A controversial suggestion for improving the siege preparation step

[Totalgarbage]

Current siege engine construction and battle stage sucks. The attackers can't hope to compete with the defenders in this stage unless the defending fief has a siege workshop level of 0 and also is heavily outnumbered by the attackers (or the attackers get very good RNG). The option of putting siege engines in reserve however tilts the power to the player (not the AI) too heavily. My controversial solution would be to a)Removing the option of putting engines in reserve altogether, b) being able to construct trebuchets in either the battering ram or the siege tower slot (not both) rather than the onager/ballistae slots where the trebs won't be targeted by the defenders but be limited to only 1 or 2. I'm not sure if the trebs should focus the defender siege engines or the walls first. I don't even know if this even is possible without too much effort and I'm nut sure whether siege preparation will be enhanced much.

The idea in my head would be that without outside reinforcements, the defenders would be trapped and the walls would essentially have a timer, causing the defense to either try to hold out until reinforcements come or to sally out. This would also complement the settlement starvation mechanic in sieges. As a trade-off for the attackers, building trebuchets would cause the attackers forgoing building siege towers or a ram. If overwhelming reinforcements came to aid the defenders, the attackers would have to attack with ladders, increasing the risk of casualties or even loss.

Let me know if this proof of concept is worth pursuing or ****e altogether.

 

[Apocal]

I'm not sure if the trebs focusing the defender siege engines would be too one-sided for the attackers or not. I don't even know if this even is possible without too much effort and I'm nut sure whether siege preparation will be enhanced much.

No, it wouldn't.

It would just be adding an annoying extra step and waste of time to knocking down a settlement wall.

 

[Totalgarbage]

If anything if trebs focused on the siege engines then walls, the walls would probably fall faster, but yeah my suggestion might make the already meaningless step of siege prep more tedious.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

If anything we should choose what the trebuchets prioritize as getting rid of ballista is often all that matters and gear should go into reserve by default for plater and AI. The walls are not even helpful in live battle because of the AI's behavior at the ladders. You can obliterate them off the ladder areas and walls with ranged troops, but if walls are breached they are actually in a more protected spot on most maps..

 

[geala]

An interesting idea. Generally I'm more for entertaining battle and siege mechancis and don't care that much for the people who want to progress and win the game. So I'm not against more difficulties to siege and conquer, on the contrary.

The problem is at follows: trebuchets normally could not break walls. So the trebuchets in the game are very arcade placeholders for mines, the only reliable means to get down walls. Mines could be countermined however, so I don't like the fact that the attacker has an undestroyable siege weapon with your method. I like the removal of the reserve.

It could be part of a package, however. Broken walls shouldn't make the defense stronger. Walls should be more difficult to destroy and offer better protection for the defenders. Siege engines on the battlefield should be slower. Tier 3 walls shouldn't be attackable with ladders and offer access to only one siege tower. Defenders should be able to build the artillery they like, and also a mix of ballistas and catapults. The campaign map duel of siege engines should be more effected by skill and feats, so talented engineers could play a bigger role.

 

[Taveren]

If you remove the ability to put a trebuchet (or other siege engine) in reserve, it is:
- firstly not immersive (i.e. every 'real' commander would get his siege weapons ready before deploying them for maximum effect), and
- secondly, with the way the sieged settlement has advantage (able to start building siege defense engines immediately while sieging army first has to set up base camp), no sieging army would ever get any siege engines in play - the AI defense would target the single built engine and destroy it before a second one is even completed.
Making AI siege armies even more useless than they already are (I watched one of my faction siege armies build the same useless single onager over and over while having siege towers and battering ram built for what seemed like ages - several in-game days, and of course, the locals organized a defense army and captured all the idiots together. Then I took the same settlement in 1/4 of the time without even building any siege engines, just quick to use siege towers and ram with overwhelming numbers)).

Perhaps the algorithm should be changed to remove the ability to crack a wall with trebuchets, and add ability (as a perk) to have miners undermine a settlement wall and cause collapse - more realistic and cannot be that difficult to implement.
Then change trebuchets to automatically target siege defense machines, which is really the strategy to win anyway > clear the defense engines, launch siege towers and battering ram. You take a settlement in half the time with very little interference from the locals scoping you out and then organizing themselves into an army to come and annoy you.

The perk tree could be 1. (60) can build siege towers, 2. (100) can build siege engines, 3 (150) can deploy miners to collapse a wall.

 

[Totalgarbage]

All good suggestions, I agree that having an indestructible trebuchet is not really the best suggestion. One very easy to implement solution would be outright nerfing the siege workshop bonus to building siege engines to some extent, another would be something to do with food maybe; if food stocks are below 25%, halve the siege engine production or something?

Honestly though, being able to put siege engines in reserve is just terrible design. Even though the defenders do already put engines in reserve, the combination of trebuchets and reserve makes attackers unbeatable. The best way to fix the siege preparation stage either needs to nerf putting in reserve or buff the defense without it being too ridiculous, and I don't know how TW can do it realistically.