After seeing in the trailer those huge upgraded stone walls with soldiers walking on top of them, I wish that they can’t be taken down without making use of siege engines.
That would add more to the realism of the game and to the immersion of building an actual empire, that can’t be just taken down by foot soldiers or horsemen.
It would also introduce a whole new chapter of besieging towns in AoE.
Winning a huge battle in the middle of the map and having a small bunch of 5 horsemen destroying your big stone walls somewhere behind your base (even multiple layers of them) and invading your economy doesn’t make sense and cancels the meaning of building those huge walls.
I suppose it would also slower the pace of late game or late-mid game which I personally enjoy more this way.
Would you like to see stone walls that can only be destroyed by siege engines or other specially designed siege units?
Yes, I want actual stone walls.
No, I want to be able to destroy stone walls with all types of units.
Agreed. After all we’ve already seen siege towers, which were historically used for that purpose, to get troops over an enemy wall. I’d like to see simple ladders as a cheaper siege method as well.
Do you count rams and alchemical mixes as Siege Engines?
These things could be thematic:
Making a ‘hole’ in the wall,
scaling the wall with anchor-ropes,
using Ladders,
using siege-towers,
Using Ranged Siege Hurlers
Using huge melee beasts to shake the wall into crumbling
Normal units should be very very ineffective against walls, but they should have a theoretical chance to destroy walls. So don’t make it completely impossible for non siege units.
Yes, all of them count as siege weapons.
When you say alchemical mixes, I guess you refer to things like the Greek Fire?
I’m not sure whether they were used as siege weapons to break walls, I don’t think so. As incendiary weapons they could be used to launch fires on wooden fortifications.
I know that they were certainly used against human enemies.
^Its only rams and ‘alchemical’ I included as the question.
By alchemical remedies I mean something that could include some sort of acid that melts stone or explosives.
Although most explosives werent fit for the battlefield until centuries later, due to self-detonation issues.
I believe…
If a player can ‘task’ infantry to a Ram, ladder, Siege Tower, that could be a way to keep the infantry tasked during the siege. A pop Count would improv how effective that ‘structural’ siege engine then performs.
But its probably too emerging/ complicated, on the verge of Civilisation-complexity in-depth-gameplay.
@ Urbanized:
The poll has gotten some attention, could all AoE IV fans get some additional options for the inbetween alternatives?
“Only Siege Engine”
“Only Siege & Specifically Defined”
“All units”
What other options would you like to see? I can only think of “I don’t mind/Not sure”
I like it simple with clear answers.
The initial question already includes both siege engines & any other potential siege-defined units (e.g sappers).
If there going to be acid-holders to melt walls like you mentioned then those fall into the siege category as well.
More realistic siage mechanics would be most welcome.
Here are my ideas that I would love to see implemented:
Walls can only be scaled through ladders and/or siege towers with foot soldiers, no mounted units should be able to climb walls, this would make walls very good defense against mounted units and would effectively stop these dangerous units from coming into your town.
Rams should only be able to take down gates, and maybe palasades but not stone walls, specially not a wooden ram.
Walls should block LOS. You shouldn’t be able to see and target units behind a wall unless you have towers/a vantage point or something similar. Archers should still be able to fire over walls however only with an “attack ground” attack unless they can see units because of a nearby tower giving them the LOS and even then they should fire with reduced accuracy.
Anything that fires more or less in a sraight line should not be able to fire over walls, that means muskets, cannons etc unless shooting from high ground or towers.
Get rid of the idea of house walls and building walls they are ridiculous. All buildings should have some open area around them that allows for units to pass by them. In the same way that TCs in AOE2 allow units to just pass under them. However buildings should still make passage more difficult by creating chokepoints.
Treelines should not block units. Maybe they block mounted units or siege units or other large units such as elephants or war wagons and allow foot soldiers passage but perhaps give them a speed penalty or accuracy penalty for archers when firing from inside the woods.
Trees should also reduce LOS similar to how walls reduce LOS but maybe not as much as wall.
Walls should only be able to be taken down by petards, trebs and cannons.
Catapults should be able to shoot over walls but not bring them down. Also catapults could have some sort of special ability to launch different kinds of projectiles. Maybe diseased corpses, or incendiary projectiles that burn an area for a while etc…
It would be awesome if the devs can somehow develop some sort of tunnelling mechanism as this was even more of an important way of besieging cities than even using massive siege engines was.
Palasades need to be more than just a weaker version of a wall. But I am not sure how that could exactly be implemented. But for example if there are charging mechanism it would be great if Palasades could be used to protect units from enemy cavalry charges. Also if walls block LOS and enemy units from firing and hitting units over them then Palasades could be useful if they allow full LOS (because they are not as tall as walls) and also allow units such as musketeers and cannons to shoot over them without being impeded and archers would be able to shoot over them without any accuracy penalty. The downside is that Palasades are weaker and can be attacked by foot soldiers and even melee units with spears for example should be able to attack units immediately on the other side with the long reach of their weapons.
Castles, towers, production units etc should all be “capturable” assets that an invading army can takeover and use for themselves instead of having to raise everything to the ground. This would be much more realistic. For example castles only fire arrows for as long as you have units in them, once the units withdraw the castle should become neutralised allowing another player to take it over. This way a defending player who is facing overwhelming odds may decide to save their garrisoned units but lose the castle by falling back to another position. Similarly a collapsing building such as a castle should kill all units inside not “eject” them politely just before falling to the ground.
Restrict where certain buildings can be made. No more building a castle in the middle of someone else’e town. This is a massive immersion killer. I propose some sort of border system be implemented with maybe something like 3 kind of territories, “friendly”, “neutral” and “hostile”, whereby you can build whatever you want in a “friendly” territory but your enemies are restricted in what they can build, while in a “neutral” territory anyone can build whatever they want but the status of neutral territories can change if TCs are built on them by a player, and in “hostile” territories you can only build makeshift buildings such as palasades and outposts and any other building that you want you have to capture from the enemy.
I would like it if walls STONE walls were much more durable to infantry and Calvary etc, but so that people don’t just build up 5 layers of walls and troll u I think it would be good that once u have build a certain amount of walls it would be more expensive to build more. But if all your walls get destroyed then it goes back to the regular price. It would also give you a reason to use palisades in the late game once stone walls are expensive.
I think there should be ladders for scaling walls in the early game before you can build walls. Maybe it could be something you research and you could build ladder guys in the barracks or something.
But after a certain amount of people use it, it could wear out so that it doesn’t make ladders too over powered.
No walls should definitely not get more expensive as you build more. This would penalise players who expand and are able to build bases and fortify different parts of the map. The fact that stone walls cost stone which you have to mine is in and of itself enough of a detterant to relying building too many walls. And stone is also a limited commodity and the price in the market already skyrockets as you buy more of it (which in effect makes additional stone buildings more expensive already). We don’t need any additional artificial price inflation built into the game.
I thought I was the only one thinking about this, but for the last few years I’ve been saying to myself, it’s a kind of a shame that you can destroy stone upgraded walls with swordmen and archers for example. On the other hand I can understand this and accept it, but only for AOE1-2, it kinda felt normal there since it’s been like that from the start. But me as a guy who puts walls and towers arounds his city for the RP and looks, I do hate it that my beautiful walls get destroyed by stupid small units. So after thinking for a long time I decided that I want to go for the realism, and so I sincerely hope they will add actual stone walls in AOE4 which only can be destroyed with siege units.
Stone is rare to get though, there’s not more then 3 deposits on a map and they’re not even that big either…Buying stone from the Market costs you most money every 100 Stone, which is super expensive.
And what if someone keeps destroying your walls and you want to rebuild your fortress but you can’t because it costs so much? That wouldn’t be fun anymore. I don’t mind walls when my enemy uses them, I think it’s awesome and fun, I use siege units or the transfer unit to get across, that’s how you kinda improvise and adapt in the game and create more ways rather then entering like you always do.
“In Age of Empires 4, you won’t see a knight who hits a building with his sword,” Adam Isgreen tells me. “Some people from our community really wanted that, they were angry that it didn’t work the same way as in Age of Empires 2.” Most likely soldiers without projectile weapons throw torches to cause damage to buildings.
So every unit will use torches or similar thing like to in aoe3.
If every unit has torches,they can take down walls.
