As far as I can tell this goes for most siege units. So Mangonel, Bombard, all Trebuchet, Rams, Springalds, Ribauldequins, Culverins and so on. Also apparently packed mongol buildings.
Curiously this is not the case for the Great Bombard which does feature the exact same cart as Trebuchets, Bombards and Mangonls. Here is some footage of Ottoman portraying both the broken Mangonel and how it should look through the Great Bombard.
There are multiple posts about this, some dating back from the betas.
Here’s one created by yours truly: Units still don't follow terrain contours and are always fully horizontal
It’s not only siege. All units always remain completely horizontal when faced with an incline. Same thing happens with mounted units and Mongol mobile buildings. You can see horses either clipping the ground or floating.
I suppose the devs have taken some of that feedback and applied it since the Ottoman bombard (which is a new unit) behaves correctly.
The problem seems to be that units in AoE 4 only have 1 contact point on the ground, which is dead center. This works relatively fine for foot units, but for larger things with 4 wheels or 4 legs, it would require 4 separate contacts. It’s a programming costs saving shortcut.
I’ve noticed that as well although it is interesting to see the Great Bombard vary when it features the same “cart” as say, the Mangonel, it should in theory be using the same tech for that effect. Would love to see units interact with the terrain properly, as this to me comes across as “T posing”. This really shouldn’t be “low priority”.
These are suppoused to be fun, exciting units. Special units need special attention.
In the Editor available to players, you are able to lock the unit’s alignment perpendicularly as you can see on the left Ram in this image. It makes all the difference and I hope this bug gets addressed sooner than later.
And on the left, a packed Ger following the terrain, on the right how it is in the actual game.
Thanks for bumping, all. We are definitely aware, but there’s no timeline on any fix for this one.
