Towers, Gates and maybe Walls too can only be attacked when in LOS, Trebs have hardcoded accuracy against Towers

Age of Empires II: DE II - Report a Bug
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:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

  • GAME BUILD #: 101.101.47820.0.6624001, but this bug has existed for a really long time already if I remember correctly, probably even since the original AoK
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam, but doesn’t matter
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10, but doesn’t matter

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

I’m currently making a mod that makes the game more realistic, and obviously one big “problem” across all AoE games is the low range of Archers and Siege. Recently I’ve been experimenting a bit with Trebuchets and the Mangonel line and encountered some issues.

  • Towers, Gates and Walls too I think, can’t be attacked when they’re not in los. When tasking a unit with higher range than LOS (which is always the case if the range is 20 and above because for some reason the max LOS is hardcoded to be 20) to attack a Tower, Gate or Wall, they’ll either walk up to it until the target is in range and then just stand there or just straight up do nothing and not move at all, so I have to manually let them walk up to the target until it’s in LOS.

  • Trebs have a hardcoded accuracy against Towers. Now first off, I talked about this a bit with TriRem in the SE Discord, and he told me that Trebs are supposed to have an 80% hardcoded accuracy against ALL buildings in general, which is not only bad game design but also not the case in my tests. Only Towers, maybe even Walls and Gates too, are affected.
    → I mean I get that the game is supposed to be ESports friendly and that you can’t have too much
    randomness in the game, but at least Trebuchets, which are supposed to be a long range (convenient to use, but therefore slow-shooting and inaccurate) Siege unit should be inaccurate.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

  • 100% of the time / matches I play (ALWAYS), obviously

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:

1a. Mod a unit to have more range than LOS
2a. Place an enemy Tower, Wall or Gate somewhere
3a. Task the unit to attack the object

1b. For best results, mod Trebuchets to have the same stats as I do in my mod
(40 range, 0% accuracy, 0.4 dispersion)
2b. Place an enemy BUILDING, so class 3, no Towers or anything, somewhere, and add and outpost near it so the enemy building is in LOS
3b. Place a Trebuchet somewhere far away and have it shoot the building
→ expected behavior: Trebuchet is very inaccurate and almost never hits the building
4b. Do the same with a building of the class 52 (Towers)

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

a. The unit should attack the Tower normally, like any other building, although it’s out of sight, but it doesn’t.

b. The Trebuchet should just be as inaccurate against the Tower as against the Building, but it isn’t.
→ I think I can just work around this by giving Towers the Building class, but I don’t know if that will break anything, and it would be more convenient for modders if they didn’t have to change the class of Towers to 3.

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

Can’t really show it via a picture for obvious reasons

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We don’t have to go as far as modded trebs. Town centers in the base game have range more than line of sight. There are some tiles in (left and right) diagonal position from the TC that are in range of the TC but not in its line of sight.

As far as trebs having high accuracy against 1x1 buildings is concerned, that was an intentional balance decision. In that case this is not a bug report but a balance suggestion.

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But I tested it with walls, and trebs don’t have a hardcoded 80% accuracy against those, so it’s not all 1x1 buildings…
Edit: nvm, they do

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hmm I can see why they have the hardcoded accuracy, because otherwise trebs would never get through walls… but yeah, on the other hand, treb being super accurate against a tower probably does also feel weird.