Siege mechanics changed?

[Pingpong]

I was playing a seige battle and the ram was showing inside the city walls battering it's way out...:hmmm: . Also there was no boiling oil or arrows fired from the walls... Anyone else experience anything similiar? I do have the latest build 99.20.

[DaVinci]

Yes and yes.

Arrows from towers are disabled since a long time, boiling oil is disabled since 0.99.20, all by intention as for AI reasons mainly. And, the machine-gun arrows from towers were just annoying when you are seeing the AI is killed in masses while they doing their sieges, and anyway unrealistic, so if you wanna shoot from walls you have to deploy archers. Boiling oil is a complete AI killer if they assault an opened gate.

The ram-face looking partly through the gate happens when it's damaged to a certain degree and will collapse pretty soon. This is so since i modified again the gate and ram power. It needs much longer now to get through the gate, what is a lot more realistic.

P.S. Your thread-title doesn't fit at all. If you don't change it to a fitting one, then i'll do it, ie. to "Siege mechanics changed?" ... edit: i'll do it for you now i just hate wrong thread titles.

[Pingpong]

Lol thx for the title change. Sounds good on the changes...was this in a packet of notes I missed somewhere?

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

i didn't knew aswell.....but i always evade large stone walls with rams (who uses rams against those walls anyway? at least it is the most stupid thing you can do in Vanilla)

[DaVinci]

The AI is doing this always.

P.S. The content/change-log descriptions are always only an extract of what is actually done (and/or of course i forget often things to mentioning/to listing).

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

yes, and i have saved many cities using that (if i play the greek cities, one militia phalangite group in front of the gate is enough, when the enemy breaks through a gate in a stone wall in one way or another, they'll heap up in the gateway and then...>WOOOOOOOSH

damn, i'm evil

[hammy the hamster]

its fun a few times but loses its appeal, especially when their general heroically charges and is killed instantly

[DaVinci]

its fun a few times but loses its appeal, especially when their general heroically charges and is killed instantly

Exactly. ChivTW always aims to help the AI, while keeping enough fun and winning chances for the human player, and at least your family members will die heroic
... but just not by burning oil anymore for the AI or yourself.

[Alavaria]

One thing I have noted on the stone walls (with iron gates). Sometimes when the AI is assaulting, when it sends the ram up, the ram gets the gate to about 60% damage, then the ram has clipped so far into the gate that the first pair of ram pushers can no longer stand at where they're supposed to push (that section is inside the gate).

What happens then is the two of them keep walking against the gate. You *can* solve this by ordering the soldiers to pull the ram away from the gate, but I am not sure if it works once the ram has clipped in so far (they can't pull it back out as they can't reach the pulling point). Also, the AI is very dumb and won't do this - instead it'll try to take the walls (which generally ends badly for it).

Oh, and if you make gates stronger, it seems that wooden walls are weaker than reinforced gates (2% damage per hit, the gates get 1%). Just noticed that today.
------------
If players get a "Penalties" trait for their generals, why not give AI ones a "Bonuses" version. (possibly with a smaller version if the AI is really rich). 4-scale trait from large bonuses/bonuses for the AI to penalties/large penalties for the player. If you added a good bit of command/morale bonuses to AIs assaulting cities I think it would be less easy to block the *one* gate and hold the walls.

Might as well just generally give them all a little command/management/influence (more for the smaller AI countries in particular). Possibly personal security or other stuff to give xp and numbers to the AI bodyguard unit. Though already, the general's "suicide" charge kills a ton of people because of how heavy their cavalry unit actually is.

[DaVinci]

Siege comments: Thanks, i'll look into this, that i finetune this with the next version, i'll see. I might re-change the ram-damage to a higher power again for the iron gates (stone wall), as it is probable, that the human player only uses the ram for the wooden gates, so indeed the AI has an disadvantage when sieging stone wall settlements. While the combat-outcome on the walls is of course dependent on the unit abilities on both sides in such a case. In other words: also this is a complex balance thing.

Trait comments: Thanks, did you study the traits file already? There are already quite a few AI only bonus traits, and human player only penalty traits. But of course this still can be extended to a certain degree.
What i'll do due to your thoughts in any case is that i'll add still extra defence and attack trait bonus for the AI. And eventually i'll increase still the unit upkeep costs, while the AI will get then a few economical trait boni more. Thanks mate for your comments, such are helpful to remember a few things i had anyway in mind, keep it up to throw out such comments.

At last my question: Do you have still the feeling, that the combat against the AI is too easy when you are opposed with a circa 1:1 ratio situation, on at least H battle difficulty? I personally am a veteran TW player, and i loose battles in ChivTW, field and siege, and this, although i know the build as the mainmaker of it, actually i'm often surprised how well balanced the mod is (but it's not so much a wonder, as the hardcore balance-work started already mid of 2006 and continues until today, meant is the combat-only and the global balance).

[Alavaria]

I took a look today while ramming down a gate. The issue isn't the clipping of the ram, it occurs when a ram pusher follows the ram through the gate and is killed by the enemy units on the other side. Other units will try to fill their spot but won't be able to get through the gate (as they're not attached to the ram).

One thing of note is that sometimes the AI can get a unit "caught" on the ram and will never realize this and just stand around. It can be a pain sometimes as the player will also be stuck inside the castle in some cases.

As for the traits, wow, the campaign I'm on is on Hard (earlier I used Very Hard). The AI is fairly quickly capable of spamming heavy infantry and light horse. When it starts to mass produce heavy horse like knights ... It's problematic since you can't swarm horse if the AI has 5 or so units of them, so a bit of creativity is needed. I use VH battle, so generally the enemy general is a real infantry killer against most light or heavy infantry (even AP ones.)

[DaVinci]

I took a look today while ramming down a gate. The issue isn't the clipping of the ram, it occurs when a ram pusher follows the ram through the gate and is killed by the enemy units on the other side. Other units will try to fill their spot but won't be able to get through the gate (as they're not attached to the ram).

One thing of note is that sometimes the AI can get a unit "caught" on the ram and will never realize this and just stand around. It can be a pain sometimes as the player will also be stuck inside the castle in some cases.

I didn't notice this (bold) as of yet. With the current gate-ram stats (and the disabled oil) the AI is ramming without big losses, it needs far longer now, yes (i explained it above). A goal would be to set it up, that the ram won't look through the gate, i guess.

It can be a pain sometimes as the player will also be stuck inside the castle in some cases.

... why this? For castle-AI-sieges is valid: The AI will deploy latters and siege-tower and rams.
So if the AI stuck in front of the iron-gate, it will go over the walls, at least in my testing so far. You say, you have another experience?

[Alavaria]

... why this? For castle-AI-sieges is valid: The AI will deploy latters and siege-tower and rams.
So if the AI stuck in front of the iron-gate, it will go over the walls, at least in my testing so far. You say, you have another experience?

Yep, except the following can happen - you have horse inside your walls, the AI has horse outside it's walls, and one infantry unit on the ram that's frozen inside the gate. But I don't play with timer on, so I guess it's less of a problem than I thought.

I did have a problem when trying to take a city that my ally was also going for, as the AI would always get stuck on the gates. And I wasn't going to be able to take down the defender's heavy cavalry unit without my own, so it would be a kind of stalemate. (AI would send most of it's infantry over, though. They all died laddering into some heavy infantry wall defenders. Of course, the problem isn't an issue *now* since everyone who is an ally is really far away (not sharing a border, and I never see them except for emissaries).

[DaVinci]

Do you agree that those details we discussed above are actually very minor issues
... i at least don't see that there are lots of occasions possible, where the AI would be disadvantaged a lot.

Actually the main purpose of the gate-change is to decrease the AI disadvantages, and this is done.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

oh, that reminds me...the battle timer, i never use it! but why would it be good (and with good i mean historical accurate) to have it turned on? i don't like having a time-limit!

[hammy the hamster]

i thought i would post this so everyone can see the problem, i also noticed that foot knights jump off walls on purpose

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

yes, i've seen that too, my ram was litterly at the other side of the gate once


but really, use siege towers...1% per 2 rams isn't fast....REALLY

[DaVinci]

i thought i would post this so everyone can see the problem, i also noticed that foot knights jump off walls on purpose

Does it happen also with wooden gates?
However, i'll fix that.

[Bull3pr00f de Bodemloze]

i thought i would post this so everyone can see the problem, i also noticed that foot knights jump off walls on purpose

just noticed you said that, (the bold part)
anyway, when a unit is fighting on the walls a few individuals (of both sides) tend to get nervous and try to run of the walls.....you can actually SEE them stop fighting, turning and running off the walls

[DaVinci]

just noticed you said that, (the bold part)
anyway, when a unit is fighting on the walls a few individuals (of both sides) tend to get nervous and try to run of the walls.....you can actually SEE them stop fighting, turning and running off the walls

Just cowards who prefer a quick dead upon a (heroic and) gruesome one

Serious: This is part of the RTW engine, and not mod made. But actually it adds a part of realism to a wall slaughter, as this happens normally only when sole units have no other space in pretty densed wall battles.