Large walls and siege towers in 1.6...

Ok here's a copy of a post I made at .com

>Ok, here's the thing.

When a unit pushes a siege tower up to large walls, they suddenly seem to have a hell of a lot of trouble getting into it.

The soldiers start to march up the ramp into the tower and then all turn round and go out again. Then they try and go back in. Then they turn round and march back out. Repeat until the entire unit has been destroyed by arrow fire.

This doesn't happen with every siege tower, say 2/3 seem to be having this problem. And it isn't just happening to the AI either, its happening to me too. You can't move the units away from the tower, you just have to leave them running in and out of the tower.

Occasionally a man does get up the tower, but by the time the whole unit (or what's left of it by then) gets up there you're about 1/2 an hour into the battle at least.

Nobody else has posted about it which is kinda wierd, so is it only me that's having this problem? If there's a work-around it would be cool, otherwise siege towers are now effectively useless against large walls. Well Roman ones anyway. <

Has nobody else experienced this then?

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Which game version; 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 (BI), 1.5, 1.6 (BI)?

The whole siege/assault/sally system (or the lack of it) is what I loathe most in this game but I don't remember such an anomaly on 1.3/1.4 aside from the usual stupidity of the animations, that is units grouping as if for a family photo just to be massacred by magic auto-operating tower turrets before finally deciding to embark on the siege tower.

Also, what unit size?
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Originally Posted by Mouzafphaerre

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Which game version; 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 (BI), 1.5, 1.6 (BI)?

The whole siege/assault/sally system (or the lack of it) is what I loathe most in this game but I don't remember such an anomaly on 1.3/1.4 aside from the usual stupidity of the animations, that is units grouping as if for a family photo just to be massacred by magic auto-operating tower turrets before finally deciding to embark on the siege tower.

Also, what unit size?
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Large unit size... and like it says in the thread title, 1.6.

Its good to see the AI making better use of siege equipment now, but I really wish they'd do something about the motorized siege towers with the interior electric lighting and the automatic lifts and the 160 HP internal combustion engines and the automatic laser guided high explosive rapid fire ballistae.... apart from just making the units incapable of climbing up them... its all a bit silly really.

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and like it says in the thread title, 1.6.

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:mean: :whip:

The firing ability of siege towers can be disabled or their fire rates decreased but nothing can be done with wall towers and gatehouses, which are totally and anoyingly hardcoded. :ballchain:
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I've just seen this happen as well in 1.6, where a unit of infantry kept moving backwards and forwards in front of the siege tower it was meant to be climbing, as if it was unable to get onto the tower slope bit at the bottom. Several minutes later, the units spontaneously all were able to get into the tower and climbed it. I tried using one of my units to climb the same tower and they had the same problem, so it's not just the AI.

Hey MAt, Are you telling your soldires to climb the towers? ie clickin them and giving them a command to climb tower, because if so it could be that because in the new patch you dont have to command them to climb they just do it now. But I could be wrong since you say it happens to the A.I .
I havent had this problem , yet lol but one thing I have noticed is they did tweak the seige towers fire rate and it now doesnt have super arrows so it would seem anyway.

I can confirm that this happens. Last night I used a siege tower crewed by Eastern Infantry to attack a Large Stone Wall. They pushed it to the wall, then started milling about moronically at the bottom. After about 5 minutes of getting shot up, I tried to pull them back. They ignored my instruction and continued dancing around. Ordering them onto the top of the wall using the movement pointer also failed. Eventually I sent a second unit (btw normal unit scale) to join them. They also milled around for a few minuites, before one unit finally appeared at the top of the wall (don't know whether it was the original crew or the reinforcements.) This was approximately 12 minutes after the siege tower had reached the wall.

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Originally Posted by Mouzafphaerre

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:mean: :whip:

The firing ability of siege towers can be disabled or their fire rates decreased but nothing can be done with wall towers and gatehouses, which are totally and anoyingly hardcoded. :ballchain:
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Actually, I think I know of a way to defang wall towers and gate houses. I'm not interested in doing it, but others might be. The structures make use of existing projectiles at least in descr_engines.txt, so most likely the same technique is used for the hardcoding...so if you move all units to copies of renamed projectiles in descr_projectile_new.txt, then cut the velocity down to a very low level on the default projectiles, cut out flaming options, eliminate body piercing etc. you can manually tune some of the projectile characteristics from these hardcoded points.

When I modified projectile speeds and eliminated fire arrows, I did it mostly by creating my own copies of each projectile, then assigning the projectiles to each unit. I did that to avoid weakening the defensive characteristics of walls/towers and engines.

Trick is: you have to know all the places each projectile is used so that you can update those that you want to leave the same by giving them the new copied name, while you tweak the original (that the wall/tower will be calling for.)

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Originally Posted by Barbarossa82

I can confirm that this happens. Last night I used a siege tower crewed by Eastern Infantry to attack a Large Stone Wall. They pushed it to the wall, then started milling about moronically at the bottom. After about 5 minutes of getting shot up, I tried to pull them back. They ignored my instruction and continued dancing around. Ordering them onto the top of the wall using the movement pointer also failed. Eventually I sent a second unit (btw normal unit scale) to join them. They also milled around for a few minuites, before one unit finally appeared at the top of the wall (don't know whether it was the original crew or the reinforcements.) This was approximately 12 minutes after the siege tower had reached the wall.

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This is what I mean! afaik at the moment it only happens with most (but not all) siege towers going up against large roman walls... it just seems to be happening to me much more than anyone else for some reason...

Ive noticed one thing VERY similar to this. May be the same thing - I dont know tbh.

I had a unit milling around the base of a seige tower refusing to climb inside. I had a good look around and notice 2 of the soldiers from that unit had been pushed magically through the wall at the base onto the city side base of the wall.

Hence the Unit of soldiers kept trying to reform, but where unble to do so because I hadnt bashed the gate in yet. Thus the 2 soldirs on the inside hadnt been able to magic themselves back through the wall into formation.

I had to leave that unit, but in another battle I saw it happening again so I blew the wall open and ordered the unit to run to the hole in the wall. Sure enough the magic soldiers were reunited with the formation - just for testing I then ordered them to climb the siege towere - which they did.

Houdini soldiers !

I was just about to post the same complaint, yet with sap points. This sucks.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Actually, I think I know of a way to defang wall towers and gate houses. I'm not interested in doing it, but others might be. The structures make use of existing projectiles at least in descr_engines.txt, so most likely the same technique is used for the hardcoding...so if you move all units to copies of renamed projectiles in descr_projectile_new.txt, then cut the velocity down to a very low level on the default projectiles, cut out flaming options, eliminate body piercing etc. you can manually tune some of the projectile characteristics from these hardcoded points.

When I modified projectile speeds and eliminated fire arrows, I did it mostly by creating my own copies of each projectile, then assigning the projectiles to each unit. I did that to avoid weakening the defensive characteristics of walls/towers and engines.

Trick is: you have to know all the places each projectile is used so that you can update those that you want to leave the same by giving them the new copied name, while you tweak the original (that the wall/tower will be calling for.)

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Sounds like intensive modding. Will try it in a mindfree state, thanks!

I see I have more and more reasons not to patch. ~:handball:
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Done an awful lot of seiges with tons of towers and have never seen that happen. :) use 1.6