Siege Units

[NTJedi]

Saber Cherry said:
Siege weapons had no long-term value. Nobody carried battering rams and siege towers from city to city, at least in countries with trees. All I know indicates that they're universally constructed on the spot (though I'm not an expert on the subject).

That was true for simple siege equipment during the earliest uses, but further into medieval times the equipment was built and then moved. In the 4th century BC engineers in the armies of Philip of Macedon and of his son, Alexander the Great, built mobile siege towers which were taken on campaign.

Saber Cherry said: It might be interesting to add grappling-hook special forces, or wall-climbing ninja, who can attack inside a castle during a siege...

Would be interesting to watch units scale the walls... maybe Dominions_4.

Saber Cherry said: but mobile siege units is more "Warcraft" than "Dominions".

My last warcraft game was Warcraft_2 which was over 5 years ago. My point is in relation with history and the only time fortifications haven't seen siege equipment was around 2000BC and earlier. Since Dominions has 3 unique eras it seems only logical for siege equipment to exist within at least one of the eras. Siege units were part of history for many nations and since many aspects of Dominions is from history their existence seems only logical.

[Saber Cherry]

I can see siege weapons used defensively - immobile national units, somewhat like Watchers, except shooting stones and bolts... in addition to the free ones from the castle towers.

According to Wiki:

Used throughout antiquity in both the Far East and Europe, siege towers were of unwieldy dimensions and therefore mostly constructed on site of the siege.

[/quote]Catapults were usually assembled at the site of a siege, and an army carried few or no pieces of it with them because wood was easily available on site.

[/quote]

Most of the other articles don't say. Trebuchets were almost certainly immoble. Battering rams are so simple that they were almost certainly built on-site. But the article on ballistae seems to indicates that there were various types, some boat-mounted or even wagon-mounted. However, those aren't really siege artillery IMO, so much as anti-personnel artillery.

The stone projectiles themselves varied in size, and could cause immense damage to city walls in their way, while the arrows could kill several men at once.

I suspect that the mobile ones used arrows and the ones that used boulders were strictly immobile... but, I don't know for sure.

[Argitoth]

Duuuuuudz... well I am going to agree with Cherry, it is kinda unrealistic to carry catapaults around. At best, the movement of an army with a catapault should be 1 and cannot go past forests and mountains, swamps, etc. Only farms and plains. But I do like the idea of building catapaults on site.

I GOT AN IDEA!!!!1

Create a commander, name him something like: Head Catapault Engineer. Make it so the HCE has a leadership of like 5 (can only control 5 units) and if it's possible, make it so he can only command units called catapault engineers. The number of catapault engineers decides the number of.... omg this is not a good idea.

For 1 thing, each turn is a month. Another thing, it usually took 5 days to construct 1 catapault. Not sure if it's 5 days in a construction yard or out in the middle of a forest near a castle, or with 5 people or 50... not sure.

Or we can ignore history and say the number of catapault engineers commanded by a head engineer = the number of catapaults you will have during your next battle divided by 5. So every commander + 5 units = 1 catapault during your next battle. And the engineers don't fight in battles if they are the attacker. Only if they are the defender.

... ok... kinda messy, but whatever!

[Endoperez]

That sounds a tad too complicated. Maybe we should simplify it a bit.

1) If one commander can build a castle, normal workers are probably available anywhere.

2) Thus, the units that actually build the catapult are available everywhere.

3) We only need a commander. This commander could be named "Master Catapult Engineer" or "Siege Engineer".

4) Every Siege Engineer should give a bonus for breaking down castle walls. I think 25 would be a good value. Siege Engineers should be able to lead few units, which can emulate the warriors operating the catapult or just guarding it from enemy attacks against it (assassinations). If you really wanted to play around with the idea, I quess we could give the Siege Engineer no fighting equipment, but high resource cost, like 50 or so. And this is very, very Ulmish; they already have Sappers and Guardians and Lord Guardians and - oh, Siege Engineers already exist!

Isn't it nice when the developers are ahead of us?

[Edi]

I love seeing a good smackdown, and that one was classic, Endo. The existing mechanics cover he siege engine issues quite well, as any engines are assumed to be destroyed if the attacking army retreats and abandoned or used for firewood/reconstruction if they win.

The only thing the existing system does not cover in the abstract are ballistas. Those would be nice, but they'd also probably slow any army down to a crawl, and we don't need all the extra graphical fluff that showing the siege engines would entail.

Edi

[Saber Cherry]

Edi said:
The only thing the existing system does not cover in the abstract are ballistas. Those would be nice, but they'd also probably slow any army down to a crawl

Still, they could be immobile - a defender's perk.

[Endoperez]

Pythian, Ermorian and Abysian castles have Ballistas in their towers. Most nations have shortbows, few crossbows/arbalests.

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
That sounds a tad too complicated. Maybe we should simplify it a bit.

1) If one commander can build a castle, normal workers are probably available anywhere.

2) Thus, the units that actually build the catapult are available everywhere.

3) We only need a commander. This commander could be named "Master Catapult Engineer" or "Siege Engineer".

All the way to this point sounds great and logical. With the siege engines actually built and seen it will make the sieging of a castle more realistic. And step #2 is where the unit is created.
--one side note is that in wasteland it should be more difficult in building siege engines.

Endoperez said:
4) Every Siege Engineer should give a bonus for breaking down castle walls. I think 25 would be a good value. Siege Engineers should be able to lead few units, which can emulate the warriors operating the catapult or just guarding it from enemy attacks against it (assassinations). If you really wanted to play around with the idea, I quess we could give the Siege Engineer no fighting equipment, but high resource cost, like 50 or so. And this is very, very Ulmish; they already have Sappers and Guardians and Lord Guardians and - oh, Siege Engineers already exist!

It's not the engineers which toss the boulder it's the catapult. With this current setup there's no way to target the actual siege engines... you could only target individual units which each make a percentage.
Also it would make the battles much more interesting to see different catapults from different nations which hurl boulders or diseased animals across the battlefield. Your suggestion does not make this possible.

[Endoperez]

NTJedi said:

All the way to this point sounds great and logical. With the siege engines actually built and seen it will make the sieging of a castle more realistic. And step #2 is where the unit is created.
--one side note is that in wasteland it should be more difficult in building siege engines.

Your sidenote is reflected by the province's resources.

Why should the siege engines be seen? We can presume they are already built, because we agreed that the siege engineers aren't throwing boulders on their own. I thought we already agreed in that the siege engines won't do any fighting.

May I quote your second post in this thread?

Yes of course they'd be useless on the battlefield... their whole purpose is to storm the castle more quickly. The reason for their appearance on the battlefield is so that people trying to break the siege can destroy siege units.

They wouldn't hurl anything in the battle, would they? And if they aren't in the battle, where else should they show? They aren't actual units with hp, they are tools with which the (unseen) workers bombard the castle walls and the defenders. Unless some kind of siege animation is added, we never see what is done to the castle walls. And siege animations can't be done with two-sprite graphics, and can't be pre-generated when any imaginable and many unimaginable combinations of soldiers and monsters can exist in both the besieging and the defending army. The Siege Engineers have an icon for their Siege Bonus. It is a stnoe-hurling device of some kind IIRC.

NTJedi said:
It's not the engineers which toss the boulder it's the catapult. With this current setup there's no way to target the actual siege engines... you could only target individual units which each make a percentage.

We never see anyone hurling the boulders, so your first point doesn't come up.

Destroying individual catapults would also only make a percentage of the total siege value, into which the units and the other siege engines would still effect. I don't see what you are trying to say with that.

With the current setup, it is possible to try to disable the individual commanders (Siege Engineers, or Catapults) which are most efficient at sieging; if the catapults were units instead, they couldn't be assassinated. Because of this, I think it's better to have the siege engines be commanders instead of units - otherwise it would be harder to try to disable the catapults.
If we make the catapults be commanders, the effect would be exactly the same as changing current Siege Engineers' graphics into that of a squad manning a catapult. That can be done, but it is then only a matter of taste. Illwinter have chosen to have siege engineers instead of catapults.

Also it would make the battles much more interesting to see different catapults from different nations which hurl boulders or diseased animals across the battlefield. Your suggestion does not make this possible.

Again, I thought you mentioned the catapults wouldn't be seen on the battlefield. At least they won't be of any use in the battlefield, and are only there because they have to be with the army. That's exactly what the Siege Engineers do ATM. It seems that you want a Siege Engineer to look like he was a dozen or so catapults, which can be destroyed individually. But what use would that be? The Siege Engineer can always build new catapults, so he has to be killed any way.

Are you sure you don't just want the Siege Engieers' effectiviness be based on time he has used besieging and the resources the province has?

[Oversway]

I thinking sieging should be a mini-game where you have to mash your keyboard buttons as fast as possible: the faster you press the quicker your siege engines load and fire.