On the subject of artillery....

[LittleRaven]

Ok, as all of the forum regulars know, I’m a big supporter of changing the way sieges are handled. I’d like to see more castle assaults, darn it. They are just too damn cool to be so useless.

EatColdSteel and the other developers have been very open to suggestions on this issue, and it looks like the patch will help things in that department. In preparation for having to assault castles more often, I’ve been attacking every castle I see. This has given me lots of practice with artillery, and I think I’ve come up with a few problems there too...

Issue 1) Ammo. I can only guess that artillery ammunition shortage was put in place to help balance the multiplayer. While that’s a commendable goal, it leaves those of us conducting assaults woefully under prepared. I brought 8 mortars to lay down some smack on a castle today, and ran out of ammo after knocking down just 2 walls. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif I should be able to knock down a whole lot more than that! Mortars are very inaccurate and I think they should stay that way, but they need to have a LOT more ammo. I can see having limited amounts of ammunition in field battles, but when you’re assaulting a castle, you should be able to fire till the cows come home. Given that castles auto-repair and there’s a time limit in which to win the battle, there’s no need to further penalize the attacker with ridiculously small amounts of ammo.

Issue 2) The range of the big catapults needs to be greatly extended, or the rage of the little catapults needs to be lessened, or possibly both. There isn’t much difference right now, and it makes the big catapults pretty useless, since they can’t fire at a castle while staying out of range of the ballista and catapult towers. (meaning they quickly get destroyed) The fact that they can’t turn is a pretty big disadvantage, they should at least have range to make up for it.

Issue 3) The tower bug. Further reducing the usefulness of the big catapults is the fact that they don’t seem to hit arrow towers well. Their shots tend to pass through them. This does not occur with smaller cats.

I’m not sure how many of these problems can be addressed via mods. I’m investigating that now.

Now, back to conquering Europe.... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[TenkiSoratoti]

castle seiges make me feel sick.

i did 3 castle seiges in a row the other day and lost them all.

daaaah the irritation of losing.
well anyway they are hard to win cause when you have an experienced newbie camper on the castle then ur screwed unless your special.

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"The good fighters of the old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an oppurtunity to defeat the enemy."

[longjohn2]

The idea of the artillery balancing is that you need to move onto gun powder weapons in order to be able to tackle the bigger castles easily. Trebuchets and and Mangonels knock holes in the first couple of castle levels, but on the bigger castles their lack of range makes them vulnerable. If they had the range to stay beyond the defender's return fire, there would be little need to bother making the investments to get cannon.
Ammo limits are so that you can't just park your cannons on a hill, and spend half an hour blowing the defenders to bits.

As you've found out, mortars are a bit pants. They're better at killing the troops inside the castle than knocking the walls down. If you had 8 of any other piece, you'd have made some pretty big wholes.

The artillery stuff currently isn't modable, but all the stats have been moved into an external file for the patch.

[Jo_Beare]

Speaking of cannon: How often are the odds of one of them exploding? I had 3 bombards that I took across Europe and back firing each of them about 1000 times without ever having an accident. Pretty well trained.

I thought that the first cannons were fired by slaves and captured soldiers who were promised their freedom if they survived the battle.

JoBeare

[LittleRaven]

Wow. Official attention so quickly. *blush* I’m honored.

I understand the need to make gunpowder weapons necessary, but currently, trebuchets and mangonels are truly useless. The problem is that they are VERY big targets, and are easily taken out by castle defenses. The small catapults, however, are almost NEVER hit. They have almost the same range, they can turn, and they won’t get taken out in the first two minutes of battle. It is true that they don’t hit quite as hard, but at least they will survive to keep hitting the enemy. Castle assaults should be where the big catapults shine, but if the castle has ballista towers, they’ll be toasted too quickly to do much. You’d be much better off to just bring catapults to the battle. And catapults are MUCH more useful in field battles. I agree that you shouldn’t be able to take on a citadel with catapults (and you can’t, I’ve tried) but currently, a trebuchet or mangonel will be toasted by an ungraded keep or higher. (any lower than that and you don’t really need siege weapons at all) I just think the big cats need a little something more to make them worthwhile.....or the smaller cats need to be less effective. Maybe make some castle walls immune to smaller cat shots? That would force a need to get the big boys.

As for mortars, maybe I’m not understanding how they should be used, but I’m having trouble picturing using them as an anti-personnel weapon in a castle assault. If you have them far enough away from the castle that they won’t get shredded by arrow fire, you can’t SEE any enemy units to target them. I guess you could send a unit up to scout, but it would be a suicide job, even for the most heavily armoured units. And I’m dealing with pre-gunpowder castles here. (I have it and they don’t) By the time castles start getting cannon towers, is it possible for the attacker to stay out of range and still inflict damage to the castle? The castle is almost always on the highest ground.

I am overjoyed, however, that you guys are making this modable. That’s the perfect solution...then I can tinker if I feel the need. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Anyway, thanks for listening, and if you guys are ever in Austin, gimme a call and I’ll buy you guys a beer. You’ve produced one fantastic game....

[+DOC+]

Yeah, i tend to agree with you Raven. The inability of the bigger more powerful trebuchet and mangonel to turn severely lowers their use compared to catapults. Furthermore they are, as you say, very easily destroyed by the castle defences, especially when the AI sets them up too close.

Also, catapults do have a use in the field being able to turn, whereas trebuchets and mangonels are pants.... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

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=MizuDoc=

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by Jo_Beare:
Speaking of cannon: How often are the odds of one of them exploding? I had 3 bombards that I took across Europe and back firing each of them about 1000 times without ever having an accident. Pretty well trained.
[/QUOTE]

Bombard: 3 safe shots, 10% chance of self-destruct with each subsequent shot.
Siege cannon: 10 safe shots, 3% chance of self-destruct with each subsequent shot.
Demi cannon: 20 safe shots, 1% chance of self-destruct with each subsequent shot.

This doesn't vary, by crew valour or anything else. So I'd say you were very lucky not to lose any bombards...

Gil ~ CA

[andrewt]

I haven't seen one explode. Is cannon and demicannon chance to explode same with culverin and demiculverin?

[GilJaysmith]

Quote Originally posted by andrewt:
I haven't seen one explode. Is cannon and demicannon chance to explode same with culverin and demiculverin?[/QUOTE]

All other cannon types apart from those three are safe from self-destruction.

Set up a custom battle with a bunch of artillery firing at each other and you'll see them start to go bang after a while.

It would have been unfair on the player for us to make the chances of self-destruction too great. If you bring a heavy artillery piece along to breach a big castle, there should be only a small chance that it explodes before it's done its job... a chance slim enough to not happen every time, but fat enough to encourage you to bring a spare just in case.

Gil ~ CA

[LittleRaven]

Quote Originally posted by +DOC+:
Yeah, i tend to agree with you Raven. The inability of the bigger more powerful trebuchet and mangonel to turn severely lowers their use compared to catapults. Furthermore they are, as you say, very easily destroyed by the castle defences, especially when the AI sets them up too close.[/QUOTE]

I did some more thinking about this last night, and I've come to the conclusion that while Trebs and Mangs might need a little extra something, the real problem is that smaller catapults are just too darn good.

After all, what made the Trebuchet remarkable was that it could throw a 300 pound ball hundreds of feet into the air. That was enough force to crack even a castle wall. That kind of force was simply beyond a "field" catapult, which relied on twisted rope or animal sinew for power. You could hit a castle wall all day with one of those....the kind of rocks it flings are just going to bounce off.

But that isn't reflected in the game. Small cats do everything. They turn. They throw at a nice low angle, meaning more bounces, more kills, and a higher chance to hit. They smash castle walls with ease. It's not surprising that the trebs come out looking bad by comparison. When you have small cats, why bother with anything bigger?

The best solution, IMO, would be to make castle walls (stone ones) immune to ballista and catapult shots. They would still be able to destroy towers and gatehouses, but actually knocking down walls would be reserved for bigger catapults and siege weapons. This would have two good effects. First, it would make the big catapults useful, and second, it would mean more action around the gatehouse in earlier battles. Once you can knock down walls, attacking a gatehouse is pointless. By upping the tech necessary to destroy walls, it would add an interesting wrinkle in early castle combat. Unfortunately, this is probably too complicated to do in a patch. A less optimal but still workable idea is to increase the rage of trebs/mangs in comparison to small catapults. That way there is at least SOME advantage to using a big catapult.

One final note. What the heck is this "pants" reference that everyone keeps using? Did I miss a memo? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Kalt]

Quote Originally posted by LittleRaven:

The best solution, IMO, would be to make castle walls (stone ones) immune to ballista and catapult shots. They would still be able to destroy towers and gatehouses, but actually knocking down walls would be reserved for bigger catapults and siege weapons. [/QUOTE]

Good idea, but it might be easier to simply cut the damage on the smaller weapons by 1/2 or something.

Another fix would be to allow ballistas to do 1/2 damage to wood and none to stone, catapults to do full to wood and 1/4 to stone (or even less, like 10%).

Then the ballista would be mostly just anti-personnel, and the small catapult would mostly handle level 1 castles, then youd need something tougher to take on the stronger castles.

And maybe to compensate, you could give the smaller weapons something like 50% more ammo.

[Couscous]

I second your suggestion Kalt. I think that would balance out seige weapons nicely.

And while we're at it, please give the trebs & mangs just a little wider arc of fire?

[LittleRaven]

Kalt,

Good ideas, but I don't think we need to make the ballista any weaker than it already is. Isn't pretty darn close to worthless already?

The problem is the catapult. It's a super unit. It's the best anti-personnel weapon avaliable for a long time,, and the best castle crusher. And it's only tech level 2! I'm not sure it would be easier to cause it to only do a percentage of normal damage to stone, but if it is, that'll work. Personally, I'd leave the catapult as a good anti-personnel weapon and greatly reduce it's castle smuntching ability. Destroying castles should be the domain of the big boys. Mowing down troop formations should be the job of the catapult.

[Nelson]

None of these engines should be especially good at killing men. They were for siege work. If antipersonnel effects improved field battles would start having "batteries" of catapults which would be very ahistoric.

I think CA has done a good job on the engines. They were immobile for the most part and very cumbersome to employ. Large citadels ought to be tough to assault. Storming them should never be a cakewalk.

Battering rams would be a good addition. The crew could move it to a gate attack with it. Any chance I wonder?

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COGITOERGOVINCO

[LittleRaven]

I'm certainly not suggesting that the anti-personnel properties of ANY of the weapons be improved. I agree that medievil artillery was not about killing men. But I do maintain that the siege weapons need better balance. Take the catapult. Can you describe one scenerio where it is better to have a trebuchet than a catapult? The trebuchet is higher tech, and historically very important, (much more so than a lowly field catapult) but currently, in every case I can think of, you're better off with a catapult than a treb. Doesn't that strike you as a sign of imbalance?

[longjohn2]

So is the problem that the trebuchets and mangonels are being physically destroyed by ballista bolts from the towers.
If so, I can easily fix this by giving them more hitpoints, and thus making them harder to destroy. I'd have no problem doing that, as it wouldn't require any rebalancing.

[Kraxis]

Well, I doubt anybody would mind them getting a little buff in hitpoints. I have found them to be destroyed easier than catapults or ballistas, maybe this is because they are much larger and thus easier to attack with many men.

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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.

You may not care about war, but war cares about you!

[LittleRaven]

I'm pretty sure that's the problem. The crews will be fine, but the artillary pieces themselves are smashed within moments. I'm guessing that the towers don't hit the smaller cats very often because I've never seen one of those destroyed.

Your fix would go a long way towards making the big boys useful. I really appreciate your attention on this issue.

[Cheetah]

Listed in the TC

[spmetla]

um, shouldn't the trebuchets and mangonels have better range than ballistas and catapults, even if the're on towers.
Last time i checked trebuckets have extreme range while mangonels have shorter range but extreme damage. and gunpowder is a mixture of the two.

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"samishika wa nai shitte irukara saigo wa itsumo hitori to"

"I'm not lonely Because I know I'll be Alone at the end"

email me at: Luftwaffle@mad.scientist.com

[MajorFreak]

uhm...most of you folks know one can deploy ones troops in a castle siege like you would in a defensive map? (just saw someone lament the static nature of the setup)

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[andrewt]

Yeah, deployment is essential. Otherwise, you get the worst possible. The default is you sitting behind a rock cliff and have to circle to hit any gates. Even with level terrain, mangonels and trebuchets still can't outrange ballista and catapult towers.

[Deamoclese]

I must admit I was horridly dissapointed how the developers implemented the Trebuchet.. it was the ultimate siege weapon until the development of cannons.

It's range and destruction capabilities far surpassed that of catapults and mangonels. Instead, in MTW the trebuchet is an extremely short range weapon less effective than catapults... I have no gripes with the damage and accuracy, but the range seems insulting to what this amazing piece of engineering for its time was capable of.

[sodoff]

If the problem is limited to SP, that is, you are ok with the limitation in multiplayer, isn\t there an option to turn off the ammo limit in SP?
Might even make having archersa look like a decent proposition.

[LittleRaven]

Quote Originally posted by Deamoclese:
I must admit I was horridly dissapointed how the developers implemented the Trebuchet.. it was the ultimate siege weapon until the development of cannons.
...
I have no gripes with the damage and accuracy, but the range seems insulting to what this amazing piece of engineering for its time was capable of.[/QUOTE]

I know. I too was quite dissappointed. Currently, we have a situation where a fiber-powered field catapult is a superior siege weapon than a trebuchet.

Fortunately, with the patch, such things will become moddalbe. Then perhaps we can see a real treb.

[LittleRaven]

Quote Originally posted by sodoff:
If the problem is limited to SP, that is, you are ok with the limitation in multiplayer, isn\t there an option to turn off the ammo limit in SP?
Might even make having archersa look like a decent proposition.[/QUOTE]

*chuckle* Personally, I don't mind ammo limitations. I don't expect a unit to keep on firing forever, but it's nice to be able to do some damage before you're out.

For my game, I modded the ammo that artillery pieces have up about 50%. You still run out, but not as quickly.

For all my complaints, I actually think artillery works pretty well for the most part. Yeah, the bigger catapults are broken, but we can fix that when the patch comes. (I also plan on toying with reducing the effectiveness of small catapults. Those things are just too much for a tech level 2 unit.) I can see why multiplayer demands smaller ammo loads for artillery, but it's easy enough to mod for the single player game...