Whats the point of Castles??

[Kalt]

#1
Ok so supposedly MTW is much more castle-oriented than STW right? In STW castles were only good for:

1. Saving (temporarily) an army who didnt otherwise have an option to abandon the province.
2. Denying the enemy the income from the province in question for several turns.
3. Getting up the tech tree.

1 and 2 are really only benefits that make an already bad situation a tad better. If youre using your castles alot, you arent doing too well in the game! Also, because you lose all your province improvements if an enemy can drive you to your castle even ONCE, you pretty much have to ignore your castles in any province you actually care enough about to develop.

How has this improved in MTW since STW? Will castles still be expensive decorations for those of us who develop out provinces and cannot stand to blow 20 years of production because of one lucky enemy incursion??

#2
I see castles have improved in size and the availability of arrow towers, but siege weapons and artillery not only negate that but hideously outmatch castles. Not only can siege blast apart the castle, but it can massacre the troops inside with ease. The tutorial catapult rock would bounce around (they shouldnt, the rocks would probably break apart on impact, CANNONBALLS are the rolling ones) inside the castle and slaughter dozens if you had alot of troops packed in. The fact that you can target troops even though you lack line of sight is annoying too.

Are artillery buildable units? If so, could you keep them on defense in a siege to use as counterbattery fire??

Im sure everyone here knows the advent of gunpowder-based artillery put a quick end up the strategic importance of castles, so in MTW will all castles everywhere be obsoleted in the late game??

[Papewaio]

Actually gunpowder didn't end the reign of castles the designs become more squat and angular to deflect cannon shot. Still an advantage when you have cannons inside a well fortified positon.

I would like to put a small catapults or ballista on rotating platforms on top of the towers.

[Stephen Hummell]

To answer your question, artillery will be very expensive. So some factions won't be able to afford them. And the defenders will have ballistas if they can afford them. And the castles will have gun towers also. Tech tree. And off course its fun.

[Papewaio]

I would prefer castles with more substance then a house of cards. These things were the aircraft carriers of their day and in relative terms we have stinger class missiles sinking the entire ship not just individual airplanes.

Since we only have the demo to base opinions on and some reviews. It seems that catapults etc are far to powerful with how they rend castles. Not very realistic at all.

I like Khan7s idea to move the catapults effects to strategic level.

[Emp. Conralius]

Hummel is right, castles have the ability to upgrade their defenses with guntowers, ballista, arrowtowers, etc. And as the fortresses get larger, so will the garrison. And there is also the fact that artillery ammunition would eventually run out, and then there's the assault. And to answer the question, it's arguably the most fun part of the game.

[fubi]

probably a bad idea to let sieges last too long, it would make siege warfare tedious.

also, id say that castles have enough defences, what with arrow, ballista, gun towers .etc, curtain walls and not to mention the fact that you can have archers and siege engines DEFENDING the castle.
i hope that the AI can conduct good sieges, just as long as the AI actually DOES conduct sieges...

anyway, castles should provide a few more uses than in shogun and will hopefully play a bigger part in the game.

[Vanya]

If MTW modeled the plague...

Will forces BESIEGING a castle ALSO suffer losses as the siege drags on... just as the defenders do?

Case in point...

I forget the name of the city...

The Italians had a city in Crimea... something like "Kaffa" or something (can't recall name).

ANyways... it was besieged by the Mongols. The castle supplied itself by sea with ease. So the siege dragged on and on. Well, eventually the Mongols got hit by one of the first outbreaks of the black death.

They were dying FAST too! In a funny twist of fate, they decided to launch the first recorded biological warfare attack by catapulting their dead into the city! Well, the defenders shortly thereafter got hit by the plague too! Panic broke out, and many took to their ships and fled. The Mongols were SO decimated they were FORCED to give up the siege, and never took the city! This despite there being very few left behind after the exodus!

But the fleeing Italians brought to the plague to the REST of Europe by fleeing! And so it spread like wildfire across the continent. The rest is history.

Back to MTW... it would be a nice twist if there was a chance your besieging force could come down with the plague and start dying off too if the siege took too long. It would certainly improve the value of having a castle if you knew the enemy could really not be content to sit outside the walls forever.

GAH!

[SattP]

I was snooping around the demo files and sometimes a castle can be so well supplied it will NEVER fall to a siege. In that case you're forced to assault it.

[Stephen Hummell]

Antioch was on it's knees because the crusaders sent diseased body parts into the city, not hurling large stones at it to knock down its walls. It was starved out. Even though its walls were 25 miles around. The crusaders were let in by a sad man whose wife was taken away by the leader of the city. After the siege it was a sad site cause almost everyone in the city was dead. Now the crusaders had to fight a large turkish force.
Anyway the early days of fighting should not have seige engines until the middle of the 1100's. infact the only way the dudes should get in is by destroying its gate.

[Kalt]

Papewaio:
Well yes I know, like how the belgians had that super-fortress that the nazis captured with ss landing on its roof as late as world war 2, and even things like Tora Bora today.

But before gunpowder artillery castles were seen as essential, with massive resources dedicated to fortifying most of europe. Once cannons showed up new building stagnated and the vast number of 'classic' castles already built all became obsolete. Im sure you know all this already but this is what I meant http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif.

I remember an old game called "Lords of the Realm 2" that let a besieging army choose how many siege engines it would build on the site (more realistic) and given the manpower u had available, building siege took time. I liked that system.

[Bohemond]

Quote Originally posted by Kalt:
Papewaio:
Well yes I know, like how the belgians had that super-fortress that the nazis captured with ss landing on its roof as late as world war 2, [/QUOTE]

If your talking about the Storming of Eben Emael in 1940 - hey man, that was not the SS, but ab Elite Parachuters unit called "Sturmabteilung Koch"!

For some people this might not be a difference but for me it is.

[Gothmog]

Folks:

I don't care how fancy siege battle can be, it all becomes IRRELAVANT if you lose your improvements when besieged, just like what happened in STW.

That way, you just can't afford to hide in the castle. Small castles offer little protection, big castles imply that you have too much to lose in those provinces. So what's the point?

You might argue that it DOES matter since the human player has to take down the castles by force. But here is a scorch-earth strategy: Attack a province, force the AI to flee to the castle, BURN everything, then simply retreat right away. No penalty whatsoever.

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Pain is weakness leaving the body.
http://www.grahamday.dial.pipex.com/rose-knight1.gif

[This message has been edited by Gothmog (edited 07-26-2002).]

[Wavesword]

Should be able to besiege the besiegers too of course.

[Vanya]

Quote Originally posted by Gothmog:
Folks:

I don't care how fancy siege battle can be, it all becomes IRRELAVANT if you lose your improvements when besieged, just like what happened in STW.

That way, you just can't afford to hide in the castle. Small castles offer little protection, big castles imply that you have too much to lose in those provinces. So what's the point?

You might argue that it DOES matter since the human player has to take down the castles by force. But here is a scorch-earth strategy: Attack a province, force the AI to flee to the castle, BURN everything, then simply retreat right away. No penalty whatsoever.

[/QUOTE]

If you withdraw, you'll get some vices tacked on to your general...

Like the one where "sightings of him fleeing the field crying like a girl are not exaggerated"... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

GAH!

So, now whenever you decide to retreat... you have to ask yourself:
1. Do I feel lucky? Well... do I? Punk?
2. Hmmm... If I turn and run, will I look like a chicken? BAAWWWWKKK!

GAH!

[Grifman]

Actually, you've got it wrong. In MTW, if you don't have a castle in MTW, you will lose more structures than if you don't. Here is the word on castles per DD at his site:

*********************************************

A lot of folks ask the "why" on castles - what are they good for?

A few reasons:

1) Castles define what you can build.
Many buildings are unobtainable until you have built a castle large enough to "house" them (although in some respects the castle doesnt actually house them but nm). So advancing your castle is the path for advancing your technology and, imo, the barometer/balance point for the tech tree.

2) The size and upgrades on a castle protect buildings.

When a province is invaded the likelyhood of buildings being damaged or destroyed is tied to the castle in the province. THe bigger and better defended the castle the fewer buildings will be damaged/destroyed. Thus ahving huge well upgraded castles means that even if the province is invaded and you ahve to retreat to the castle, you wont loose many (if any) buildings when you send an army to relieve the seige. This obviously plays both ways and when attacking a province you can capture well advanced provincial buildings and technology if you capture a province with a fortress in it.

If it has no castle expect mass destruction of buildings in the province.

3) Castles help define your control on a province.

The presence of a castle and its type and upgrade helps define the likelyhood of a revolt in the province. A large wells tocked castle, even with just one unit in it, makes revolt far far less likely. A province without a castle is far more likely to revolt and you will need to garrison such provinces with more troops/units.

4) Castles do now act as Castles.

You can stand up to seiges and you can hold out for many turns in castles. I have held a province for a dozen years before the AI attacked and then twice succesfully defended the castle against overwhelming odds (100 ish versus 900+). There's no guarentee but it can be done.. a fortress with gun towers and ring walls , catapult towers, ballista towers etc etc is pretty damn hard to assault EVEN with good seige artillery, indeed until good gunpowder cannons and their long range they are almost impregnable... going up gainst a citadel or fortress pre-gunpowder is VERY VERY VERY hard as you will not be able tot ake out all the towers an defences, meaning you are constantly under bombardment and arrow fire for the entire fight, and taking losses the entire time (castles have unlimited ammo)

SO: Castles play a far larger role then they did in STW. You also have to always consider the "what if" when attacking provinces with castles - if you plan to capture it in one move just remember the "what if" where the enemy retreats tot he castle or the survivors of a fight rout to the castle... 50 troops can stay in a castle for many years and all the time that province can revolt, you cant build and you cant draw taxes.

Thus strategies and tactics are different to STW where the presence of a castle was more of an annoyance than a factor of long consideration

*****************************************

Thanks to DD for that info. You can all chill out now.

Grifman

[Emp. Conralius]

From what I have read thusfar, there are 3 types of building styles: Western European, Islamic, and Romanesque (Southern European). Has anyone seen a Romanesue castle?

[Aelfred Magna]

yyyyyyeeeaaaaaaahhhhh . . . about Castles . . . (that is what this thread is supposedly about, right??)

I do have a question. I know that the AI controls your castle's integrated seige weapons (arrow/ballista/cannon towers, and such), and I also know that the AI is programmed to fire those weapons first at other seige weapons, and then at enemy troops, if no seige weapons are in range . . . does anybody happen to know whether or not the AI will be smart enough NOT to fire at a unit that's engaged in hand-to-hand with your own troops? (I don't want to be fending off an assault on my castle, only to lose a bunch of troops to a rock from one of my own towers, thank you :-P)

Anyway, just curious if anybody has an answer

[Yager]

I hate it when a conversation like this comes along and I come in after it's over argh. Anyways..how bout them castles?

From the reviews it sounds like if you either A, don't have a castle, or B, don't have an army garrisoned in a province there is a high probability it will revolt outright with either bandits or rebels taking over.

[youssof_Toda]

If ur a n00b you can camp in a castle comp game and get high honour!

[Funky Phantom]

Would it be possible to leave provinces behind your borderlines with other factions unmanned but with a castle and not have the people revolt?

I did this quite a lot in STW and as long as the province had been mine for some time it was fine. I would hate to have a massive army, but have to spread it over provinces that dont border my enemies that ive held for ages just because theyre still threatening to rebel :\

[This message has been edited by Funky Phantom (edited 07-27-2002).]

[Galestrum]

i dont know if this idea of, no garrison = outright rebellion is confirmed? but it does sound from the various comments that even a small castle will help reduce this

in STW i always found it a good idea to keep taxes low, for a long time in newly conquered territories, to help stop rebellions

if rampant rebellion is a problem, i will just fall back on the "theme" armies of byzantium, where each province had its own garrison force, usually of what i would call support forces rather than a main force

in game terms, a company of spearmen and/or regular archers i think would most likely be fine IF you dont tax the hell out of them, and should a major campaign or invasion come up, you already have an existing support force

[Funky Phantom]

The trouble is, some lands in the game may be so damn poor that you have no other option but to tax the hell out of your people and therefore increase the chances of rebellion.

Rebellion wasnt something that ever really bothered me in STW, i hope its hasnt become a big problem in MTW :\

[DarknScaly]

http://www.fourbelowzero.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000052

[Funky Phantom]

The link didnt work, what was it supposed to be?

[Emp. Conralius]

Has anyone seen a Byzantine castle? If you have, was it Romanesque?

[DarknScaly]

Quote Originally posted by Funky Phantom:
The link didnt work, what was it supposed to be?[/QUOTE]


Aye its a thread about castles:

Quote A lot of folks ask the "why" on castles - what are they good for?

A few reasons:

1) Castles define what you can build.
Many buildings are unobtainable until you have built a castle large enough to "house" them (although in some respects the castle doesnt actually house them but nm). So advancing your castle is the path for advancing your technology and, imo, the barometer/balance point for the tech tree.

2) The size and upgrades on a castle protect buildings.

When a province is invaded the likelyhood of buildings being damaged or destroyed is tied to the castle in the province. THe bigger and better defended the castle the fewer buildings will be damaged/destroyed. Thus ahving huge well upgraded castles means that even if the province is invaded and you ahve to retreat to the castle, you wont loose many (if any) buildings when you send an army to relieve the seige. This obviously plays both ways and when attacking a province you can capture well advanced provincial buildings and technology if you capture a province with a fortress in it.

If it has no castle expect mass destruction of buildings in the province.

3) Castles help define your control on a province.

The presence of a castle and its type and upgrade helps define the likelyhood of a revolt in the province. A large well stocked castle, even with just one unit in it, makes revolt far far less likely. A province without a castle is far more likely to revolt and you will need to garrison such provinces with more troops/units.

4) Castles do now act as Castles.

You can stand up to seiges and you can hold out for many turns in castles. I have held a province for a dozen years before the AI attacked and then twice succesfully defended the castle against overwhelming odds (100 ish versus 900+). There's no guarentee but it can be done.. a fortress with gun towers and ring walls , catapult towers, ballista towers etc etc is pretty damn hard to assault EVEN with good seige artillery, indeed until good gunpowder cannons and their long range they are almost impregnable... going up gainst a citadel or fortress pre-gunpowder is VERY VERY VERY hard as you will not be able to take out all the towers an defences, meaning you are constantly under bombardment and arrow fire for the entire fight, and taking losses the entire time (castles have unlimited ammo)

SO: Castles play a far larger role then they did in STW. You also have to always consider the "what if" when attacking provinces with castles - if you plan to capture it in one move just remember the "what if" where the enemy retreats tot he castle or the survivors of a fight rout to the castle... 50 troops can stay in a castle for many years and all the time that province can revolt, you cant build and you cant draw taxes.

Thus strategies and tactics are different to STW where the presence of a castle was more of an annoyance than a factor of long consideration. [/QUOTE]

[Papewaio]

It seems like two threads got merged so we have a castle thread and a religous one. Stick to the castle one as I am going backwards and deleting all non-castle off topic points from this thread.

BTW Thanks Funky and DarknScaly for staying on topic.

----EDIT----

Now that I have rightsized this thread. Dark you will notice that your thread is quoted 3 times http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

----EDIT #2---- Trying to keep number of posts down so we can have more meaningful topics.

Grifman, Just wanted to publicly apologise to you for previous events. Sorry for truly being an arrogant git and 'reading your mind' like assumptions.


[This message has been edited by Papewaio (edited 07-27-2002).]

[Rokkaku]

The point of castles is to defend your provinces, and build units, I cant see arguments that castles are pointless, I'd rather be beehind a big stone wall,f orce the enemy into killing groud and forrce them to use seige weapons.

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

The Kids right!!

Nothing says defense like a nice stone wall. Also if you need a castle to get up the tech tree why is it pointless??

quality vs quantity is a tough topic.
But quality and quantity vs is always better.

------------------
Jaguara-Spoken like a TRUE SPAMMER Toda!

No Fear Legend.

[Kamui_Imagawa]

Yeah, after all, if you don't like your men being slaughtered by bouncing lumps of rock then you can make it so that A) they'd either be out of range, B) so that the siege crew are brutally butchered at the hands of your arrow towers. It's all up to you and theres the difference between a badly built castle on low-budget and some super-fortress modded up to the max!

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The assasin of night is a dangerous foe, the assasin of day is extremely dangerous

[DarknScaly]

Of course in the full scope of a campaign about the ONLY way you will win is to hold onto "behind the lines provinces" with minimal troops...and the only way to do this is to have a whopping massive fortress manned with a small garison. Able to withstand a long enough seige to race back a defending army and enough just to maintain population loyalty (which is helped by bigger and better castles thus requiring less and less in terms of garrison size - thereby reducing costs - which is essential as you expand and trade dries up)...

Ive seen an army waste itself against the walls of a fortress defended by only 40 men....