Siege Towers, Flaming arrows, and Workers

[skillasaur]

Siege towers were common throughout history. Why not have them in Civ4? Here is my suggestion for implementing them:

1. A siege tower itself has no strength value attached to it. It is immediately destroyed if attacked and it cannot attack anything (similar to a worker). If the seige tower is to survive, it must be stacked with other units (which will do the fighting). Read: stacked, not loaded. The siege tower does not have a carrying capacity.
2. If a siege tower is adjacent to a city, then any infantry units attacking from the square it is sitting on are not affected by the city defenses (walls or castle).

You could argue that the siege tower should have a cargo capacity, and that units should be forced to attack from inside the siege tower in order to gain the advantage. However, this just makes things more difficult for the human player to manage, and the same effect can still be achieved. For example, say the siege tower has a cargo capacity of 3 units. I can still attack from it with 5 different units in 1 turn if all 5 units occupy the same square:

1. Attack with unit 1 from siege tower
2. Move unit 1 out of the siege tower
3. Move unit 2 into the siege tower
4. Attack with unit 2 from siege tower
etc...

This process can just be repeated until all of the units have been exhausted. If this is a problem, then the siege tower could just require 1 movement point in order to enter its cargo hold (even if the unit is in the same square as the siege tower).

Another common weapon in history was flaming arrows. This could be an upgrade or an entirely different archer unit. It should have bonuses against wooden units such as catapults and siege towers.

My other idea is to allow workers to construct things that can be used in battle. For example, a worker could utilize a nearby forest to build a siege tower or scaling ladder. This would be quite difficult to implement and would probably be unfair...but it is something to think about.

 

[Junglecutter]

It'll be to unfair if you have to many siege towers...
I think there should be a limit of 3 towers and max of 2 units/tower

maybe there should also be battering rams....jus a thought

 

[skillasaur]

I don't really think it would be unfair to have a ton of siege towers. You can have a ton of catapults, stacked with other units, and get the same effect. In fact, you would be better off because you would have units with you that can actually attack and give collateral damage, rather than a defenseless tower.

However, I retract my previous idea of not giving siege towers a cargo capacity. Siege towers SHOULD have a cargo capacity because otherwise they would be too difficult to destroy. Requiring units to attack from WITHIN the siege tower will prevent them from defending the siege tower. To defend the tower, players will have to stack the square with extra units. In addition, entering the siege tower should absorb all of a unit's movement points for the round, and only infantry units should be able to enter the tower.

 

[Mewtarthio]

I don't really think it would be unfair to have a ton of siege towers. You can have a ton of catapults, stacked with other units, and get the same effect. In fact, you would be better off because you would have units with you that can actually attack and give collateral damage, rather than a defenseless tower.

But you need to spend a ton of resources to get enough catapults to drop a city to 0% defense in one turn, while your siege tower idea only requires the resources of one unit. Your later idea, in which the siege towers must be loaded, helps to mitigate this, though. Still, I don't think it's at all realistic to have siege towers ignore city defenses: It's a whole lot easier to pick off guys running through a very specific tower than it is to pick off guys running at you from all sides.

 

[Jaca]

What about -5% city defence after an attack as extra part of the City Raider I(I) promotion, and -10% city defence for the City Raider II(I)? You may "sacrifice" those raiders but in the process decrease city defence.

Jaca

 

[skillasaur]

But you need to spend a ton of resources to get enough catapults to drop a city to 0% defense in one turn, while your siege tower idea only requires the resources of one unit. Your later idea, in which the siege towers must be loaded, helps to mitigate this, though. Still, I don't think it's at all realistic to have siege towers ignore city defenses: It's a whole lot easier to pick off guys running through a very specific tower than it is to pick off guys running at you from all sides.

Good point. Maybe it would make more sense to give units inside the siege tower a small penalty, such as -10%, since they must come out of a small opening. Alternatively, you could just give them the usual penalty that is given to units that are attacking across a river or from a cargo ship.

Again, the disadvantage of a siege tower is that it cannot attack. Catapults are still VERY useful for causing collateral damage on stacked units in the city once the defenses are destroyed. The siege tower would not be able to do this. I would consider 2-3 catapults MUCH more valuable than any number of siege towers, even though it may take more than 1 turn to destroy the city defenses.

 

[skillasaur]

What about -5% city defence after an attack as extra part of the City Raider I(I) promotion, and -10% city defence for the City Raider II(I)? You may "sacrifice" those raiders but in the process decrease city defence.

Jaca

This is a pretty intuitive idea, as well. In reality, a siege tower becomes most effective once troops are able to get onto the castle walls and push back the enemy. Therefore it may make more sense to reduce the city defenses FOR EACH ATTACK that is made on it, though I don't think that having a city raider promotion should be necessary to achieve this affect.

 

[Agarwaen]

There are siege towers! I saw one when attacking with a melee unit agaist a walled town in Warlord xp (just an animation improvement though)

 

[PMabey]

there are siege towers in warlords. i think they appear if u have a city raider promotion. i may be wrong

 

[skillasaur]

I don't own warlords yet, but from what has been said, it appears that the siege towers are just animations. I am proposing a controllable unit that can be used strategically.

 

[ahab_in_rehab]

Um not sure about compeltely bypassing city defenses, makes cat bombardment reduntant. With only 4 trebs you can now completely eliminate a city's defenses in on one turn which is a bit too quick for me. I'm not sure I'd welcome another unit that would make it even easier. I like the way its just an animation at present.

Wrt Flaming arrows, I don't think a new unit would be required, just make a new "greek fire" type promotion available to archery units that would enable them to do say 10 - 20 % collateral damage. Not game breaking but may be worthwhile. It would be very nice if the damage was done whilst defending to the attacking stack, would help to eliminate SOD