Flying siege?

[Arryn]

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?

[ceremony]

Play balance sounds like a perfectly legitimate reason to me.

[aldin]

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

[Arryn]

Originally posted by aldin:
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?

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.

[aldin]

*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

~Aldin

[Arralen]

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.

[Arryn]

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

Which are inconsequential:

• 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"
• They don't do enough damage to the type of attacker I sent in for that to be much of a concern.

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 ...

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.

[General Tacticus]

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..."

[Arryn]

ROTFLMAO. That was precious. Thanks!