Sieges- Definitely Need the Most Attention Before Release

[Red River]

true, the sieges aren't perfect, but it's more an AI issue than a design one. I find them really fun myself, they just require a lot of micro management of your troops. sieging towns feels a little bit like an after thought, but castle sieges when you think about it are quite well done. they render the whole castle, put one army inside, and make another side try to crawl over the wall while they get cut down from above. no design flaw there, that's a siege.

the breakdown in the system is entirely due to the lack of AI in the game. they don't use the terrain or the castle strategicly, they just run towards each other and start chopping. when the bottle neck at the top of the ladder starts, they wait their turn.

ya just said it.. bottleneck.. sounds like a design issue to me... sieges go way smoother when ya have a siege tower.

yes, the bottle neck is a design issue related to sieges, not the game. climbing the ladder in a real life siege...which was done...did create a bottle neck where a lot of people got cut to pieces. the creators of the game did not write history, but this is a real siege mechanic.

there was no bottle necks in RL sieges because they had a choice of how many ladders, rams, siege towers, sappers, catapults and other siege equipment to throw at the defenders before they attack... one ladder(ramp) or a siege tower at a time is a bad game design and has nothin' to do with RL sieges.

 

[Taur0s]

At this point of the game I'd be happy with only AI pathfinding...

 

[Mkilbride]

An Army of 500 men or so would easily have at least a ladder per 100 realistically. The Bottleneck was true, but they had a handful of ladders usually.

One Battering Ram was the usual, maybe a backup, but not always.

Siege Towers I'm not so sure about, because I've never really seen them outside of Video Games...in fact I never really knew they existed, never read about them in History books...

 

[Chaoskilla]

An Army of 500 men or so would easily have at least a ladder per 100 realistically. The Bottleneck was true, but they had a handful of ladders usually.

One Battering Ram was the usual, maybe a backup, but not always.

Siege Towers I'm not so sure about, because I've never really seen them outside of Video Games...in fact I never really knew they existed, never read about them in History books...

Siege towers existed, but they would be used after sufficently weakening the garrison and when the attacker was finaly ready to storm the castle. Unlike in Mount and Blade however, this didn't take several months, more like a couple of years.

 

[dablade]

I think 3 ladders (and/or 2 siege towers), would make the sieges both more playable and realistic. Better AI pathfinding and better walkable meshes design wouldn't hurt either. I also believe that wouldn't be that hard to implement. But... I could be wrong.

 

[Deathlordjaffar]

I'd prefer to be able to choose your own amount of towers/ladders, and the more you make, the longer it takes to prepare your sieges. Would make Engineering a better skill.

 

[Tacoslayer23]

They need to fix the soldiers that fall off the walls. Because they never seem to fall off completely. They lay flat in the air.

Which is funny.

 

[acutedeath]

My biggest annoyance with the game (which affects a blanket of situations, including sieges) is the clipping / bounding.

Look at the top of that ladder. It's an amorphous blob of men swinging weapons through crenellations and through each other.

Ever since I started playing M&B, the single greatest improvement I could dream of would be a SOLID physical environment. This would eliminate so many problems that detract from the realism of play.

It would prevent men from sneaking through walls, fighting through walls, hacking through trees, forming unholy poky mobs and horse-piles; the list goes on.

From a coding perspective I'm not sure how much these factors could be tightened up. I'm sure AI improvements would be necessary. But I dream...

 

[Riskar]

I dont really understand what you guys are talking about, i only have to fight like 20 guys at the latter, after that, i have to kill guys on the walls to the left and right, and then i have to clear towers, and then i have to fight them in the courtyard. I have NEVER just fought them at the latter. And when i played, the AI put the Swadian Infantry (i'm helping Lady Isollo), knights, and men at arms at the latter, and it put the archers and crossbowmen stretched along the wall and in the towers, so they would be nailing my guys as we went up the latter.

Though i would love to be able to make more seige equipment, i think seiges are good already.

 

[Red River]

My biggest annoyance with the game (which affects a blanket of situations, including sieges) is the clipping / bounding.

Look at the top of that ladder. It's an amorphous blob of men swinging weapons through crenellations and through each other.

...

they can do that? because when I try to hit an enemy and there's a friendly unit in my way the weapon just bounces off.. used to go thru in earlier versions but they fixed that. now ya can't hit your own troops or rather magically hit your enemies thru your own soldiers...

 

[Mama Sumae]

You can still do it through walls and objects

 

[acutedeath]

they can do that? because when I try to hit an enemy and there's a friendly unit in my way the weapon just bounces off.. used to go thru in earlier versions but they fixed that. now ya can't hit your own troops or rather magically hit your enemies thru your own soldiers...

Oops, you are right on that score. You can't swing through foot-friendlies, but you can attack through friendly horses if you are on foot.

 

[Sepher]

I want this:

 

[Red River]

I want this:

that's pure fantazy.. what game's it from?

notice how they bombard the castle while their own troops scallin' the walls with ladders...

 

[Mama Sumae]

notice how they bombard the castle while their own troops scallin' the walls with ladders...

You never played medieval before have you?

1 engage the enemy strongest troops with you weakest/ cheapest
2 Focus all ranged fire on the area
3 ?
4 Profit

 

[Sepher]

I want this:

that's pure fantazy.. what game's it from?

notice how they bombard the castle while their own troops scallin' the walls with ladders...

I'm actually not sure.. I think its a render, not a screenshot.

 

[Red River]

notice how they bombard the castle while their own troops scallin' the walls with ladders...

You never played medieval before have you?

1 engage the enemy strongest troops with you weakest/ cheapest
2 Focus all ranged fire on the area
3 ?
4 Profit

different tactics. normaly it's not advized to keep heavy and inacurate fire on the castle ya have your troops fightin' at... the way it's done is ya first bombard the walls/towers and when outta ammo or enough damage done send the troops out to finish the defenders. if ya keep shootin' the castle there's a very good chance of hittin' your own troops and that can be very devastatin' to their numbers/morale

 

[The Mercenary]

Or you could bring up a battery of trebuchets and fire rocks covered in oil-drenched cloth that you've lit on fire for several days. That's guaranteed to make the castle collapse.

 

[zaxscd]

The way I take castles is far more refined.    I aim to have my party size to be the right amount so that the defenders will always sally out to defend themselves, but not so that i am at a huge battle dis advantage, around -10 to -20 works for me. Normally my companions and I will easily overwhelm the opponents in a foot melee in open territory.

When the defender has 600 or more men you need a sizable force, maybe 120 or so, so i recruit a few lords to get my numbers up. but as they get less, i reduce my forces too, so evently i'll be down to around 15 when they have 200. They'll keep rushing you, like lambs to the slaughter until their force is 40 or so and then just march in a kill the rest.

 

[The Mercenary]

The way I take castles is far more refined.    I aim to have my party size to be the right amount so that the defenders will always sally out to defend themselves, but not so that i am at a huge battle dis advantage, around -10 to -20 works for me. Normally my companions and I will easily overwhelm the opponents in a foot melee in open territory.

When the defender has 600 or more men you need a sizable force, maybe 120 or so, so i recruit a few lords to get my numbers up. but as they get less, i reduce my forces too, so eventually i'll be down to around 15 when they have 200. They'll keep rushing you, like lambs to the slaughter until their force is 40 or so and then just march in a kill the rest.

That's not refined at all. If we could, pummel the castle constantly with trebuchets until there's nothing left. But as we cannot, the most refined way is to grab a sword and shield as well as a battle axe and some throwing knives, storm up the ramp with your hair flowing in the wind, jump over the awe-struck defenders, and start carving them up while screaming your personal battle cry. To be even more refined, take off all your armor before hand and charge up like a crazy berserker. And if your troops get in the way, embed a throwing knife in the center of their nervous systems. Much more refined.