From your earlier posts, I was under the impression that you wanted siege engines that help during the siege, but do nothing or next to nothing on the battlefield; they could be desroyed on the battlefield, and would have to be protected, but would be otherwise nearly useless.
First, battering rams and siege towers wouldn't add anything Siege engineer, the commander, doesn't already model. They have to be protected, they shouldn't be in melee, if they are present during the siege, the walls go down.
You agreed to this earlier:
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I don't expect battering rams or siege towers to do anything on the battlefield or very very little. Their purpose is to allow storming to occur more quickly... when they are on the battlefield it provides players a chance to destroy siege equipment.
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Would this be any different from the current Siege Engineers? Their purpose is to allow storming to occur more quickly, and their existance on the battlefield and as commanders provides players a chance to destroy the siege bonus, whether from equipment or from the lack of trained user.
Second, adding a whole new caste of ranged units that are much more powerful than any existing unit is a bit too complicated to my tastes.
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The Siege Engineers have an icon for their Siege Bonus. It is a stnoe-hurling device of some kind IIRC.
The actual siege engine(s) cannot be destroyed... my suggestion would make them realistic targets along with the engineers instead of just the engineers.
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What difference would it make? They could attack in battle, but I'd rather not have that. It'd be stupid if they were powerful enough to be used in common fights e.g. against indies. "On turn 3, attack with your massed catapults."
If they were as weak as stone-hurling devices which take a few shots to adjust to hit a
castle should be, they'd only fire a stone every five turns or so, so their second shot would already endanger your own melee units. They would have to be set to guard commander, if they were units, or be guarded, if they were commanders. It'd be much easier to destroy siege equipment that it is currently. Also, it wouldn't be realistic for the armies to build siege engines against a fight with barbarians, or to reassemble their siege engines from the parts included in the Siege Engineer's cost as resources when fighting those barbarians.
Of course your opinion is as valid as that of anyone else, but I fail to see why it is so important that the siege engines can be realistically destroyed. The siege in Dominions is already very abstract - no one dies, except from starvation/disease, until one party decides to attack. In my opinion, whether the defender tries to destroy siege engineer or his siege engines makes no difference - except that, realistically, siege engineer can build new siege engines, but siege engines might be unusable without the siege engineer. With every turn equaling a month, there'd be lots and lots of siege engines in just a couple of turns.