Currently the way Siege Tower works is absolutely horrible for both game to the point no one will ever think of using it unless they want to do gimmick strats. This thread will suggest a way to buff Siege Tower from game mechanical POV.
Here’s a way we can fix this. Instead of reusing Transport Ship mechanics, let’s introduce a totally new mechanics which can be native for the game. You got a wall. As enemy you will order your Siege Tower to your opponent’s wall. Here when you target the wall, it’ll use the pack/unpack mechanics of Trebuchet here.
Siege Tower (Packed/not Wall mounted):
While packed you can put your units in it and can act it as a land Longship of Vikings. While you target the wall, it’ll ungarrison all units in it for the mechanics’ simplicity sake. If devs are good enough they can work with it while packed still.
Siege Tower (Unpacked/Wall mounted):
After you target a wall it’ll go into a state where it can’t move easily like Trebs. Now, the wall is targetted is considered opened in pathfinding algorithm just like the way gate mechanics of AOE2 works. While opened, enemies and allies alike can move seamlessly without issues. Also during this state, tiles can be converted into a unique state. (AOE2 only) Where you can fake the sprite out and thinking its on wall like Stronghold. Exiting this tile will make them go back to where they are. If its destroyed/unpacked/unit moves away from the tile it’ll go back to previous state. Make it like only units in this tile can go out but units outside of it can’t go in. It can be another state of the tile.
Also if click target is gate only then make them able to temporarily convert gate in similar manner. However it won’t go to complex mechanics of wall. Enemy will temporarily will lose all control of gate. Cavalry and any form of unit type can go in and out without breaking a sweat.
Optional new unit:
We can have a new unit call Ladderman. Cheap trash unit and lacking the key feature of lacking high pierce armor of Siege Tower also quite fragile in HP. Totally same way it’ll work like Siege Tower minus not being able to carry any units on the inside. Maybe available in Imperial Age due to prevent too much aggressive play of Castle Age. Maybe Castle Age infantry rush can be interesting too. Where you can make a lot of them and take units out easily enough on walls of AOE4 and pass through in AOE2
In this way, Siege Tower truly can have an identity which lacks in every AOE titles. This will make them no longer a gimmicky units and having much better identity.
You can share your thoughts and I hope it does reach to game devs.
Yes to give something to siege towers. A ladder on a wall when “attach” can be cool.
Something else that is worth consider is also good.
Tbh this last vill event i miss 2 times in a row that quest because i didint even remember that tower exist, i was building canon and upgraded towers xD
its still extremely disappointing how devs aren’t even able to implement this in any manner. Even more developed AOE4. I hardly doubt its a hard mechanics to implement. Stronghold did this but why not AOE4/AOE2? Stronghold got much better functionality than this despite such small scale. Currently Siege Tower is extremely costly to justify its cost and works worse than a meatshield than a ram.
I read somewhere siege tower drop range went from 1 layer wall to up to 3 layers of wall from 2 PUPs ago. but then I tried its still max 1 layer of wall…
it would be awesome if it could do at least 3 layers.
I’m not sure I fully understand all the additional mechanics you propose and some of them seem really weird but (what at least I believe is the) core mechanic to attack a wall and once it arrived there it’ll “unpack” to automatically ungarrison all units at the other side of wall that are sent into the siege tower imo is a very plausible idea that doesn’t change it’s purpose (like other proposals I’ve read that make them shoot arrows) but makes it’s way less awkward to use.
I have said this before but as much as I love the idea of siege towers they just do not fit into the game design and other siege weapons would have to be drastically nerfed to justify its use. Currently it’s too easy to use a ram and punch a hole in a wall not to mention the petard. Also since we don’t have troops mounting walls it’s even less of a necessary unit. The only way siege tower would be worth using is if we nerfed rams against walls and made it so that they only damaged gates and other buildings and not walls. But that would never happen.
I don’t think it would be good… giving them the ability to be moving towers that shoots arrows would be way OP, specially if they are cheaper, unless their speed was slowed down to a crawl. Not sure what the point of garisoning petards in them would be, and I assumed you could already do that anyway… The whole Hussite Wagon mechanic is also really clunky to use in real game and doesn’t really add much value to the unit. Still it would be much easier to throw a couple of rams at a wall, punch a hole, and then continue to use the rams to also destroy buildings behind that wall. Rams just get so much more value. And trust me, I say all of this as someone who really really wants towers to have a place in this game, its just that no suggestion I’ve ever heard seemed convincing as to how they can become properly incorporated into the game.