Can torches be nerfed now that Siege AI is less retarded?

[Cope]

Somehow...those ing torches always manage to ruin any siege improvements CA make to the game.

Latest example which made me madz:

- AI besieges one of my cities which is undefended with three stacks: fair enough, I have my cool new garrison to defend it.
- Since it has the instant ladders it decides to attack on the first turn: kind of annoying, but fair enough.
- The first army starts to move its ladders towards my walls to begin the assault: fair enough.
- AI's reinforcements appear on the battlefield as I knew they would...but everything goes tits up.
- The reinforcing army rushes two units of cavalry to the gate and starts to burn it down INSTEAD of waiting for the ladders - which at this point are still miles away from my walls - to do their thing.
- My gate is destroyed by the torches in less than one minute...with the actual siege equipment still nowhere near my city.
- Any improvements CA may have made to siege AI in their patch are made completely redundant within seconds.

Summary:

Even though the AI may now prioritize siege equipment over torches, this is only the case within single armies. Reinforcing armies do not prioritize the siege equipment held by another army: they just figure that since they have non, they had better turn to the so-called 'last resort'. Ergo, in any defensive siege battle in which the AI has more than one stack, the 'new siege AI' is becomes totally irrelevant.

More than this however, the very fact fact that torches are the most effective way of getting into a city irritates me beyond measure. Its faster and easier to burn a gate down than it is to ram it, use ladders or even ballistae. For something which is meant to be a desperate last resort...it certainly does not feel that way. Like many frequenters of this forum, I have always found torches to be cheap and infuriating, though because the AI was so stupid we had no choice to put up with them.

Anyway...since siege AI is drastically more proficient than it was with the equipment, I propose that torches be uber nerfed since the AI does not rely on them to get into a city. Since it is still not possible for torches to be removed because CA haven't bothered to implement a 'retreat' feature, I suggest that the time it takes for a gate to burn down is increased...vastly. I noticed in RTR, the time it takes for a gate to burn down is something like ten minutes - I think this is fair.

[Dresden]

I think an increase to the hitpoints of gates and walls is probably a good idea. Although I think we have increased them to some degree already if I remember correctly.

Edit: Apparently we didn't, I just think I had the idea a long time ago and never did it (since siege AI was so horrible)