Sieges will be the most hated unit if Relic wont change its wrong concept

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
66

my response was to this guy’s post. Here he is asking that the solution to our current siege issue is reduce the RANGE armor down to ZERO or ONE; such that siege will now be extremely extremely vulnerable to RANGE attacks.

Yes, if his suggestions were implemented it would mean a unit like the LONGBOW would be able to literally KILL EVERY land unit in the game which high efficiency due to clumping, kiting, and small meat-shield requirements.

67

IMO
NOTHING should be done to FURTHER empower RANGE units?? They are by far the most efficient type of unit in the game for the many many reasons I already listed.

IMO the counter to siege should be highly mobile melee units and counter siege. All siege IMO should be reworked to allow a high risk high reward gameplay and a proper cost efficient counter system (2 springs kill 1 mag, 3 springs kill 1 bombard, 2 bombards kill 1 spring, 1 culv kills 1 bombard, 1 culv kills 1 mag, 1 culv kills 1 spring, etc etc)

68

I quite simply disagree

I waste hundreds of longbows with 2-3 mangonels.

Yeah totally agree here

I’m just saying, flaming arrows should do more than literally 1 damage to bombards.

I have no problems countering ranged units, and again I wouldn’t do anything to make mangonels weaker, but bombards taking 1hp damage per flaming arrow shot is a little ridiculous, it’d take 10 volleys from 50 longbowmen to kill one clockwork bombard right now

69

That’s the point? mag should level stationary range units? what is the alternative? If you had a mass of range units capable of deleting siege then how would you efficiently counter mass range? melee units would seldom be able to get the surround and be constantly running into each other or simple running around in a circle as you retask them?

In come siege to respond to mass stationary range units.

70

Why you did not mention the siege defense army? You must never rush with sieges only. That is just a straight ridiculous and game-breaking thing. You must always have a defensive army that could counter your sieges. Medieval Sieges must not be a frontline tank unit. Therefore, you must defend it, which means you will need to have an army that counters ranged units or melee units that could get closer to your siege.

71

Sounds to me like you need to work on your splitting, you don’t mob attack siege you split up your units and try to charge each individual piece at the same time

For the fourth time, I never said to make mangonels weaker, only bombards.

72

To be fair he has got a point when it comes to range units, maybe it doesn’t have to come this far. Siege can still have ranged armor but needs to be much more vulnerable to melee units.
Aoe3 canons have range resist and it works well, melee units still totally destroy them.

1 Like
73

Sure resists, but they still do more than 1 damage

About 15 muskets will be able to kill a falconett with their ranged attack in about two volleys with about half casualties

15 longbows or archers vs a aoe4 bombard? Not even close

2 Likes
74

You have got a good point. Hopefully the devs will come up with a good solution this month.

1 Like
75

I wonder how it would be if siege can be “taken over”. If it did have a crew (maybe specially trained idk), you just snipe the crew and take over the siege weapon with your own crew. This will dissuade players from not making too much siege weaponry and for the players who do make it, they should be extra careful and protect it. Essentially siege would be glass cannon that is transferable. Ofcourse I have no idea how difficult it is to implement something like this.

6 Likes
76

To make siege weapons feel like siege weapons in-game, I actually think some of their attack needs to be boosted against their intended targets (except maybe not springalds and bombards… I think we all have fond memories of Age of Springald 4 and currently in team games, Age of Bombards):

Increase Attack

  • Mangonel/NoB: Currently, you need 2-4 volleys to kill infantry (depending on whether the target is MAA, archers, etc.). I would imagine that a pile of rocks or flurry of flaming mini-rockets should eliminate unarmored units in one volley and snare armored units at least.
  • Trebuchet: The most iconic siege engine from AoE2 is now possibly the most useless of the siege engines. Their attack vs. buildings is currently trivial and trebs are really just an expensive way to tickle your enemy’s town and let them know you are coming, from which direction, and reveals your unit composition immediately near your trebs.
  • Culverins: Does anyone use them effectively? Springalds seem like a more cost-effective option and certain civ bonuses (Rus/Chinese) limits the usefulness of culverins. An attack boost (and range boost) would really help the case to build culverins as a better counter to siege (and springalds).

Add line area-of-effect with decreasing damage at further range

  • Springalds and Bombards: These probably not need any more attack, but they don’t quite feel like the units they represent. They should receive an area-of-effect in a straight line from the direction fired, with decreasing damage the farther away from their target. You would expect a bombard parked next to a stone wall to melt the walls, but long-range bombardment should take more time against stone walls or keeps. You would similarly expect springalds to do the same to units (but not buildings).

As much as I like the idea of adding operators (for aesthetics) and/or capturing enemy siege (as in Company of Heroes), I do not think these will be likely nor easy changes. Instead, I think the appropriate nerfs to make the siege feel like siege is to make them incredibly vulnerable and expensive.

  • Increase cost: Siege weapons were the most powerful, terrifying, and advanced tech of the time. Increased cost across the board would reflect this, reduce the number of siege on the field and change the ratio of siege to infantry/cav.
  • Reduce HP: Enemy units that close in on siege weapons should get an easy kill. This punishes players who do not adequately protect their investment or builds an army composition that’s too siege heavy. Flanking becomes more meaningful.
  • Reduce Speed: All siege could use a reduction in movement, set-up, and attack speed. With certain bonuses/upgrades, siege weapons look like cartoon-ish carts of death that are faster and attack faster than infantry. Siege should be used to punch a hole through tough defenses to allow your army to rush inside or break the line of the enemy army, as opposed to all-purpose wrecking machines.
    • Movement: I understand that for gameplay, the siege can’t be so slow as to be unusable, but siege weapons should significantly slow down your army speed.
    • Set-Up: with some civ-specific bonuses (French) or upgrades (Rus), siege set-ups are instant or near-instant.
    • Attack: watching some games, the siege weapons look like they are rapid-fire machine guns. To be fair, I usually watch games sped-up, but they can sometimes look nearly as fast as infantry fire. Slowing down their attack speed (and boosting their attack) makes landing their volleys/shots more meaningful and siege-like

Bottom line: Buffs to siege weapon attack needs to be simultaneously applied to nerfs (HP, movement, cost) to make siege feel more siege-y.

1 Like
77

Lonbows barely deal any dmg to MAAs, Knights and Feudal age Horses.

Sounds like you have a problem with cost efficiency, rather than the game mechanic itself.
I think it’s general consenses that the game suffers from this “too narrow “hardcounter play” which forces you to mirror it”, and softening this up is exactly what my suggestions would do.
Keep in mind that I’d also buff siege at the same time in a way to not make it unappealing by reducing cost and increasing damage.

Longbowmen are a good transition unit, but most of the time you want to transition into crossbows/handcannons at certain points in the game.

78

Archers/Crossbows need 3 volleys, MAAs without imp age hp boost need 6.

Mangos deal 36 a hit.

1 Like
79

Did you even read my initial post?
That was everything I was talking about :grimacing:

80

Bombards are Tanks. You get sticks and a touch to try and kill it. Gla on that guys.
mass tanks in any game wins and in this game there no counter but other tanks

2 Likes
81

Glass cannon kind of thing for siege units is RTS design 1.01. I don’t understand how any other options is even considered.

3 Likes
82

I hope the measures are taken and the siege is balanced, but I have read that they receive siege spam, do not be extremists either and blame the siege entirely, if you cannot prevent your rival from accumulating so many resources, the siege is a reward for arriving to castles which is already expensive and each siege unit costs the same as several units, so it is not an argument to say that they attack you only with siege, if you have melee units in the same amount of resources you win, too be smart and when your opponent goes up to castles your goal should be to destroy their first siege building, your opponent spending their resources on castles will not have a counterattack. improve in the game and not complain for complaining, be more aggressive and not let the rival accumulate resources

2 Likes
83

Yeah, but seeing the response from the devs here on what we think i though it might be worth to put my thoughts on it too. If we are all saying the same thing then it might help toward the right changes

3 Likes
84

I agree that siege should be a powerful reward for advancing to the next age. However, the siege units don’t really feel like siege units - infantry that take a face full of mangonel shots or springald bolts should be dead. Conversely, bombards that take a dozen torches to destroy isn’t what you would expect either.

85

Wow, y’all. Lot to be said. All the feedback is great! I’ll continue to monitor this thread, but will make sure I put this up the chain.

16 Likes