A little thing I'd like to see in sieges...

[bodidley]

Petersen definately didn't write the screenplay for Troy, David Benioff did. His screenplay was so bad I don't think any director could have salvaged it, and since the style of the movie was so different from Petersen's previous work, I'd suspect that the producers of the movie interfered with it.

Come on Jebus, why are you trying to defend a movie you've never seen? ;~p

[eadingas]

Actually, Petersen didn't do a good movie ever since he left Europe. Perhaps he simply doesn't know how to deal with hollywood producers? I still can't believe what happened to the talent of a guy who did Das Boot. That was the best war movie _ever_. Where did all that go?

[eadingas]

I post one reply, stating that IMHO the illiad is phenomanal to read when fully pre-transalted. and suddenly Eadingsgas says everybody si agaianst me...i posted 1 thiny quote from homer....wat did i do wrong?

You guys just have too confusing screennames :)

[Epistolary Richard]

While I cringed at much of Troy, I did like the fact that they really seemed to get the feeling of mass into the big battle fights - IMO too many films do their battles where the soldiers are completely intermingled as though it were one big skirmish.

You guys just have too confusing screennames :)

As opposed to the _extremely_ straightforward and easy to spell eadingas?

[bodidley]

Actually, Petersen didn't do a good movie ever since he left Europe. Perhaps he simply doesn't know how to deal with hollywood producers? I still can't believe what happened to the talent of a guy who did Das Boot. That was the best war movie _ever_. Where did all that go?

The Perfect Storm was at least mediocre, the boys down in Gloucester liked it though

Yeah, Hollywood screws people up (in general ). Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi for $7,000 in Mexico without a crew, and when he got big Hollywood money all of his movies were crap.

[Jebus]

Come on Jebus, why are you trying to defend a movie you've never seen? ;~p

I'm not defending Troy per sé, I'm more defending the right of producers to insert some artistic liberty in their works.

Anyway, I'm just a guy that likes to play advocatus diaboli, I guess.

[bodidley]

No one says that artists don't have a right to artistic liberty, but if they make garbage then we have the right to bash their work

[jerby]

You guys just have too confusing screennames :)

its ok.

[Sfwartir]

I see Sarcasm is the last person so far to have an opinion on the thread issue, so thanks for that Sarcasm. Joe mentioned the hard-coded issue. I believe that even though we can't do anything with what is hard-coded right now, doesn't mean we'll never be able to. Who knows, maybe CA will make some things not-quite-so-hard-coded some day. Or even better (and a lot more likely), maybe someone will figure out a way to un-hard-code things in the near future.
A small spot or two on each wall length, where the player can choose to put his/her artillery i f he/she wants to, is all we need really. Maybe the deployment spot(s) don't necessarily have to be a part of the wall itself? It must be within the deployment area of the fortress garrison though, for obvious reasons.

Some other issues I'd like to raise when it comes to siege/sallies:

1#I think it should be possible for a defender to deploy forces outside of the walls, no matter the size of the walls, when choosing to sally forth (not when the besieger assaults, though). It takes forever to move one's army out of the city as it is now (vanilla). Guess this is hard-coded too.

2#Would it be possible to add a sort of earthwork line around the besieged walls, perhaps midway between the walls and the "thin red line"? It could act as circumvallation(sp?) lines built by the besiegers (anyone understand what I mean?). It would have to be quite high, perhaps the height of a infantryman x2, but of course easily possible to pass across.

3#It has been mentioned in antoher thread that the fact that you can sally forth as many times as you like per turn in vanilla is a bug. If it is a bug, it's a bug that makes the game more historically correct, and should be left in. Raids on a besieging army was indeed common, and has been so since people started sieging each other. Raids such as these were commited on a nearly daily (or should I say nightly) basis during a siege, with varying results of course, but it did happen. It could be from 10 to 500 (or more) men, depending on the size of the besieged city/settlement, that went outside to attack siegeworks, harass the enemy, kill off horses or soldiers/dignitaries. Sometimes, such raids were used as diversions, making it possible for the besieged to muster its army and attempt a breakout. So I say it's in.
With each turn being 6 months, you actually could sally forth roughly 180 times each turn and it would still be historically correct.

Anyway, I feel we've established that counter siege artillery is not entirely out of time frame, and that's at least a start.


On the other discussion raging on this thread, I don't mind it being here. I wish it would focus more on the horrible ( H o r r i b l e I tell you!) Orlando Bloom tho'

[eadingas]

The problem with #1 and #2 is this:
in the engine, the "city border" (the deployment line for defenders) = city walls. You can change the border through some fiddling, but only if there are no walls defined. If there are walls defined in the settlement plan, they override any border settings you might have. If there are no walls, you can probably make entire battlefield a defender's deployment zone, but then.. you have no walls. Unless we make some artificial wall-like buildings, but they will never work like "real" walls, they will simply act as unmovable obstacles.

[bodidley]

Another thing I'd like to see in sieges is the ability to break out and retreat. I bet that one's going to be a long time coming though...

[Sfwartir]

Another thing I'd like to see in sieges is the ability to break out and retreat.

Yes, that would be interesting too. If you manage to get your garrison across the thin red line, you loose the city but maintain your (full strength) army. Good suggestion!

[GoreBag]

The problem with #1 and #2 is this:
in the engine, the "city border" (the deployment line for defenders) = city walls. You can change the border through some fiddling, but only if there are no walls defined. If there are walls defined in the settlement plan, they override any border settings you might have. If there are no walls, you can probably make entire battlefield a defender's deployment zone, but then.. you have no walls. Unless we make some artificial wall-like buildings, but they will never work like "real" walls, they will simply act as unmovable obstacles.

That's not quite true. You can deploy troops outside of your walls as long as the walls are the thin, wooden kind. Granted, they need to be really close to the walls, but they're outside.

[eadingas]

I do believe this is only because for the engine, they are still "within" the walls, because wooden walls are thinner and do not fill the entire area designed for walls.

[Fenrhyl]

Not too bad a movie. Some things are accurate, others are less, some are out of the place entirely.

This said, the walls defence techniques shown in this movie are good enough (though i doubt anyone ever downed siege towers this way, it remains possible.) Medieval siege weaponry is precise enough to send a 50 kg stone in the same hole 400 meters away again, and again, and again, and again. i doubt engineers in the antiquity were any less skilled in this domain. So breaking your walls with your own artillery is downright silly

[Simetrical]

I do believe this is only because for the engine, they are still "within" the walls, because wooden walls are thinner and do not fill the entire area designed for walls.

Hmm . . . I wonder if it would be possible to model walls with an offset? Like, with "null space" of some kind on the outside? Maybe that could persuade the engine to let you deploy outside the walls?

-Simetrical