Roman medicine was semi-rational at best. The ruling theory was that of a balanced composition of humours (theory of the four humours, based on Hippokrates and Galenus), aka just bare nonsense. Infectious diseases which were the biggest killers of mankind ever before the advent of modern medicine in the later 19th century were as much a problem for the Romans as they were to the so-called barbarians. This is one reason for the fact that the Roman civilisation seemingly could not grant to its participants even a slightly longer average lifespan than other pre-industrial cultures.

As to the lesser losses for Arabian armies, do you mean the medieval times, especially the crusades? Do you have hard facts for this thesis? Sounds rather interesting.

I´ve heard it in my university lecture on medieval times, crusades etc. Of course it depended on the General, but most of those who were written about took proper care of their men.

And the amount of infections highly decreased by usage of a proper latrine and drainage system.
Of course the death toll was immeasurably higher back then, but way less than those who lacked basic hyigene!
That´s one of the reasons why many celts prefered to fight naked, dirty cloth on open wounds is as infectious as mud!
And their level of hygiene certainly nurtured dirt on clothes...

A properly applied bandage can highly decrease the risk of infections, of course only if said bandage was stored properly beforehand...
Of course a broken bone could mean death in many cases as these would most likely get infected...

Also, why do you think roman legionary surgeons were of centurion rank? They were very important and measured highly by most roman generals,
and the tools found at for example at Hadrians Wall suggested highly advanced surgical procedures.

[Aethyr]

Amazing. This is what I was after for as a sub mod and much much more.

If a city is damaged via agents and not repaired, and a battle is fought there are the walls damaged too? If so perhaps each turn of Siege could do structure damage?

[Maetharin]

Amazing. This is what I was after for as a sub mod and much much more.

If a city is damaged via agents and not repaired, and a battle is fought there are the walls damaged too? If so perhaps each turn of Siege could do structure damage?

I´m by no means an expert, but i think this would be impossible...
At least that´s what i`ve gathered from the teasers for Attila, that it´s impossible to do so in earlier iterations of the engine...

[Aethyr]

Okay, by you know how a champion can damage buildings, my question is when they do that does it cause any battlefield damage or is it strictly campaign map.

If it was the former would be cool if it was possible to attribute that to Siege.

[Master.Mind]

If you raised the number of deployables for sieges, would it also be possible to raise the number of deployables in an ambush? I'm a big fan of the flamming boulders, but just one set of them does not make big difference.

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

Can you enable equipment such as spikes and barricades for the attackers too, to defend from sorties and enhance the blockade? To properly cover the open fields, it should be more than the defender can deploy. This would be another immersive feature, and even if it has almost no effect on gameplay or battlebalance, it will serve DeI 1.0's quest for immersion pretty thoroughly.

I agree, But something like a General Trait. So when you go on campaign you can train a general with the abillty to build defences for defending lets say his onagers from cav. But it sould only be spikes/barricades.

That way not everyone can build defences while attacking.



And a question, Did you guys also increased the time of onagers rocks and hit decals on walls to like forever!. I ask this because i played with a mod just for that and its way more immersive to see all the rocks laying on the ground and see the walls with damage from all the hits. Now they just disappear infront of your eyes .

And it did no performance drops for me and that was something like a month after release of RTW II.

[super_newbie_pro]

wow... very good job ! When i see all evolutions, i cant play more time on Rome 2 without mod like this DEI v1 and all futur version of DEI ! Guys, i like you and the work you are able to make for us... Thx

[Faldor]

Can you enable equipment such as spikes and barricades for the attackers too, to defend from sorties and enhance the blockade? To properly cover the open fields, it should be more than the defender can deploy. This would be another immersive feature, and even if it has almost no effect on gameplay or battlebalance, it will serve DeI 1.0's quest for immersion pretty thoroughly.

Seconded!

I've been waiting for such features since CA showed us the Siege of Carthage demo, and I'm still hoping to see them implemented one day. Wouldn't those higher barricades from the demo (with sandhills/dikes/whatever-it's-called underneath them) be hidden in the files somewhere? It would be really great to build some sort of entrenchment around a settlement. Although I'd also just be really happy to have the current barricades and spikes available

Anyway, thanks DeI! I'm really looking forward to these features!

[Dresden]

We have been working on adding deployables for the sieging army but haven't been successful as of yet.

[Rafkos]

If you raised the number of deployables for sieges, would it also be possible to raise the number of deployables in an ambush? I'm a big fan of the flamming boulders, but just one set of them does not make big difference.

It's hardcoded, I had to use the same amount for both sieges and ambush. I think the number of fireballs is just fine, you have 4 of them split into 2 separate deployables, so you can put them in different points, also, they're a bit OP, that's why I decreased the nubmer.

Okay, by you know how a champion can damage buildings, my question is when they do that does it cause any battlefield damage or is it strictly campaign map.
If it was the former would be cool if it was possible to attribute that to Siege.

Not sure how it was in vanilla, but this is hardcoded stuff too, so if it's not already in game then it's not possible to add.

And a question, Did you guys also increased the time of onagers rocks and hit decals on walls to like forever!. I ask this because i played with a mod just for that and its way more immersive to see all the rocks laying on the ground and see the walls with damage from all the hits. Now they just disappear infront of your eyes .
And it did no performance drops for me and that was something like a month after release of RTW II.

If it's really possible to do, then this is the next thing I'm gonna do