On Sieges

[DesMarekle]

I just had three defensive sieges in one turn and noticed some things that might need changing, although i am absolutely unsure if those changes can even be achieved or if CA has to work on that.

1. Defense Artillery
First of all, Scorpions are utterly useless. Secondly, defensive artillery does not fire on its own, it has to be manually controlled to do anything, which seems weird.
EDIT: In the battle I am currently in, it seems that defensive artillery fired on its own in the beginning, but when i had taken manual control once, the respective piece stopped acting on its own.

2. Deployment Areas
It would be nice to have deployment areas extent beyond the walls, in case one would like to place troops outside the walls to beginn with. And especially with defensive deployables (spike traps, barricades and so on) available, placing them outside the city walls would make more sense.

3. As already adressed in that one big thread, the name of which eludes me right now, the AI does not lay siege properly. Having them build different stuff like battering rams and siege towers would be nice, as well as having them actually lay siege at all, instead of just always attacking right away. It might be that i am being besieged by slaves all the time, but i have never had an enemy army attempt to starve a town for some reason.

Ceterum censeo, where can i find the table determining public order penalties from slave population???

[Rafkos]

2. Deployment Areas
It would be nice to have deployment areas extent beyond the walls, in case one would like to place troops outside the walls to beginn with. And especially with defensive deployables (spike traps, barricades and so on) available, placing them outside the city walls would make more sense.

It's almost impossible to achieve that, we would have to edit all the maps and write our own coordinates. Without having a proper tool it would take me my entire life to finish

3. As already adressed in that one big thread, the name of which eludes me right now, the AI does not lay siege properly. Having them build different stuff like battering rams and siege towers would be nice, as well as having them actually lay siege at all, instead of just always attacking right away. It might be that i am being besieged by slaves all the time, but i have never had an enemy army attempt to starve a town for some reason.

Actually AI is laying siege for at least 2 turns, I believe slaves are messed up, thanks to CA.

[DesMarekle]

It's almost impossible to achieve that, we would have to edit all the maps and write our own coordinates. Without having a proper tool it would take me my entire life to finish

Ok, I thought so, nevermind then

Actually AI is laying siege for at least 2 turns, I believe slaves are messed up, thanks to CA.

I see and stand corrected then!

[Blasphemer.]

Actually AI is laying siege for at least 2 turns, I believe slaves are messed up, thanks to CA.

Exactly, in my campaign AI never attacks without waiting (except slaves). Sometimes starves the city and if it's port city it means 7-8 turns...
I think the only problem is AI can not use siege equipments (besides ladders) and siege units. I do not remember that my walls are breached, ever.

[Rafkos]

Also, watch towers will be fixed in the next update, here's one of the changes I'm working on atm:
- towers are now more deadly, their projectiles have little knockback effect too.
There will be ability to burn buildings with torches/projectiles too!

[Alexandre Lange]

Could you remove fire from tower arrows? It is weird to see when it rains, and it's not necessary even when it's a dry day. And, as tower arrows make much more damage, is it possible to make it fire artillery bolts instead of arrows?

[Rafkos]

Could you remove fire from tower arrows? It is weird to see when it rains, and it's not necessary even when it's a dry day.

Well, it doesn't really matter if it rains or not, these archers are in a close room, and believe me, it's hard to extinguish an arrow with a burning pine resin on it

And, as tower arrows make much more damage, is it possible to make it fire artillery bolts instead of arrows?

Well, it's weird indeed, these towers have only 2 archers each and yet they're almost as good as a whole unit of archers. Please tell me if you have any ideas about it, it is possible to replace arrows with everything.

[Augustusng]

The defensive towers of higher level cities already fire artillery bolts though, and they are incredibly deadly. I think we should leave that as an upgrade.

[Blasphemer.]

The defensive towers of higher level cities already fire artillery bolts though, and they are incredibly deadly. I think we should leave that as an upgrade.

Please don't decrease the damage or fire rate I especially research construction to have those scorpion towers. Really helps when outnumbered.

[Dudok22]

One thing I would like is button to tell your towers to stop shooting. so many casualties by friendly fire.....

[Butan]

One thing I would like is button to tell your towers to stop shooting. so many casualties by friendly fire.....

^


And if we can tell them to stop/shoot it would be nice to target with them too. But I fear it must be really hard to mod.

[Rafkos]

I think the only problem is AI can not use siege equipments (besides ladders) and siege units. I do not remember that my walls are breached, ever.

Well, it does use other siege equipment. Maybe changes I made for the next update will fix it.

[Blasphemer.]

Well, it does use other siege equipment. Maybe changes I made for the next update will fix it.

Only builds galleries and does not even use them in my campaign. That would be great, thank you!

[NYG 5]

Well, it does use other siege equipment. Maybe changes I made for the next update will fix it.

I almost myself when they knocked down one of my gates with a battering ram in my campaign

[Rafkos]

Only builds galleries and does not even use them in my campaign. That would be great, thank you!

I will remove them completely for the AI

[KAM 2150]

As for arrow towers I might have a solution. Since you can make shot multiple arrows per weapon, we can make arrow towers to shot 10-20 arrows with damage a little bit higher then regular archers or even with the same and of course reduce current fireing speed. That way it would look like the tower is manned by quite big team who rain volleys of arrows on their enemies.

[Sealhuntah123]

As for arrow towers I might have a solution. Since you can make shot multiple arrows per weapon, we can make arrow towers to shot 10-20 arrows with damage a little bit higher then regular archers or even with the same and of course reduce current fireing speed. That way it would look like the tower is manned by quite big team who rain volleys of arrows on their enemies.

Sounds like a great solution, but if possible i really think its cooler if the tower does not fire 20 arrows at a time, instead a continuous stream of arrows. Having watched some siege footage from Attilla the towers are firing 15 arrows massed together and it really looks like a turret from League of Legends more than anything, looks ridicilous imo :p Makes more sense that the archers would take turns firing.

[DesMarekle]

Honestly, I rather like the towers as they are now ... in vanilla towers were absolutely OP, i avoided attacking fortified armies because i would suffer horrible casualties from those whimsy little watchtowers in the corners ... pleeeaaase don't make them more powerful

[Rafkos]

Honestly, I rather like the towers as they are now ... in vanilla towers were absolutely OP, i avoided attacking fortified armies because i would suffer horrible casualties from those whimsy little watchtowers in the corners ... pleeeaaase don't make them more powerfu

Don't worry, they will be just a little bit stronger

[Kristoff]

BTW, I've stormed Massilia not long ago - it was a level III city by then with some defensive artillery as indicated. But - and I was looking closely - I've nowhere seen those artillery pieces on towers and didn't noticed any exceptional casualties on my side that could be caused by them. Possible bug or maybe AI has to physically man certain towers to get defensive artillery working?