Flying siege?
 

I just ran into something frustrating:

The Pangea AI in my current game left it's home fortress undefended (inside and outside). So, I say to myself, this looks like a very ripe target to go hit with my solitary flying-10 Vastness (w/ Gift of Reason). Alas, despite there being no defenders whatsoever (except the ones manning the missile throwers on the walls), I still have to break down the door with a flying unit. Argggh!

Besides the likely answer of "play balance", is there any reason why an army of all flyers needs to bother with breaking down the front door first, just to get into an empty castle? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Flying siege?
 

Play balance sounds like a perfectly legitimate reason to me.

Re: Flying siege?
 

Heh! Because it's stupid to go flying over the top of a crennelated wall when you aren't absolutely certain what's on the other side?

~Aldin

Re: Flying siege?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's what magic is for! It is, after all, a fantasy game, eh?

Starspawn mage reports to God, "It is devoid of enemies inside, My Lord."
God of the Void sayeth unto sacrificial Vastness, "Goest thou over there and capture that. Do not return unless you succeed."
Vastness responds, "At once, My Lord."
A short while later the great God of the Void speaks to the mage, "You have done well, I shall not eat your brains -- today."

... end of story. Or it should be. Alas, the speedy Vastness smacks into the castle wall (rather than flying over it, must be residual summoning sickness), God is in a foul temper, and the hapless mage is being served as dessert. Sigh.

Re: Flying siege?
 

*chuckle*

and here I was thinking more along the lines of:

Starspawn mage reports to God, "It is devoid of enemies inside, My Lord."
God of the Void sayeth unto sacrificial Vastness, "Goest thou over there and capture that. Do not return unless you succeed."
Vastness responds, "At once, My Lord."

As the vastness disappears over the castle wall a loud report is heard followed by a somehow familiar male voice yelling "Listen up, you primitive screw-heads! This is my BOOMSTICK!"

A short while later the great God of the Void speaks to the mage, "You have failed miserably, I shall eat your brains."

...or something like that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

~Aldin

Re: Flying siege?
 

Don't forget - there are still those build-in garrison archers manning the walls, or to be more precise, one or more towers only.

A.

Re: Flying siege?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which are inconsequential:
</font>

• <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They are still there, even after you breach the door and are allowed to storm the keep, so it's not like you must "knock out the pillbox first, so they stop resisting"</font>
• <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They don't do enough damage to the type of attacker I sent in for that to be much of a concern.</font>

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think the devs either don't want flyers to easily ransack empty castles, or they just overlooked the idea of the flyers-only attack. As such, a castle attack will always take at least 2 months, and thus risks the enemy having time to bring troops from nearby to relieve the siege. So much for the airborne blitz ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Flying siege?
 

Flying already has a huge numbers of advantage over walking troops (the primary ones being able to strike past domains not through them, like even hightly mobile land armies). Being able to circumvent the Siege phase of a castle would be too much.

All flying troops would have to be dramatically rebalanced to account for this, making them overall much weaker.

Even though it's illogical, I prefer it this way so that having a castle is an effective speedbump for invasions.

Re: Flying siege?
 

How about this :

The Vastness flies in, lands in the courtyard. Nobody challenges it. Good ? Wait...

"All right, I'm in the courtyard, no enemies, let's raid the treasury while I'm at it..."
"Damn ! Somebody locked all the gates !! And where are all the servants ?"

Meanwhile, inside :

"Quick, bring another table here ! And put that wardrobe against the window !
- Is it gone yet ?
- No, hush...
- What do we do ?
- We've got about three years worth of food, and the well under the dungeon, we'll wait it out..."

Re: Flying siege?
 

ROTFLMAO. That was precious. Thanks!