Battering ram and walls: some rebalancing needed??

[Vincent_lacruz]

On this forum I keep reading that battering ram is too powerfull and makes catapult not only inefficient but siege tower also...

As for the wall, there is no incentive to build medieval walls, and even less medieval (yep, I'm looking at you Georgia, even with the low boost you got in GS...). Not only you can't buy them, they only offer some meager defence that you don't really need (if your wall is to fail agianst an attack, you won't gain much with an higher tier wall...)

I feel that both those problems are tied, and coul be solved in a rather nice way:
- Ram or higher works on ancient wall
- Ram are ineficient (or half power) against medieval wall, siege tower 100% efficient
- Siege tower ineficient (or half power) against Renaissance wall
- Catapult efficient against all level of walls (if it survives...), but idealy a new tier of siege weapon should exist, a trebuchet, tied for example with "machinery" (maybe too soon after engineering...) or "military engineering".

It would be more representative of the true arms race that existed between more efficient siege weapons and walls, and give an incentive to build better walls.

 

[Hans Castorp]

Those are very good ideas.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I agree - very logical approach that would give good incentive to increase your walls.

 

[Bearmanjew]

I like this except for the siege engine in between catapults and siege towers. I personally like the reduction in number of unit types, and it fits with the "new unit in every other era" pattern (catapults are classical, bombards are renaissance, one era skipped). I would rather just give catapults a bit more survivability in the form of ranged defense. Alternatively (or additionally), grant bombards a bit earlier. Renaissance walls are treated very weirdly anyway in game: they were only developed historically in response to the effectiveness of cannons against the old style of walls, so they shouldn't be equal tier tech with bombards, and they are supposed to cost a ton because of how different they are, but realistically don't cost as much as they ought.

So all told, in addition to your adjustments to rams and towers I would make:

• Catapults great against ancient walls, meh against medieval walls
• Bombards great against medieval walls, meh against renaissance walls, treat ancient walls as basically not existing
• Bombards granted at least one tech level/tier earlier, maybe two (not era, but whatever the columns of equivalent tech levels are called)
• Renaissance walls cost a fair bit more, possibly to scale somewhat with the population

This would make attacking the outskirts of a nation pretty dependent on the military but taking over a truly fortified city would be really a hard fight given that nothing is truly effective against renaissance walls until artillery shows up. Which isn't ahistorical, the new fortifications introduced in the renaissance were so complex and effective it took between three and four hundred years for them to be rendered obsolete.

 

[Sostratus]

A domrey is a unique trebuchet in terms of stats in the same way that redcoats are unique riflemen.
Adding trebs would not only be top meme flavor for advertising, but it would make the domrey useful.

We have to consider the downstream effect of making people build medieval walls: catapults only have 35 strength, medieval wall cities can easily get 50. How well do xbows do vs muskets? The go pew pew. Catapult v str 50 city is the same- except Walls have much much more health than normal units do. You would be chinking away and getting murdered by returning fire.

I agree that siege units need to get the attribute naval ships have and resist 50% of ranged attacks. (-17 penalty.) The AI focus fires siege units anyways.

Which isn't ahistorical, the new fortifications introduced in the renaissance were so complex and effective it took between three and four hundred years for them to be rendered obsolete.

If we have 1-2-3 wall levels we should have 1-2-3 siege units; and for game flow you usually want something to be available at least as early as its counter. It's not historically correct but, I think that comes more from Renn Walls not actually being star forts.
Unfortunately the defense rating scheme for cities is so wonky that some of this is moot. It might be better if walls actually set the defensive health and combat rating of a city, and then having a garrison would come into play.

and it fits with the "new unit in every other era" pattern

Now that we have a resource system, I really debate the merit of keeping so many unit gaps (they originally said they wanted them to 1: keep units around longer - this is a false argument - and 2: force players to switch up their armies. Resources achieve 2 better than gaps do.) I mean before GS only like, 40% of the possible units in the main few classes existed.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

We have to consider the downstream effect of making people build medieval walls: catapults only have 35 strength, medieval wall cities can easily get 50. How well do xbows do vs muskets? The go pew pew. Catapult v str 50 city is the same- except Walls have much much more health than normal units do. You would be chinking away and getting murdered by returning fire.

I agree that siege units need to get the attribute naval ships have and resist 50% of ranged attacks. (-17 penalty.) The AI focus fires siege units anyways.

Yep, this is my main problem with catapult. They are so damn brittle, they generally are ineficient even against ancient walls... The need to wait a full turn before firing because they moved generally mean the city/archers fire first, wounding the catapult almost 50%. So when they fire, not only do they do it at reduced power, they only get one shot before being killed. Most of the time they can't even get that first promotion before dying...

Moreover, attacking with multiple catapult is wonky, because:
- Catapult are expensive, and you might prefer a swordman+battering ram for that price (and with battering ram as it is now, you do...)... Especially since the AI doesn't focus on the battering ram...
- As explained before, catapult are brittle, so attacking with multiple catapult only mean something if all of them are put in range at the same time. Not always feasible depending on the landscape (trees, hills) or enemy units.
- They need line of sight, so there might not be several firing spots...

Giving them a -17 resist against ranged attack might do the trick (or at least -10, since "Crew Weapons" give 7 defence, at -24 they would be near invulnerable, and we don't want that either). That would give back light cavalry its title of of anti-siege units (they do have Coursers as a promotion after all...), and force the sieged player to actively attack catapult, and not just enjoy clay pigeon shooting...

If we have 1-2-3 wall levels we should have 1-2-3 siege units; and for game flow you usually want something to be available at least as early as its counter. It's not historically correct but, I think that comes more from Renn Walls not actually being star forts.
Unfortunately the defense rating scheme for cities is so wonky that some of this is moot. It might be better if walls actually set the defensive health and combat rating of a city, and then having a garrison would come into play.

Here I don't really agree with you. Not on the units (I do feel there is to much of a gap between catapult and bombard for the reason I said just before), but on the defensive value of walls. Right now, when attacked, you can buy/upgrade your most advanced unit to buff your walls (somewhat). It prevents surprise war using fast unit out of vision range to take your city in 2-3 turns (well you gain a few turns, at least..). And it can give you an idea of the capabilities of your opponents, since you can only see his tech level, not actual tech researched (there is a gap between an opponent who has just "banking", and one that has "gunpowder").

There should however be a buff to the city defence rating with higher level walls, in addition to the health level. But either a small one (+5), or one tied to the garrison (double/triple garrison bonus). After all, these walls ARE a heavy investment...

 

[Sostratus]

But either a small one (+5), or one tied to the garrison (double/triple garrison bonus). After all, these walls ARE a heavy investment...

I suppose this is really what I was getting at. The city defense rating equation is very opaque. I think some improvements could be made. For example: perhaps we have the base defense rating set by the level of walls. Since these come in a rapid sequence of eras, we could make them 35/45/55, say. The wall level could also influence the ranged attack strength- maybe 25/35/45. Then we could have a garrison effect (city rating is the maximum of wall value+5 for garrison or the garrison strength itself.) This really only matters if you out-tech your wall infrastructure or do not defend your cities at all. Walls still give massive HP bonuses so they aren't trivial constructs. Numbers are an example. Right now it's a combo of strongest unit + num of districts+ maybe a pop effect? It's a wacky carryover from civ5.

Basically I think city defense strength needs some clearly communicated rules as well as a system that is easy to tune. Tying defense strength to wall level is one way to make it easy since you know that medieval units will be attacking medieval walls, etc.