Poor siege model variety

[System Error Message]

Hi, there seems to be a lack of models for siege and accurate models. There are many different races but they all share the same siege models. The catapult looks more like the roman ballista while the ballista looks like a large crossbow.

[MishFTW]

The game is based on history And not everybody developed unique siege weapons.

[Pureon]

If you can provide us with some historically accurate suggestions for any of the civs please share them with us. Saying there is a lack of models and not providing any constructive information on what could be done instead is counter-productive, especially on an open-source game that's still in Alpha.

[feneur]

First, I'm not saying you shouldn't feel free to suggest improvements, and as Pureon said, please provide suggestions. Also note that to make a balanced and fun game things needs to be simplified to a level where it makes sense (we can't give some civs seven siege weapon types and some one for example).

Second, just as a general comment it's quite interesting to see how different reactions things can get: it wasn't long ago that someone thought our units looked too different from other units of the same kind, and now you think we need more variety (I'm not saying it's 100% comparable as that was the infantry units and this is the siege units, my point is just that no matter what we do we can never please everyone ).

[Loki1950]

That looks like a build in place of use model Lion do you want to defend it while it's being build

Enjoy the Choice

[System Error Message]

well siege units dont need to be that different but catapults look like ballista. Could take the idea from rome total war on the design since they too follow history. Ballistas werent simple giant crossbows, they had some sophistication in the design to help with the use of it.

rome total war ballista

rome total war catapult (called onager by them)

While searching i found the current catapult model only fits the egyptions. I also noticed that siege weapons like catapults take very little damage from melee units as they should be easy to destroy from melee units except for battering rams.

I also noticed that rome didnt have siege towers in 0.a.d .Many civilisations at that time had siege towers to scale walls and to protect their troops inside from arrows.

There doesnt need to be so much variety, just that not all civilisations have the exact same design.

Edited August 3, 2012 by System Error Message

[Pureon]

comment please, have hard to search that images

I don't understand?

[zoot]

I guess he would like to know if there is any chance of those designs making it into the game and if not, whether there is anything that can be done about it.

[Pureon]

I would like to add an onager to the game, although most books/references I've seen say onagers didn't appear until much later than 0 A.D.

[Mythos_Ruler]

In 500BC-1BC, "catapults" were ballistas. What you think of as a "catapult" is actually the onager, which became prevalent in the 1st century AD. If there is a 0 A.D. Part 2 with the Imperial Romans, then they will definitely get the Onager (and Chaeiroballista and maybe Sambuca or some other cool stuff).

[Pureon]

I'd like to add a Carroballistae at some stage. They could even be in part 1 because the technology existed before 0AD I believe.

this game have poor variety of units.

I think you'll find we have more siege units than other commercial RTS games.

[historic_bruno]

A ship-mounted siege engine might be interesting, to clear away coastal defenses where it's too difficult to land. But this doesn't sound too promising:

sambuca [...] were first used unsuccessfully by Marcus Claudius Marcellus during the Roman siege of Syracuse in 213 BC.

They were used again unsuccessfully during the siege of Chios.

A different design of machine, also called a sambuca, was used unsuccessfully by Mithridates VI of Pontus in his attack on Rhodes in 88 B.C.

[Pureon]

I forgot to mention a few factions also have elephants that are excellent at siege, as are the Flaming Javelin cavalry units for the Iberians.

But I agree it would be interesting to see some other siege units appear in 0 A.D. - however not necessarily as part of the standard setup.

[zoot]

obvius but why conform with less? we are ambitius rts project

Sounds like you are offering to put in the time to make several new high-quality siege engine models?

[zoot]

Which one would you like to model? Some of the designs you posted were from the imperial era, and those probably won't work. Also, if they require exotic gameplay mechanics (like units-on-walls) they will be difficult to implement. Finally there's balancing - I don't think we'd want one civilization with hundreds of siege engines, especially if they are nearly identical gameplay-wise.

[Gen.Kenobi]

One thing that just occurred to me... Are the current siege-weapons in scale? I mean... They don't look very semi-realistic the way they were supposed to be... I can't see two or three animated guys pushing and using them around... Maybe it's just me, or will we re-scale the guys, just like the awful AOEIII did?

[FeXoR]

Which one would you like to model? Some of the designs you posted were from the imperial era, and those probably won't work. Also, if they require exotic gameplay mechanics (like units-on-walls) they will be difficult to implement. Finally there's balancing - I don't think we'd want one civilization with hundreds of siege engines, especially if they are nearly identical gameplay-wise.

Giving a civilization 100 different siege engines doesn't break the balance. Giving one civilization one uber unit (like perhaps hanibal ATM) breaks the balance.

[zoot]

Giving a civilization 100 different siege engines doesn't break the balance.

Depends on their stats. In any case, having an unmemorable number of different units per civilization is silly.

[Pureon]

One thing that just occurred to me... Are the current siege-weapons in scale? I mean... They don't look very semi-realistic the way they were supposed to be... I can't see two or three animated guys pushing and using them around... Maybe it's just me, or will we re-scale the guys, just like the awful AOEIII did?

I based the scale of my siege weapons on historical reconstructions - so they are to scale (or at least as close as possible). Having infantry units pushing each siege weapon would currently increase lag unnecessarily, and given a large majority of users feedback is about the lag, we can't justify doing that at this stage in development. Non-self-mobile siege units will pack and unpack into carts/wagons for increased mobility, but this functionality hasn't been implemented yet (although we're ready for someone to begin working on it asap ).

[historic_bruno]

Having infantry units pushing each siege weapon would currently increase lag unnecessarily, and given a large majority of users feedback is about the lag, we can't justify doing that at this stage in development.

Couldn't they just be propped? A trained siege units pops out with a few actors to push it, when idle they stand around, when moving they go into walking animation, etc. For firing and if they need to walk around relative to the siege engine itself, that might get more complicated for the animators, but since props are attached to animated bones it seems technically feasible. They shouldn't add much lag, other than having a few more animated actors in the game, and a few more bones per model for the siege engines.

[Gen.Kenobi]

Two things:

1) animated prop points are a possibility?

2) Animating the "walking around the siege engine" shouldn't be that hard. Only getting it ingame that could be - have no idea how.

Anyways, I'll start to make a list of things to animate - just saw that the fisherman doesn't "row" with the rows, and also doesn't trows a net. (If I animate a prop would it need have a skeleton?. I mean, the net object, could It just simply be relative to the model? [old-school]?

Given that this lastest skeleton is already implemented, I'll give more attention and priority into animation.

[historic_bruno]

1) animated prop points are a possibility?

In a skeletal model, the prop points are just child bones with names that start with "prop-" or "prop_" and they follow their parent bone which is part of the skeleton. So yes, you can indirectly animate the prop points in skeletal models.

[Gen.Kenobi]

But can I do something like this:

With a spear, obviously? Without the need to rig the spear itself?

[historic_bruno]

You could add a bone just for the prop and animate that bone, then it would have to be a part of the dude's skeleton.

[Shawn]

Hi guys. A backlink brought me to this post, so I thought I would throw my two-cents in.

The onager was invented around 250 BC. There are other numbers that get thrown around but those are either referring to a ballista or are misinformation. Also, we don't know what an onager actually looked like as we only have descriptions and no pictures from before 0 AD. The earliest description we have is http://www.mywizards.com/catapults/onager/#onager_desc So, basically you can make it look like whatever you want as long as it fits this description.

Also, small, pushable catapults were not big enough to break down fortress walls. Small catapults, like in the pic above (except for maybe that one ballista), would be used for taking out troops. In order to do any damage to a fortified wall, a small catapult would need to be so close that the enemy archers would kill the operators. Wall busting catapults were actually constructed on site after the siege began. They were the size of a building and were not mobile. Troops would lay siege to a fortress and then start cutting lumber to build the wall-busting giants. A great example of this is the Warwolf Trebuchet.

The mod looks great. I hope this was a little helpful.