Siege units - what are they good for?

[madcow]

Now that for the most part balance is the name of the game rather than wanting to cause damage/carnage. I have to ask, what is the use/niche of siege units. They're absolutely atrocious against actual units, while decent for attacking buildings which anymore isn't really a goal.  Is there something I'm missing?  Do they need a new niche now?

[x4000]

Holy cow you want to attack buildings, and that's always been a goal.  Some of the siege units are also great against units, but the balance may need tweaking on all of the above if they aren't living up to their intents.

Why attack buildings?  Well:
- Bandits want to attack your buildings, and need siege units to do so.
- Bandits are going to be having buildings, and you'll want to attack those.
- We may need some other form of bonus for making you want to inflict pain and strife during the conflict.  Possibly some delays in the coming of catastrophes if you have a lot of building and unit destruction, with emphasis on buildings in particular.  That uses your idea from another thread, but as a carrot rather than a stick.   And that carrot might prove needed at the highest difficulties, which again is great.  And the mechanic in fact could be corralled to Hard difficulty and above only.

[Misery]

I was wondering this one myself.

WITHOUT the cataclysms, as the game is now, I have very little reason to build siege factories at all, since the sides have always equal numbers of cities (with the cities on the front lines being very defensible AND containing gods defending them as well).   Yes, there are a couple of siege units that are good against other actual units, BUT, this generally means that the VS buildings ones will also definitely come from there, and those dont help at all, because I'm not even close to being in a situation where attacking buildings is whatsoever a good idea.    They either just splatter against the god-defended main cities, or they'll run out to one of the 4 or so side ones that both red and blue have and be really annoying, often requiring that I plop down a quick mythological unit for a good stomping to stop them from being such pests.


Would love to have more reason to use them, because smashing buildings is fun in here, when it makes sense to do it.    The idea of bonuses for doing such things sounds pretty good to me.

[x4000]

Back when the goal was for score, the siege units had a huge purpose.  But the removal of score (which was a super good move in general) has caused some need for rethinking some things (like this).

[PokerChen]

- Bandits are going to be having buildings, and you'll want to attack those.

If it is at all possible, add the chance of a bandit stronghold popping up as a new tile (not too close to player towns), that gets turned into ruins when you clear it... this will add a possible motivation for sieges during the game. Can we remove the inhabited forest, which I don't see the use of at all, and turn them into hostile bandit camps?

- We may need some other form of bonus for making you want to inflict pain and strife during the conflict.  Possibly some delays in the coming of catastrophes if you have a lot of building and unit destruction, with emphasis on buildings in particular.  That uses your idea from another thread, but as a carrot rather than a stick.   And that carrot might prove needed at the highest difficulties, which again is great.  And the mechanic in fact could be corralled to Hard difficulty and above only.

I reckon you will at some point. Hopefully by then I'll not have figured out a way to rapidly deploy coin-flip towns to milk it for all its worth.

[x4000]

The inhabited forests are actually really interesting if you play on the Sherwood map with them.  It's something that is unbalancing and challenging and thus interesting.  The hostile bandit camps you're looking for are called Dead Forests, and Murdoch's Wood makes huge use of those.

In terms of bandit stuff converting to ruins... we'll see, but I think that gets a bit complex.

[Misery]

Back when the goal was for score, the siege units had a huge purpose.  But the removal of score (which was a super good move in general) has caused some need for rethinking some things (like this).

I'm thinking that maybe worrying about their balance might be best left till after cataclysms are in?

I mean, ok, they're not useful now, but the reason is simple:  There's no reason to take down cities, because each side most of the time has the same number.

When cataclysms start.... this is likely to change.  If the reds have 7 cities, and the blues end up with like 4 (as a result of an event), then you bet I'll be pumping out a bunch of siege units in an attempt to fix that number, particularly because BUILDING an entirely new city is not always a viable option, depending on the map and what's going on.



This is how it seems to me.   Siege units actually do their jobs very well;  there simply needs to be reasons for them to do it.


Also, I agree with Zharmad above me, I think.... those funky inhabited forest buildings, I dont even know what those DO.   I keep sticking them into maps to see if they eventually do something, they keep not doing something.   The idea of a bandit stronghold tile showing up at times would be a good one, I think!  It could have a cooldown like military buildings do, and pump out a bandit every couple of turns.   Siege units would be good here indeed.   It'd be a nice use for the commandment thing as well (though I'm thinking THAT too will have much more uses when cataclysms are in)


Also, the Dead Forests..... how do they work?  They dont seem to actually spawn bandits ON them, so I'm a bit confuzzled on their function.

Still, I love the thought of a bandit stronghold like that, a proper building that they can have.

[PokerChen]

Right ok, otherwise, I think we could do with having a cataclysm throw up an entire bandit town complete with production chains that they don't actually need.

Although I suspect players can still easily deal with a 3x3 block of buildings at the edge of the map without siege units - it just takes a while.

Misery: the dead forests add to the number of bandit spawns when they actually do occur. The inhabited forests should do the same, iirc...

[x4000]

Dead forests and the inhabited forests both spawn units, but extremely slowly based on how many of those you have.  You need dozens and dozens of them to make much of a difference to anything.  Just trying out one or two is unlikely to do anything at all before your game ends.  There are a couple of maps that are COVERED in these things, and then the effect is dramatic and hard to miss.

The bandit spawns for dead forests are unrelated to the main bandit spawns -- two separate counters.  The inhabited forests work also on their own counters for each faction, providing friendly units.  Again destabilizing, just in a different way.  You pretty much have to play the special maps of these to see much effect from them.

And yeah on waiting on balance until after cataclysms.

[Misery]

Hmm, is there a point to having those 2 tile types be placeable, then?

On normal maps, they really do nothing at all, so unless that's changed, their presence there is a bit confusing.   The landscape growth never puts them out, either, on those maps.

[madcow]

By the way, one thing that sort of obsoletes seiging towns (when it becomes necessary) is the fact that you can just smite buildings to neuter a village. Smite might in general need a higher cost, but especially when smiting buildings as opposed to regular terrain.

[x4000]

You can't smite tiles of an enemy town...

[Misery]

By the way, one thing that sort of obsoletes seiging towns (when it becomes necessary) is the fact that you can just smite buildings to neuter a village. Smite might in general need a higher cost, but especially when smiting buildings as opposed to regular terrain.

I would agree with giving Smite a cost specifically when smiting a building.   Just not a cost that's too crazy.   Smite is a useful tool indeed, quite versatile, but it's not exactly crazy powerful or anything.

Dont REMOVE the ability to use it on buildings though.   There's so many things that can be done with that, it'd be a shame to lose it.   Just needs a cost.

You can't smite tiles of an enemy town...

I think he means like, if you're needing the red guys to get stronger, you can, on the blue guys' turn, pop key buildings in their cities to essentially "turn off" production.   It is a very useful thing, but yeah.... cost needed, I think.

[madcow]

Misery is dead on about what I meant.

Edit:
I agree don't remove it either. Up the action cost of it maybe.

[x4000]

I am a mean guy:

* Inhabited forests, dead forests, lakes, and mountains can no longer directly be placed by players.
** In the case of the former two, this removes a source of player confusion since those only really work when they exist in large volume (as on certain map types).
** In the case of the latter two, this puts the players a bit more at the mercy of the RNG.

* On Hard difficulty levels, the ability to smite buildings has now been removed.

EDIT: My reasoning is that on Hard difficulty you need to play with intent and foresight, and thus if you are not then that's something you have to work harder at to recover from.  On lower difficulties, it's okay to make a lot of mistakes, and so making smiting more expensive seems counterproductive to me for that.