Large and huge stone walls need to go.

[Dayve]

Regular stone walls are ok but large and huge are taking the mick. In my Romani campaign at the moment every Epirote and Macedonian city has a huge stone wall, the biggest you can build and it's unrealistic and also is unfair. Large and huge stone walls fire ballista bolts from the 'windows' in the towers, but when your men get on the walls the towers are magic, they can fire ballista arrows out of the brick walls where there are no windows, so when the enemy are fighting you on the walls, your men are being ballistered all the time... The towers should be able to fire forwards only at oncoming rams/siege towers, not sideways... They have no windows to fire sideways.

Currently i have the game minimized and am fighting a battle with a huge stone wall... 50% of my infantry is being killed whilst running to the siege tower to climb it and then they are being fired at whilst they are on the walls even though the towers have no windows to fire sideways... Huge and large stone walls really need to be removed except for the major cities.

Here's a picture from the battle i'm talking about.

https://img110.imageshack.us/img110/7729/clipboard015kn.th.jpg (https://img110.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clipboard015kn.jpg)

The large red circle shows a ballista bolt hitting my men from the window which the red line is pointing to. The other 2 smaller arrows are places that are also getting hit from ballista bolts every 10 seconds or so. How in the blue hell, could a ballista bolt from that window, hit the men on the wall in the places it is hitting? How could it hit the wall at all when it is pointing outwards? Large and huge stone walls are bugged and for the sake of fairness, realism and gameplay i think they need to be removed.

[Chester]

Siege is a mess on 1.2, most of the issues are dealt with in 1.5. Having giant walls around every city is ahistorical. The layout of the cities is very general. It shouldn't draw attention to itself, but at the same time does not need to be spot on accurate.

I can suspend disbelief and just pretend that cities were built like that with walls all around.

[Keba]

Yes, however, with 1.5 we also have the gatling scorpion siege towers, with a scorpion bolt approx. every 1 second, firing upon approach. This happens with Large and Epic walls.

Besides, they are so big they hurt my eyes, I prefer the normal stone walls.

Come to think of it, is it possible to disable arrow fire from the towers and siege enginers? If so, where should I look for it?

That way, archers become the only defense for the walls, not autofire towers that keep firing after you've abandoned the walls.

[Dooz]

Yes, however, with 1.5 we also have the gatling scorpion siege towers, with a scorpion bolt approx. every 1 second, firing upon approach. This happens with Large and Epic walls.

Besides, they are so big they hurt my eyes, I prefer the normal stone walls.

Come to think of it, is it possible to disable arrow fire from the towers and siege enginers? If so, where should I look for it?

That way, archers become the only defense for the walls, not autofire towers that keep firing after you've abandoned the walls.

I too would like to disable autofire towers. I believe I read somewhere around the mod boards that it is possible and had been done for some mods. Anyone know anything about that?

-edit-
Rather, would it be possible to eliminate epic walls all together and limit large stone walls to a select few cities? Like only capitals or historically important, large cities? Or in any other way limit them. If not, perhaps remove them.

[oudysseos]

RTR metro mod did something along those lines. There were elements of that mod that I didn't like but the basic concept was sound: not every city in a given area can become a mega-metropolis. The smaller cities couldn't build large/epic stone walls. Something like this would be great in EB (just don't do the little farming village illustrations that metro mod had: they looked shite).

[Chester]

Limiting stone wall capabilities would drastically cut down sieges. Maybe this is a good thing... I think I may have to change my stance and say nerf large walls, in most towns.

[Divie]

I agree that the bigger walls can wreck havoc on your troops however on most cities this can be averted. many of them at some point along the walls have weak spots, sometimes even areas that are out of range/line of sight for the towers, take advantage of this in your deployment even if you have to withdraw and approach the city from the best angle on campaign map. Also if your going to try and seize a wall section without a gate i find ladders are the best option along with seige towers to bring in the larger bulk, as soon as the first man is up the ladder he can be directed to sprint along the walls taking what you want! Usually if you deploy along the flanks either side of the city in the direction of your advance the ai will concentrate on the walls/gate facing that deployment phase centre leaving your flanking forces precious minutes to take those towers and use them yourself!

Of course failing that you could simply use some arty (if you have access to it) to neutralise the towers or (as was often the case) seige them out instead of doing this :wall:

[QwertyMIDX]

To be fair because of the way in which the RTW map runs a large number of the cities on the map are actually pretty large population centers. There aren't that many villages on it.

[Dayve]

What i'm saying is... I wouldn't have a problem with every city having big walls, even if it is historically inaccurate, and i wouldn't mind my men taking large numbers of casualties during the approach to the walls either because that is about right... But the enemy towers can fire at your troops once they are on the walls, even though their 'windows' where they fire from don't point at the walls in any way, therefore it is a cheat/bug and it needs to be removed for the sake of fairness.

Gatling gun siege towers also must go...

And with large and huge stone walls you can't use a ladder, only siege towers... But stone walls aren't a problem... They don't have the glitch where they can fire bolts through the wall and into your men whilst they are fighting on the walls.

[nikolai1962]

I think large and huge city assaults should be a blood-bath. Only worth risking when in a big hurry with a relief army getting close. Taking a city like Syracuse by assault should be a minimum 50% casualty rate imo (even if the dumb AI only leaves one unit in it).

On the other hand I think there should be far fewer cities that get to large and huge sizes so cases like that are much rarer.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Firstly lets get the termanology right, City Assault. A Siege is when you stave your enemy out. An assault should be your absolute worst option. In order of preference it goes like this:

Diplomacy.

Destruction of supplies/re-enforcements.

Ambush

Pitched Manuver Battle.

Meatgrinder Battle.

Siege

Assault.

An Assault is always devastating to the attacking army and they should be luck if they get a 1:2 kill rate.

If the walls discourage you from making an assault then all the better in my view.

[Dayve]

I agree with everything you say... But only about 10 cities on the whole map should have gigantic stone walls, if that...

[QwertyMIDX]

Probably quite a few more than that, try making a list.

[Kull]

I completely agree that attacking Huge Walls should result in near catastrophic casualties on the part of the attacker. But purely in the interest of information sharing, it is possible to mod (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=56980&highlight=wooden+walls) the arrow and/or ballista fire emanating from the wall towers.

[Dayve]

Probably quite a few more than that, try making a list.

I can't make that list because i'm not upto the stands of historic knowledge as most here... Although i find history fascinating all i know is what i've learned from school (highschool), the history/discovery channel and the web... So i wouldn't have a clue what cities will have these huge stone walls, although i think i could hazard a guess at saying the capital cities of each faction, except for the barbarians... And perhaps one or two other major trading/income cities per faction..

[abou]

Actually, I think RTW is rather generous when it comes to city assaults. Some cities had incredibly massive double and triple walls: Carthage and Babylon to name a few.

[QwertyMIDX]

Not to mention the citadels inside cities that someone assulting the town would have to make. Read Livy's account of Hannibal assulting Saguntum (not a city renowned for its defenses the way say Carthage was) and you'll get an idea of just how hard it was to take a city by assult (at least without inside help).

[Watchman]

Mighty empires and conquerors tended to take special pride (and boast accordingly) on their ability to take well-fortified cities... Heck, the Romans were some of the best siege engineers around, and some "barbarian" cities barely with a layer of stone walls could nonetheless cause them no end of frustration. Places like Numantia and Alesia were bluntly starved out despite the presence of considerable troop concentrations, and impressive, complicated and time-consuming siege lines with at the very least a countervallation to keep the defenders in were painstakingly built for the purpose.

[nikolai1962]

Personally...

I'd like max 5-6 huge cities, 11-12 large cities, rest city or large town size.

If i ever manage to work out the pop growth just right to achieve this then i'm gonna make the huge and large walls soooooo lethal.

Lol.

[O'ETAIPOS]

Maybe move siege equipment from almost impossible to get to hard to get by allowing big schools in allied cities?

[nemesisvsbrad]

City assaults are the worst option me thinks. I would lay siege until they comes out. My spies 360 degrees around me reporting enemy relief forces and destroy them before get any chance. If I see an enemy general close by I hire every single mercs to drain the merc pool. It doesn't matter the mercs fight or not. Usually my expedition forces made of 3 full stacks with 2 family members. Able to conduct war without need of reinforcements. sometimes I lift the siege and besiege it again to starve them longer to reduce their manpower because I don't take chances. Besieging is another way of disrupting enemy forces. They will not stop sending troops to save their city. You just hold some strategic position like mountain pass, bridge or higher ground to anhilialate them with your another army.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Now there's a man with the right idea. As I said you should be looking to utterly destroy them in the field, there should be no one left alive to defend the city. Or better still send in a spy to open the gates, better yet bribe the garrison.

[davepyne]

yeah, RTR got rid of all walls bigger than regular stone walls. An improvement IMO. One other problem with the very large walls is the messed up camera angles. Since the walls are so high and the camera can only go so high it is pretty difficult to see more than a small area of the top of the wall at a time.

[Ludens]

Is it possible to modify the height of these walls? I think the jump from wooden wall to stone wall too big. Is it possible to change that and the height of ladders and siege towers to scale them?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Actually a better idea would be for EB to instert a turf wall ans rampart between the wooden wall and the stone wall. Just get rid of the palisade, no one really built such a half-hearted defence.

As to the existing Stone Walls, stop complaining.

Are your soldiers have rocks, bits of masonry and roof tiles thrown at them?

Do they have to storm an almost impregnible citidel?

Do they even have to go through more than one wall?

RTW's walls are easy, one breach with a tunnel and its over. You obviously never played MTW and even that was easy compared to real life.

[GMT]

City assaults are the worst option me thinks. I would lay siege until they comes out. My spies 360 degrees around me reporting enemy relief forces and destroy them before get any chance. If I see an enemy general close by I hire every single mercs to drain the merc pool. It doesn't matter the mercs fight or not. Usually my expedition forces made of 3 full stacks with 2 family members. Able to conduct war without need of reinforcements. sometimes I lift the siege and besiege it again to starve them longer to reduce their manpower because I don't take chances. Besieging is another way of disrupting enemy forces. They will not stop sending troops to save their city. You just hold some strategic position like mountain pass, bridge or higher ground to anhilialate them with your another army.

You're kidding, right?? Now where's the chalenge in that??

That's not a battle, that's just plain old slaughter. Sure it's fun to do once in a while but to fight every battle that way just seems boring as hell to me.

[Dayve]

Don't tell me to stop complaining... Nothing pisses me off more. I've made a valid point. I would have no problem with having to storm an impregnable citadel, 2 or 3 layers of wall, losing 70% of my army at the end of it or even losing the battle, provided it was done realistically...

Large and huge stone walls can magically shoot ballista bolts through walls which have no windows in them, the windows in the walls can shoot sideways even though that would be absolutely impossible, the walls are way too high and 8 men pushing a siege tower the size of the empire state building with ease looks pathetic.

Regular stone walls are fine, if the EB team could somehow make 2 layers of wall that would be awesome... But large and huge stone walls must go.

[Chester]

Sappers are the best route. When I ever I play a siege I use sappers with towers. I have minimal losses.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well The walls them selves are not that big, nor are they that thick, nor do they have a ditch and rampart infront of them. Okay, so the Ballista bolts shoot out the sides of the towers, big deal, capture the tower. You shouldn't be spending that long pinned down on the wall anyway.

[QwertyMIDX]

Just be thankful we haven't made the houses in a city hurl roof tiles at your men, yet...

[Dooz]

Just be thankful we haven't made the houses in a city hurl roof tiles at your men, yet...

Oh Qwerty, you always know how to make us ruin our pantaloons because we urinated on them because we're afraid of what might be implemented in future builds of EB... hahaha, group hug! ~:grouphug:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

In terms of accuracy, I'd have to agree that 180+ degree arc of fire repeating ballistae in the towers seems a bit much.

On the other hand, I don't have to break through wall #1 and hack through 15 blocks worth of street traps with roof tiles coming down from all the women in the burg only to find myself facing The Agger with a full two cohorts on top of it.

I actually love city assault in RTW vanilla. I can often pull it off for low casualties and usually find the clock more troublesome than the enemy.

If EB makes city assault a real PITA, that would probably make for a much more fun game.

[vizigothe]

I don't like the huge and epic walls but people are right. When encountered with a city that has a huge or epic wall, I always try to starve them out and if I cannot because of a relief army I break off the siege and deal with the relief army and then go back to starving out the city.

[nemesisvsbrad]

You're kidding, right?? Now where's the chalenge in that??

That's not a battle, that's just plain old slaughter. Sure it's fun to do once in a while but to fight every battle that way just seems boring as hell to me.

That's how it was in real life. An ancient general couldn't afford to satisfy his selfish desires that prefered to lay siege to the enemy. On the other hand the enemy wouldn't want to be besieged either. When besiege starts both sides waited until the other side runs out food and water.

Caesar even ordered his men to dig underneath an unfortunate town's underneath to divert the underground water lines that dried their wells. You not gonna call Caesar a coward, are you? I beleive Caesar was doing exactly the right thing to do. When Caesar besieged Alesia, he built 2 layers of fortification to prevent Gallic forces, too. He wasn't risking an inevitable victory at some unnecessary loss. I can't list everything here, but a true general never ever would expose his men into danger. Both forces would incite each other until one side makes a wrong move and then they would engage. Sun Tsu's Art of War teaches us that place your enemy at disadvantage and let the enemy wear down themselves and attack swiftly to destroy. Generals do the cold calculations and wage war, not by some teenage boy's emotional short sighted anger. remember the Stalingrad siege lasted 2 years and end up the germans being besieged themselves and surrendered. History teaches us some fine lessons, my friend. I do like victories but why lose so many when you can use your natural environment and two litters of liquid in your skull.:book:

[GMT]

That's how it was in real life. An ancient general couldn't afford to satisfy his selfish desires that prefered to lay siege to the enemy. On the other hand the enemy wouldn't want to be besieged either. When besiege starts both sides waited until the other side runs out food and water.

Caesar even ordered his men to dig underneath an unfortunate town's underneath to divert the underground water lines that dried their wells. You not gonna call Caesar a coward, are you? I beleive Caesar was doing exactly the right thing to do. When Caesar besieged Alesia, he built 2 layers of fortification to prevent Gallic forces, too. He wasn't risking an inevitable victory at some unnecessary loss. I can't list everything here, but a true general never ever would expose his men into danger. Both forces would incite each other until one side makes a wrong move and then they would engage. Sun Tsu's Art of War teaches us that place your enemy at disadvantage and let the enemy wear down themselves and attack swiftly to destroy. Generals do the cold calculations and wage war, not by some teenage boy's emotional short sighted anger. remember the Stalingrad siege lasted 2 years and end up the germans being besieged themselves and surrendered. History teaches us some fine lessons, my friend. I do like victories but why lose so many when you can use your natural environment and two litters of liquid in your skull.:book:

Besieging a settlement with 3 full stacks doesn't take any skill at all and certainly no Caesar or Alexandros.

If you really want to insist on playing a historically accurate game then your army setup isn't even realistic to begin with. Not a single general would be able to hire every single mercenary and attack with a 3 vs 1 advantage like you do. Sure you might be able to find some battles where this did happen but certainly not in every single battle.

I believe Caesar was seriously outnumbered in Alesia too. He ordered a second wall to be built because the Gauls sent a relief force to aide Vercingetorix. That's what made him a great general, he defeated a superior force (6 vs 1 advantage) with clever tactics and a lot of guts too and even then it still was a close call. :book:

Also, "a true general never ever would expose his men into danger" puhlease.. what do you think war is all about?

And if you think that Caesar, Hannibal, Alexandros, Pyrrhos or any other great generals didn't fight for personal glory and honor then you're seriously naive.

Edit: the two litters of liquid in my skull are working just fine by the way ~;)

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Besieging a settlement with 3 full stacks doesn't take any skill at all and certainly no Caesar or Alexandros.

If you really want to insist on playing a historically accurate game then your army setup isn't even realistic to begin with. Not a single general would be able to hire every single mercenary and attack with a 3 vs 1 advantage like you do. Sure you might be able to find some battles where this did happen but certainly not in every single battle.

I believe Caesar was seriously outnumbered in Alesia too. He ordered a second wall to be built because the Gauls sent a relief force to aide Vercingetorix. That's what made him a great general, he defeated a superior force (6 vs 1 advantage) with clever tactics and a lot of guts too and even then it still was a close call. :book:

Also, "a true general never ever would expose his men into danger" puhlease.. what do you think war is all about?

And if you think that Caesar, Hannibal, Alexandros, Pyrrhos or any other great generals didn't fight for personal glory and honor then you're seriously naive.

Edit: the two litters of liquid in my skull are working just fine by the way ~;)


First of all, would you allow your soldiers to die for no reason, and could have been easily averted by using your brains? Soldiers will be in danger, of course. What nemesisvsbrad implying that you always try to reduce the danger. SO you never expose unnessesary danger, when you could use some other way to minimalize losses.

Oh, and those generals you mention tried to not waste men for glory. Wasting lifes ISN't honourable.

My 2 bucks.

-Copperhaired Berserker!

[GMT]

First of all, would you allow your soldiers to die for no reason, and could have been easily averted by using your brains? Soldiers will be in danger, of course. What nemesisvsbrad implying that you always try to reduce the danger. SO you never expose unnessesary danger, when you could use some other way to minimalize losses.

Oh, and those generals you mention tried to not waste men for glory. Wasting lifes ISN't honourable.

My 2 bucks.

-Copperhaired Berserker!

Seriously when did I say that you should trow your men's lifes away or that any of the mentioned generals did such a thing? Try reading the post for Christ sakes. All I said was that they did fight for personal glory, which they did quite well actually. ( without wasting their men's lifes )

The only reason I even quoted this "a true general never ever would expose his men into danger" was to make the exact same point that you did. If you're gonna wage war then there will always be danger, of course you try to minimize it but to "never ever" put your men in danger is quite unrealistic.

My point was, and still is that besieging a settlement with 3 full stacks is totally ahistorical and certainly not "how it was in real life". Anyone can do that and you certainly don't need to be a Caesar or Alexandros to do that.

[Geoffrey S]

It's perfectly historical. Not every general was an Alexander or Caesar, you know, and mostly would besiege a city only when certain of numerical superiority; otherwise it's impossible to prevent supplies from arriving and such. Heck, even the great Scipio massively outnumbered the Carthaginians in Carthago Nova, and his (adoptive) grandson outnumbered the Carthaginians when he actually besieged Carthago itself. A general would have to be extremely confident, very skilled or extremely stupid to attempt a siege, let alone an assault, on a fortified position or city when outnumbered.

I agree with nemesisvsbrad here. While it might not be as challenging to so massively inflate your army to minimise risks, it is the sensible thing to do in real life. The trick to battles was to maximise your own advantages and minimise those of the enemy before even thinking about a fight, preferably causing the enemy to believe they have an advantage where they have none; generals like Hannibal were skilled at this, not to mention Fabius Maximus doing absolutely everything he could to protect the fragile morale of his Romans after numerous defeats.

Personally I think it takes some of the challenge away when applied to RTW, where the player already has the advantage over the AI, but for an assured victory it's the sensible approach.