[Siege] Battering ram is too op, siege towers are useless, ladders are ok.

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Ivan_Nikitin

Ivan_Nikitin

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To test things out i had several uncontrolled sieges as a member of AI army.

1. Ram + Tower.
As tower reaches the walls earlier than ram brakes the gates, all the ram's "personel" is running to the towers or even the ladders which is stupid. Then, when scripted 10 guys break the inner gates everyone start to get back and as the garrison is static as in warband and the squad defending the gates dont have their flanks covered they get slaughtered by the whole army, while no men or insignificant amount usue towers. Then AI just need to kill the rest of enemies which are either reinforcements or static archers on the walls.
2. Ram only
As soon as ram destroys outer gate all men start using ladders and as in the previous case they get back as the inner gate is broken by those script-brave men. Then it goes by the same scenario.
3. Tower only
The most ridiculous one. To begin with, Siege Towers are not used properly and usually when they approach the walls only one man climbs it and starts fighting while everyone else is thinking. Even tho my men were able to climb the tower and start the fight, static defenders were grouped up on the so tight that noone was able to pass through and all of attackers died trying. The only way around is to jump which AI cant do. At the same time, men who climbed the ladders were able to kill all the defenders on their side and go inside the city, tho died soon after trying to open the gates (idea is great, but unfortunately works really bad. One man opens the gate and runs away, immediately one defender runs to close it and noone really cares) and defenders regained control of the wall sector soon. Here are some pictures
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Here is how i think it should be:
1. Effectivness of siege equipment.
Ladders<<Rams<<Towers.
There are many examples in history telling that escapade (assault with ladders) is the bloodiest way to assault a wall. Right now i believe that they work pretty good and actually give you a chance to capture a settlement tho losing a lot of men.
Battering ram should be way less effective as people who go thru the gates can be easily killed by archers or just by stones thrown at them. I think there should be more of this in the game then it is right now (two men throwing stones lol). Also thus defenders who protect the gates should at least have cowered flanks or be less static as now they just dont really fight, they just stand and die. Gates should be harder to be broken with usual weaponry as it is in reality.
Siege towers should be much more effective then they are right now as they should be the most time-consuming but effective way to capture a settlement. Many men gather on the top of the tower and all together assault the wall, sounds pretty good.
2. Effectivness of defenders artillery.
While playing the game only once there was a situation where a lucky hit of defenders' artillery destroyed a Ram. I believe that AI should be able to handle artillery better so they could destroy 1 piece of attackers' siege equipment thus making it pointless to assault using 1 piece and making the settlements more defendable.
3. Big locations, small fighting areas.
Many cities and castles now have double walls or other fortifications that are not used. Now its just breaking the defenders and the battle is over, but it could be much more. Also miss keep fight from warband)

Here are my thoughts on sieges and what has to be changed about siege equipment, if you have anything to add or discuss - feel free, we are here for that.
P.S. I am not complaining about the game's issues, i know the game is in EA and i am really thankful for developers' hard work and i am patiently waiting for several things to be fixed and i believe that the game will be perfect.
P.S.S. Sorry, i am not great at writing, English is not my native language.
 
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I do agree with how bad the siege towers are, they are basically just a set of ladders on wheels.

The normal ladders are much faster to put up and do basically the same job, and half your army doesnt get killed by archers in doing so.

The siege towers in warband were superior as troops could wait inside them as they were moved towards the wall and then flood out at once, which is much more effective.
 
The ram saved my life when I sieged a city with only 110 guys and won with minimal casualties. I brought all my soldiers to the front gate and when the gate was destroyed I had them charge and effectively attacked from the inside out instead of funneling them up the siege tower I made or using the ladders. This made them avoid most of the arrows, and thankfully the city I attacked was mostly militia so the defenders were easily killed.
 
TheShinrog said:
The ram saved my life when I sieged a city with only 110 guys and won with minimal casualties. I brought all my soldiers to the front gate and when the gate was destroyed I had them charge and effectively attacked from the inside out instead of funneling them up the siege tower I made or using the ladders. This made them avoid most of the arrows, and thankfully the city I attacked was mostly militia so the defenders were easily killed.
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That's why it is OP, main gates should be the most protected area and any force trying to go thru should suffer a lot of casualties.
 
not in my book. I've seen them targeting my rams/towers quite often. As for towers, if my soldiers will keep behind it and use all 3 ladders on it, they will rush walls much faster. Issues with them loosing their heads do happen, but I did saw my troops using towers correctly. So it seems random when it comes to AI,
 
Just when I was beginning to wonder whether the AI even used siege engines in defence, an enemy catapult wiped out the ram I was helping to push to the gates. It'd go on to destroy the tower as well, even though it had made it to the walls. Ballistas seem less effective though.

But yeah, the towers aren't great at the moment. I totally go with the ladder-on-wheels notion, only in my recent experience there are three ladders and only one seems to get used, plus the attack is almost always repelled and/or abandoned quickly.

In my most recent attack; a massive Battanian horde conquering Sibir; the tower and ram made it to their destinations; the ram blasted through the outer gate; but then almost the entire 800-strong army went "sod that" and ran a good quarter of a mile around the outside of the city walls to erect some ladders and try there.

Another aspect of the AI that doesn't quite seem to work at the moment is when the defenders amass in a large mob to defend the main gate, they don't react well to attackers who have come over the walls in other places and attack them from the side - and by "don't react well" I mean "barely react at all".

Unfortunately, despite near-enough matching the recommended specs and having 32GB RAM, sieges are typically a laggy mess for me. Worst example was when, again, a massive Battanian horde was trying to liberate Marunath from a large Vlandian occupation force (it was the same battle with the catapult btw). I fell after making it over the walls so had to rely on the AI to finish the battle off for me. Despite the overwhelming number of Battanians, the battle wouldn't end because a group of about a dozen Vlandian troops had got trapped under some stairs. The friendly AI couldn't get to them, even after I sped up the battle, and the lag was getting worse and worse, to the point where the FPS were down to below 1. I had to God-mode the enemy to death one by one which I thought at one stage would crash my entire computer, the tax that seemed to be going on, but it worked and then suddenly, as soon as the last defender fell, the FPS shot back up to normal.
 
The biggest problem I personally have is that my men wont even climb the normal ladders, nor the ladders on the siege towers.
 
In one of the most recent sieges I participated in, my AI army commander built a siege ramp instead of a siege tower - and the soldiers seemed to do a MUCH better job of using that. However, they did reach the walls significantly before the ram took down the gates (and inner gates).

There's still all sorts of pathfinding issues with sieges. They are significantly better and less laggy since release, but still much work to do. Only using one ladder of a tower, and not filling/consistently climbing ladders (the first few soldiers are going to die, of course, but soldiers need to keep climbing and climbing and filling the wall - that's why they are assigned to those ladders). The soldiers reloading a catapult/trebuchet regularly run into me or other people on the siege engine, rather than go around us and properly put the stone in its

I'd like to see sieges, especially city sieges, take longer and require more commitment before they can truly begin but, that would require the AI to store more food in their settlements (and armies...). Most of the time, castles seem to be out of food in a few days, and armies have a little over a week (unless I personally brought a lot of it with me).

I haven't played nearly enough with formations when attacking a castle - definitely something I need to explore more.
 
Siege towers should have been filled by the men from the start and have men on the ladders ready to go. They’re weak because AI doesn’t wait for men to assemble at the top but opens the gate as soon as possible.
 
Hrulj said:
Siege towers should have been filled by the men from the start and have men on the ladders ready to go. They’re weak because AI doesn’t wait for men to assemble at the top but opens the gate as soon as possible.
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The problem atm though is if you try to stay climbed onto the ladders of the tower as its moving sometimes it flings you off and makes you fall down.
 
I find Siege Towers fine as they cover troops from incoming missiles. I think the issue really is that troops get stuck at the base when it reaches the walls, so instead of climbing and opening at once, they go in waves.

The battering ram right now is just broken because of how absolutely poor formations are. The defenders at the gate for some reason form a shield wall that doesn't even enclose around the second gate. Like what? It allows enemy troops to swarm around them or help out other places, and idk why they did this since the 2016 siege defense battle saw them charging to hold them at the gatehouse, which would allow remaining archers at the murder hole to plunge arrows and rocks down upon the enemy.
 
Yeah as soon as the inner gate falls you can just casually stroll past the defender's formation and start killing them from behind without any retaliation
 
enemy_man said:
Yeah as soon as the inner gate falls you can just casually stroll past the defender's formation and start killing them from behind without any retaliation
Click to expand...

Yeah this is a major issue. I have killed 25 plus guys in a siege by standing behind their huge formation and swinging my menavillion at them from horseback. It is amusing but not idea for good gamplay :razz:
 
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