I really don’t know why this idea hasn’t been mentioned or implemented already but a really simple way to make siege towers actually viable and practical would be to have them function as a one way open gate when you attach them to a wall. One of the problems with the siege tower is in its current implementation its just clunky to use. When you have it attached to a wall, you have to first garrison your troops inside it and then click the ungarrison button to ungarrison them on the other side. This is time consuming and clunky and impractical in the middle of a busy game which makes it much more preferable to create an actual gap in the wall so that you can just click on the other side of the wall and have your troops walk right in to the other side. Now if we do away with the need to constantly garrison and ungarrison them and have them just basically be seen by the game as a one way “gap” in the wall so that your units will automatically garisson and ungarrison themselves and continue to their destination if you simply click on the other side of the wall. This way you can do things like set gather points from your building behind an enemy wall that has siege towers on it and your units would automatically leave your production building, go to the siege tower, garisson, ungarrison on the other side and continue on to their destination without you having to intervene at every stage.
I once thought, why don’t villagers auto hop in and out of the TC if it’s a pathing shortcut. Same apply to all units and all garrisonable buildings.
But pathing is already a never ending mess.
Yea but TCs are not a building that are not seeing any play because they are useless and also have a bunch of other uses. The siege tower never gets used and it has literally one function to get units from one side of a wall to the other and it doesn’t do that very well. So it should be improved.
Would be nice… but how make that Siege and Cavalry can’t pass over?
Though it could actually be interesting also to have terrain that can only be passed by foot units.
I’m sure the experts will find a way to implement that.
It actually already work the way you intend. If you put a siege tower against a wall every unit garrisoned inside will unload on the next side, given there’s enough space over there.
While this is a great improvement, siege towers are still going to terrible because of their ridiculous cost. Ideally apart from improvement like this, their cost has to be reduced to something like 60 wood 50 gold.
I have no qualms about their price being adjusted. Maybe they should only cost wood?
Make them a trash unit that synargize with Militia line. 11
I don’t know if you meant that as a joke but it’s a pretty solid idea… how do you propose to do it?
Yes & No.
IKR.
In a two different types of army combo, one needs to be meat shield another the damage dealer. Here obviously siege tower will be the meat shield. However while doing so, militia line won’t be able to do the damage. So this combo won’t be a traditional one.
Instead it will be a run away or kiting strategy. Right now, highest speed of Siege Tower is 1.30, same as Elite Eagle without squires. So realistically you can’t even escape Eagle. I want max speed to be faster than Knight+Husbandry but slower than LC+Husbandry. So 1.60 will be the sweet spot.
So here is the change proposal -
Cost 200w/160g → 375w. Can’t be any cheaper as a trash unit completely ignoring precious stone walls will be OP.
Speed 0.80 → 0.60
Garrison infantry increases speed by 0.05 as usual. But militia line increases speed by 0.1.
I don’t think changing the pathing would work technically but what if the siege tower would just auto eject all units that enter it when it’s stationed against an enemy wall.
So if you select a wall it turns into a stationary unit like a Trebuchet just much faster.
In the stationary mode you can give it a relay point so the units that come out don’t block other units.
Then you just right click your units onto it and they instantly come out on the other side. You still have to tell them to walk up to the Siege Tower but that’s it.
I think making them cheaper but slower is a good change too.
Right now they are way to much like APCs then anything in a medieval game should be. They are way to fast with units inside them.
Maybe this could become a unique trait of the Milita Line for Rams too?
Yep, this is a great idea and it would work well as an additional added detail for my original idea. I think these are exactly the kind of things missing features that make the siege tower undesireable.
Yea feels silly. And that is the only way they ever get used, to taxi slow infantry around the map. Do they even need a speed boost with units in them?
Rams have a speed boost so why not siege towers too.
Just right now siege towers have a higher base speed and get twice the speed boost from infantry which makes them way to fast in my opinion.
Thank you.
I mean why not? Also maybe increasing rams attack bonus by garrisoned militia from +10 → +15? Rest of the infantries can stay as it is. Need to check out for Mongols UT though. Drill SR and Drill Siege Tower with Champion can be a legit strategy.
Because they’re literally like giant towers made of wood. How fast can you really push them around?
Not that fast, that’s why I’m in favour of lowering the pushing speed.
But there is still some logic behind them being movable.
Rams are that slow for balance reasons. Siege Elephants should logically not be that much smaller then Battle Elephants but they have to be balanced.
In another thread I suggested to make the speed boost 0.05 for both Ram and Siege Tower but give the Milita Line a bonus that they give 0.1 speed boost.
That would improve the synergy between siege and the Milita Line. Currently it’s usually a better idea to use the Spearman Line instead because of their extreme bonus vs. cavalry and because they really need cover from arrows.