Give a purpose to siege towers

Once upon a time, siege towers were born and they shot arrows. This ability was removed (probably for the best) and added was the ability to vault units over walls. In principle, sounds useful. However, since this change, siege towers are seldom seen in all areas of the game. There’s a number of reasons for this circumstance. Due to their niche potentially being the smallest in the game, the walling meta, and their absurd cost of 200 wood + 160 gold, siege towers are unappealing and inaccessible. Frankly, they’re a meme unit. An outright joke compared to the real, historical siege machine.

Let’s begin with the walling meta. Siege tower’s ability to deposit garrisons across walls is not generally useful since players make walls out of palisades, which are fairly destroyable in Castle Age, as well as unvaultable buildings such as houses, stables, etc… The only walls they’re good for hopping are stone walls, which aren’t the meta for walling anyways since players often rather save their stone. Essentially, they can only be a surprise option for a quick raid in Arena, but even then the 200 wood + 160 gold cost strongly discourages this. It’s better to build more archers and gain map control.

One thing they do have is speed (and pierce armor). They’re definitely faster than rams, so on rare occasions you’ll see them as siege taxis for helping infantry chase archers. That requires a lot of micro (especially with bad melee pathing), and again, the resource barrier is very expensive. In these situations it’s simply better to switch away from infantry and go for cavalry/skirms/mangonels.

So how can Siege Towers be made useful in a way that positively adds to the existing game? We can’t bring back arrows, no one wants medieval tanks. Before I get to my main proposal, I have an option for some simple ones:

  1. With their current niche, make siege towers cheaper. Something like 200w, 160g —> 160w, 120g
  2. Make siege towers able to deposit garrisons across houses and other buildings (bar some exceptions like castles, maybe military buildings).
  3. Potentially allow them to vault units over contiguous layers of walls/buildings. This presents a mid-game option against Black Forest wallers.

My main proposal is a different option completely, so please don’t consider it in light of those previous proposals. Also, let me preface this by saying I don’t want to break the game or cause a complete change to the meta of the game. I only want to propose a mechanic that will enhance the niche siege towers. My main proposal:

Let garrisoned siege towers besiege (convert) castles.

Obviously that sounds dangerous to the current meta of the game. And yes it could be if implemented wrong. But hear me out, I believe this change could add to the game if it is approached with that philosophy that it should be easier to destroy a castle than besiege it. There are probably lots of different ways this could be done without it being toxic to gameplay, but let me suggest the following:

  • The high 200w+160g cost is the same. Could raise it, but I’d be hesitant since the garrison cost will already make the whole procedure more costly than trebs.
  • Ungarrisoned siege towers either cannot move or have a very slow base speed. All garrison unit types count toward increasing its move speed.
  • Even at their fastest speed, siege towers should still move relatively slow compared to their max speed in the current game.
  • Potentially, when garrisoned siege towers are a certain distance away from a castle, reveal a small line-of-sight area (like firing trebs/etc.) so the enemy can see it coming.
  • A garrison containing infantry is required to besiege a castle. Only infantry count toward the conversion rate. I’m tempted to exclude spearmen and eagles since they already have strong niches in the game.
  • Archers/villagers/monks/etc. do not count toward the conversion rate.
  • The more infantry garrisoned in the siege towers, the quicker the conversion rate. Maybe the rate increase per unit starts to drop off after 5.
  • Likewise, additional garrisoned siege towers besieging a castle yield only slight increases in conversion time. Perhaps similar to the villager build time formula.
  • Garrisoned units (of all types) in the castle each subtract from the conversion rate.
  • Ultimately, it should take a decent chunk of time to besiege the castle to give the opponent time to respond.
  • A progress bar should be shown to all players below the siege tower HP bar and in the HUD when you select it (like when you pack/unpack a treb).
  • The castle owner cannot delete the castle while it is being besieged.
  • The current HP of the castle does not affect the time to convert the castle (debatable).
  • When a castle is converted, its HP is reduced to a maximum of somewhere between 25-40%.
  • Freshly converted castles will not start firing arrows for a few seconds to allow the jettisoned castle units to escape.
  • I don’t intend for any of this to be viable in early Castle Age. Castles should stand strong for most of Castle Age.
  • If the cost isn’t enough of a barrier, maybe require one of the existing Castle Age university techs to be researched to unlock Treadmill crane makes sense but is hella expensive so I’m less thrilled about this idea.
  • Even with this mechanic I’m still all for augmenting their wall-transporting abilities (Proposals 2 and maybe 3 from earlier).

That’s a lot of details. Even if this mechanic was implemented, I would never expect all these details to all be added. It’s just a vision for how I could see this mechanic could enrich siege in the game in a way that’s fun and not toxic.

Please let me know what you think! I understand some of these ideas may be controversial. Especially for a game that some of us have been enjoying for almost 20 years. At the very least, I hope it sparks some good discussion regarding siege towers!

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That would be too OP. So no.

I’d say that’s a decent idea.

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Read over my bullet points. Far from OP if implemented correctly!

Yeah I at least would like to see some of the simpler proposals introduced. The only problem with the contiguous layers idea is that people on Black Forest would start leaving gaps in their walls.

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The only way to do it is to sound an alarm. Eco version.

Then it won’t worth it. Since after a point 40% means a dead castle.

Should progress very slow.

Still, I think that is too much of a change. Since we never had this in AOE2 and likely most won’t like it.

I agree about how unuseful siege towers are in game, but I’d propose a different solution. I’d make them packed and unpacked like trebuchets. Packed they wouldn’t do anything. Unpacked, they’d move really slow, slower than rams, and let them fire arrows if archers garrisonded. Also they’d still let units to cross walls.

This would give them a better use, rather than just a way to get through walls. It’d make them portable towers, a cheaper version of trebuchets, with less range and less damage, weaker than real towers.

Siege towers are good where they are, a niche unit. They completely undermine the effort of placing expensive stone walls. If you compare their potential to their cost, they really aren’t that expensive. 10 xbows in your woodline and it’s GG.

Wait why would you pack them at all then if unpacked they’d let units cross walls?

Also not a fan of the arrow firing, it was removed for good reason. And of all units, archers definitely aren’t the ones in need of arrow-firing APCs.

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I would like to see siege towers being able to garrison units bidirectionally.
That would enable you to hop back into the siege tower if you regret hopping to the other side of the wall in a wrong spot (happened to me on Arena - couldn’t do anything to save my archers).

It could be implemented by having a siege tower standing/hovering the piece of a wall or just make your units be able to hop back to it through 1 tiles wall.

That would be a buff but wouldn’t change anything about the idea behind it.

Not if one double walls.

I don’t agree with the type of besieging castles but we all know siege towers need a bit more work

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they can be static when unpacked, or really really slow, Then even if they fire arrows, it’d be more like a weak movable tower than a medieval tank

Double stone walling… lol.

The only reason why siege towers are loved and special is because they are niche, I really don’t see the appeal in making this meme unit commonly used. It just creates scenarios you can’t see coming and have no time to respond to.

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it doesn’t have to be double wall, literally any building or a palisade wall will do

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160 W and 120 G is still a ridiculous price.
Just make it 120W.

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Not really. You can just build the Stone Wall anyway, and then build a Pallisade on the back of it, for a cheap and easy way to nullify Siege Towers completely.

I am of the opinion that STs should have a Ranged attack, as it was the biggest benefit of having Siege Tower in real History (mobile Archer platform that could attack the Wall defenders) rather than cheaper and quicker Ladders.

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I think so too, though they should shoot arrows only if garrisoned by ranged units. Arrow damage can easily be scaled so not to be too strong. Also, in my opinion siege towers right now are way too fast, I would rather them be a bit slower and cheaper instead.

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With the suggestion of having them convert castles only in late imperial age, I still don’t see them getting used at all.

It sounds like it would be much easier to treb or ram down a castle than to build a siege tower fill it with infantry and very slowly convert it, especially if the hp is reduced.

To be honest you’d probably be better off with two handed swordsman/champion and arson if you’re gonna go down that route.

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Yeah because you are going to double wall everything just in case a siege tower comes along. Wow so much fun. This already points at how powerfull this unit can be in the right moment. Players just lack confidence and awareness of when to use the siege tower. It can be devastating in the right moment.

Siege towers with ranged attack… no comment.

If I see a Siege Tower? Yes I will.

If you see a siege tower then it’s already too late… If you scout a siege workshop then you can’t predict what the opponent is making.

A good player doesn’t show it ofcourse… It’s a surprise unit.

You do realize that Siege Towers are easy to take down with Knights, Rams and Mangonels, do you not?