An idea for siege asualts

[QJ95]

Something that the team has proberbly allready realised is that Vanilla M2TW, are quite unrealistic. For intance it is impossible to believe that that a thick castle wall can be breached by a catapult in only two or three minutes or for a early cannon to render thick walls nearly useless and someho open up a perfect space for cavalry and infantry to make it through, seeing as it could take weeks or months to properly breack through a fortification and even that path into the castle may not be viable. Also after an unsuccesful assualt Vanilla M2TW has the assualting force flee as far as possible, while in reality, if the seige assualt did not incur too high a casualty rate they could just have easily carried on besieging their enemy and wait for another chance to assualt the walls.

My idea for the DotS team is twofold, firstly the team could try to beef up the strength of a castles walls so that even if the player has siege equipment they will fiund that the walls will not fall straight away, and maybe also the walls should not create a cleary accesable path for cavalry and some infantry forces. My second idea is a little more complicated, seeing as i dont know if the results are hardcoded, the idea would be that after a unsuccesfull assualt the attacking army would not flee as far as possible, but would instead stay at the site of the siege and be able to launch another assualt the next turn, which would in a way try to recreate the attacker assualting the defenders walls repeatedly to sufficiently demoralize and weaken the defenders to allow them to capture the castle.

Thanks for listening hopefully my ideas have helped the team in some way otherwise thanks for listening to my ramblings anyway

Good luck with the mod and remember that your fanbase are really pulling for you guys, this mod is going to be the best for and Total War game. I really can't wait.

[JorisofHolland]

I'm afraid both things aren't possible because they are hardcoded. Even if the first would be possible, it'd take quite some time to create the proper models etc.
I'm not on the team though, and far from an expert on these things.

[QJ95]

Thanks for the reply, I had a feeling someone would say it way that

but i think the strength of the castle walls can be beefed up by lowering the damage dealt by siege weapons

Ever way Dominion will be the best mod i've played, and i cant wait for it to be released

[Resurrection]

As Joris has pointed out it's mostly hard-coded. However settlement defences will be upped significantly in DotS so walls should be a considerable obstacle in assaults but more because of tower fire rather than their thickness as that might be more historical but ultimately would be just boring. If you break eventually in single battle than there is little point in making it resist 5 shots rather than 10 if catapults and such have them. And having to have more than one siege weapon for this might cause problems for the AI not realizing it...

Anyway the draws in sieges which would result in attacker not retreating could be achieved with using timed battles so after the time runs out and neither side won the draw is imposed on the conflict. However it is not realistic in field battles and I am not sure it could be scripted to change automatically between the two so one would have to do it manually depending on the battle which is about to be fought.

[QJ95]

Thanks for the reply, to be honest i didn't realise that wall strength was hard codedalways thought that a mod team only had to code in a value .... lol shows how much i knowshifty:

What about the retreating after an assualt, i always found in Vannlla the assualter would flee half the map and sometimes missout their own freindly settllments, maybe in DotS, because of the amount of PSF's, the assualting army can simply retreat to a friendly PSF close to them

Sorry if it sounds like im nagginglol i have a feeling the mod team have proberbly already heard my ideas before lol anyway thanks for listening to my ramblings

[Rabenrecht]

Thanks for the reply, to be honest i didn't realise that wall strength was hard codedalways thought that a mod team only had to code in a value .... lol shows how much i knowshifty:

Its not hardcoded. Wall, Tower, Gate etc. hit points can easily be changed. But as Resurrection has put it, just doing so won't necessarily make for a more realistic or fun siege gameplay.

[Ghazi Warrior]

Thanks for the reply, I had a feeling someone would say it way that

but i think the strength of the castle walls can be beefed up by lowering the damage dealt by siege weapons

Ever way Dominion will be the best mod i've played, and i cant wait for it to be released

the thread points out very interesting and essential feature to make gameplay more similar as things were done in real history. and it would not make gameplay boring but interesting and challenging. as we see in history that wall strengths played major role in victory of defenders even with low numbers.
-->> lowering the damage dealt by siege engines will also decrease their efficiency for non-siege battles(another odd thing).
-->> i think the best idea is increasing the damage power and number of arrows fired by towers as one friend had said above alongwith increasing the walls strength. this will make the things proper.

again, the feature will not made gameplay boring, at least as i think

[Cambyses]

the thread points out very interesting and essential feature to make gameplay more similar as things were done in real history. and it would not make gameplay boring but interesting and challenging. as we see in history that wall strengths played major role in victory of defenders even with low numbers.
-->> lowering the damage dealt by siege engines will also decrease their efficiency for non-siege battles(another odd thing).
-->> i think the best idea is increasing the damage power and number of arrows fired by towers as one friend had said above alongwith increasing the walls strength. this will make the things proper.

again, the feature will not made gameplay boring, at least as i think

The issue is that if the wall thickness is increased beyond the point where a single catapult can knock a hole in it, then the AI may not necessarily take this into account before deciding to assault. i.e. there may be many battles where the AI attacks, you wait in the castle, the wall is not breached and the AI leaves. That will not be a popular experience with most players.

Also, my personal opinion is that there are many aspects of warfare as portrayed in this game that are not realistic. The sieges have a lot of "gamey" features to them. It will never be the case that all these features can be corrected. What is important is that the game is balanced and that the AI will act in a challenging manner for the player. I would hope that these two considerations are given more value in the minds of the modders than "realism".

[Chevalr1c]

Indeed, trying to add "realism" will be tricky in many ways, including but not limited to getting issues with the BAI.

[sim0b]

Just hope that SLING Cow is still in there! If the AI is any good then it will be perfect! SORTED!

[Ghazi Warrior]

The issue is that if the wall thickness is increased beyond the point where a single catapult can knock a hole in it, then the AI may not necessarily take this into account before deciding to assault. i.e. there may be many battles where the AI attacks, you wait in the castle, the wall is not breached and the AI leaves. That will not be a popular experience with most players.

Also, my personal opinion is that there are many aspects of warfare as portrayed in this game that are not realistic. The sieges have a lot of "gamey" features to them. It will never be the case that all these features can be corrected. What is important is that the game is balanced and that the AI will act in a challenging manner for the player. I would hope that these two considerations are given more value in the minds of the modders than "realism".

very right. these things also matter