Creating True War Wagons

[Jaguar6]

Greetings everyone, this is my first post in this particular area of the forum so if it is in the wrong place please forgive me and port it to the appropriate area.

Anyways, the reason I've started this thread is to ask you all about the Wr Wgons in M2TW. I know about Banzai's modification that made the War Wagons movable and have soldiers within them, but there is more needed in my opinion then just that. My question is if it is possible to make it so you can attach soldiers to a War Wagon, so they go inside it and ride it wherever you want them to go, and then make it so you can disattach them, so they leave the War Wagon and fight on foot. I'm thinking that you could make this work similary to the siege weapons, aka rams, ladders, and towers, so all infantry units can use them and leave them at will. What do you all think, is it possible?

~Jaguar6

[Beorn]

probably impossible, my friend...

[Jaguar6]

Any opinions from true coders or animators, no offense to you Beorn

[Killerbee]

Seems very very impossible to me.

[Jaguar6]

Why not? If you make them work like siege weapons it seems like it could work to me.

[Taiji]

Explain how you would make them work like siege weapons.

Siege weapons are pushed missile weapons, where wagons are pulled by horses and do not have a missile weapon that is not held by one of the crew, this is one obstacle I see. Another problem would be the AI's use of them.

With these in mind I would give up.

A much more practical solution would be to make a wheeled or sled mantlet.

[intel]

May I suggest a thing? Your idea is very noble and I'm glad you try to implement war wagons...

However, you seem not to have idea how did they actually work like. By implementing it as a siege engine, you'd most likely get just another not really useful siege engine. Actually, the war wagons were used as a mobile fortess, even it's german name implies such use: wagenburg

The way it should be implemented (and what I'd do it like) is by remodelling the pallisades of wooden forts and placing a coherent wall of warwagons instead. Such task is indeed very difficult to implement: worldterrain converter by KE & Argantonio is still very hard to use, not ot mention how complicated would be the matter of pathfinding in this case. But unfortunately, that's the only way to represent it in a useful, historically accurate way.

[Jaguar6]

That's not what I'm looking for though, I want War Wagons that can be mounted and dismounted What if we made them work like catapults and ballistas, I think they are already classified as them anyways.

[Taiji]

How will you get the AI to deploy them sensibly and mount them? - You won't.

Even if it were possible in terms of animations to make it work for the player, which seems very doubtful, the AI will fail you.

[mongrel]

As an alternative, is there a way to deploy Gulay Gorod or similar, like stakes?

[Jaguar6]

You are right Taiji, but making them able to deploy like stakes would be a good alternative.

[hitokiri2486]

it's been a while since I've read Banzai's thread, but I'm fairly certain that there's just not enough coding to make these war wagons operable. Like, missing animations and such. These are just planned left-over units that CA abandoned while they were working on the game.

[Taiji]

Stakes are pretty hardcoded. If you were able to change the model and texture of stakes, sadly you wouldn't be able to change their properties. Although possibly the model has an effect here, I suspect that horses would still die on contact. Even more of a problem would be that the spread of stakes is determined by the width of the unit deploying them... And of course you wouldn't have stakes anymore.

Really the only way I see to do something like this is to make fortifications that infantry can push.

Even given pushed fortifications the AI will not sensibly deploy them.

But with formations that make use of them on the front line, the AI could be forced to employ them effectively (at least some of the time) as a missile break and cav charge defence.

[EarendilElenthol]

I remember a thread in which they were deconstructing buildings, and so were able to get units on towers an the tower of a cathedral. Is that not possible as well?

[Taiji]

In a settlement, yeah sure, I've seen that stuff too. Although it's just making a tower into a wall section as far as I could tell.

On the field it sounds possible to me. I don't know though. Perhaps the function of buildings is altered by occuring on the field instead of in a settlement. Never looked into settlement map/model modification, I couldn't know.

What I would imagine is impossible would be to have an AI unit move towards and then enter a building ready to defend it, without it all being scripted. Adding a new element like that to the BAI certainly looks impossible.

Cool idea though.

[mongrel]

Thinking aloud. It is possible to deploy the beasts in the same way as Carroccio standards.

Problems are two fold. You can only set it up with melee infantry, solution, reduce to 6-8 men and presume these are the melee infantry to guard the shooters. Next issue the AI, the sods just keep pushing the damn things and then, if they deploy the things at all, they do so facing 90 degrees the wrong way.

Could it be possible to make the "carraccio guard" completely immobile, whilst the attached wagon/gulay gorod is deployed the right way round?

[Taiji]

Could it be possible to make the "carraccio guard" completely immobile, whilst the attached wagon/gulay gorod is deployed the right way round?

I like the idea. Almost sounds possible but I can only think of immobilising them using animations, like using idle for walk and run forward. They could still shuffle, combat jog and charge though. I'm not sure it would work.

[EarendilElenthol]

As Banzai is banned and nobody else seem to take any interest in the war wagons, I'll revive this thread again.

As far as I know, you can pick up and leave cannons and siege stuff. So if you make war wagons, based on caroccio or take banzai's stuff, isnt it possible to make an opening in it and let it act as normal terrain?
Otherwise you could pick a siege ram and let the people in like the siege tower, and when it is manned it starts shooting (crossbow).
That goes for pavises and mantlets, if you take ladders then you have more things instead of a single ram or tower. If you give it the ability of a ram (blocking units and arrows) and position your units behind it, it works fine, i'd think. You can pick it up and drop it like a ladder, and so it is movable and stands still if necessary. When you make a pavise unit "siege" in this way you'll have both pavise shields and a normal crossbow unit.

Any developers idea's whether this is possible?

[Taiji]

The siege weapon would be the crew's primary weapon. So they cannot be crossbowmen themselves.

What I would really like is for someone to make me a siege pavise.

I guess the wheels need to roll and the crew may need adjusting in terms of location to stand when pushing.. I reckon I can handle the crew animations, EDU and formations, siege stuff.. all the coding basically.

A small crew of melee warriors to push it... or perhaps equip it to all assault groups and up their price a touch.

The scope of it is such that ideally I would need closer to 1000 edu places to fully use it. Being able to have units with and without siege pavises... pavise wars... lol

[JuL14n]

The siege weapon would be the crew's primary weapon. So they cannot be crossbowmen themselves.

What I would really like is for someone to make me a siege pavise.

I guess the wheels need to roll and the crew may need adjusting in terms of location to stand when pushing.. I reckon I can handle the crew animations, EDU and formations, siege stuff.. all the coding basically.

A small crew of melee warriors to push it... or perhaps equip it to all assault groups and up their price a touch.

The scope of it is such that ideally I would need closer to 1000 edu places to fully use it. Being able to have units with and without siege pavises... pavise wars... lol

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The wheels may look a bit edgy but I don't think an army spends a whole day to make
very roundshaped wheels for their siege engines, also it should not be very visible ingame.

Good idea, when archers are attacking anyone with siege equipment they usually aim for the equipment, at least the AI does it

Still how to use it could be a greater question. Maybe a catapult unable to shoot pushed towards the enemy, and when the crew is close enough to the enemy they normally engage in close-combat.

They also need to be pretty large in size to cover the formation behind the pushers.