Small stone walls are much easier to defend than medium stonewalls

[Mouzafphaerre]

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.

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Thanks. I think I'll do that.

OK, just done!
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[NeoSpartan]

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

and like I've said 2x before, having x wall put in/taken out because it is easier/harder to defend is a problem of hasty game design by CA not a problem of historical inacuracies.

See what I am saying now?

[Birka Viking]

Well both the epic and large stonewalls is way to large for me..They just dont fit in the game.......

[Maksimus]

Maybe epic wall could fit for one or two cities of that time

[Spvrrina Vestricivs]

Maybe epic wall could fit for one or two cities of that time

Or it could be made so that cities have to fulfill certain criteria?

For example:

>30,000 population (you'll need the slaves).

Academy (or similar educational establishment for the necessary architects).

City income (tricky this one, >3,000?).

Make them seriously expensive (at least 70,000mnai) and time consuming (60-70 turns) to build.

Right, back on topic...

TBH, I find both types of wall just as easy/difficult to defend as each other and it all comes down to the size and quality of the garrison defending it.

Best moment of AI stupidity - sending a phalanx to where my sap point would create a breach before it was made and not standing far enough back to prevent said phalanx from being crushed when my men brought the wall down.

Or possibly the use of elephants against the gates and watching them get incinerated one by one. Oh, how the city feasted that night!

[Perturabo]

Absolutely correct MiniMe. Medium stone walls are actually a step back from the small ones.

Has anyone noticed also that the medium stone walls (particularly the eastern ones) never seem to shoot at enemies inside the city? The small ones will bombard enemies on both sides of the wall with missiles - medium - nada. I also notice the same with Eastern small stone walls (lack of missiles), the Greek or Roman ones are much more effective in every way.

I don't actually care much for the medium stone walls to be honest. At this stage of warfare very, very few cities had anything of that nature. The Romans were the first real western proponents of effective siege equipment (yes the Greeks/Carthies had some but was not common). The Assyrians in the east of course were well known for it also. The Pelleponesian War (sp) dragged on for as long as it did basically because nobody could breach walls such as built by Athens to guard the way to its docks. (This statement should cause some argument I expect, but its what I believe the situation was).

Edit: I suspect that the reason why the medium walls fire less missiles is much like why the larger castles in MedII get progressively less usefull as they get taller/larger. The angle of the walls is such that the missiles cannot shoot down at the ground. Stupid but true (for MedII). Could be wrong but that is my guess.

[soibean]

I never even bother building stones walls. I honestly find that building the wooden palisades and maybe their upgraded form is the best. That way you dont worry about men getting stuck on those damn walls. You dont have to worry about sap points, which I havent faced in my new campaign.
All I ever do is set up two or three units next to the spot I assume the rams are going to hit. Blast that with fire arrows, if it explodes move down the line if not reinforce. Then once all of the guys are tangled, make sure all enemies are in combat mode. Continue firing fire arrows and lead some cavalry or heavy infantry out the side entrances and into the enemy flank = rout.

These walls are so easy to defend and assault. Stone walls just take longer to assault (meaning two turns instead of one in order to build more siege towers) but are no harder. I honestly cant think of a reason to upgrade the walls beyond wooden except that I dont like how wooden walls really look on the campaign map

why do you guys upgrade beyond wooden? just wondering

[Danest]

I've successfully defended walls with peltasts/skirmishers against "real" infantry soldiers, so the defensive bonus on the walls must be significant. I haven't been able to pull off that kind of thing with wooden walls (perhaps because you can't stand on the walls). I wonder if the tallest stone walls grant an even higher defense bonus? Maybe I'll go do the experiment now... ;)

[soibean]

yea I was wondering if there was a bonus for being on the walls as some offensively sick units have been downgraded by some crappier ones but that was, or so I thought, because the defensive units were in a formation and were on the defensive rather than. i.e. all 160 were standing there in ready formation meanwhile 20 raiders come in and try to hold off the entire army while the rest come in one by one

[Danest]

Ok, I just tried several battles. (I'm not criticizing EB, just in case). Each time, I used arabian slingers (seleukid) (and did not shoot, as this was about detecting their melee defense bonus, if any, and not about testing their rocks). Each time, they fought against the elite pontic cordinau orca, and, of course, lost horribly against such elite units. Out on the field, with no wall, the slingers killed only 5. When defending a breech in a wooden wall, the slingers killed 9. When defending a small stone wall against a ladder attack, they killed typically almost twice that, though a few undoubtedly died from tower-shot. On the biggest walls, I couldn't get the cordinau to use their seige tower (they just clustered at the entrance), but it was pretty clear that things were worse for the ever-doomed little crash-test-dummy-slingers. So, it's quite possible that even with a wooden wall, there's some kind of defensive advantage, but not as good as defending a stone wall.

The huge seige towers have a devastating and rapid-fire attack, so, as most of this stuff is probably hard-coded, the only thing I might suggest is slowing down the huge seige tower's rate of fire (I wonder what is in those things that is firing so quickly... it's not arrows).

I wonder if it should be very, very hard for many (some/a few) cultures to build huge seige towers, and maybe even saps? (I don't know how widespread sap technology was). I doubt build point costs can be tweaked per culture. And if they aren't culture-specific tweakable, then maybe saps or huge siege towers (or whatever is historically appropriate) should have a vastly increased build point cost, and then just allow for ancillaries like inventors and seige engineers to have an equally vast improvement to their build point bonuses. That would mean that it would take some special sorts of men to build the greatest and mightiest of seige equipment, something that you wouldn't see every army under the sun building. This way, not every army would have equal technical know-how, and many would simply not be able to tackle such huge walls without genius technical assistance. Of course, I worry that the AI would not know this, and screw up even more.

[Maksimus]

Or it could be made so that cities have to fulfill certain criteria?

For example:

>30,000 population (you'll need the slaves).

Academy (or similar educational establishment for the necessary architects).

City income (tricky this one, >3,000?).

Make them seriously expensive (at least 70,000mnai) and time consuming (60-70 turns) to build.

Right, back on topic...

TBH, I find both types of wall just as easy/difficult to defend as each other and it all comes down to the size and quality of the garrison defending it.

Best moment of AI stupidity - sending a phalanx to where my sap point would create a breach before it was made and not standing far enough back to prevent said phalanx from being crushed when my men brought the wall down.

Or possibly the use of elephants against the gates and watching them get incinerated one by one. Oh, how the city feasted that night!

I agree, is it posible to add command in exp_decr_buildins.txt
Like:

epic_stone_wall
}
}
epic_stone_wall requires factions { romans_brutii, egypt, romans_scipii, carthage, parthia, numidia, thrace, greek_cities, macedon, romans_julii, seleucid, } and not building_present government and hidden_resource not_here and building_present academy
{
capability
{
wall_level 4
tower_level 2
gate_defences 2
gate_strength 2
law_bonus bonus 2
}
construction 12
cost 12800
settlement_min city
upgrades
{
}

I am 100% sure it will work.. will it? EB team?

Still, if it is possible - that would go beyond wall's.. imagine?

[NeoSpartan]

hum... now here is what I don't understand fellas...

historically in EB's time frame nobody had walls such as the Vanilla Epic walls where those towers and siege towers shoot some type of high powered missile that behaves like a 20mm round AP round.

This is why they were taken out in the 1st place back when .81x was around.

in addition, very few cities actually got to the "Huge City" size while others (like Rome & Athens) were even bigger. This part cannot be simulated by the game.

This is like arguing to have Romans with Lorica Segmentata, even though in EB's time frame they didn't.

So why are u fellas wanting Epic Walls back??????.....

[MiniMe]

NeoSpartan, looks like we have complete misunderstanding.
AI is not very smart on sieging.
Epic stone walls do look stupid.
I would never argue these two obvious statements.
And I don't have any reason to do so.

[Danest]

If anything, this thread appears to be arguing for removing even the medium stone walls due to their weaknesses / lack of advantages.

[Watchman]

...where those towers and siege towers shoot some type of high powered missile that behaves like a 20mm round AP round.

I think they in practice have those good old repeater ballistas from Vanilla, actually. Which is functionally about as close to 20mm AP as makes no difference, since not much humans can wear stops a bolt that big.

[Danest]

Can the rate of fire be modded on the huge seige towers? If so, it probably should be, unless they really truly were that powerful, but then, they're the most powerful weapon on the battlefield I think, and, hey, I want to build them for every battle, not just the ones against medium walls! Maybe that's just it, for some reason we can only build these super towers when there's a big wall present, yet, with that sort of firepower, they'd be useful anywhere.

[Beefy187]

Right now the siege tower is way powerful. It killed the enermy general in one shot. (Maybe I got lucky..)

[Hooahguy]

since when do siege towers shoot? they never do that in my sieges!

[Ymarsakar]

Concerning the defense bonus of defending on a wall, it might just simply be due to the fact that any enemy that keeps getting knocked down from 3 or 4 blows from all sides won't get the chance to attack. Thus even units with low defense and low attack/lethality will have a greater chance of offing off the attackers if they can't arrive quickly on the walls.

Also, whenever there is a small number of enemies facing a larger group, the larger group tends to outflank the smaller. This causes the smaller group's sides and rear to turn around. If that happens while an enemy hits them in the back, it would be much more likely to kill.

Also the right side of a soldier unit is almost always stronger than his left in melee, given the fact that shield bonuses are lower than the defense skill. There's a very high chance that an attacker will turn towards a defender on a wall, presenting his vulnerable left side to another enemy, and then only his armor+shield bonus applies.

[Mouzafphaerre]

since when do siege towers shoot? they never do that in my sieges!

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Turn on fire at will and watch the Enterprise bombard the Romulans with laser canons.
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[Pharnakes]

You can build artilery.

[Hooahguy]

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Turn on fire at will and watch the Enterprise bombard the Romulans with laser canons.
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really! wow- im trying that out!

[NeoSpartan]

Look this is a pic from EB .74 me playing as KH VH/VH against AS.

I am besieging a city, on the walls are 120 Pantodapoi Phalangitai (Hellenic Native Phalanx) remember than in Vh they get +7 defense bonus.
By the time my 3 towers got the wall there were 6 of them left!

This is what 3 Vanilla Epic Siege Towers do:




I know I am exagerating when I say its like a 20mm (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc9E8_...eature=related)
but I am NOT exagerating a lot.

[Maksimus]

Yes, there is one clear disadvantaged when you defend Large Walls, and one + when you attack with those monsters!


But really now - the fire rate and speed of siege tower's should be altered like -

[NeoSpartan]

Yes, there is one clear disadvantaged when you defend Large Walls, and one + when you attack with those monsters!

....

huh?
I am pointing out 1 of the reasons why such walls were done with.

BUT don't forget the Wall Towers ALSO shoot the same thing. Additionally it is easier for the Wall Towers to hit troops advancing on the ground. Plus those 20mm or "Repeating ballistas" (which only the romans deployed in any significant numbers) go through 2 or 3 men advancing on the ground.

[Angelspit]

didn't read the whole thing, so someone may have already said this
i think that medium walls are so much easier 'cause u just have to hang back at ur town square, force the a.i. into a bottle neck at an entrance, and just set ur units to guard mode. usually the a.i. are like 66% wiped by this point, thus a numerically inferrior army may stand against and defeat much larger and better equiped opponents. u might also try and have a skirmisher unit near the wall to get chased all around the interior of the town, that works too.