Question about walls

[NOXAS1]

Just curious but when will walls be able to be built easier and more efficiently like a drag system to build multiple parts of a wall? Also when will gates be able to work? I love how they looked and they made great eye candy just well trying to make a wall straight was a pain lol.

[Chakakhan]

Yes, the wall system will be completely redesigned and re-implemented. Some form of click and drag is most probably how we will do it.

[NOXAS1]

YAY!!! Thank you man. one other question since it's about walls. Will there be palisade walls?

[Chakakhan]

It has been discussed and I am hoping we have them as well! Not sure if a decision has been made either way on this.

[Mythos_Ruler]

There is further discussion here:

http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13684

[Pureon]

YAY!!! Thank you man. one other question since it's about walls. Will there be palisade walls?

These will be in Alpha 7:

You won't be able to build them with your units, but you will be able to design/play scenarios with them in. Mythos_Ruler has already used his skillz to make a cool map with palisade defenses, see here.

[Chakakhan]

Those look great! Are they destructible?

[Pureon]

Those look great! Are they destructible?

Yes they are

[Chakakhan]

Ok, so we need to figure out how to build those in one of the upcoming Alphas! I love that look.

[Mythos_Ruler]

I was even thinking the spikes could be an upgrade that has a "trample damage" radius, so that enemy units that attack the wall also lose Health. The wall separators (blocks of wood between wall segments) could be upgraded individually to those palisade forts (really, just "towers"), that shoot arrows but are ungarrisonable. Doing this would cost a lot of wood (200 maybe) over and above the cost of building the wall, they aren't particularly strong, are attackable by all units (not just siege), and you would have to do it one separator at a time. Just some ideas.

[Pureon]

Yeah both ideas sound realistic to me.

...those palisade forts (really, just "towers")

We should rename them (and filenames) to something more suitable.

[NOXAS1]

that would be awesome! and those are cool screenshots Mythos_Ruler. Oh I got an error when I tried to see the other topic with the discussion Mythos

Edited August 5, 2011 by NOXAS1

[Mythos_Ruler]

that would be awesome! and those are cool screenshots Mythos_Ruler. Oh I got an error when I tried to see the other topic with the discussion Mythos

Oh, I think it's internal. I'll repost it here:

Walls

Click-Drag

So, there is the traditional click-drag way, seen in games such as Age of Kings and Age of Mythology.

I think what will need to happen with this method is that the wall needs a short, medium, and long segment, which switches out depending upon what's needed as the wall is being dragged out. Wall towers show up between segments to link them together and hide any ugly seams. Wall Gates show up at regular intervals, provided those intervals have enough length.

A simple click-drag-click will place down the walls in one straight line. Holding shift allows this process to continue, placing endpoints down at a maximum angle of 90 degrees. Additional endpoints can be placed as long as shift is pressed.

City Walls can only be placed in territories owned by the player. The special Roman Siege Walls can be placed anywhere on the map as part of their benefit.

Ring Method, i.e. Curtain Walls

This method is not to replace the click-drag method, but as an additional feature.

There is a band or ring around a Civ Centre (circle or polygonal) that cannot be built upon by the player (except by other walls). This ring is where the wall will go. Also, no other Civ Centre rings may overlap, creating self-contained cities with their own curtain walls. A button in the Civ Centre's UI can be clicked, which places all the wall foundations for the player along this ring. Actual towers, wall segments, and gates will not cost any additional amount, but the total cost for all wall pieces is paid up-front. The foundations are placed and the player can task citizens to go build it.

Optional feature: click one of the circuit wall's foundations to see an additional UI button. Clicking this brings all idle citizens to the nearest wall segment to build it.

What if resources are in the way (trees, mines, deer, etc.)?!?!? -- Trees will simply be cut through (you lose them), same for berry bushes or anything like that. Deer will automatically walk out of the way (as they should anyway for building foundations). Since the radius of the circuit walls will be known, Metal and Stone mines can easily be placed elsewhere by the random map script or custom scenario designer. Either they cannot be placed on the ring, or they "snap" to one side or the other.

Integration

We could use the Ring Method for city walls in territories owned by the player and the click-drag method for the Roman Siege Walls.

or

We could allow both methods for city walls (and click-drag for Roman siege walls).

or

Similar to Battle for Middle earth II, the ring just represents a radius where the click-drag city walls can be used. No special auto-placement or anything like that.

EDIT: My preference is thus:

-- Curtain Wall for stone city walls. This creates a nice visual for the Civ Centre minimum distance, plus creates self-contained cities. It doesn't have to be exactly like my idea with the auto foundation placement and all that, but maybe stone city walls can only be built within this radius (like in Battle for Middle Earth II).

-- Click-drag, Own Territory for Palisades. They are cheaper, but also weaker. Not nearly as strong or as defensive as the curtain walls, but work well in a pinch when you have lots of wood and not enough stone for curtain walls.

-- Click-drag, Enemy and Neutral territory for Roman Siege Walls.

[NOXAS1]

Cool Beans that sounds great

[Quassy]

I think the positioning of gates and wall towers should be determinable by the player and not automatically erected. So one first builds a wall, then selects a segment (could also be possible during construction, but time and resource consumption for conversion should remain) and converts it to a desired element e.g. "Build tower, 100 stone" or "Build gates", both requiring workers like normal buildings do.

[Chakakhan]

I was even thinking the spikes could be an upgrade that has a "trample damage" radius, so that enemy units that attack the wall also lose Health. The wall separators (blocks of wood between wall segments) could be upgraded individually to those palisade forts (really, just "towers"), that shoot arrows but are ungarrisonable. Doing this would cost a lot of wood (200 maybe) over and above the cost of building the wall, they aren't particularly strong, are attackable by all units (not just siege), and you would have to do it one separator at a time. Just some ideas.

I like both of these ideas.

[plumo]

Drag and drop is all I need

What could be nice is a curtain wall for certain civs! It doesnt make sense to me for celts to have a perfect round wall around their city. On the other hand: a perfect square of walls makes sense for the romans f.e. who built their cities according to geometrical patterns.

Edited August 9, 2011 by plumo

[Mythos_Ruler]

Drag and drop is all I need

What could be nice is a curtain wall for certain civs! It doesnt make sense to me for celts to have a perfect round wall around their city. On the other hand: a perfect square of walls makes sense for the romans f.e. who built their cities according to geometrical patterns.

I was thinking octagons personally, rather than perfect circles.

[SMST]

It doesnt make sense to me for celts to have a perfect round wall around their city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_oppidum

[Mythos_Ruler]

Yep, if anybody would have a "round" curtain of walls, it would be Celts.

[Pedro Falcão]

Some days ago i watched a documentary about a great battle of Rome (can't remind wich one now, but anyway...) in History Channel and they described with details the roman siege walls: palisades of low height, some spikes against the cavalry, but not only this, there were many pits of different levels, some full of water, some with spikes (hidden under leaves) and even some empty but deep; There were so many obstacles that with the archers firing arrows on the upcoming enemies that it was impossible for cavalry to reach the walls and the infatry would take great losses.

About the wall building style stuff, i think there's no point in not letting people build walls wherever they want, if you see the movie "300", for instance, you can see the hoplites building a "wall" (with stones and persian corpses) at the pass of Thermopylae, just to contain the persian advancing army.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I prefer the ideas of limiting the use of stone walls. Nevertheless, perhaps there could be an actual option for the limits of use such fortifications.

[Chakakhan]

I like the idea of having different "barrier" types. Each having different advantages and disadvantages. I think that would be interesting.

[gudo]

I like the idea of having different "barrier" types. Each having different advantages and disadvantages. I think that would be interesting.

I would love it too if we could get things like ditches and what-not. Personally, I would love to see a type of barrier that's just angled log spikes stuck in the ground, all facing the same direction with two or so feet between the logs. Infantry could pass between the gaps going both ways, but Calvary couldn't (or could only go one way.) Anyways, until there's some sort of drag-n-drop or other wall placement improvement, placing the new barriers would continue to be a pain and probably never used.

On the topic of multiple types of barriers, the UI needs a bit of a redesign when it comes to building icons, something like this concept where buildings are separated by type (military vs economic vs special.) If we're going to have like, four or five wall/palisade/ditch/barrier types, then they really should get their own category (and Special buildings should get sorted into whichever other category they belong.)

[Mythos_Ruler]

If we're going to have like, four or five wall/palisade/ditch/barrier types, then they really should get their own category (and Special buildings should get sorted into whichever other category they belong.)

But we aren't gonna have four or five wall/palisade/ditch types.