Massive units and Siege Weapons

[WarKirby]

I'm currently toying with the idea of significantly tweaking "Mega units". Things like Hill giants, dragons, Meshabber, mythril golem, etc. One idea I want to try, is giving them a weakness to Siege weapons. Normally, cannons and catapults are generally only useful for attacking cities, as individual troops are too small a target.

With something that's 200 feet tall though, hitting becomes less of an issue, and so I'd like to make Siege weapons more effective against such things.

My initial idea, was simply to give them a massive weakness against siege weapons. But I'm running into a few issues.

Firstly, in FF (maybe FFH too. I haven't played anything but FF in a long time) siege weapons are implemented in such a manner, that they have a very low base strength, but a massive city attack bonus. Making them essentially useless in the field. Catapults for instance, have 1 strength. Cannons only have 2.

So given this, I was thinking about making large units have a massive weakess, like -75% against Siege weapons. It may seem like a lot, but considering that they don't get above str 2, it isn't really.

However, there are a few spanners in the works. First and foremost. Some siege weapons have a bonus to "city strength". Logic says this would apply to both attack and defence, which would make attacking cities containing siege weapons suicidal for big units. That's not quite what I'm intending here.

Another big oddity, is that Cannons (and only normal cannons) have 6 defensive strength. But still 2 attack. This seems freakishly overpowered compared to other siege weapons, and would make them a hard counter to big things, which is not what I want. Oddly, the Khazad UU Dwarven Cannon does not have this 6 defence strength, leading me to believe it's a bug, or oversight.

Also, is there any way to differentiate between ranged attacks from siege weapons, and ranged attacks from archers?

So I suppose, to summarise, my questions are thus.

1. Is the 6 defence str for cannons intended? or a bug. and also, if intended, what is the reasoning?
2. Can anyone provide ideas on how to make siege weapons more effective against big units, without making them impossibly powerful. Ideally, I want it so that things like Meshabber are still going to have high odds of victory against a cannon, but that they'll suffer more damage than attacking say... a champion.
3. Is there any way to differentiate between the ranged attacks? Making ranged attacks from siege weapons only, do more damage to big units, would be a perfect solution, but not one I know how to do.

I suppose, to simplify, I'm trying to make big units more like the "tanks" of erebus. Practically impervious to small arms fire (normal units) but more vulnerable to heavy weapons (siege) due to being big and slow.

I'm trying to do xml modules for FF here, so solutions that don't involve delving into python would be heavily preferred.

 

[Revolutionist]

I certainly am liking the image of some monsterous creature towering over the forests and hills, with huge rocks pelting it from all sides, while most of the army uselessly mills around its feet breaking their swords against it.

And I don't know about anyone else, but it seems like I rarely bother with siege weapons. It always seems better just to tote around a few mages. They have a lot more utility, and don't slow everyone down so much. And if you're using force spells to speed them up, you're probably toting mages with them anyway. So at least in my games, I would love to see siege units getting some kind of boost.

The city strength is definately the issue though. On attack it's not as big a deal, units less weak to siege would just step in to take the brunt, rather than the big bad. But the defense is trouble. Who uses siege for city defense anyway? I'd rather suicide them into the stacks outside the gates to get the collateral damage. And does ranged fire remove the fortification bonus these days?

 

[WarKirby]

Who uses siege for city defense anyway? I'd rather suicide them into the stacks outside the gates to get the collateral damage. And does ranged fire remove the fortification bonus these days?

the AI uses Siege for city defence. Very often.

Siege for city defence actually seems like a good idea to me, dependant on what you're facing. Position a cannon on top of your walls where enemies can't get at it while you blow them to pieces, and it seems like you can't lose.
If the enemy had a 100 foot tall giant in their ranks, I know I'd much rather have a single catapult than an extra 30 swordsmen.

Ranged Attacks now do NOT remove fortification bonus, which is a good thing, I think.

 

[Revolutionist]

Oh, I'm not criticising the RP reasons for having siege weapons on your walls. I'm talking about the purely crunchy mechanical reasoning of the fact that they suck at it, especially in FF, where you can train garrisoned archers, so they can actually pick up some useful promotions.

But.. ranged attacks without losing the fortification bonus kind of mitigates any lack of usefulness. At that point, the more arrows and rocks you have vomiting out of your city onto the opposing troops, the better.

Regardless, if it weren't for the AI using them for city defense, I would advocate removing the defense bonus for them altogether, since I doubt it would be missed. But anything that handicaps the AI further is a bad thing.

 

[Deon]

if you remove the defensive bonus and give them proper UNITAI_ATTACK I think AI won't use them as defence.
However this makes no sense for cannons because this is a usual tactic: to set up a cannon battery for defence, and it's really hard to get to them.
Much easier with catapults, they are bad at attacking moving targets.

 

[WarKirby]

I don't have a problem with the city strength stuff, per se. My main issue is that siege weapons are going to be useless outside of cities, against big things

If I make them strong enough against big units in general combat, then they're goign to be horribly overpowered when cities become involved.

Personally, I'm not liking the tiny strength, massive city attackl, system that they work on

 

[JimMorrison]

I don't have a problem with the city strength stuff, per se. My main issue is that siege weapons are going to be useless outside of cities, against big things

If I make them strong enough against big units in general combat, then they're goign to be horribly overpowered when cities become involved.

Personally, I'm not liking the tiny strength, massive city attackl, system that they work on

Well it makes perfect sense for Catapult, and Trebuchet. These engines were not moved intact, and realistically had no use in pitched field battles, so it's like their minuscule combat value is for the crew.

However, cannons were mobile in a nearly fire-ready state, so the system breaks down somewhat at that point.

And of course, the image of people rolling up some catapults to fire upon some titanic monstrosity, is just priceless - and almost, in my eyes, cool enough to warrant a departure from reason.

 

[zup]

And I can see Eurabatres sneezing once and the entire group of catapults burns to ashes.

 

[WarKirby]

ok, I have another question, partially related to this, so I didn't want to start a new thread.

Are there any xml tags for adjusting a unit's resistance (or weakness) to ranged attacks? Either to modify the damage done per attack, or alter the maximum damage cap.

Specifically here, I'd like to experiment with making big things more vulnerable to ranged attacks, being that they're a big target and not so easily capable of dodging.

 

[xienwolf]

No such tags. There might be some modifiers (mostly typed damage) which don't apply during ranged combat which could simulate a weakness to ranged (by applying a strength to everything else), but none made that way on purpose. Could be interesting as a new tag idea though...

 

[WarKirby]

Vehem once mentioned possibly adding a "Tower Shields" promo, that would increase ranged attack resistance, so presumably it was planned?

A promotion based modifier to damage limit and ranged damage, to the reciever, would be a very good pair of tags to add.

 

[Vehem]

1. Is the 6 defence str for cannons intended? or a bug. and also, if intended, what is the reasoning?
2. Can anyone provide ideas on how to make siege weapons more effective against big units, without making them impossibly powerful. Ideally, I want it so that things like Meshabber are still going to have high odds of victory against a cannon, but that they'll suffer more damage than attacking say... a champion.
3. Is there any way to differentiate between the ranged attacks? Making ranged attacks from siege weapons only, do more damage to big units, would be a perfect solution, but not one I know how to do.

1. Nope - should be 2 - added that to the patch earlier.
2. Add a promotion to any unit that you designate as "big" - giving a significant weakness to UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE, possibly with a balancing strength vs UNITCOMBAT_MELEE (-50% or -30% vs siege, depending how powerful you want siege to be vs them, and +20% perhaps vs Melee?). This is better than allowing the Siege a benefit against them, as it doesn't require you to stack with the city bonuses (you're altering the other half of the equation). Most "big" things are still going to be able to clobber a cannon in the open however, but their ranged strike is going to be significantly more powerful per shot if the opponent's strength vs them is halved...
3. This is pretty much covered by 2 - the siege would still be weak enough to be defeated pretty easily when attacked directly, but if you protect the siege unit with something else and lob some big rocks/cannonballs at the enemy, it'll do more damage due to the target's weakness.

 

[WarKirby]

2. Add a promotion to any unit that you designate as "big" - giving a significant weakness to UNITCOMBAT_SIEGE, possibly with a balancing strength vs UNITCOMBAT_MELEE (-50% or -30% vs siege, depending how powerful you want siege to be vs them, and +20% perhaps vs Melee?). This is better than allowing the Siege a benefit against them, as it doesn't require you to stack with the city bonuses (you're altering the other half of the equation). Most "big" things are still going to be able to clobber a cannon in the open however, but their ranged strike is going to be significantly more powerful per shot if the opponent's strength vs them is halved...

This sounds like a decent solution, but I think cities are still a problem.

For example, a str 7 hill giant. With a -50% weakness to Siege weapons. He should still be able to defeat a str 1 catapult easy enough in a city.

But if he's attacking a catapult in a city, or even if a catapult attacks a city he's in, he'll have 3.5 effective strength versus the catapults....4, is it? from attakcing a city. That would allow a catapult a pretty confident chance of victory.

And if cannons are brought into the picture, I can see big units having some serious problems when it comes to cities.

Why exactly are Siege weapons done the way they are? I can understand the desire to make them mostly only useful against cities, but a cannon would still be pretty devastating to an infantry formation.

To be honest, I think the ideal implementation for siege weapons, would be to give them all 1 str, and no bonuses. Instead, allowing their ranged attack to do collateral damage, and damage city defenses. Essentially, making them purely ranged attack-oriented, like artillery. Doesn't this seem a more logical approach ?

 

[Vehem]

This sounds like a decent solution, but I think cities are still a problem.

For example, a str 7 hill giant. With a -50% weakness to Siege weapons. He should still be able to defeat a str 1 catapult easy enough in a city.

But if he's attacking a catapult in a city, or even if a catapult attacks a city he's in, he'll have 3.5 effective strength versus the catapults....4, is it? from attakcing a city. That would allow a catapult a pretty confident chance of victory.

And if cannons are brought into the picture, I can see big units having some serious problems when it comes to cities.

Why exactly are Siege weapons done the way they are? I can understand the desire to make them mostly only useful against cities, but a cannon would still be pretty devastating to an infantry formation.

To be honest, I think the ideal implementation for siege weapons, would be to give them all 1 str, and no bonuses. Instead, allowing their ranged attack to do collateral damage, and damage city defenses. Essentially, making them purely ranged attack-oriented, like artillery. Doesn't this seem a more logical approach ?

Simply because Siege weapons are most useful in Siege situations. The example given does actually make sense - a hill giant should find it difficult to climb over/smash through the wall whilst being pelted with giant rocks or blasted by metal balls.

Given how late cannons are on the tech tree, I'm not too worried about their Strength 8 (or 10) being overpowering. Hill Giants are pretty much outdated there anyway, and the likes of Dragons will still find them easy to defeat provided the dragons have some levels before they attack (cannons struggle to become more powerful in defense due to the lack of promotions for it).

In the field, you get one or two shots if you're lucky before the enemy close in (that's the ranged attack). If you're besieging or assaulting a city, there's going to be a constant rain of artillery on you as you try to break in. The siege engines are a real obstacle to be dealt with before you can take the city. Simply allowing a single ranged shot on the defenders turn under-values siege weapons in city defense.

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On the offensive side, you have the choice of using siege from a distance to soften up the defenders and city defense with ranged attacks, or moving them up close to blast apart enemy formations. Obviously the "up-close" option carries significant risk (the unit may lose and die).