Problems with Walls

[Deathkorpsman]

I'm not certain which of the things I'm going to discuss are part of the base mechanics of the game and which have been tweaked in RTR, as my memory is a bit fuzzy as to what was actually in vanilla RTW. It has been several years since I've played an un-modded version. Given that, these are some observations I have about wall mechanics that may or may not be fixable which I've noticed enough times to be be able to remember. That in itself is a feat.

Backstabbing towers - Most towers fire pretty indiscriminately in the general direction of the enemy and it is part of war that my guys may be hit if they wander into a fire lane. However, there are "Almost Corner Towers" which I'll call ACT's in this thread, which are particularly annoying. Actual corner towers have no rear, so they have no rear arrow slit. This means they can't shoot up any of the tightly packed and immobile units fighting on a wall. However, ACT's are not quite on the corner, so their rear slit is facing almost directly down a wall's battlement. This means that if I need to defend a wall section next to it, that my guys are going to be getting shot up. If my guys get pushed between the tower and the enemy, then my unit(s) are taking pretty much all the hits. This is bad mojo. I believe this is the reason that towers on straight sections don't have side arrow slits. Is there a way to prevent ACT's from forming on a city's wall?

Once on the wall, everyone is a hero - Morale on walls is pretty unrealistic, even in terms of the overall game system. If a unit is losing 4 guys a second while they are all on their own, with the general (if there is one) halfway across the map, outnumbered, by fear causing units, and being shot with flaming arrows, they shouldn't die to the last man without breaking. It is extraordinarily rare that I see an assaulting unit actually break and try to flee while on a wall section. If this is intentional, it is pretty weird. Defending units seem more heroic, but not nearly as crazy as assaulting units. Even defenders seem like they can be whittled down to almost nothing before they decide to break. Which reminds me...

Broken units getting stuck on the walls - This one is pretty self-explanatory. Definitely a bug, because if this is an intentional game mechanic then someone is weird. Seems to happen with both attackers (if they ever break) and defenders whenever they break on a wall. I don't remember this being the case in vanilla, but I could be mistaken (often).

The "pushing" mechanic - I can see that there is one, but haven't read any explanations of it that I can recall. Since assaulting units never break, you have to kill them all to force them off your battlements. Kinda stinks, but at least it is straightforward. The weird thing is the 'push' mechanic. The more troops I have pushing against an enemy unit on the walls, the faster that enemy unit will die off. It seems that it is faster than the number of guys able to strike would account for, especially when it is inferior troops against elite ones. Also for units defending against ladders, it seems that they do way better at repulsing an attacking unit if you order them to charge the instant before the first attacker clears the parapet. I don't know why this is, because their attack speed doesn't change, but getting them to attack from the first moment is just murder on all the troops following up the ladder. But I've seen in game that waiting a moment or two longer has a huge negative impact.


Just to be clear, this isn't a criticism. I think this mod is jaw-droppingly awesome! These are just some observations I've had about walls. I have read some of the mods posting about walls being pretty hard to work with, but if any of these observations bring up something new or interesting then I'll be happy. Keep up the good work gents!

[Hannibal Baca]

@Deathkorpsman,i agree whit you wall mechanich in game engine is kind of wierd and unrealistic.
Some thimes when my soliders get in city by help of spy once in the settlement they wont to climb on the walls unless i send archers first.
I hope that Deathkorpsman's problem will be fixed i am shure that this is hapening to all RTW players,hope someone will find the solution.

[Deathkorpsman]

I agree Hannibal, the movement mechanics inside a city in general and around walls in particular is very erratic. I remember this being an issue in vanilla as well, so I'm not sure how much can be done about units moving around with walls. A unit having to queue up before they'll enter a tower, or spread out down the length of a battlement trying to get from place to place, is a bit frustrating. This is mostly manageable, as long as we keep a sharp eye on everyone who is trying to move around the walls and correct them if they get confused. lol Another fun and very frustrating habit of troops is to try going down scaling ladders to attack an assaulting unit. If I have specifically told them to attack an enemy unit, but that enemy doesn't use all the ladders due to casualties or weird positioning, my units will occasionally go down the ladder to get to them (getting mauled in the process). I have to watch defenders VERY closely at all times. Micromanagement FTW!

[Hannibal Baca]

I forgot to mention that units fall off wall when i select a target on ground,i lost elite legionares ,wanting to attack Chironian Agema .
Edit:
Maybe we can make a petition for CA to fix wall problem,or it can be fixed by editing wall pathing.

[Zom]

I recommend that whenever possible you do not defend your city on the walls, but in front of them. I prefer to attack the seige force before it has built its ram/towers/ladders by bringing out my entire army and whittling them down with my missle troops. I try to goad them to approach my infantry waiting under the walls and supported by my ballista towers.

I am often quite successful in getting a few impetuous units trapped and cut to pieces. It is not uncommon for me to rack up 30% casualties on the enemy to 5% for me.

When the attacker has his equipment and assaults me, I leave my missles on the walls, but send out my infantry and cav to engage his tower/ram/ladders in front of my walls. The longer the ram/tower is stationary, the better chance it will be sent aflame. The hardest part is to damage the ladders. Getting the units that carry them to drop them, and allow one of my unengaged units to sneak over to them to damage them on the ground is tricky. Once you have stopped, burned, and damaged all the equipment, the attack ends and you can withdraw back into the city.

This method does not work every time, but does work more times than not. It is better than spreading your forces thin to defend multiple points on the walls, especially with the way the assault teams will not break. They will break on the ground before your walls.

[Caligula Caesar]

There isn't a great deal we can do about it. Siege battles are clearly flawed. It was always far too easy to defend, and with RTR's unit balancing, you can actually just play for time if you have that turned on. One thing that I do know how to solve is the troops following down the ladders. Simply put your men on the walls on guard mode and they won't follow routing units.

[Deathkorpsman]

It isn't routing units they follow. It is whole, assaulting units. It doesn't happen all the time, but whenever a ladder isn't being used for some reason (like a follow-up unit that doesn't approach it squarely and leaves a few ladders on one side empty), the defending troops will scale down them to get at the enemy. It's actually kind of funny when it happens now, since I should know better and watch all my units like a hawk during a siege, but there it is.

[Hannibal Baca]

Guys played seidges whit ALX for several times and got no mistakes,if RTR choud convert it to ALX problem will be solved.
EB guys figured that ALX have all BI fuctions and vanila you just need to add missing files.

[Maurits]

We know, but we only have one retired team-member capable of creating a stable port. Therefore, we decided to continue development first. When we have released a more or less stable and finished version, we will ask him to create the Alex port. It's a bit pointless to create 5 ports because of new patches being released.

[AngryTitusPullo]

We know, but we only have one retired team-member capable of creating a stable port. Therefore, we decided to continue development first. When we have released a more or less stable and finished version, we will ask him to create the Alex port. It's a bit pointless to create 5 ports because of new patches being released.

If you're planning to add Suebii as a horde then it cannot be ported to Alex.

[Hannibal Baca]

OK tnx Maurits cant wait for final version.

[Hannibal Baca]

LestaT ALX has all bi fuctions .
He shoud support hording coz it is newer.

[AngryTitusPullo]

LestaT ALX has all bi fuctions .
He shoud support hording coz it is newer.

Nope. Alex do not support horde and some BI features like swimming IIRC.

[Hannibal Baca]

Yes it does just add hording script,i rimember that i saw units swim in Alex.

[Maurits]

The Suebi have been revised, they will be released as a different German tribe holding some regions in the upper north of the renewed map

[Deathkorpsman]

I've come to the unfortunate understanding that not much can be done about three of the points I was concerned about in the original topic, but I was wondering if there is anything that can be done about this fourth one?

Backstabbing towers - Most towers fire pretty indiscriminately in the general direction of the enemy and it is part of war that my guys may be hit if they wander into a fire lane. However, there are "Almost Corner Towers" which I'll call ACT's in this thread, which are particularly annoying. Actual corner towers have no rear, so they have no rear arrow slit. This means they can't shoot up any of the tightly packed and immobile units fighting on a wall. However, ACT's are not quite on the corner, so their rear slit is facing almost directly down a wall's battlement. This means that if I need to defend a wall section next to it, that my guys are going to be getting shot up. If my guys get pushed between the tower and the enemy, then my unit(s) are taking pretty much all the hits. This is bad mojo. I believe this is the reason that towers on straight sections don't have side arrow slits. Is there a way to prevent ACT's from forming on a city's wall?

I've made it clear that I don't do coding, so I don't know what fixing this would require if it is possible at all. I have seen posts about walls in other threads which point out that the dev who really knew walls isn't working on the project anymore. Are there any changes that can be made to walls in this version or are we just going to make do with what we have? It isn't that big a deal, but I have had it mess up some battles in the past. Having it fixed would be super.

As to the hordes thing, if they are going to be added in then I don't think as many large rebel forces are strictly necessary. Again, not a big deal, but it might unduly penalize some border kingdoms depending on where the hordes are going to start. Many of them already have some less than ideal starting positions.

Best regards,

DKM