Tower Power

[Quinn Inuit]

Should we turn off tower attacks? Are they ludicrously effective, or an important part of preventing humans from winning perfect victories?

[Carados]

They need to be changed, not drastically, but enough so that rams and seige towers have a very good chance of reaching the walls. Actually, siege towers are fairly ok, they reach the walls often enough that I have to station some troops nearby to deal with them. However I don't take the rams into account at all because the chance they reach the wall is miniscule. When the wall has some archers around the chance of the ram getting to the gate is 0%. The siege towers also set fire more often than not with archers around. Ladders are the only sure way for the AI to get up on the wall, unfortunately they are the weakest way of doing it. They aren't as good as they are on M2:TW.

Having more siege towers/rams/ladders isn't always that effective for the AI because there are towers all over the place and even if one or two do get past the defences, they would've suffered enoumous casualties from the towers.

[demagogos nicator]

They need to be changed, not drastically, but enough so that rams and seige towers have a very good chance of reaching the walls. Actually, siege towers are fairly ok, they reach the walls often enough that I have to station some troops nearby to deal with them. However I don't take the rams into account at all because the chance they reach the wall is miniscule. When the wall has some archers around the chance of the ram getting to the gate is 0%. The siege towers also set fire more often than not with archers around. Ladders are the only sure way for the AI to get up on the wall, unfortunately they are the weakest way of doing it. They aren't as good as they are on M2:TW.

Having more siege towers/rams/ladders isn't always that effective for the AI because there are towers all over the place and even if one or two do get past the defences, they would've suffered enoumous casualties from the towers.

Totaly agree

[Caesar Augustus]

Personally I voted for the farm animal option because I think that would be friggin' awesome!

I think towers do need to be toned down a little though. When stone walls are in place, rams NEVER reach the gate. Siege towers are hit and miss, and towers always succeed but with high casualties.

Is there a way to increase the amount of damage siege equipment can take?

[GraaEminense]

Without tower attacks, city walls become only a minor obstacle unless the defending army is almost as strong as the attacker. Kind of removes the point.

I don't care so much about the ram not reaching the gates -city gates being near impregnable is fair enough to me. The AI just needs to buy towers instead of ladders, and perhaps use more than a couple.
As with many things, the problem is AI preferences. If there is no other way to make it a credible threat, turn off the towers. Should be the last option though.

[pannonian]

Tower power is too much, it's true.
But while such strength can do
The hurt of a ballista crew,
The length of a fight
Depends less on might
Than the AI's utter lack of a clue.

[Caesar Augustus]

Tower power is too much, it's true.
But while such strength can do
The hurt of a ballista crew,
The length of a fight
Depends less on might
Than the AI's utter lack of a clue.

I love that! +rep

[RonaldRus94]

i think there should be change and attack should be continued

[Quinn Inuit]

That was indeed awesome, but I just rep'd him so I can't do it again.

Here's what I can do with the towers: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=201429
It looks like I can make the attacks weaker. Also, if I change the angle, I can make it partially or completely unable to target enemies.

[Mogan]

Well, as it is, I generally avoid doing a rushing siege as the towers are decimating my men without proper planning. I mean, without them, the AI would still make a fool of himself, getting lost in the city, while the player will have a walk in the park taking enemy settlements. We should have had the Medieval 2 system where the towers only shoot with allied troops nearby, but oh well.

Btw, I've seen an reinforcing AI army building a ram.

[Wien1938]

It would be nice if towers had a garrison which could be killed by storming. It is too easy to capture a tower as the attacker and use the free firepower to cut down AI counterattacks.

[Needs New Name]

The biggest problem I have seen is that attacking forces can actually use the towers against the defenders. If a human is defending, its not a big deal, but the AI just doesn't know to stay away, they run back and forth in front of the towers. I personally play without tower missiles at all, as it makes it harder for me to defend against AI attacks, although slightly easier to take cities. The difficulty in taking Tower using walls is negated as soon as I capture the towers, and then I can use them against the defenders, which is the worst part IMO. I find that I can get around them far more easily than the AI, the AI taking far more casualties in doing so. If none of the towers could fire into the city I suppose I might turn em back on... Outside, the AI has gotten better at staying back, but I notice that the unit who brings the ram up still just stands in front of the gates until the main assault. So I say turn them off.

[Quinn Inuit]

It would be nice if towers had a garrison which could be killed by storming. It is too easy to capture a tower as the attacker and use the free firepower to cut down AI counterattacks.

That would definitely be nice.


You know, it would be possible for me just to disable the internal firing of towers by messing up their firing angles. Bit of a pain, but possible. Would that be better than disabling it entirely? I'm still concerned that they shred attacking AI armies too easily, though.

[Remlap]

Well from my own work with walls, I can tell you that the AI gets ripped apart by them at the current speed. You best bet for giving the ai a chance is to lower them and reduce the angles. But creating the collision files is indeed a pain. Hope this helps you

[Needs New Name]

That would definitely be nice.


You know, it would be possible for me just to disable the internal firing of towers by messing up their firing angles. Bit of a pain, but possible. Would that be better than disabling it entirely? I'm still concerned that they shred attacking AI armies too easily, though.

I think they take out attacking AI armies too easily also, that's why I have disabled them I still would probably keep them off completely, but not firing inside WOULD be better than normal.

[Quinn Inuit]

??? I think we're talking about different things here. I was thinking just from a tower perspective...wall editing hadn't even crossed my mind. Do you think things are so bad that we need to lower the walls?

[Veliky Kaiser Theos]

Keep the overpowered towers. It makes up for plenty of other things i.e. overpowered siege tower bolts decimating my soldiers, the inability of soldiers to drop things on soldiers climing ladders, etc.

[Remlap]

??? I think we're talking about different things here. I was thinking just from a tower perspective...wall editing hadn't even crossed my mind. Do you think things are so bad that we need to lower the walls?

Ahh Sorry I took so long to respond, what I discovered whilst learning walls is that the angle and projection for walls are determined by the .info file for them. To be specific, there are two isosceles triangles which run vertical and horizontal. The width determines the angle at which they can shoot, and inadvertently the distance to where they can hit enemies. The AI likes to camp inside the vanilla firing distance. You can also reduce the firing rate in a text file but that won't decrease the range iirc. But I could just be saying crazy things and misunderstand what you were talking about.

[Quinn Inuit]

Yeah, the inability to target docked siege units is annoying. FWIW, though, I'd remove the siege tower attack if I removed the tower attack.

[Quinn Inuit]

No, it doesn't sound like you're saying crazy things...any communications problems are probably on my end here.

So, are you saying that these isosceles triangles control physical aspects of the walls themselves, or just the firing angle (and therefore the range) of the wall's weapons?