Realistic siege

[causative]

Siege warfare in 0 A.D. is unrealistic.

• Hitting walls with swords?  Nope.
• Siege elephants?  Nope.  Elephants were used against troops, not fortifications.
• Totally destroying buildings?  Nope.  Attackers would damage the defenses just enough to enter, leaving the rest of the fortress intact, and would then flood troops through the hole they made.  The exception to this is burning civilian buildings, but fortifications were generally not flammable.
• Capturing doesn't harm the garrison?  Nope.  Capturing should be a pitched battle between the attackers and the defenders, with the garrison as well as the attackers getting hacked to pieces or shot full of arrows.
• Ranged attacks harm the walls but not the garrison?  Nope.  It was a common tactic to use stone throwers, slings, or bows to clear defenders off the walls and make the approach easier.
• Siege towers just shoot arrows that damage the walls?  Nope - the primary purpose of a siege tower was to allow the attackers to get onto the walls and engage the enemy in melee.  Or, to allow attackers to use battering rams from lower levels of the tower.  Arrows do not damage stone walls.
• Siege weapons are vulnerable to destruction in a quick melee raid?  Nope - many were huge, heavy machines, almost fortresses in themselves.
• Siege rams are always advanced technology that requires city phase to make?  For covered rams, perhaps, but simple uncovered siege rams were just tree trunks.
• Siege warfare in 0 A.D. is missing variety and tactics that were historically used.  See below.

Proposed revamp of siege mechanics:

• Non-siege units simply cannot damage buildings.  They can capture all civilian buildings, but can only capture towers/forts/CCs/military colonies if the building is first damaged by siege.  Elephants are not siege.
• Siege weapons deal a small amount of damage to buildings.  The purpose of siege is not to destroy the building entirely, but to make it capturable.  Say, when the building has been damaged below 90%, that is considered to be a hole in the wall which allows capture.  Damaging the building beyond that does makes it a little easier to capture, but not a lot easier.
• Only ranged units in garrison increase the arrow count.
• Ranged non-siege may attack buildings.  This does not damage the building, but damages ranged garrison.  Ranged garrison has a bonus to armor against these attacks.  Non-ranged garrison are not damaged by these attacks because they are not sticking their head up above the walls to shoot.
• Ranged siege has the same effect on the building garrison as ranged non-siege, except ranged siege also damages the building.
• When capturing, melee garrison deals their normal attack damage to all capturing units.  Capturing units, in turn, deal damage to melee and ranged garrison, as well as decreasing the capture bar.  Garrison units get an armor bonus against these capture attacks.
• Siege towers may still shoot arrows, but the arrows do not damage buildings.  Instead, if a siege tower is adjacent to an enemy building, all units in the siege tower may engage in a capture attack against the building even if the building is not damaged.  Siege towers can also have a secondary battering ram attack.
• Siege towers were incredibly tough, some weighing over 100 tons.  They should therefore be almost fortresses themselves - 1000 HP and 10 hack/crush armor seem reasonable.  Similar for covered siege rams and stone throwers, which could have 500 HP and 10 hack/crush armor.
• There should be a Phase II siege ram that is just a bare tree trunk.  It is cheap (50-100 wood), and provides no protection to its own garrison, so all arrows shot at the ram damage garrison units as if they were not garrison.  It cannot move without a garrison.
• Additional siege tactics that were historically used:
  • Mining.  Attackers would set up wetted hide tents to protect them against arrows, and try to dig underneath the enemy walls.  They would support their tunnels with wooden struts, which they would remove at once when they were ready to collapse the wall.  This could be implemented in 0 A.D. as a "mining crew" siege unit.  It would work similar to a battering ram.  A battering ram would not be effective on some very thick walls that could be taken down by mining.  (There are also thinner walls built on hard ground that a battering ram could take down, but mining would not work on - the distinction is hard to put in 0 A.D.).
  • Siege ladders.  These would be a cheap, phase II siege weapon costing 50 or 100 wood, similar to a siege tower.  Like a siege tower, when a siege ladder is adjacent to a building, the garrison of the siege ladder may try to capture the building as if the building were damaged.  Unlike a siege tower, a siege ladder does not protect its garrison from ranged attacks or allow its garrison to shoot arrows or use battering rams.
  • There was such a thing as a "siege ladder ship" - the Sambuca.  It was not that effective, however.
  • Pouring lots of water on the ground to make mud would stop a siege tower or covered siege ram from approaching.  This water could be a very cheap "structure" that the defenders could construct in front of their fortress.  The water would last a limited time.  The only thing preventing the defender from constantly renewing it is the attacker's army killing the units that are pouring water.
  • Starvation.  The attackers would encamp in the fields surrounding the enemy town and try to starve them out or cut off their water supply.  This was used by Sparta against Athens - the story of the Athenian Long Walls.  There are various ways to implement something like this.  The main problem is that 0 A.D. fields are far too small, and so can be located behind towers and fortifications.
  • Attackers and defenders had lots of other tricks too such as using chains or ditches to obstruct the motion of approaching siege engines.  0 A.D. doesn't need all of them.

[Zeta1127]

Excellent examples of the differences between the way 0 A.D. and games in general portray ancient and even medieval siege warfare and the reality of siege warfare.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Sorry but... Many things to do, and I really don't want 0 AD Total War, other are planned , like the Siege Tower.

 

totally agree with new units like team ladders, mining stuff, but the other.... No. My opinion.

[LordGood]

perhaps, archers, slingers, siege, and even buildings can push 'neutral' loyalty and damage instead of straight up attack? We should find a way to disable gaia attack for buildings.

This is beyond my area of expertise, i haven't modded since loyalty was implemented

I do like the idea of "cracking a shell" to capture buildings, it would make the distinction between military and civilian buildings better felt

also, smashing buildings is way more fun than repossessing them

[feneur]

There are certainly ways to improve siege in 0 A.D. but the thing to remember is that it will always be a simplified version. In other words, destroying a wall can symbolise the entire process of killing the defenders, getting onto it and even demolishing it after the war if it serves no purpose. Ithank can certainly be a lot more direct than that, but my point is that anything that makes things less abstract should be motivated primarily from a game play perspective. 

[wraitii]

Generally speaking, any realistic implementation of siege warfare would be too "slow" to work in the game. Unless you went with very abstract things such as a special "mining" ability that just makes walls explode instantly or something.

[LordGood]

I think the problem we have now are having the ability to quickly dispatch aggressive forward defenses, without making domestic defense completely useless. And rams, especially rams. I like the idea of light rams

and SLOW rams, what's this with pushing a ram faster than a syntagma can march? silly, especially considering that ram can still smash the syntagma to pieces in its current state

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Why do ram attack soldier again anyway? What was rationale for that change?

[causative]

From a gameplay perspective, 0 A. D. combat is overly simplistic compared to other RTS games.  This is largely because ancient combat frequently involved simple clashes of infantry on open fields.  But there is one place where ancient combat was not simple, and that is siege.  I think 0 A.D. would benefit from having more complex and variable combat, and siege is one area where there's plenty of room for that.

Take a look at the naval siege of Syracuse in 214-212 BC, to see the ingenuity from both sides.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Syracuse_(214%E2%80%93212_BC)

https://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Siege/Polybius.html

Just from this one siege alone:

• Sambucae - large ships carrying siege ladders intended to overtop the walls
• Normal siege ladders
• Catapults and scorpions used defensively against the enemy ships and marines
• Defensive machines similar to a crane or wrecking ball used to swing and drop stones on attackers
• Wicker screens to protect the attacking marines against missiles
• The Claw of Archimedes, a crane with a grappling hook used to capsize attacking ships, and also to lift up and drop attacking marines
• When the naval attack was repulsed, the Romans resorted to a naval and land blockade to starve out Syracuse.
• The Romans finally broke into the city through subterfuge.  They had a small band of marines scale the walls stealthily under cover of night, while Syracuse was distracted by the festival of Artemis
• This only won the Romans the outer city.  Many Syracusians retreated to an inner citadel, where the Romans had to starve them out again for eight months.
• The Romans finally broke into the inner city through the treachery of one of its inhabitants, who opened a gate for them.

 

[LordGood]

you see the problem here is ...

1 hour ago, causative said:

This only won the Romans the outer city.  Many Syracusians retreated to an inner citadel, where the Romans had to starve them out again for eight months.

Overly simplistic is a bit of a stretch, as per age of empires style is to just destroy everything. We dont want stronghold crusader levels of micromanagement in defense when the focus of the game is territorial expansion.

[wraitii]

I do not see many real improvements coming unless:

• map size is increased massively for more realistic scales
• Walls become much harder to penetrate while other buildings become much easier to destroy (meaning walls become more necessary)

Both these things require substantial gameplay changes and code changes.

The biggest problem imo is building time.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The map size can impress mostly of player.

for me is a lot of complexity that isn't necessarily in this RTS, having alternatives for walls can be nice, even spies or saboteurs enter into the city by the city wall.

 

  I love the idea of ladderman , but the video shows a issue not how they work.

In this casual game, have some mini realistic ideas, for example archer are the only one to shot over the wall, the other infantry or cavalry range can't.

[Palaiogos]

19 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Sorry but... Many things to do, and I really don't want 0 AD Total War, other are planned , like the Siege Tower.

 

totally agree with new units like team ladders, mining stuff, but the other.... No. My opinion.

0 AD Europa Barbarorum edition! 

[Palaiogos]

But anyway maybe we should take the ladder men from Stronghold 2 (not Crusader, or original) the ladder men are able to serve as combatants without the ladder, but with the ladder are sitting ducks. Another idea from Stronghold is units can only attack palisade walls, not stone walls. But will someone answer me on why we don't want Stronghold Crusader micromanagement? It is simpler than a lot of other RTS's (until the combat comes at least)

[av93]

On 1/6/2016 at 11:06 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Why do ram attack soldier again anyway? What was rationale for that change?

IRC, to avoid infantry block the ram movement.

1 hour ago, Palaiogos said:

But anyway maybe we should take the ladder men from Stronghold 2 (not Crusader, or original) the ladder men are able to serve as combatants without the ladder, but with the ladder are sitting ducks. Another idea from Stronghold is units can only attack palisade walls, not stone walls. But will someone answer me on why we don't want Stronghold Crusader micromanagement? It is simpler than a lot of other RTS's (until the combat comes at least)

A somehow "simple" way to introduce ladders without implementing movement on the walls, would be a ladder unit that can garrison units (they should follow the unit and be able to be attacked) that can unload (with a process bar) units into enemy walls. Then, walls should have "enemy" prop points next to the civ props, and units in walls should be able to fight. Melee units should be able to attack others units on wall section altough not in range. (yeah, ,maybe would look a little ugly)

When a wall section is garrisoned only with enemy soldiers, then would be captured to that civ. It shouldn't be able to be deleted (unless is in civ territory). Ungarrisoned walls that touch an occupied and captured wall, should be captured. Wall towers could work as firewalls.

Don't know if its a very simple or hard concept to implement

Edited June 2, 2016 by av93

[Lion.Kanzen]

The game is abstract but with be realistic art concept direction and very accuracy average armies, if we take this so deeply or Lila a warfare simulator even can charge a lot micro, first siege and then the rest of gameplay. With sea warfare is ok because is so arcade and boring...

 

but out archer can destroy a house? That is funny to see, an army 150 archer shot everything , a Rush.

[wackyserious]

2 hours ago, Palaiogos said:

But anyway maybe we should take the ladder men from Stronghold 2 (not Crusader, or original) the ladder men are able to serve as combatants without the ladder, but with the ladder are sitting ducks. Another idea from Stronghold is units can only attack palisade walls, not stone walls. But will someone answer me on why we don't want Stronghold Crusader micromanagement? It is simpler than a lot of other RTS's (until the combat comes at least)

SH Crusader 2 reintroduced units being able to attack stone buildings via pick axe building-attack animations.

[Palaiogos]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA, we aren't implementing movement on walls? I will now go and cry if this is true.

[niektb]

@Palaiogos: It is really difficult to implement that, so I don't think it will be ever implemented...

[LordGood]

we don't have a 3D pathfinder, its also why units attack through walls and mountains

[sanderd17]

Units on walls doesn't need 3D pathfinding (units on gates would need that, but nobody is supposed to pass below a wall).

The main problem is that walls are too thin, and our obstruction raster is not precise enough. So depending on the placement (how the obstructions get rasterized), the walls are passable or not. Units on walls should be possible if walls are made a lot fatter (IIRC, they needed to be at least 3 times as thick). But then you get other gameplay issues wrt where to place walls.

The second problem is that it's hard to move your units on the walls. If you task your units to some point, you target the wall piece completely, and thus the unit just doesn't move as he's already on the wall piece.

[Lion.Kanzen]

 

the units ( infantry) can mining a wall even without a subterranean tunnel.

[Palaiogos]

Maybe adding unit markets like all the Strongholds would help finding out where your units end up on the other wall.

[WhiteTreePaladin]

BFME 1 and 2 both allowed movement on walls and gates, but the walls were only allowed in predetermined places and were at least twice as wide as our walls. In BFME 2, they added a wall type that could be built anywhere, but those walls were narrower and did not support units on top. Having units on walls for a siege scenario is a lot of fun. However, the walls have to be fairly wide or there isn't enough room to move units around, In that case, the player would be better off with regular defense tower garrisoning.

Siege towers and ladders allowed units to climb up over the thinner walls and to climb on top of the larger walls. The ladders or siege towers had to be attached to a wall first which was accomplished by "attacking" the wall with the siege unit. When the ladder or tower reached the wall, it attached and provided a path over. Units would automatically see the new path over the wall and attempt to climb the ladder when tasked to a location on the other side. Multiple units could climb at the same time, but only in a single file. It took a few seconds for a unit to reach the top. No garrisoning was required in order to use a siege tower or ladder, so there wasn't any micro-management of repeated garrisoning and ungarrisoning to get units on or over a wall. Units in the process of climbing a tower or ladder where killed when it was destroyed.

 

 

[wackyserious]

1 hour ago, WhiteTreePaladin said:

BFME 1 and 2 both allowed movement on walls and gates, but the walls were only allowed in predetermined places and were at least twice as wide as our walls. In BFME 2, they added a wall type that could be built anywhere, but those walls were narrower and did not support units on top. Having units on walls for a siege scenario is a lot of fun. However, the walls have to be fairly wide or there isn't enough room to move units around, In that case, the player would be better off with regular defense tower garrisoning.

Yes, curtain walls (skirmish) vs. thick walls (scenario)

We can also elaborate the current wall variations to add more flavor

Curtain wall (Thin) - low cost / low hp / quick buidling time / garrison (disabled)

Average wall (Current) - medium cost / medium hp / long building time / garrison (enabled)

Thick wall - high cost - high cost / high hp / takes ages to build / garrison (enabled/more slots)