Move them to Age 2 like anti-buildings weapons, it would be nice. I see you somehow liked my idea 
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Anecdotally, there have been threads complaining about siege design for months.
The developers don’t have a habit of making changes without at least some community support. Are some changes going to be more contentious than others? Yes. Are some going to be unhappy? Always.
At the end of the day, if nothing changes, then nothing gets improved. I know that’s not what you want, so all I can urge is to accept that even without community input the devs are going to make the changes they think are best. Pitting players against players (especially without evidence) is a lot less constructive than accepting that sometimes what you want isn’t what you end up getting (especially in design / balance when there are many ways to solve any given problem).
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I don’t see why siege cannot be protagonist, I do play competitive games. Siege war only become an issue in the late game, but they are not very annoying for 1v1 matches because most games end before you can even build a siege army. The siege units are just like armored vehicles in the company of heroes series where you are forced to build your own armored vehicles to effectively counter your opponents. But tanks are expensive and they’re vulnerable to anti-tank units without infantry cover, though tanks are absolutely the protagonist in the late game of CoH. In this way both infantry and armored units find their places in the game. I’m not saying the current situation of siege war cannot be changed, but I don’t want it to be changed in the way that building siege units doesn’t affect your opponent’s strategy at all. Or if the siege units after the patch are too overpowered that you can simply win by only spawning siege units, you know what I mean?
I still play and detest Springalds. I don’t think your statement about who this is for is correct.
Siege is simply being tuned back to not let them completely dominate as a result of this meager change. Which should be fine, as it allows them to function as support for an already powerful army.
No longer do I have to endure long games as the result of an opponent only building counters. Sure, the better player should always win, but games can easily drag on as it is, and it solely falls on the Springald and its relationship with other Siege.
In my opinion, the ending stages should be about wrapping up the game. Siege shouldn’t be so easily dealt with that you can build 1 unit and snipe them. Instead, when an army and Siege shows up, and you’ve done nothing to preemptively deal with this, it should be a good thing that they deal real damage and make progress towards ending the game as a result.
The time to react and put yourself in a winning position has gone. You shouldn’t be able to halt a storm with a pebble. That was what messed up much of this games flow, making folks detest the transition into Siege.
Siege has already had enough of a leading role in this game (especially in mid/late game). As a support unit to help out it’s fine, no more.
Games like CoH have a totally different gameplay in a totally different era than AoE4, adding that aesthetically the artillery is better.
The point is that I should attack you defensive buildings and you should get out of your base enough to avoid that and that wasn’t happening, forcing us to play Springalds war.
If forcing people from getting out of their base is a problem, then spamming trebuchets or perhaps buffing trebuchet range/damage/cost might be good alternative options rather than reworking the whole mechanics. I’m worried about two potential consequences of the new patch.
A. If the siege units are too weak after the patch, then no one bothers to build them => most siege units lose their value in the game.
B. Sieges used to be very expensive but effective in the late game. They reduced their costs in the PUP to match the cost of roughy a handcannoneer or something. If they gets too strong, then people will see them as alternatives of non-siege units and spam only springalds, culverins and ribauldequins etc. in the mid/late game => you will have an even crazier siege war than what it is right now
I mean siege war used to work in a similar way like the CoH, which they’ve already got plenty of experience to deal with. Now they’re taking one step to the field of unknown. Given that they already struggle enough to balance the 16 civs and yet many civs are still broken, I’m not very convinced if they can handle the upcoming enormous changes.
I don’t have any kind of issue with patches being made to balance gameplay, or even that changes made go against my preferences. My biggest issue with the siege changes is that they have reduced the damage they deal by changing aoe, projectiles no longer having tracking, and being vulnerable to the units they counter.
When I played the PUP most matches did not have siege. In a 1v1, if at any point either player made mangonels the archers from the opposing side could target and kill the mangonels before they could get a second volley off. Sometimes this meant spending 1800 resources to deal, at best, 500 resources in damage.
It was very clear to me when playing the PUP that siege had completely lost its place in gameplay. I ended up having greater success by building exclusively springalds, massing 10 at least. They were able to move between shots and deal much more damage than a mangonel, and the issues other users have brought up have hardly been managed by the changes introduced in the PUP.
More than anything else, it’s hard to see a patch move forward with changes that ultimately take away from the game. Changes that will more than likely be reverted as people realize that the issue they have is with long range aoe capable units, not so much mangonels in particular.
This idea that trading springalds to enable siege to move forward is dead with these changes. It’s not realistic to use horsemen as a counter to siege… Archers are much more capable since they don’t need to take damage to eliminate siege, can retreat if they are over extended (unlike springalds). On top of all of that, can deal far more damage to buildings than springalds have ever been able to.
As others have stated in this thread, these changes alter the entire dynamic, and give ranged compositions a disproportionate level of power.
In practice, it means every game will see a ranged mass. This upcoming patch will see one unit used more than any other.
It’s the definition of imbalance.
Yes, it is understood that they wanted the games not to last so long and that is why they did it that way… you do map control or you lose, you let them destroy your landmarks and you lose… because otherwise you have to go looking for the last villager on the map and it becomes kind of meh if you don’t have spies developed in AoE 2 and 3…
I like this one…it’s more similar to AoE 3 where the culverin is anti-siege and also anti-infantry…
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Assuming no changes between the PUP and season release, this could well be the case. In which case it’ll take further balancing for the devs to achieve their vision.
But right now, arguably, there is also imbalance.
So what"s the “right” path?
That’s the thing, I don’t think there is that much of an imbalance in the current siege meta. So the “right” path is understanding that you can’t make everyone happy when making changes.
We need the ability to counter siege at range. Some players despise using siege to accomplish that. It’s my opinion that having ranged units counter siege is far worse, as ranged masses are the one thing mangonels make sense for.
If you’re asking me what should be changed in the PUP version, it would be having the incendiary arrow research be what allows ranged units to hit siege for more than one damage. As in, have archers/crossbows treat siege like buildings.
Let siege stand a chance in castle, fighting english and byzantine normally means seeing 30 longbows every game. In the PUP they dealt 2.5 damage per shot (2.25 standard archer), 26 longbowmen (29 standard archer) can kill a mangonel in 3.25 seconds. One mangonel volley hardly brings 5 archers to half, can be easily dodged, and fires once every ~7 seconds. It doesn’t take a genius to see the problem there.
Even in the current meta I counter siege with melee infantry. 2 MAA can break through the line of scrimmage and kill the mangonels in the backline. Horsemen and knights do it better. With the nerfs to siege, maybe we don’t need a ranged counter to them.
Bad comparison in that the time to get the fuel needed for heavy tanks is very long and also the population cost is very high.
Yep, exactly. “They want(ed)”. They want you to play the game how they want you to play, or how they like to.
The last thing I want to do in AoE games is control some 3rd party building or area
I get wanting to innovate or mix things up, but removing the ability to play a classic style Conquest game where you seek out the last villager or building is a weird decision, at best. Options were invented to let players decide for themselves how they want to play, within reason.
Finding the last villager is not that hard. You play an hour or two (or 30 minutes) and can’t spend 5 seconds spotting the villager on the mini map and another 10-30 seconds sending cavalry to get them?
Siege in AOE4 in this moment, as a support unit, is imba against everything that is not another siege, which forces very slow games (if they reach the mid-late game) and based on this mechanic if a player wants to play this way.
Mangonel or Springald, that do not have frontline against a group of ranged and melee units respectively, should not properly counter those units, instead that siege accompanied by units in their frontline should have a more powerful effectiveness, which I think is what they are looking for.
It is not the same to dodge a mangonel with archers when the mangonel is alone than when he is accompanied by several units of another type.
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In CoH you don’t often build a heavy tank, you most often build a medium tank, which is enough to dominate the battlefield for a while, and that the timing for a medium tank comes at somewhere in the mid game. A heavy tank should be something comparable to the great bombard in AoE4 at age IV. As for population cost, tanks are almost invincible to most infantry units, so it is reasonable to cost much more. If you treat a group of infantry as one unit (at least they are seen as one unit control-wise), then an infantry group costs about 6-7 population, whereas even a heavy tank is only about 3 times the population cost of an infantry group (~2 times for a medium tank). If you think this way, then the siege units in AoE4 are not really cheaper compared to tanks in CoH in terms of population cost.
Up to a certain point, I agree with the idea that siege is overpowered in the current build. If you were to build 12 mangonels they would demolish everything in their path. Something lost in that analysis is the sheer cost to make a composition like that, we’re talking about 7200 resources and 36 population cost. The army supporting it would be anemic, and could be taken down (albeit slowly) by using springalds and culverins. Which is where the springald wars come into play. Not to mention how easy it is to outmaneuver that army composition.
Basically, securing siege dominance in the current meta is a victory condition.
I have to admit though, I am fairly confused about your insistence on defining siege as a support unit. It is one of the four unit classes designed to remove health from opposing units and buildings (infantry, cavalry, siege, navy). I personally feel support class units are things like monks, which have no attack ability and are designed completely around buffing/debuffing other units.
It even says as much in-game.
On the methodology of the siege changes, I would prefer to refer directly to the developer overview:
Developer Overview:
“Our goal with the Siege Update is to slow down siege on siege combat by removing the anti-siege role from Springalds and Culverins and increasing time to kill on many siege interactions. With these adjustments, winning the backline siege battle will now mean you have effective tools for pushing on the field. Additionally, adjustments to siege durability have been made across the board to tune unit to siege interactions, specifically ranged units will no longer either one shot or never kill siege weapons and instead will deal more consistent damage to all siege. High level changes directly below, followed by the detailed change list.”
When they made changes to counter-siege, effectively making it anti unit or anti building only, they still maintained the “springald wars” part of the game by shifting that role to ranged units. They did this at the same time as reducing the effectiveness of mangonels, which have the same cost but roughly half the damage potential… and they reduced their projectile speed and removed tracking.
You can already kill a mangonel using archers. They made it much easier to do so by changing their armor to a percentage.
I feel most people celebrating these changes are missing the forest for the trees. Yes, the siege meta has shifted to a point where siege is no longer ‘center stage’. But they neutered its effectiveness, and in all cases where you could build a unit other than siege you would be better off doing so.
It makes an entire unit class obsolete in everything other than attacking stone walls and keeps.
With these adjustments, winning the backline siege battle will now mean you have effective tools for pushing on the field.
This in particular sticks out to me. They do not talk about it as a support unit. It is the thing that you use in mid-late game to significantly augment your army’s combat potential. It is meant to be a dominating unit on the battlefield, a unit that deals a large amount of damage compared to its investment… at the cost of being vulnerable to being overtaken by the opposing army if it is not supported with a buffer. Something that accelerates gameplay, not decelerate it as you claim.
As I said earlier, siege dominance is a victory condition by its design.
If archers deal 2 or more damage to them then that buffer will never matter. We go right back to the “springald meta”… units that deal large amounts of damage from a distance, able to kill the units designed to counter them. You’d be better off spending resources on archers and horsemen to counter an archer/xbow ball.
In my experience in the PUP, it was easier to build 12+ springalds to counter ranged masses. They had more damage output than mangonels, and took longer to take down because of their increased number. (for reference 12 springalds has the same resource value as 5 mangonels) That seemed very counterintuitive to their intended design.
Now, I’m well aware most of the playerbase will still fall victim to a mangonel attack. But coming from other RTSes that demand more attention in army micro it’s extremely easy to dodge the shots in an intense engagement. If you were to use the spread formation command and neglect archer movement micro they take almost no damage from a volley. For the mangonels to have any level of effectiveness you need the crossbars research, which has an age requirement and a prohibitive cost attached.
The micro required is nothing compared to doing marine splits in starcraft 2, which is a base skill required to compete at a median level. I mean, the archer micro in aoe 2 is far more difficult, and that’s something everyone is just expected to manage there. Meanwhile, you are REQUIRED to use ground attack commands to hit moving units with a mangonel.
All a player needs to do in the last build of the PUP is to make a single move order whenever they see the mangonel prepare to fire. Like dude, you just need to remember to count to seven and click twice. The micro to counter mangonels is not difficult at all… but the micro required to use mangonels successfully is so much more.
It’s be a bit hard for me to empathize with the idea that ‘micro is hard’ when I have heard so much from other posters on this forum, yourself included iirc, arguing that aoe 4 has the least micro in the series. It also doesn’t help that I haven’t played below 1200 MMR in years, so I just don’t have games where my opponent doesn’t have micro skills to manage these things. I found it effortless.
Pre patch:
Siege needed to counter siege, more effective than using any other unit.
Post patch:
Archers counter siege, and in turn, archers. Siege useless for everything other than anti structure.
Yes, siege needs a balance pass. However, what we were given in the PUP requires major revisions. It’s shameful to say we need to wait and see… the issues are extremely clear.
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I understand your point about siege as a unit beyond support. It is true that support units can be seen as units that do not attack, but empower, but I think we can broaden that definition in some cases. If we consider that some support units may have limited offensive capabilities, why couldn’t we think of siege units as a unit that makes a difference with your accompanying units and indirectly empowers them? For example, the mangonel and its area damage and advance role, thus fulfilling a support function.
As for micromanagement, I agree that this game requires less micromanagement than others in the franchise. The interesting micromanagement I was referring to focused more on special abilities. Now there would be more manual micromanaging with the Mangonel in Castles.
Regarding the siege changes, it is true that the nerf to Mangonel (and others) is partly due to Springald role change. However, I think it is important to wait to see the final results of these changes in real games before drawing definitive conclusions. Simulating battles in PuP in theory can be useful, but it does not always reflect the complexity and dynamics of a real game in my view.
Let’s remember again that it is a PUP and that, while they are likely to continue with the rework, it can be better balanced.
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I’m very sure the devs are aware of that (that you can’t make everyone happy). I mean, I’m guessing, but you and I both know criticism of the game exists, and has existed, and that changes to the game have directly come from constructive criticism at times.
Beyond that I don’t have much of a grasp of the competitive meta, even reading pro player opinions on the subject doesn’t give me the confidence to repeat them. I believe high level players are important, but that ultimately the devs will make their own decisions.
That’s all I was really replying about. Don’t want to give the impression you shouldn’t be giving your own feedback either.
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Mangonel will not see use if it’s gonna be the same version from PUP. AoE2 mangonel sees use because of how deadly it is, one shot can make it worth it, and it’s also more mobile. In AoE4 the unit is gonna be useless now I think.
I’m also not a big fan of the new Springald and how spammable it is. Siege units should not be spammable. An army of Springalds looks bad.
More testing will be needed to know for sure how they’ll behave, agreed.
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Yes, they could have left the “classic mode” as it happens in AoE 3 and at least let them leave the victory by wonder and also the standard mode as until now…