saping = lame ?

[Hannibal_Barkar]

Here, for once, I agree with the critics.

Even MTW had defensive "rings." As RTW is now, you're in if you take down one wall.

There's no provision for counter-sapping: Tunnels dug by defenders and fights, often with shovels, underground.

Moats were invented to prevent sapping, also. The moats or nearby rivers would flood the tunnels.

I don't even haul catapults around with the major armies.They're too slow. I can invade, besiege, sap and take an inland town in less time than it takes to march there and storm it with siege weapons.

Yes, if you play with sapping, there is not point hauling that onager around.
Some sort of counter sapping could balance this problem.

Moats and rivers... that reminds me, - anybody notice that many if not all cities are lacking the river or coastline they should have on the battle map ?



H.

[bmolsson]

I don't think those walls would fall apart in real life due to a tunnel. I recall that those walls was normally down at least 2 meters, which means that you need to be hell of a digger and there would be a huge amount of sand and dirt bagged up where you dig. Romans was pretty good builders.... ;)

[Aedil]

Yes, if you play with sapping, there is not point hauling that onager around.
Some sort of counter sapping could balance this problem.

Moats and rivers... that reminds me, - anybody notice that many if not all cities are lacking the river or coastline they should have on the battle map ?



H.

I was under the impression that cities were generic, rather than having a unique map (which would take much more work, what with multiple city sizes and all...). Still, there could be generic "Cities with River and/or port".
And a special Moat building would be cool. The way the siege screen is organized seems to indicate that more than one defense building was originally planned...

[foop]

Whilst it's true that sapping is unrealistically fast in the battle map, it was a genuine historic strategy. I guess the problem is the disparity in timescales between the strategic and battle maps. On the campaign map, each turn of a siege is six months. That's plenty of time to dig a tunnel under the walls and fire it. But that doesn't translate well onto the battle map.

I guess saps could be implemented in the campaign part of a siege, giving a chance of weakening or breaching walls before the battle - but then that wouldn't be as "exciting". It would be a fair bit more realistic, though. Having said that, how many real-world sieges were actually finished with saps, siege towers, rams and ladders? I've got no idea...