[Idea] Real siege weapons

[Lord Olleus]

I just came up with this idea so it might not make much sense.

I think that it would be really good if before you attack a city you could spend gold (and time) building siege equipment, like battering rams, ladders, siege towers and stuff like that. These weapons would 'tag' along with another unit and give it a bonus when attacking a city. These siege equipment would be destroyed after the attack (even if it is sucsessful) and can not move. Also you should not be able to use them in the same turn that you have bought them, in order to force players to plan ahead.

To make the game fair for the defenders they should be able to spend gold to regain some of the city's cultural defence, which was destroyed by bobardement. This should be capped at 20% of what it already has, and should not be able to exceed the normal level of defence. ie, a city has a defence of 80%, but this is bombarded down to 60%. In the defenders turn, the player can spend gold to raise it back to 72%. The turn after that he can spend more money to put it back to full but it cannot exceed 80% (unless the culture grows or a wall and castle is built)

What do you think?
The only problem is how could this be implemented in the modern age.

[Andrew_Jay]

I like the idea of having seige equipment "tag along" with a unit. That alone would be an interesting change. I don't like sending Catapults on suicide missions either, but this would create a way for the Civ3 and Civ4 models to meet in the middle.

You'll no longer have artillery attacking with complete impunity as in Civ3, but you don't constantly sacrifice them either as in Civ4.

Rather, you'll do something like this:

At the start of the turn, pair the Catapult with a Maceman. Maceman attacks (and could end up destroyed if it loses) while the Catapult lends an attack bonus and collateral damage, but doesn't actually attack itself (and doesn't risk being destroyed). So you still have to risk a unit for each attack, but it doesn't seem quite as silly.

[Crighton]

Originally Posted by Lord Olleus

I just came up with this idea so it might not make much sense.

I think that it would be really good if before you attack a city you could spend gold (and time) building siege equipment, like battering rams, ladders, siege towers and stuff like that. These weapons would 'tag' along with another unit and give it a bonus when attacking a city. These siege equipment would be destroyed after the attack (even if it is sucsessful) and can not move. Also you should not be able to use them in the same turn that you have bought them, in order to force players to plan ahead.

To make the game fair for the defenders they should be able to spend gold to regain some of the city's cultural defence, which was destroyed by bobardement. This should be capped at 20% of what it already has, and should not be able to exceed the normal level of defence. ie, a city has a defence of 80%, but this is bombarded down to 60%. In the defenders turn, the player can spend gold to raise it back to 72%. The turn after that he can spend more money to put it back to full but it cannot exceed 80% (unless the culture grows or a wall and castle is built)

This kind of sounds like renting a City Raider promotion to me. Get the unit there, spend $ to get a bonus when attacking the city, takes X $ and Y turns before it can be used, lasts only Z turns after purchase. I'm sure some clever python coder could make this simplifid version up. And would probably take a bunch of clever people (hint hint firaxis people pay attention) to go the whole hog with graphics and all for yours.

[TheLopez]

Originally Posted by Lord Olleus

I just came up with this idea so it might not make much sense.

I think that it would be really good if before you attack a city you could spend gold (and time) building siege equipment, like battering rams, ladders, siege towers and stuff like that. These weapons would 'tag' along with another unit and give it a bonus when attacking a city. These siege equipment would be destroyed after the attack (even if it is sucsessful) and can not move. Also you should not be able to use them in the same turn that you have bought them, in order to force players to plan ahead.

To make the game fair for the defenders they should be able to spend gold to regain some of the city's cultural defence, which was destroyed by bobardement. This should be capped at 20% of what it already has, and should not be able to exceed the normal level of defence. ie, a city has a defence of 80%, but this is bombarded down to 60%. In the defenders turn, the player can spend gold to raise it back to 72%. The turn after that he can spend more money to put it back to full but it cannot exceed 80% (unless the culture grows or a wall and castle is built)

What do you think?
The only problem is how could this be implemented in the modern age.

Hmmm... I really like this idea, especially since it would give early great engineers another action.

[Lord Olleus]

Well if we have Lopez on our side how can we fail?
I guess that the only way to do this is too create a new screen, similar to the mercenaries one (hint, hint), but buy weapons their.

I also think that this sounds like the city raider option but more advanced. Maybe it could even replace the city raider. Actualy i think that would be a bad idea as this is just a one-turn-bonus for those really tricky cities with lots of culture on top of walls. Making the weapons relatively expensive, 100ish gold, people would be unwilling to use them easily.

[jimbob27]

I like the idea of siege weapons being attached to units. Its made me think.... the could modify the mechanism from the total war games. For those games you had to position units outside a city, and choose what siege weapons you wanted, then waited a few turns for them to get built.

It wouldn't work for the modern day.... but thats how they did it in ancient times. Siege weapons weren't built in friendly cities, they were built from the tree's just outside the target city.

Maybe if the units could have an engineer promotion, then they could wait outside the city for a few turns and/or use some gold to build some siege equipment in the field. There could be several types, like a battering ram would give a bonus against city defence, a balista would give a colatteral damage bonus..... etc.

To prevent it becoming overpowered, you could either make the siege equipment expensive, or.... (what I think would be better).... make the engineer promotion high up...... so only level 3 or 4 units could have this ability.