Hello there.
Given we probably all agree sieges are a big part of the game (or should be) and have never been working properly, and having read many great suggestions on how they could be made more enjoyable, in-depth and immersive, I think I might have had a half-decent idea I'd like to share.
Most of the complaints (mine included) are about the AI and how it reacts (or fails to react) to developing situations, how there's only one phase in any given siege even as the maps (which are quite great, imho) were clearly made with fallback positions in mind, and about the general wonkiness of every single mechanic involved.
Since the AI is not particularly sophisticated and never will be (I fear) why not using a stopgap measure which might make a lot of it much better?
My idea is this: have an internal AI logic which ticks every 10 seconds or so, updating according to how the battle is going (aka: where allied and enemy troops are, how many there are and where they're going) and threat levels (imminent breaches, troops being overwhelmed, morale breaking) and automatically changing the single units' behavior, sending them to pre-determined position according to the developing situation. This, I think, would fix what I believe to be the worst offending issue in sieges: the completely braindead archer AI, leading to difficult defensive sieges and far too many avoidable losses even when micromanaging without however making the AI too performance hungry given the AI checks wouldn't be run every second.
For example, here's your typical siege scenario (forgive me for how grade school it looks, didn't have much time to make something more acceptable today in 4k PaintHD:
The static positions would be present all over the map, of course. They are usually empty and require no checks, acting as precise (or loosely defined if and where needs be) points where single or multiple troops could rally when their AI checks the situation and decides it's time to move to another location given how the battle is going.
In this case the archers, having a clear defined position from where to shoot (and in which direction) would not be idle 90% of the length of the battle. A single check every ten seconds in case no suitable target was found would be enough for a single archer to decide it's better to move to a static position from where he can and probably will hit an enemy soldier.
As the siege tower becomes an active breakthrough point and enemy troops swarm in, the reserve infantry (in reserve since one cannot tell exactly when a breach will occur, especially with siege weapons being present) would send an appropriate number of men to defend from the attacking enemy on the walls, while the archer troops (which would be sacrificial lambs in melee and not able to use their abilities in an appropriate manner) would retreat to other, more defensible static positions on the towers, shooting the infantry *and* the archers as they press on. Already present archers at those positions would adjust as needs be.
In this second phase the breakthrough would have occurred, and the defensive AI would calculate quantity, position and number of the enemy attackers, deeming them overwhelming to deal with in their present static positions. The infantry would split and retreat to easily defensible static locations, allied (defensive) archers would shoot towards the stairs at the enemies' flank *and* towards the advancing enemy archers. In this phase the battle would still hinge on the first defensive layers, although they'd be partially taken over by attackers.
Third phase: the attackers have overwhelmed the defenders on the walls. The attacking archers take some of the same static positions the defending archers took before (while occupying new ones already there for such an event) and shoot towards the second layer of defense to cover the melee attackers' advance: see that as a smaller, wooden palisade. The defenders occupy new static positions to mount a last stand.
Grade-school cutting edge graphics aside, I think using static positions (with a small area around them allowing the unit occupying it to act realistically, for example a crossbowman would reload behind a fortification, peek out to shoot only to repeat until necessary or possible) and a 10-seconds tick to check whereas a single soldier is actually being effective in its role, whichever that might be, would go a long way towards making the battles much more enjoyable, realistic, challenging (probably longer, too) and give the player more time to formulate strategies which could use the existence of different static points "groups" (archer tower 1, archer tower 2, breach 1, fallback 1 and so on) to quickly assign different formations to specific roles in the ongoing battle.
What do you think about the idea? I'd love to hear some feedback
Given we probably all agree sieges are a big part of the game (or should be) and have never been working properly, and having read many great suggestions on how they could be made more enjoyable, in-depth and immersive, I think I might have had a half-decent idea I'd like to share.
Most of the complaints (mine included) are about the AI and how it reacts (or fails to react) to developing situations, how there's only one phase in any given siege even as the maps (which are quite great, imho) were clearly made with fallback positions in mind, and about the general wonkiness of every single mechanic involved.
Since the AI is not particularly sophisticated and never will be (I fear) why not using a stopgap measure which might make a lot of it much better?
My idea is this: have an internal AI logic which ticks every 10 seconds or so, updating according to how the battle is going (aka: where allied and enemy troops are, how many there are and where they're going) and threat levels (imminent breaches, troops being overwhelmed, morale breaking) and automatically changing the single units' behavior, sending them to pre-determined position according to the developing situation. This, I think, would fix what I believe to be the worst offending issue in sieges: the completely braindead archer AI, leading to difficult defensive sieges and far too many avoidable losses even when micromanaging without however making the AI too performance hungry given the AI checks wouldn't be run every second.
For example, here's your typical siege scenario (forgive me for how grade school it looks, didn't have much time to make something more acceptable today in 4k PaintHD:
The static positions would be present all over the map, of course. They are usually empty and require no checks, acting as precise (or loosely defined if and where needs be) points where single or multiple troops could rally when their AI checks the situation and decides it's time to move to another location given how the battle is going.
In this case the archers, having a clear defined position from where to shoot (and in which direction) would not be idle 90% of the length of the battle. A single check every ten seconds in case no suitable target was found would be enough for a single archer to decide it's better to move to a static position from where he can and probably will hit an enemy soldier.
As the siege tower becomes an active breakthrough point and enemy troops swarm in, the reserve infantry (in reserve since one cannot tell exactly when a breach will occur, especially with siege weapons being present) would send an appropriate number of men to defend from the attacking enemy on the walls, while the archer troops (which would be sacrificial lambs in melee and not able to use their abilities in an appropriate manner) would retreat to other, more defensible static positions on the towers, shooting the infantry *and* the archers as they press on. Already present archers at those positions would adjust as needs be.
In this second phase the breakthrough would have occurred, and the defensive AI would calculate quantity, position and number of the enemy attackers, deeming them overwhelming to deal with in their present static positions. The infantry would split and retreat to easily defensible static locations, allied (defensive) archers would shoot towards the stairs at the enemies' flank *and* towards the advancing enemy archers. In this phase the battle would still hinge on the first defensive layers, although they'd be partially taken over by attackers.
Third phase: the attackers have overwhelmed the defenders on the walls. The attacking archers take some of the same static positions the defending archers took before (while occupying new ones already there for such an event) and shoot towards the second layer of defense to cover the melee attackers' advance: see that as a smaller, wooden palisade. The defenders occupy new static positions to mount a last stand.
Grade-school cutting edge graphics aside, I think using static positions (with a small area around them allowing the unit occupying it to act realistically, for example a crossbowman would reload behind a fortification, peek out to shoot only to repeat until necessary or possible) and a 10-seconds tick to check whereas a single soldier is actually being effective in its role, whichever that might be, would go a long way towards making the battles much more enjoyable, realistic, challenging (probably longer, too) and give the player more time to formulate strategies which could use the existence of different static points "groups" (archer tower 1, archer tower 2, breach 1, fallback 1 and so on) to quickly assign different formations to specific roles in the ongoing battle.
What do you think about the idea? I'd love to hear some feedback