Supply Wagon unit?

[Sylon]

I've been thinking about how PSF's and nomad camps will be unassaultable in EB2 without first building siege equipment, and a way to get around this occured to me.

The game allows you to assault a walled settlement or fort as long as you have a siege engine in your army (ballista, catapult, etc), even if you don't actually have the firepower to bring the walls down. Could you not, then, make a siege unit with invisible ammunition, 1 ammo, 1 damage against troops, and 1 damage against buildings, and bring it around with your army in order to assault PSF's and nomad camps instantly?

Of course, a random siege unit in the middle of nowhere would just stand out. However, if you skinned it to appear like a supply wagon, and increased its attack range so it can attack targets far away (to prevent the AI from moving it up to the walls), it would make sense in a battlefield context. The unarmed crew would represent servants, blacksmiths, and the like.

If my memory of vanilla Medieval 2 is correct, the AI tends to prefer building siege equipment before assaulting even if it has enough firepower to bring the walls down, so it wouldn't effect the AI's behaviour. (Though some further testing may be required)

The only drawback I can see is that it gives the player an advantage against the AI, allowing them to assault PSF's instantly, while the AI will spend a turn building siege equipment.

So, how about it? Will this work?

[Kull]

I've been thinking about how PSF's and nomad camps will be unassaultable in EB2 without first building siege equipment, and a way to get around this occured to me.

The game allows you to assault a walled settlement or fort as long as you have a siege engine in your army (ballista, catapult, etc), even if you don't actually have the firepower to bring the walls down. Could you not, then, make a siege unit with invisible ammunition, 1 ammo, 1 damage against troops, and 1 damage against buildings, and bring it around with your army in order to assault PSF's and nomad camps instantly?

Of course, a random siege unit in the middle of nowhere would just stand out. However, if you skinned it to appear like a supply wagon, and increased its attack range so it can attack targets far away (to prevent the AI from moving it up to the walls), it would make sense in a battlefield context. The unarmed crew would represent servants, blacksmiths, and the like.

If my memory of vanilla Medieval 2 is correct, the AI tends to prefer building siege equipment before assaulting even if it has enough firepower to bring the walls down, so it wouldn't effect the AI's behaviour. (Though some further testing may be required)

The only drawback I can see is that it gives the player an advantage against the AI, allowing them to assault PSF's instantly, while the AI will spend a turn building siege equipment.

So, how about it? Will this work?

No offense, but this is a solution in search of a problem. Forcing the player (primarily) or the AI to slow down their blitz by a turn or so is not really that big a deal, at least to my mind. The bigger problem, really, is that the defending army - if it loses - is annihilated, and doesn't get a chance to retreat. And typically, that means "advantage human". On the other hand the AI parks in a single spot and doesn't fragment it's forces in piecemeal attacks or by wandering off to some less defensible piece of terrain (how CA got this right in MTW and effed it up in every game since is just amazing to me). So, plus/minus.