If by paying attention you mean to change direction exactly when the shot is fired, well that is something that only few people do even in aoe2…
Right now, using siege takes no skill, just mass them and even cavalry struggle to get to them. You don’t have to use the attack ground and actually try to hit the right spot, to actually anticipate what you enemy is going to do. That’s what should make the difference.
This would also indirectly buff the culverin, that at the moment doesn’t have a place in the game, since it can fire without to set up, and so it could micro around other siege better.
I’m not saying that this would solve the whole problem, but it’s the biggest part in my opinion. I mean, of course some civ bonuses are crazy, and it should get a nerf, and of course less HP will help countering siege with other units. But overall, it would do little in post imp battles, when you are against a huge mass of siege that even if you are able to reach, it will eat through your army, so that the enemy army can kill what remains.
If you just reduce the HP, post imp battles will be even more static, since people will be even more conservative with their siege.
Another solution could be to make siege more inaccurate against units, like the aoe2 trebs, which have a 100% (or anyway high) accuracy against building, but only a 30% accuracy against units, and miss-shots deals only half if their damage. Which overall would also be historically accurate.
Why dont we look at other games like Company of heroes 2. They have anti tank guns with crews that can be killed in various ways. They are slow moving and are not overpowerd like siege is in Aoe4. In Aoe4 I have had battles where bombards just move away from danger and dont need much support…
Age of empires has always taken siege as units that move on there own and for some reason can be mass produced. Can we change how siege works? I would not mind to see it cost more, no automatic targeting 360 degrees and we should be able to capture it if you kill the crew. Imo Bombards should not work as if its a tank. It should be powerful but somewhat risky if you dont micro it correctly.
What do you guys think? We can innovate how siege works and not use concepts from the former Aoe games.
You should check out how AOE3 does siege, they have crew and horses to draw the artillery, while I agree they could improve upon that by having the crew behave more similarly to how artillery crews do in total war, where they can man the artillery or fight in melee, however I like the base of balance and visuals/mechanics of artillery of AOE3 and it’d make sense to build on that part of the existing franchise, however it seems this concept completely was overlooked upon original design and I’m afraid something this detailed/drastic would be hard if not impossible to implement in an already launched game.
That could make siege too much annoying in some context, while it would solve little in context like maps with bottlenecks and choke points, where you mostly fire in one direction.
I already made a post suggesting better counter play between seige units…
But I’ve changed my mind a little.
Mag attack aoe radius is too wide for the total damage it puts out. I suggest lower the damage to where it requires 6/7 shots to kill armored infantry and 4 shots to kill light infantry. OR have the shots required to kill remain the same but the aoe range shrink such that a pocket of units die as opposed to the whole army mass.
I understand players need to do better at using spread formations but mag aoe radius STILL kills the majority of a hotkey C spread formation. The only formation that’s optimal vs mag is line formation (hotkey Z).
The idea that one mistake results in an instant kill of 50 units??? And the enemy only needed 4 magonels (2400 res) to accomplish such a victory? That doesn’t seem balanced. If 4 mags could kill 2400 res worth of infantry in 1 shot, I would find that fair! But 50 cheap units (all scouts) still cost 3000 res? And infantry goes up in cost from there(4000 res light infantry, 6000 res heavy, etc)
Significantly reducing the aoe or the dmg would not invalidate ambush attacks. The dmg done would still warrant a retreat or some defensive reaction.
Bombards are very fast, have a high health pool, and can virtually counter every unit. They also delete structures instantly…
I prefer if bombards worked like aoe 3 mortars: very slow moving units while packed, extremely slow while unpacked, takes a few seconds to pack and unpack.
Also for the seige power bombards have it’s too cheap!!! Not even talking about China nor delhi train times… 45 seconds and 1000 resources? Yet 2 of those would take 90 seconds to build from a single siege workshop and demolish a keep (800 res 2min villager seconds build time, effectively 900+ res) in 27 seconds??
Bombards should be just a touch stronger than trebuchets. It would take 75 seconds for 2 trebs to break a keep. That timing is reasonable given the scenario. For 500 more resources, 10 more seconds in que time, and 6 less tile range, you can go from taking 75 seconds to kill a keep to 27 seconds?? No… that’s absurd. I think if you could go from 75 to 45 seconds heck I honestly think 50 seconds is very fair. At 50 seconds for 2 bombards to kill a keep it would require 50 villagers repairing to keep up with the seige damage?
Last point. Current bombards are a more expensive version of the all springalds meta!!! They fire waaaaaaay too fast. And some factions get attack speed buffs? This seige unit should behave in such a way that it’s attacks are powerful!!! But the reload time takes forever which makes it ideal for destroying stationary stuff!! Again like the treb which has a 12.5 second reload. I’d like of the bombards power was scaled appropriately around that timing (10 to 12.5s delays between shots). Significantly reducing it’s reload would de- incentives players massing bombards to counter anything except buildings. For example nobody is massing trebuchets to counter anything except structures. A bombard should be a stronger, shorter range trebuchet.
In conclusion
Reduce the bombard movement speed, reduce it’s DPS, while allowing the bombard to fire at anything make it so it’s reload time makes it inefficient vs non-building/non-ships.
I am not completely convinced by your argument regarding the mangonels. I do agree with what you said about the bombards - that they should be tuned to their roles as anti-building and anti-ship weapons.
So more damage per shot, but longer in-between shots to allow for counter-play?
Just to put some context on my initial post. (he only lost about 5 spears and a single bombard btw while I ran at him (~8 spears and 20 bombards) with just short of 90 military supply all maxed out tech).
I tried springalds only with special imp techs for rus, horsemen only, handcannoneers with slight frontline to have no losses until gapclosing is done.
Nothing works cause it counters everything and everything he loses is a single bombard for every 50+ supply I lose.
There is literally nothing you can do and i’m 100% convinced that the ppl who designed this siege concept, and the ppl that approved it, have never played a longer lasting (30min+) round even in 1v1-2v2.
The gameflow is terrible, there is no counter, you can just mirror the same stuff he does and if he’s chinese it’s an autowin for china (don’t get me wrong, I feel chinese are still absolutely terrible to play as and need big reworks but they just capitalise the most of this terrible siege layout rn that breaks the game).
Nothing deals damage to it while having as much HP as a building and they kill absolutely everything.
It’s lame, lazy and terrible to play as and against. It’s just bad game design.
I’m gone from this garbage for another month and hope they start to touch it at some point.
Drop the siege concept entirely and just copy AoE2 or AoE1 guys, this ain’t it.
Siege mechanics in aoe3 were actually amazing and thought through and well balanced.
I would have wished for the same in AOE4.
Unfortunately they ■■■■■■ it up badly.
