Castle flags don't work like other buildings

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Why does every building except Castle let you plant a flag on an enemy’s building so that when units spawn, they go attack the building, I want castles to work the same way

  • I’ve lost several Petards and Trebs recently across multiple games as a result because its functionality isn’t normal.
    • In the heat of a match, I go through the normal motions to plant a flag on enemy building and go and do other stuff for a while, only to check back and see the units sitting at the base of my castle getting slaughtered
  • I forget that Castle doesn’t work like every other building. I will adjust and remember moving forward, but in my opinion this shouldn’t even be a thing.

I thought maybe devs fear the destructive power of Castle units like Petards and Trebs and don’t want steady streams of them going directly to enemy buildings, however:

  • I tested Siege Workshops and can plant flags on enemy building to make, say, Battering Rams go attack them. Or with Docks, I can plant flags on enemy docks or units to send Demolition Ships.
  • Both of those are pretty destructive.

Seems like Castles is an accidental anomaly and I wish its gameplay mechanics were consistent with the rest of the game

Maybe I’m wrong or confusing it with AoE3 or AoM, but I could have sworn years ago… maybe with CE or FE versions of AoE2… I used to be able to plant Castle flags on enemy buildings and send streams of Petards to enemy castles or buildings.

  • Even if not, I disagree with the current state and hope it can be fixed to be consistent with rest of game as a QoL improvement
2

Castles don’t do this because they can also fire, so it tries to use an attack command instead of setting a gather point there. By pressing the “Set Gather Point” hotkey before clicking you can set the gather flag on a hostile building with a Castle. I believe the default hotkey is “T”.

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Oh, I see. Makes sense, thank you! Is this something that can be fixed? Maybe “fixed” isn’t the best word. Since the hotkey workaround exists, it seems like there is hope for something more intuitive

One idea to fix most of the problem would be to have it auto-use “Set Gather Point” if the flag planting attempt is beyond the shooting range of the castle. (Or beyond that range + 5 or 10 squares to have some gray area buffer.)

I will have to test later what a Town Center does in a similar situation, because it can also shoot. Just curious

4

Town Centers essentially behave the same which is why you have to be careful when sending new vills to hunt boar.

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