Small stone walls are much easier to defend than medium stonewalls

Like it says.

terminology
small stone walls - EB 1 level stone walls;
medium stone walls - EB 2 level stone walls;
big stone walls - vanilla epic stone walls that were removed from EB.

My arguments:
From my experience of 13 months of continuous playing EB, AI always attacks
small stone walls with:
1 ram;
2 ladders;
1-2 small towers;
and medium stone walls with:
1 ram;
1 sap;
1-2 medium towers.
(Well that's what my clever computer AI is doing, of course I'm not so sure about Yours)

1. Rams are either burned or not and there's no point discussing it, this is irrelevant;
(BTW, is it better to say "either XXX or YYY" or "either XXX either YYY" or "XXX either YYY"?)
2. A sap is always much more dangerous than ladders. Sap breach causes exactly same AI behavior as broken gates do - attackers form a pushing horde and push. Sometimes they are successful. Unfortunately for defender, attacker in case of pushing through sap breach is not burned. I consider saps to be the most dangerous assault strategy of all possible. As per ladders - its laughable, half of them die even before they get on the wall, the other half dies when they get there one by one, cause they receive multiple blows from multiple enemies simultaneously. Only human player is capable of rational use of ladders if he deploys them there where they are not expected to be deployed so that his assault troops are not met and dealt with immediately;
3. Small towers vs medium towers:
3.1. Of course medium tower ballista shot is devastating! But so is medium stone wall ballista shot. And clever human is not placing his troops in medium tower ballista range, he (me) carefully awaits before medium tower is attached to wall and only then he sends his troops there;
3.2. Now comes a bit more complicated issue: medium tower disembark capability is bigger than her smaller cousin. Therefore medium wall defenders simultaneously fight more attackers than small wall defenders. Which means that it is easier to repel an attack launched from small tower.

Summary
1. Rams are irrelevant cause comp is always using them;
2. Saps are much more dangerous than ladders, actually the most dangerous assault strategy of all;
3. It is easier to repel an attack launched from small tower than from medium

ergo:
Small stone walls are much easier to defend than medium stonewalls and there is no point in building medium walls!

Unfortunately, AI is not aware of my genius assumptions and continues building medium walls.
The problem is: I feel complete idiot after I capture his towns.
In the middle of great war with AS. I was lucky to capture Babylon, Charax and Arbela when they had small stone walls only. I wasn't so lucky with Seleukia. Medium stone walls already was there. Every turn Greys siege one of the mentioned above four towns with full stack. no problem, I like it.
What I don't like is that I spent more efforts defending a city with medium stone walls than the rest of less fortified towns combined together. Babylon, Charax and Arbela have garrisons of six units. It requires ten units to repel AS assault on Seleukia. And casualties rate is bigger.
Cause when AI fortifies a city with medium stone walls, he makes it more vulnerable.

My proposal:
1. either remove medium stone walls from the game at all;
2. either replace medium stone walls with vanilla epic stone walls.

Your opinion?

Best regards
MiniMe

In my game, the computer always attacks the larger walls with 2 rams, 2 siege towers, and 2 sap points. I think it's easier to defend those walls than the lesser ones, because the computer will have a siege tower and 2 ladders and it gets very crowded. I can move my defenders around relatively easily on the huge walls, whereas on the smaller ones, there's not much room to move.

With regard to sap points, I always find I suffer fewer casualties fighting at the breaches. Depending on the faction I'm playing as, I'll usually have a couple of levy phalanxes defending the gates and sap points; you can keep an entire army at bay if you stick a phalanx into the breach.

The units I put up on the walls are a combo of missile troops, spearmen, and pretty much anything that doesn't form a phalanx. I notice that I always suffer far more casualties with my units on the walls as opposed to my phalanxes holding the breaches.

One problem with huge walls, the siege towers have the rapidfire bolts that rip through your units like nothing. It forced me to start all the units I want holding the walls to start them away from where the siege tower will land, then when it gets to the wall, I run them in front of the tower to wait. Saves a lot of lives that way.

Overall, I'd say it's much easier to defend huge walls. The computer takes far more casualties just getting their men up to the walls and it makes it a lot easier to fight.

I completely agree. I miss those epic stone walls from vanilla, too. I also have noticed a significant pain in the @ss in defending "large walls" over the smaller walls, and I was suckered into upgrading them by the "5% bonus to law" benefit the large walls too. It really is much easier to defend the small walls than the large walls, there is no reason to upgrade save for a piddling bonus to law.

I'm pretty sure nothing like the epic stone walls were ever built in the ancient world (barring the Great Wall of China). In fact, even the medium walls look out of place to me in the EB world...

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Originally Posted by sanitarium

In my game, the computer always attacks the larger walls with 2 rams, 2 siege towers, and 2 sap points. I think it's easier to defend those walls than the lesser ones, because the computer will have a siege tower and 2 ladders and it gets very crowded.

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How defending against 2 rams, 2 siege towers, and 2 sap points could be easier than defending against a siege tower and 2 ladders? :inquisitive:

BTW, are you playing with rome.exe or rome-BI.exe or alex.exe?

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Originally Posted by gurakshun

I completely agree. I miss those epic stone walls from vanilla, too. I also have noticed a significant pain in the @ss in defending "large walls" over the smaller walls...

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Can you recall from vanilla days, what was AI strategy on attacking epic stone walls?

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Originally Posted by CaesarAugustus

I'm pretty sure nothing like the epic stone walls were ever built in the ancient world (barring the Great Wall of China). In fact, even the medium walls look out of place to me in the EB world...

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Carthage fortifications were undebatably epic. But that's not important. What's important is that in the depiction of reality we play with, attacker spends pretty much same time on preparation of large walls assault, builds more machinery and due to its amount is more successful. Which makes TW and its modifications depiction of reality distorted. Better fortifications (and small stone walls due to the way AI assaults them are better) do not precede, they succeed.
Can't recall how it was with epics...

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Originally Posted by MiniMe

Can you recall from vanilla days, what was AI strategy on attacking epic stone walls?

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A miserable failure.

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Originally Posted by MiniMe

How defending against 2 rams, 2 siege towers, and 2 sap points could be easier than defending against a siege tower and 2 ladders? :inquisitive:

BTW, are you playing with rome.exe or rome-BI.exe or alex.exe?

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I play with BI.

The siege tower and 2 ladders means there are at least 3 enemy units on the walls at a time (assuming I can't ignite the tower), as opposed to the large stone walls with 2 siege towers, you only have 2 units at a time to fight on the walls.

The rams account for nothing, as I believe I've only seen the computer actually get a ram up to the gate a handful of times in the few years I've been playing RTW. Sap points are preferable for me because I can chew up any attack the enemy tries with only 1 or 2 phalanxes.

Also, you can set sap points on fire. I usually manage to knock at least one out every battle, meaning I have 1 sap point and the 2 siege towers to deal with.

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Originally Posted by sanitarium

The siege tower and 2 ladders means there are at least 3 enemy units on the walls at a time (assuming I can't ignite the tower), as opposed to the large stone walls with 2 siege towers, you only have 2 units at a time to fight on the walls.

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:inquisitive: As you can see from my first post, I believe disembark from medium tower to be much more dangerous than ladder climbing or small tower cause the amount of soldiers that land on the wall simultaniously is much bigger

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The rams account for nothing, as I believe I've only seen the computer actually get a ram up to the gate a handful of times in the few years I've been playing RTW.

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Yep, the rams are not the issue anyway, agreed on that

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Sap points are preferable for me because I can chew up any attack the enemy tries with only 1 or 2 phalanxes.

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:inquisitive: It is obvious that we need 1 or 2 phalanxes to bloke any hole be it breach or broken gate. However sometimes this is not enough (I mean AI horde assault taktic when he simply pushes your pikemen with heavy armoured horsies.

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Also, you can set sap points on fire. I usually manage to knock at least one out every battle, meaning I have 1 sap point and the 2 siege towers to deal with.

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WOW! thanx, did not knew that =)

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Originally Posted by MiniMe

:inquisitive: As you can see from my first post, I believe disembark from medium tower to be much more dangerous than ladder climbing or small tower cause the amount of soldiers that land on the wall simultaniously is much bigger

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The balancing factor there is only having to deal with two units at a time instead of three. Yes they drop out of the larger towers quicker, but you have fewer dropping onto the walls at a time. 2 siege towers versus 2 ladders and a siege tower amounts to fewer troops that can drop onto the walls at once. Not to mention the archer towers on the large walls do a lot more damage as the enemy approaches the walls.

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:inquisitive: It is obvious that we need 1 or 2 phalanxes to bloke any hole be it breach or broken gate. However sometimes this is not enough (I mean AI horde assault taktic when he simply pushes your pikemen with heavy armoured horsies.

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I play on VH/M, maybe this is where we differ. The only time I've had a problem with the computer just pushing through my phalanxes is when a spy opens the gate and the entire army charges forward. Then they usually manage to push through, but I layer my defense and they can only push through so many pikes before they're all dead.

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Originally Posted by sanitarium

Yes they drop out of the larger towers quicker, but you have fewer dropping onto the walls at a time. 2 siege towers versus 2 ladders and a siege tower amounts to fewer troops that can drop onto the walls at once.

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That's the point where I desagree with you. IMO concentration in one place is more important than the whole quantity of troops landed on entire walls.
When they are climbing the ladder and you expect them there, it's their lowest concentration and your troops usually manage to slughter them one by one.
When they drop from small tower, they drop in reasonable quantity but still you manage to kill them before the next party arives.
But when they drop from medium tower due to their initial amount they manage to keep alive until the next party arives. And if not the third party then the fourth will make things really bad for you.

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Not to mention the archer towers on the large walls do a lot more damage as the enemy approaches the walls.

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Sometimes they do sometimes they don't. Rather depends on tower boarding area. IMO they pretty well counterbalance medium tower ballista (and yes, I was the first to say that we need not stand and wait for towers ballista fire but still... things happen)

I tend to disagree with the conclusion that large walls are harder to defend than medium, though it is an interesting analysis.

A major point that was not mentioned is the bug with large (or epic, in Vanilla) siege towers, where sometimes the attacking unit just mills around at the entrance. Players can tediously work around this with micromanagement, the AI cannot. I don't know good statistics on this bug, but from my own experience as the attacker I expect to see the bug on tower #2 - so I often just send troops in on one tower if the defenders are weak enough that I can get away with it. :beam: Anyway, with large walls figure 30-50% of AI towers will just keep a decent enemy unit harmlessly busy for the entire battle. That's not bad, I think.

Another point that hasn't been mentioned works in favor of the basic wall. I've found that something about the streets and gates of large walls produces much worse "traffic jams" than basic walls, so it takes much longer for multiple units to sally. Of cource an easy workaround is to send units out of two gates instead of one (horse archers through the gate in front of the enemy, heavy cav through the gate nearest the corner the besiegers will run towards).

Out of curiosity, why do you guys face so many siege defenses? I've been playing RTW near-continuously for ~15 months now, and I've faced just two. One in my first vanilla game (easy win thanks to the tower bug) and one in the first few turns of FATW when I got cocky. I'm much more accustomed to seeing the AI besiege a town and then crushing their army, either with the besieged forces or with a relief army nearby. Thus my interest in how fast horse archer groups can sally from gates... And I greatly value the extra height (= archer range) of the larger walls. I'm guessing I must have a relatively cautious playing style, though I don't normally think of it that way.

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Originally Posted by bovi

A miserable failure.

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How was it exactly? I must be recalling it different than you are. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by MiniMe

That's the point where I desagree with you. IMO concentration in one place is more important than the whole quantity of troops landed on entire walls.
When they are climbing the ladder and you expect them there, it's their lowest concentration and your troops usually manage to slughter them one by one.
When they drop from small tower, they drop in reasonable quantity but still you manage to kill them before the next party arives.
But when they drop from medium tower due to their initial amount they manage to keep alive until the next party arives. And if not the third party then the fourth will make things really bad for you.

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I use this to my advantage. Since I know that there are only two spots on the wall I need to watch, I assign two units to fight each tower, one on either side of the ramp. When the first batch falls out, they're getting attacked from two sides and will get chopped up rather quickly. Then I just wait for the following stream of troops to drop into the meat grinder.

Once the computer has committed all of its troops to either the breaches or towers, I'll send out whatever leftover units I have and seal them off. For example, if some enemy units are pinned in the sap breach by my phalanx, I'll send my cavalry out the gate and hit them from behind, this will usually cause a quick route. If not, I'll move my remaining infantry in and just slowly grind them down.

One other thing I like about the higher walls, you can get more of your missile troops into good firing positions. If I have a city that receives constant attack, I'll keep a good sized garrison (assuming I can afford it) with several missile troops, and I can inflict some good damage on the enemy in a quicker amount of time as the larger walls give you more space to place units.

Really the only time I could see using the smaller walls is with a faction that doesn't have phalanxes readily available, like the Romans. Fighting in the breaches without phalanxes does consume a lot of men, and in that case I'd prefer the smaller walls.

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Originally Posted by jhhowell

Out of curiosity, why do you guys face so many siege defenses? I've been playing RTW near-continuously for ~15 months now, and I've faced just two.

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What factions do you play as? I have an Epeiros campaign where Taras gets attacked at least once a year by the Romans, this has been going on for over 50 or so years. If I wasn't so entangled in my war with the Ptolemaics (it would appear they control the entire world east of the Aegean Sea, I've spent about 10 years trying to uncover all of the Ptolemaic territory with spies), I'd send everything I had to Italy just to stop those annoying Romans from attacking me all the time.

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Originally Posted by jhhowell

A major point that was not mentioned is the bug with large (or epic, in
Out of curiosity, why do you guys face so many siege defenses?

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Current houserules. My stinking rich overstretched Ptolemaioi empire could be a threat to whole humankind if it wasn't so... empirish :laugh4:
1. Main armies are very good but they are stationed in Alexandria and Memphis only.
2. Only half of them can leave this area on new territory conquest, the other Imperial Elites always guard the the egypt twin capital even though noone will threaten them for the next thousand years.
3. Only heir to the throne and his brothers can command Imperial Elites. And the heir can be of royal line only, no matter how stupid he is. Actually they are always stupid, that's my royal family.
4. Family members from etnick minorities are trusted to rule their homeland provinces only (Asiatikoi - in Asia minor, Kypriotai - islands and so on)
5. Immediate destruction of all etnick minorities culture buildings on capture.
6. All rebel uprisings are dealt with recruiting local scum. Never attack rebels with owerhelming forces -the more of your local scum dies the better.
7. Enslave on capture not wipe out. Ptolemaioi are kind and need slaves for their... agricultural facilities.
8. Three spies per town.
9. Highest tax rate even if this means huge garrison.
10. No trade agreements with neutral states. All egyptian trade to stay in egypt borders noone else to profit from egypt.
11. City garrisons are recruited accordingly to city social system and development. Besides lots of crappy native levies this means - no good cavalry before large agricultural estates.
12. And (finally answer to your question) regional governors are not allowed to undertake independent decisions which means - no sallys.

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Originally Posted by gurakshun

How was it exactly? I must be recalling it different than you are. Thanks.

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The couple of times I had epic walls under assault:
* the enemy rolled up their laser cannon siege towers, blasting away any defenders on the walls (so far so good)
* because there is nothing that can stand against said ridiculous towers, I relinquished the walls to the attackers and retreated to the main square
* The enemy army, numbering five times my men, proceed slowly along all the walls inside, to maximize the effectiveness of my towers by letting all of them fire (fatal flaw)
* The enemy arrives at the main square with the third that is remaining of his army
* I charge at the front unit with my guys, everybody routs and dies

In BI, a Hun army of 6 close-to-full stacks did the same (additionally parading in front of my towers on the outside to reach the opening they created). My garrison was slightly more than a half stack, mostly competent troops. The rout was not instant due to the huge amount of enemies, I lost nearly 3/4 of my men but won, with less than 20 enemy survivors.

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Originally Posted by sanitarium

What factions do you play as? I have an Epeiros campaign where Taras gets attacked at least once a year by the Romans, this has been going on for over 50 or so years. If I wasn't so entangled in my war with the Ptolemaics (it would appear they control the entire world east of the Aegean Sea, I've spent about 10 years trying to uncover all of the Ptolemaic territory with spies), I'd send everything I had to Italy just to stop those annoying Romans from attacking me all the time.

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In EB, Romans in 0.8, Hayasdan (extensively), AS, and Romans (both briefly so far) in 1.0.

Couldn't the Taras situation be handled by sallies? Station a couple of Cretans (I know mercs are available in Italy), a sphendonetai, and a few deuteroi and a cavalry or two (FM or prodromoi), that ought to chew up Romans nicely. Obviously you're beating them within the city, shouldn't take that much more to beat them in a sally - should it? Maybe the extreme power of horse archers is causing me to overestimate how well non-HA factions can do in similar situations...

My Hayasdan wars were initially dominated by sally victories. That destroyed the Pontic army (peace, in RTW! It's a miracle!) and the AS army, and now has chewed up the Ptollies enough to grab at least one city. Not sure I can get Antioch just yet, but since I keep sending the plague there they can keep it for now. :beam: :skull:

A no-sally house rule would of course explain seeing more siege defenses, though... ~:)

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Originally Posted by jhhowell

In EB, Romans in 0.8, Hayasdan (extensively), AS, and Romans (both briefly so far) in 1.0.

Couldn't the Taras situation be handled by sallies? Station a couple of Cretans (I know mercs are available in Italy), a sphendonetai, and a few deuteroi and a cavalry or two (FM or prodromoi), that ought to chew up Romans nicely. Obviously you're beating them within the city, shouldn't take that much more to beat them in a sally - should it? Maybe the extreme power of horse archers is causing me to overestimate how well non-HA factions can do in similar situations...

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I don't like to sally out unless I know my garrison can't handle an assault (or if I'm playing as a nomadic faction). The basic idea there would be I can bait the computer into getting in range of my towers/missile troops to whittle them down and have a better shot at taking them on.

Other than that, I take the siege because I have an easier time letting the enemy come to me to wipe them out.

fellas.... wtf are u guys talking about???

The AI is retarded in the pains, in the hills, in the small walls and in the large walls. :dizzy2:

Ah, this reminds me. Could the battering ram option be removed from stone wall battles? The AI always builds a battering ram, which is always burnt by the gateway towers, which sometimes results in AI going idle. I don't know if there are any players who use battering rams against stone walls, so it would only help the AI. Maybe even increase the "cost" of siege towers, so that ladders would have to be used more frequently.

And if it's possible, could someone perhaps tell me how? I'd appreciate it. And if the answer is only one word, could you please soften it up a little? I hate that word.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Don't

No.

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Originally Posted by MiniMe

Can you recall from vanilla days, what was AI strategy on attacking epic stone walls?

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Originally Posted by bovi

A miserable failure.

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Originally Posted by gurakshun

How was it exactly? I must be recalling it different than you are. Thanks.

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for fun, i assaulted Rome in RTW in custom battle, with a full stack of urban cohort, versus just a couple of legionaries. i had 2 seige towers. one got destroyed after the first load, and that load of urbans cut thru most of the defenders in his section, but was eventrually wiped out. i got 1 and 1/3 units up on the other side- the tower collapsed with 2/3 of the 2nd unit in it. so basically i lost 4/5 of my army when the job was done... at least i killed all the defenders! :smg:

i agree with MiniMe.. I would like to see Epic wall's in... they should be one of the longest to build in EB

HELLS NO!... really nothing personal but hells no to Epic walls. :thumbsdown:

Very few cities actually had walls that were sorta like a vanilla epic wall (notice I said "sorta like" not like) And those towers shoot 20mm armor piercing rounds. Same thing with the freaking siege towers.

Besides... The AI is stupid! It NEVER fights well... So why are u guys "expecting" the AI to do any kind of smart tactical manouvers in a siege :dizzy2:

come one fellas come one on.... u want the AI to be a challege u got 2 options

A- Roleplay
B- VH/VH Fatige Off.

thats it...

a 3rd option is Multiplayer, and once finals are over this thursday I am going to be here ready to :boxing: ya'll

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I want the large stones walls out, let alone the epics taken back! :rtwno:
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Yes, that seems the best soloution to the problem, then no one can complain that they are harder to defend.

It's easy to remove large walls yourself:

1. Open the file export_descr_buildings.txt under Rome - Total War\EB\Data in a text editor (make a backup copy first!)
2. Scroll down to the section called building defenses
3. Look at the stone_wall entry and delete the line large_stone_wall between { } under the upgrades, but leave the { } in place

This will make it impossible to upgrade small stone walls into large stone walls, both for the AI and for the player. Any settlement that begins with large stone walls will still have them, but those should be rare.

You could also add "and hidden_resource not_here" at the end of the header for the large_stone_wall entry, but this alone doesn't seem to disable them everywhere IMX, while removing the upgrade option definetly works.

I don't care about defending walls. I never wait for the AI to finish its siege machines or actually starve me out. I just make a sortie if my troops are more or less the same strength as the enemy, or I have a reinforcement army come forth within one round and use them from the outside like a hammer, using the occupying forces plus the walls as the anvil.

Gentlemen, please don't get me wrong for starting all this.
This wasn't some kind of demanding tread. BTW, I'm quite able myself either to remove medium stonewalls either to replace them with epic.
I thought this could be a debating tread. Thus far only Sanitarium cared to present his arguments (that have solid ground I must admit).
As per "I don't care, cause I love to sally" argument or "epic walls never existed" or "AI is not sieging my towns cause I'm that cool"... does it confirm or disproof the following statement:

RomeTotalWar small stone walls due to the way AI assaults them are better defense than medium stone walls