Watching the first Lets Plays: Did they get rid of town battles and make them field battles?

[auboy]

If so yay thank you!!! Town battles sucked!!!

[Renown]

LOL....
Wow, the way CA has deluded new TW gamers into "less is more" Here's the easy to recreate method!

a) Take a longstanding tradition of "many castles" and add variation so there are "Castles/Citadels and also Cities!"

b) increase the size of the cities, but reduce their complexity because of lack of focus on AI, also reduce the number of unique settlements and fewer major settlements. Add in small towns as substitute

c) respond to complaints about defending towns to make them have walls while simultaneously reducing the number of unique and major settlements Again.

d) respond to complaints about defending un-upgraded towns and the lack of AI development in major cities by reducing the number of unique and major settlements and making them have less variety by creating a narrow path AND removing town battles entirely.

e) remove siege battles because "who cares, our customers sure don't seem to" - this is in the future.

[Sir Pignans]

Sometimes less is more. Personally I like the idea of making sieges more rare events, more epic and meaningful.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Pretty sure he was talking about minor settlement battles which, yeah, kinda sucked to be honest.

I liked them the first few times, but about 80% of the battles in every campaign are either major sieges (Maybe 20%) and then minor sieges where you have to fight eight garrison units or something (The other 60%.)

[auboy]

Sometimes less is more. Personally I like the idea of making sieges more rare events, more epic and meaningful.

THIS! This applies to so many things in strategy games and I love it when Devs realize this. Micro sucks. Rinse and repeat boring town battles suck. Place units in corridor to block. Hold. Wait unit end. Barf!

And yes when I say town I mean the little minor settlement battles.

Field battles are fun and worth playing. More of this is awesome. And now you only have sieges with big castles. Love it!

[alex33]

I think the reason why almost every second battle was a siege or a settlement battle was because the campaign map is far to small. If the map would be larger and thus citys would be farther away from each other you would have more chances fpr field battles. In rome 2 you can almost "hop" from one settlement to the other

[auboy]

I think the reason why almost every second battle was a siege or a settlement battle was because the campaign map is far to small. If the map would be larger and thus citys would be farther away from each other you would have more chances fpr field battles. In rome 2 you can almost "hop" from one settlement to the other

I agree that cities are too close and they look to be even closer in Warhammer unfortunately!

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

I think the reason why almost every second battle was a siege or a settlement battle was because the campaign map is far to small. If the map would be larger and thus citys would be farther away from each other you would have more chances fpr field battles. In rome 2 you can almost "hop" from one settlement to the other

Yep. This is what happen when you try to put too many provinces into the map. One of the custom campaigns, for R1TW Darthmod, actually reduced the number of provinces by about 50%. That resulted in some of the best TW campaigns ever. It meant a lot of field battles. A lot less mindless city management and each siege battle actually meant you conquered a noticable swathe of land. It also meant that campaigns actually ended in a reasonable amount of hours.

[geala]

I don't get this criticism about sieges. My only critique in A:TW is that you can attack walled cities immediately if you have one onager with you. Do you really play all battles yourself? I autosolve a lot of the more boring stuff and play only desparate situations. The autosolve is rather good in A:TW. You lose some sieges you might have won bei cheat-blocking but that's life. Frankly said, even the most interesting battle, field or siege, gets old if you had to do hundreds of it.

[Aurelius Silvanus Tacitus]

And siege battles continue their inevitable decline.

Ok, let's be honest here, CA/SEGA did not do anything else than ruin sieges after Medieval II:
-no sieges, cities so small you could barelly fit 6 units, few garrisonable buildings or an incredibly buggy fort siege in Empire and Napoleon. Everyon CAN ing climb the walls on ropes that your guys do not cut but just stand and wait for the enemy to come to them.
-Shogun 2(only game in Warscape where they inproved them): sieges less buggy, everyone CAN still climb... but at least it's risky and you risk losing your men to defenders(which could FIRE on them). You can set fire to gates... but they are wooden so it makes sense. Also the pathfinding it broken sometimes.
-Rome 2: at least no one can simply climb walls. AI in incredibly retarded, 66% of the settlements have no walls, blobbing gallore, you can set fire and destroy bronze of iron gates because..... the rest is history.
-Attila: I can wall now my settlements... with mud walls. Towers OP but autodestry when captures(sometimes destroying gates too because screw logic and realism, we want fun like losing the elite units with which you capturedthe gates). Incredibly low variety of settlements. Barricades are cool but you can only position them in designated areas, no other defensibles(like the rolling stones, one of the good things of Rome II) and walls melt with the passing of time. Pathfinding still broken, gates are still made of marshmallow. AI needs catapults or else it never sieges walled settlements.
How to win as defender:chokepoint+defensive formation+tower.
-Warhammer: no more unwalled settlements and now all cities have propper walls(yay!). But everyone gets ladders so walls are easily climbable. You might also do that since towers have unlimited range and are still OP. Did I mention that you only get to pay on a section of the wall? So if you are a good fan and pre-order no matter what maybe you'll play on a corner map, with two gates. Have fun rushing, cause you can't do anything else now. Also it's time togo back to the Empire style: no walls, no siege...

Less might be sometimes more but we are getting less and less content and with lower quality for a bigger price. If this isn't highway robbery I dunno what it is.

[sataricon]

Sometimes less is more. Personally I like the idea of making sieges more rare events, more epic and meaningful.

Are they more epic and meaningful?

[Twido]

Realistically, I just don't think they could get the AI to handle all the dirty little tricks human players use in sieges. From a programming perspective, it is far easier to dumb them down than build up an AI that can compete. What I don't really understand is why the AI seemed to peak in Medieval 2? I had assumed that later iterations would build on what had gone before.


Of course if they had wanted to make the siege AI really difficult to handle, they would have just had it starve us out rather than fight; it would have been much more realistic too!

[Commissar Caligula_]

Are they more epic and meaningful?

It seems as though siege battles are kind of risky, as you're going to take big casualties and possibly be unable to hold the position against a counterattack.
Then again, the players I've watched could just be mediocre.
If it is like this however, it kind of feels a bit cheap taking away the chance for strategy to minimise casualties, but it should be a bit enjoyable having every battle being kinda risky.

[Derpy Hooves]

Umm, there is a great variety of settlements in Attila. About 40 of them. Warhammer won't even have half of them

[Sir Pignans]

Are they more epic and meaningful?

I'll see when the game launches. I hope so. I hope this is what CA have done.

[Markas]

You need to build defenses in a minor settlement if you want a siege battle. It takes a bit of growth and a full building slot though.

Ok, let's be honest here, CA/SEGA did not do anything else than ruin sieges after Medieval II:
.

What? Let's not revise history. You could beat full stacks with two units in a siege in Med 2. Getting heroic victories was a running joke. They simply have not managed to make them any less of a chore since med 2.

[Imperator Artorius]

Sometimes less is more. Personally I like the idea of making sieges more rare events, more epic and meaningful.

Except that sieges were , for many pre-modern wars, were far more common than open field battles especially in the Medieval times, where battles were seen as often far too risky, perhaps thanks to the influence of Vegetius.

I think for the most part, aside from a major shake up (which I would be in favour of), CA has field battles probably mostly where they want them to be mechanically, and lets be fair, they haven't really changed since Rome I, or even Shogun 1 if you ignore the switch to 3D.

That said, I would love CA to put more effort into sieges. Instead of paring down settlements and reducing our options, give us more options, and more complex fortifications i.e. undermining, siege ramps, walls of contravellation, secondary walls, more barricades inside the settlement etc. Let us recreate the epic sieges of history such as the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD, or the Siege of Rhodes by Demetrios in 305-304BC, or hell, even something smaller but still rather involved like the Siege of Plateae from 429-427BC. As it stands, none of the TWs have ever come close to that, which is a massive shame imo.

[BarnicleBill1]

I always though it would be fun to have a city planning feature. Sort of a top down, 2d, rendering of the city layout. From there you could design your walls (within reason for the ai) and plan out defensive strategies.

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[Sir Pignans]

Except that sieges were , for many pre-modern wars, were far more common than open field battles especially in the Medieval times, where battles were seen as often far too risky, perhaps thanks to the influence of Vegetius.

I think for the most part, aside from a major shake up (which I would be in favour of), CA has field battles probably mostly where they want them to be mechanically, and lets be fair, they haven't really changed since Rome I, or even Shogun 1 if you ignore the switch to 3D.

That said, I would love CA to put more effort into sieges. Instead of paring down settlements and reducing our options, give us more options, and more complex fortifications i.e. undermining, siege ramps, walls of contravellation, secondary walls, more barricades inside the settlement etc. Let us recreate the epic sieges of history such as the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD, or the Siege of Rhodes by Demetrios in 305-304BC, or hell, even something smaller but still rather involved like the Siege of Plateae from 429-427BC. As it stands, none of the TWs have ever come close to that, which is a massive shame imo.

I don't disagree with any of that. But one thing that I do think would help siege battles in game would be making them less frequent. Otherwise it does become a chore. I love history and all, but I think I would rather have a fun game. And if you have too many sieges, for me, it becomes a bit of a chore, rather than something I'm enjoying.

[Imperator Artorius]

I don't disagree with any of that. But one thing that I do think would help siege battles in game would be making them less frequent. Otherwise it does become a chore. I love history and all, but I think I would rather have a fun game. And if you have too many sieges, for me, it becomes a bit of a chore, rather than something I'm enjoying.

Tbf, they can cut down on the number of sieges by bringing back the option to demand surrender, and making the AI more likely to accept it, especially if that faction has just lost a decisive battle. Once again, history provides a solution.