Stronghold: Total War

[Zanshin]

I was thinking about the lack of moats and drawbridges and then tried to imagine how would the game be with them.

Some thoughts about Stronghold (the game) later...This could need a huge number of units, elements of the castle, etc.

Would this really be doable as an expansion to M2TW? Or it goes far beyond the scope, to a "Stronghold: Total War" with castle building and all.

i.e.: Do you think it could be done with a minimum of units and changes? Or it's better to ask for another TW game with moats and drawbridges, boiling oil, big stones, hidden spikes, hidden tar fields, miners to hole the walls from under, siege units to surpass moats, and, of course, the possibility to build and design the castles.

[troymclure]

I certainly think seiges need a bit of work still. It's far too easy too take a castle at the moment, especially pre-gunpowder, at least compared too how it was historically.

People built castles for a reason back in those days, and those reasons did not include because they fell too anybody with the same amount of troops and a catapult.

I don't mind at all the fact that castle walls go down to gunpowder but something out to be done about the pre-gunpowder era. Remember Constantinople didn't fall until the turks used cannons to destroy their walls. A ballista can do it at the moment.

[maestro]

I'm in two minds as to the effectiveness of castles. The way I see it is that it works both ways. If I am holding a castle, I can defend it successfully against massive odds in a heroic victory, which is great. Yet if I am attacking a castle, fortress or citedel then I can also successfully assault them against overwhelming odds. Is this that Castles are innefective, or that the Ai is ineffective?

As an example, last night I attacked one of the French Citadel, being held by the Milanese in order for me to gift it back to my French buddies. I attacked with around 1500 uber units but was up against 1600 uber units from Milan. The coloured bar was about 40% me to 60% them on the preview screen. At the en of the battle, with minutes left, I killed their last man in the square. they lost ever single man (0 remaining) and I lost around 400. This is on VH Is this ineffective AI or ineffective Castles? I had only one Culverin and destroyed all 3 wall rings with it.... over-powered?

Even though I was chuffed to bits to have won such a remarkable victory I felt somewhat underwhelmed and was left thinking "is that all you've got?". I would expect to only be able to take a big castle with something like a 3-1 troop ratio or mega uber troops or lots of gunpowder and troops in reserve.... but it's all too easy. I'm now 100+ turns into a VH/Vh campaign and the only battles I've lost have been at see... is that lame?

[Darth Nihilus]

I have personally thought the same thing. It does seem too easy to take castles from the enemy and I would like it to be near impossible to take a citadel without a lot of gunpowder. Historically, the Knights Hospitaller held out in Krak Des Chevaliers for like 10 years with it being seiged. No one ever breached the castle as far as I know. Now that's an example of what it should be like to try and take a citadel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_Des_Chevaliers

[Lorenzo_H]

hmmm i wouldnt get your hopes up about that type of thing for the expansion.

[Werner]

I was stunned when I realized castles didn't have actual moats and draw bridges. This is something that should have been in the game and I think its an outrage that CA brushed by it the way they did. Absolutely something that should be in a patch, but as someone else mentioned - don't hold your breath.

[Razor1952]

Personally I agree that seiging castles is too easy.

The problem is of course that the ai can never be as good as the human player, so things should be biased to defenders, particularly castles as this is what the ai spends most of its time doing, defending against human onslaughts.

So I agree with above that catapults and ballistas should not be able to breach walls so easily(or perhaps not at all-only a gate or two.?). Perhaps only Trebuchets then only one breach/unit of trebs.

Making it harder to seige would be another brake/slow down on the human(like the pope's edicts) but this would be only relative.

[Slyspy]

Sorry, but a castle without a moat? Really it is fundamental to their construction to have a ditch and, if not a drawbridge, crossings that can easily be destroyed in the event of an attack.

It seems that little real work as been done on the siege aspect of TW (which was underdeveloped in RTW), and I find myself less inclined to buy because of this.

[Fisherking]

Sorry guy but not all that many castles had moats. When it came to storming fortifications a lot depended on the military traditions of the particular nation involved. The English were noted for their abilities in storming fortifications. I don't know what is modelled into the game with each faction but I know that there are differences in how each faction acts.

The idea of the game (Stronghold TW) sounds great though….almost a perfect blend between two great series.

[Slyspy]

I do believe you to be wrong there.

[kvbrock82]

I have personally thought the same thing. It does seem too easy to take castles from the enemy and I would like it to be near impossible to take a citadel without a lot of gunpowder. Historically, the Knights Hospitaller held out in Krak Des Chevaliers for like 10 years with it being seiged. No one ever breached the castle as far as I know. Now that's an example of what it should be like to try and take a citadel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak_Des_Chevaliers

very nice!

if you would like to read about an interesting siege check out the one of my home counrty Malta in 1565, The great siege of Malta.

6,000 Knights hospitallers & maltese citizens vs 48,000 turks. Eurpoeans consider this battle to be one of the most important in european history as if the turks succeeded they could have potentially conquered europe from that location.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Siege_of_Malta

[Darth Nihilus]

Wow, that was a good read kvbrock82, thanks. The Knights Hospitaller have always really interested me.

[kvbrock82]

Wow, that was a good read kvbrock82, thanks. The Knights Hospitaller have always really interested me.

same here. i was hearing rumours of a film being produced about the siege last year but havent heard anything since then .

[Slaists]

For one: higher level castle gates should be reinforced. It is way to easy to open high level castle gates with a ballista... In MTW 1, i think, ballistas and catapults were not effective against much beyond a wooden fort. I think, that's the way it should be. As to trebuchets: one had to pick their location very carefully in order for them not to be decimated by castle defenses. I guess, the solution is to increase the castle defense range.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

The solution, I believe, lies in having a lot of the siege element of the castles taking place on the strategic map.

Whilst the actual breaching of the walls (filling in of moats, building of ramps etc etc) takes place on the battle maps then sieges will never feel "realistically difficult" simply because you *have to* blow the walls down in a fast time otherwise the battle takes too long.

I've always felt that simply marching up to a castle and auto-majically encircling it without the need for either specialised equipment, units or additional costs/time isnt much fun.

Much better to have to take a specialised baggage siege train with you, not as units on the battle maps, but as "agents" on the strategic map - Without them you cant besiege a castle.

So that when you reach the battle map you have already made any breaches, crossed the most by filling it in, made any tunnels to collapse walls and so on and so forth via your actions on the strategic map.

And the agent should be represented on the battle map as a small force of units in their own right, thus allowing for the castle defenders to sally (and unless supported by a "proper"army relatively easy to defeat.)

As agents its also easy enough to tie in cinematic events to make the sieges visual interesting, walls crumbling, tunnels collapsing and so on and so forth. You also avoid situations where the player simply lines up a couple of cannons and blows everything in sight up, walls, towers and units - you can essentially remove that entirely from the (battle) game to prevent exploitation of such units, or render them vastly reduced effectiveness against buildings and walls so that they can still be used but not to batter down walls in seconds. (And you can keep rams in but make them far less easy to destroy and make barbican and gate defences far stronger - that way you can have multiple units sacrificed to using the battering ram to open a gate should you wish to pursue a quick (but not easy) resolution to the siege.)

Essentially the only piece of the taking of a castle that really needs to take part on the battle map is the final storming of the castle, whereas at the moment you are having to do both the siege and the storming in the same battle.

Until gunpowder it was very rare for a besieger to batter down every wall in sight and tower because it just took too long to do( IF it could be done at all remember), instead you would get a single breach made or a tower or wall section collapsed, followed by an assault.

(And obviously the AI needs some help too)

[Zanshin]

I've always felt that simply marching up to a castle and auto-majically encircling it without the need for either specialised equipment, units or additional costs/time isnt much fun.

The opposite isn't really fun either. After all, imagine you reach a castle with three of it's four sides directly over a 400 ft. fall directly to the sea and a 20ft. moat in the fourth.

The drawbridge only let's way to an iron covered door that leads to a 150ft. passage with two 90º corners, 2 portcullis and the real door at the end (try to fit a ram in there).

The towers have balistas as yours but with a height advantage, or they are taller, smaller and have a full unit of archers on top. Oh, and the 12ft. thick stone walls simply don't fall to a miserable catapult.

If you do try to invade, you find hidden spike pits, tar fields that are lit as your troops advance and packs of flaming oil covered pigs that run towards your elephants. Then, for the first wounded, burnt and bitten units that reach the walls with a weak ladder, there are large stones, boiling oil and arrows (which actually can be shot downwards).

Then, the second unit of half-dead men with ladders walk over the corpses of their friends only to find that the unit on top on the walls wont let them walk without a problem, they'll throw down the ladder as soon as it's put.

etc...

And the agent should be represented on the battle map as a small force of units in their own right, thus allowing for the castle defenders to sally (and unless supported by a "proper"army relatively easy to defeat.)

Then the players would ask you, why are those agents only killable during sally?
And, if you let them be attacked by armies, they are not agents, they are units. Enginer, miner, worker or catapult for the attacker and oil thrower, tower balista unit, etc... for the defender.


However, they chose a simple siege system that let's you run around with your king, some spearmen and a small group of peasants and assault a brutal fortress.
The only problem is that suspension of disbelief falls apart when some things, like the lack of moat, are simply too obvious to ignore.

[Zenicetus]

However, they chose a simple siege system that let's you run around with your king, some spearmen and a small group of peasants and assault a brutal fortress. The only problem is that suspension of disbelief falls apart when some things, like the lack of moat, are simply too obvious to ignore.

On the other hand... it's a game. It's supposed to be fun, with different things you can do. If we had moats at every castle (which not all castles had), then there would be no ladders, no siege towers, no epic fights on top of the walls, no breaching walls with artillery. It takes away some of the "cinematic" aspects of the game, which attracts new players and makes for marketable game video promos. All of which helps fund the continuation of the TW series.

One of the primary reasons for a moat was to prevent sapping walls, since filling in or bridging a moat isn't that difficult. Since sapping isn't in the game anyway, I don't think the lack of moats is game-crippling. As it is, the AI can barely handle sieges. I'd like to see more capable siege attack and siege defense AI, before any new features like moats were added.

Back to the OP's question, I would like a heavily siege oriented game, but I think it would have to be a separate, dedicated game engine and title. And I'd want a big part of that game to be designing my own fortifications, from scratch. I played one of the early castle-building PC games (can't remember the name), where you could design your castle curtain walls and tower layout, and it was a lot of fun.

[Burns]

The AI has a poor concept of holding a large fortification. Even in custom battles with full stacks they tend to make breaches and rush everything in. Once I hack down that assault I can usually pull back with the AI having little ability to take the second or third sections. The best way to take a castle or citadel is to outnumber the defenders. Perhaps AI should better organize its wars and assaults. I guarantee the defending would be a lot harder if the AI actually brought in more men for the assault. Thats how war works. I have to agree on the extreme effectiveness of the siege engines. It is simply way too easy to take down a section of wall. But since walls control the development of cities its an unavoidable expenditure.

I would personally add a few more things to enhance both attack and defense. There should be some field tools that would protect your troops when approaching fortifications. Such things existed. Then there is the Pavise shield. Boiling oil needs to be re-introduced. Walls need an HP increase, they are plainly too weak.

Though I have to say, the AI is better at attacking then in Rome. They actually attack several points along the wall but often times they still have a tendency to rush a single breach, although more often than not they inflict painful casualties. The main problem is that the AI is just stumped after that. There is another gimmick I can think of. Why should taking a castle all have to be done in one turn? I mean, you COULD if you had the resources (say. governed by the immediate availability of reserves of additional units). But if you didnt well why not simply siege and take the first circuit of walls then end the battle with the enemy inside the next circuit of walls. Thus in the next battle, you'd actually have the ability to deploy your units within the captured circuit of the castle. To balance it out, it would also be important that the defender could recruit emergency units that are only available during siege, and are only around as long as the siege lasts or the castle/city is taken. That would be make sieges more dramatic, and challenging.