Construction researched but no siege workshop

[Bringa]

Hi,

I am playing a multiplayer game as Ljosafar. I have researched construction, but the city menus don't offer me siege workshop as an option. The civopedia mentions no other prerequisites for the siege workshop. Am I doing something wrong, is this a bug, or is there some information missing from the 'pedia?

 

[Azragaul]

Elves cannot build siege equipment.

 

[Bringa]

Oh... okay. Does it say so somewhere in the pedia?

 

[Silverkiss]

Dont know, but if it does it problaby says in the Lsojalvar area in the Civilization tab.

 

[Bringa]

Nope, nothing in there. Is there somewhere I should report this? Aesthetic issues?

 

[cephalo]

Nope, nothing in there. Is there somewhere I should report this? Aesthetic issues?

Still nothing in the civilopedia on this. Being a new player, I'm wondering what to do without siege gear. Are elves just supposed to shatter waves of men upon the walls, and get comfortable with with a body count many times higher than the enemy? I know there must be a better way, it would be nice if it was mentioned in the pedia.

I've got a nice size army of mithril armed swordsmen ready to take on the dragon city next door, and though I hate to admit it, morale among the ranks is low.

 

[White Elk]

This is something I wish would change. Ways around it are building the Pact of the Nillhorn and using the Hill Giants to batter down their walls. Or blast them with Fireballs.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The "the Age of Ice has Ended..." pop-up at the beginning of the game includes a short strategy guide (for most if not all civs that are playable, but not for those that require slight xml changes toy become playable yet, like the Svartalfar or Sidar, or for Infernal/Mercurian, since you would never see this screen anyway when you switch to their civ mid-game). Some of these may be a bit outdated (I don't think they have been updated since "Light," so they may not be the best Guide in "Fire" or "Shadow"), but the Elves strategy is alright.

This guide specifically tells at the start of the game that you can't build siege workshops or siege units, and suggests you invest in fire magic so that you can use your Mages' fireballs and your Archmages' meteors as siege equipment. If you intend to take a lot of cities, I suggest you take hat advice (actually, fire magic is a better choice than siege weapons for most civs, since it is cheaper and more mobile; I rarely build siege units in FfH anyway unless I'm playing as a Dwarven civ. The building isn't worth building very often; I think it should also allow assigning an engineer specialist to make it more useful)

 

[BeefontheBone]

Unless you want chariots, of course, which also require it

 

[Dalamir]

When you've got mages with fireballs and Flame Pillar
And there are plenty of other mounted units to fill the gap chariots leave.
Work with what you've got, and learn to love it

 

[MagisterCultuum]

thats why I said "very often." It is one of those buildings that it is good to have 1 of, but not worth it to have more than one.

Still, I'm not sure it is worth it for Chariots; sure it would be for War Chariots, but they don't require that building.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I've never built a siege weapon in ffh. When I play Khazak I'm so far ahead I just terrorize my enemies with HN shadows and assasins. Much more fun and no responsiblilty.

 

[White Elk]

I sometimes like to build siegecraft just for flavor and roleplaying. Just using Mages is efficient and versatile, but I grew bored of being stuck with that strategy. In this latest game I wanted to play the Ljosalfar without building any Fire Nodes. I was playing on Nikis-Knights map and was going to wait for fire until after I took it from the Clan of Embers. But I ended up building a fire node eventually. I wish the Elves at least had a collateral damage archer which came as early as catapults do. But I also think they should have a wall sapping unit or spell. Perhaps the Priest of Leaves could have a spell which caused vines to weaken city defenses.

 

[Thonnas]

Why not Sappers! A weak (easily assassinated), early siege unit (crafting?) with low bombardment (1 or 2 %) useful to everyone early in the game, but if the elves want to play siege warfare later, they'll need an army of sappers to break through walls and heavy culture. Not to mention the mounted units they'll still probably need to soften the defenders.

Essentially, elves shouldn't have anything with wheels, but that shouldn't mean they don't know how to take out a wall.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Why not Sappers! A weak (easily assassinated), early siege unit (crafting?) with low bombardment (1 or 2 %) useful to everyone early in the game, but if the elves want to play siege warfare later, they'll need an army of sappers to break through walls and heavy culture. Not to mention the mounted units they'll still probably need to soften the defenders.

Essentially, elves shouldn't have anything with wheels, but that shouldn't mean they don't know how to take out a wall.

The elven sappers could be upgraded (with nature mana) to a more advanced sapper whose spells weather the rock and make it crumble.

At first i laughed when i saw them. Without siege weapons, how are they ever going to get through this pass? Had i known better i would still have my arms left.
But i suspected something. Their confidence aroused fear in us. That might be the only reason why we survived.
--
The sound of the mortar beginning to crumble was the first signal of what was coming
--
The rock had aged centuries in a few minutes, falling apart under our feet as if a tempest forced it to yield.

 

[Caradoc]

Problem is that the 'pedia and wiki both have many entries that are just pieces of lore. These are delightful to read but not particularly helpful to new players. There are too many things that you have to learn the hard way and that leave you confused.

 

[TheJopa]

The elven sappers could be upgraded (with nature mana) to a more advanced sapper whose spells weather the rock and make it crumble.

From design standpoint they don't get siege, to compensate better archers and building in the forests etc. Giving them sappers would just break that and make this change meaningless. I like it the way it is.

 

[zxcvbnm]

Problem is that the 'pedia and wiki both have many entries that are just pieces of lore. These are delightful to read but not particularly helpful to new players. There are too many things that you have to learn the hard way and that leave you confused.

It's not wiki nor 'pedia, it's my own work

From design standpoint they don't get siege, to compensate better archers and building in the forests etc. Giving them sappers would just break that and make this change meaningless. I like it the way it is

Did you read the sapper proposition? Is says 1-2% siege, that's not much, and as fireballs are dangerous in forest,i don't think it's overpowered if they get a national unit (limited to 3) 5% sieging sapper

 

[Thonnas]

From design standpoint they don't get siege, to compensate better archers and building in the forests etc. Giving them sappers would just break that and make this change meaningless. I like it the way it is.

I don't particularly like the idea of their sappers getting better, as the whole point is that if they intend to siege a city, it will require a lot of work, but the whole point of having sappers is to make siege at least possible (as an alternative to having mages with fire, which is somewhat contradictory to their nature). Saying that having sappers would break the character of the civ is a bit extreme. For one thing, they can have siege through the use of fire sphere mages or the 3 Nilhorns, this would just be a way for non-warmongers (who surely would want fire sphere) to be capable of taking the occasional city from a pesky neighbor without having to throw waves of mounted units and legions of melee units against a brick wall. It would just allow for more flexible play strategies.

 

[Demus]

i'd rather have their druids/conjurers summon treants with a small bombardment bonus (picking up boulders and throwing them). would seem more in line with their nature, compared to digging under a stronghold (more of a dwarven thing)