Question, though perhaps for EBII

[Macilrille]

I find those last stands in city squares to be somewhat ridiculous. Are they hardcoded?

Perhaps if not one could change "control" of city to who posess the walls? The walls and square?

Any thoughts?

[Mediolanicus]

I think that is indeed hard coded in the RTW/M2TW engine...

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

It is indeed hardcoded.

[Darius]

It really doesn't make any sense to me personally, it shouldn't matter where anyone is in the settlement, just that the winner is the one left standing and the loser is dead/running for their lives. The idea that some magic square gives you superhuman bravery to fight to the last man and the last drop of blood is ridiculous.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Yeah, but without the square cities would have been really easy to take and CA would have had to program realistic sieges to make up for the magic square.

[Jebivjetar]

"Magic square" is a two sided blade: it makes it harder to conquer settlements for player, but it makes it easier to defend it on the other side.

[Ca Putt]

would it be possible(It probably isn't as It's not included :D) to script that the AI gives up once the army rateing of the AI army is less than half as good as that of the attacking army (inside the walls) ?

tho this could seldom lead to silly victories, in most cases It should work quite well.

[Moros]

Actually could it not be made to represent some kind of citadel, akropolis like or for example the capitol for Rome? Then at least it would make some sense.

[Skullheadhq]

No, I fear that is... hardcoded again

[Moros]

No, I fear that is... hardcoded again

If the battlemap, settlement maps are finally possible to change All you'd have to is remodel it and change the models and terrain around it abit.

[Alsatia]

No, I fear that is... hardcoded again

Why is everything hardcoded?

[Bucefalo]

I think the square (at least in M2TW) is not totally hardcoded. I know Taiji, a gameplay developer of DLV, managed to make town squares to don´t work at all, so you can´t capture the city. You needed to kill all defenders inside the city to win the battle. It have been some time since i played DLV, so i don´t remember exactly how the mechanic functioned, you can always ask him at the tw center forum.

[Mediolanicus]

Why is everything hardcoded?

If everything in a game would be variables, your game would take ages to load (checking all the variables).

[John the Mad]

I hope if there is another game set in the ancient or medieval time period they come up with a better way to resolve them if you fight it out on the battle map.I haven't played empire so i don't know how it resolves sieges.

Besides turning the garrison into supermen,it is also really insane when a routing unit composed of one lone survivor runs onto the square and takes it back from a full unit.

I'm sure if they wanted to they could come up with a better non-complicated solution to resolving sieges.I also wouldn't mind if they brought back attrition for the sieging force.

I guess its a mute point though at the moment.Just felt like adding my two cents.

[/Bean\]

I wish there could be a surrender option. Its one thing when one man takes back a magic square from a unit...but if there was only one man (or even a large group of them) defending a city and a massive, 5 full stacks came knocking at your door, you really would stand on the magic square and hope to win.

[Rilder]

I've found even in vanilla M2:TW city squares are done much better, the AI doesn't keep a unit hiding there at all times so if you play your cards right you can pin down their units and nab the square behind them.

[/Bean\]

That can be even more annoying though. For instance if the defenders outnumber you for whatever reason, and you can just hold them off for three minutes you can take the entire settlement and they'll all agree to surrender/kill themselves/allow to be sold into slavery etc. That could happen with even the stupidest of odds, as long as none of them make it back to the square.

[JMRC]

That square solves some of the tough situations when the unit is controlled by the AI and it helps to keep the game interesting right up to the end:

- if a defender unit routs, where does it head to? If it's an attacker, it runs to the edge of the battlemap, but doing the same for the defender units would make sieges easier.

- somekind of last stand must be toughened by having all survivors joined within the same spot and fight to the very end, inflicting as many casualties to the attacker as possible.

- if the survivors keep routing in that last stand spot, they will be killed like sheep and the last stand would have no effect. So the actual way is eliminate the rout as soon as they get into that square.

- by having a time limit for the siege (with the AI as defender), you actually simulate the situation where an army was forced to win the siege before sundown.

[Cute Wolf]

That square solves some of the tough situations when the unit is controlled by the AI and it helps to keep the game interesting right up to the end:

- if a defender unit routs, where does it head to? If it's an attacker, it runs to the edge of the battlemap, but doing the same for the defender units would make sieges easier.

- somekind of last stand must be toughened by having all survivors joined within the same spot and fight to the very end, inflicting as many casualties to the attacker as possible.

- if the survivors keep routing in that last stand spot, they will be killed like sheep and the last stand would have no effect. So the actual way is eliminate the rout as soon as they get into that square.

- by having a time limit for the siege (with the AI as defender), you actually simulate the situation where an army was forced to win the siege before sundown.

nice points

[/Bean\]

Yes, we all agree about these points and the usefulness of the square. The point was that the square should be changed to a citadel or something similar, or at least include some other spots where the last stand takes place (so some settlements have a square, others a citadel and so on).

I also said that last stands wouldn't happen every time an assault happened. I wanted a surrender option as well, which would be linked to the Med II prisoner options, allowing the surendees a chance to survive and walk away.

[vartan]

Well whatever our wishes may be, they cannot be realized AFAIK since the engine for RTW is untouchable, right?

[Ludens]

Well whatever our wishes may be, they cannot be realized AFAIK since the engine for RTW is untouchable, right?

The engine of practically any game is untouchable. Only open-source software allows programmers to tinker with the working of the engine.

[vartan]

Just call me up when you see an open-source RTS engine on par with RTW.