Siege equipment

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KamilL

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As good, as it game is in early access, I think that the siege AI needs immidiate repair- they often don't use siege towers on the field of battle, insted they use ladders which are not as afficient. And if they do use siege towers, only one of 3 ladders on them which makes attacker unable to use their superior numbers as they are slowly beeing slaughtered one by one by the group of defenders on the wall. Sometimes attacking troops cant decide which way to attack and after destroying gate, seting ladders or siege towers they just circulate under the walls. As I said I know it's EA but please fix this.
 
I think all siege towers should be switched to the lvl 1 wall siege tower version that is a ramp (just like in warband) instead of ladders . The AI had an easy time going up the ramp. Just resize it for the taller walls of lvl 2 and 3. Even if it is a temporary fix, would help smooth the siege gamplay out for now.
 
Currently the siege towers perform worse than ladders in my opinion, as the siege towers create choke points for the defenders, where as the ladders at least spreads the defenders.

Unless there aren't enough defenders, ladders and siege towers are currently just killing the attackers troops, until the gate is breached. At that point, the attacker pretty much wins by default, since the AI just makes a shield wall behind the gate without attacking the attackers at all.

The main things the attack AI needs to learn is:
  1. Attack while climbing. Currently they rush to the top of the ladder, where they are outnumbered, and then slaughtered before they can do anything. I myself on the otherhand can easily kill the defenders while still on the ladder, since the defenders bunch up too close to the ladder to hit me efficiently.
  2. Amass troops on siege towers before opening the ramp. Currently the first soldier who reaches the top opens the ramp, which just allows the defenders to rush the tower which makes the siege tower just a worse version of ladders.
 
i have yet to see the ai build any siege equipment to completion before assaulting. watched vlandia throw 800 men at a 70 man garrison and be unable to get over the walls. have to autoresolve to have any chance of winning....
 
I have an engineer that can build a siege camp pretty quickly. The equipment still takes ages to build. I don't blame the vlandians for skipping it.

How come the castle defenders can build their equipment like they have engineering 1000? I know that some placed have a siege workshop, but i would not think the effects would be so dramatic.
 
They can be great, potential is huge.
But we have ALOT of problems

1. AI is just completly braindead. It doesnt exist. And i hate the "helpers" with siege equioment. That guys will shot to the air, they will take boulder walk around and throw it to the ground, and you cant use it anymore.
During testing Trebuchet I ended up with just killing all this helpers as fast as possible.

Your tropps dont listen your commands. No matter what is your order - some morons still will go to that fkn ladders. Offten your whole army just want to ignore siege towers or broken gates and just go to ladders.
They dont want to flank this stupid shieldwall in gates and kill those archers.

You cant choose archers\melee infantry. So all your units just separeted to 2 groops with acrers\cav\infantry all together. So you have to throw your archers in melee grind wich is just a stupid
Your arhers dont shoot from wooden walls that you builded (THEY WAS DESIGNED FOR THAT FFS THAT WAS THEIR PURPOSE).
And even more - your archers almost dont want to shoot at all. I tried to force them to shoot like 5 minutes. And they shot like 1 arrow per minute

2. Siege equipment.

Rams and siege towers. They are good, but braindead AI spoils fun a lot.

Trebuchet and Catapults(nonfire). They are just useless. Do you know what can you do with them? May be you can destroy the wall or tower? Nope - you can only destroy ome piece of a parapet(or how you name this thing on english) and kill like 1 guys with each shot, and you have like 10 of them.
May be UI just dont show you damage, but i throwed like 8 bolders to the wall and nothing happend.

Ballista. It is kinda useful. But goddamn it is AWFUL. It placed very very far away and it has no zoom at all. I am hardcore shooter player i even i had problems with aiming this thing and my mous sensitivity is reaaly low (i have 1*1 meters mouse pad for it)
Catapults had a fkn Zoom!
Why? You was so afraid that player can snipe all defenders? But for that reason you already made it so innacurate. So even when you find a "sweetspot" you will miss 2 shots out of 3. And that accyracy. You even dont know, do you catualy aim right or wrong. It is just annoying as hell.

So ballista can be useful, but tactic is:
Turn you sensitivity as low as possible
Bind your atack on some keybord button
Find a "sweetspot"
Spam atack button and never touch the mouse.

NOW TO THE BEST !The most fun thing in this game, pure joy and hapyness.
Fire catapults (pls dont nerf)


That was captured from like 4 battles, so it is not toaly OP, becouse accuracy is bad, and for 1 good shot you have 3 bad that killed nothing or 1 guy.
 
Currently the siege towers perform worse than ladders in my opinion, as the siege towers create choke points for the defenders, where as the ladders at least spreads the defenders.

Unless there aren't enough defenders, ladders and siege towers are currently just killing the attackers troops, until the gate is breached. At that point, the attacker pretty much wins by default, since the AI just makes a shield wall behind the gate without attacking the attackers at all.

The main things the attack AI needs to learn is:
  1. Attack while climbing. Currently they rush to the top of the ladder, where they are outnumbered, and then slaughtered before they can do anything. I myself on the otherhand can easily kill the defenders while still on the ladder, since the defenders bunch up too close to the ladder to hit me efficiently.
  2. Amass troops on siege towers before opening the ramp. Currently the first soldier who reaches the top opens the ramp, which just allows the defenders to rush the tower which makes the siege tower just a worse version of ladders.


How do you even get your troops to climb a siege tower. Once mine get to the walls everyone just stands there and dies. No possible way to force them to climb. F6 does nothing, charge does nothing but make them charge straight into a brick wall and keep running. Ordering them to use the siege tower results in them all standing still and doing nothing. This really is game breaking...
 
My experience so far:
Always build the ram. Even if you plan on using ladders/siege tower, the ram leads to a lot of defenders standing behind the door instead of on the walls. And the gate AI is so bad, that they are basically non existent for the fight.

If the defenders are < 200 and you have at least 200, just rush the ladders. Shoot the defenders with your bow if possible. Once you get like 5 guys on the wall at the same time, you most likely won the siege. The defenders often seem to just defend one of the ladders. Never go up the ladder yourself too early, you might get trapped by your own guys. Try to go up with shield and push yourself to the side once you reach the top. The defenders will then ignore you, while you can kill them from behind.

if the defenders are > 200:
Wait for the ram to reach the gate and attack through the gate. If your ram gets destroyed, retreat. You can't really win the ladders/tower. With that many defenders, while the ram is destroyed.

And I still would say, don't bother with any other siege equipment other than the ram. Towers are too slow, as climbing the walls seems only viable to me, if you rush it. When you ride up to the wall and put up one of the ladders, your infantry will change to "Using siege equipment" immediatly, instead of waiting for the archers.

Ballista/catapult/trebuchet didn't really do anything as far as I have noticed. They basically do less damage, than if the people manning them would use a bow.

So yeah, siege equipment definitively needs a huge buff for attackers (defenders with 4 catapults are most of the time unbeatable, since they destroy rams, but otherwise they are useless). AI also needs to learn how to use siege equipment, and where to stand. Shield users should be in front of the ram, for example, instead of behind it. There also needs to be far more cover for archers. It's a siege, the attacks prepared for it, but they apperantly only built enough cover for a fraction of their archers... More ladders/tower spots would be nice as well, to give the attacker more out of their number advantage.
 
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