Siege Units

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
It is quite hard to be able to destroy siege engines on the battlefield, without new commands that would be added in. Killing specialized commanders is easier, with assassination already in the game.

Of course it should be hard otherwise these uncommon units wouldn't have much long term value. The only units which should get unique commands for attacking siege units would be anti-siege units as mentioned earlier.

Endoperez said:
Flaming boulders (burning stone? ) would be directed to the defenders, as the disease-corpses. That wouldn't work well, unless you actually wanted to be able to slowly kill the defenders without actual battle.

Burning stone... yes... it is a magical realm and types of oil and fuel can also make this work. Some units might be so strong that you're main interest may be to try giving them a disease or crushing them with a boulder. Different catapults can have different sized boulders as well... I wonder what size boulder the Jotuns would use?

Endoperez said:
And, do you really except the Siege Engineers personally walk next to the castle, and pound the wall to dust? I think the actual engineering part is hidden, but I don't mind that, personally.

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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These can be units on the battlefield which their main purpose is off the battlefield... except for maybe the catapult.

[Morkilus]

I'd love to have include siege weaponry in a mod, it's just that I'm completely inexperienced with graphics... maybe Illwinter will chime in on whether or not the gfx are in there already so Wish_4_blood_slaves doesn't have to start

There's already some sort of machine in the UlmPunk mod, I don't remember what it does, though. Giving a unit a "spell" as a special ability is possible in mods, isn't it? Some sort of machine that casts Flying Shards or Blade Wind would be sweet...

[Endoperez]

I don't know how to give a spell, but Blade Wind effect is just set damage (no str bonus), proper graphics, and 50 attacks/round. And precision -5, and limited to only be fired once or twice, and maybe something else for balance.

Most different damage spells can probably be modded in, but the special often can't. If a weapon already does it, it can already be modded, there are some weird things out there (eye loss from Vision's Foe, plague, life drain, paralyze, soul slay, enslave mind)

[NTJedi]

Morkilus said:
I'd love to have include siege weaponry in a mod, it's just that I'm completely inexperienced with graphics... maybe Illwinter will chime in on whether or not the gfx are in there already so Wish_4_blood_slaves doesn't have to start

Yes I would also like to know whether or not the gfx for siege engines already exist. Knowing whether or not to start the gfx would be great information.

Chazar said:
Giving a unit a "spell" as a special ability is possible in mods, isn't it? Some sort of machine that casts Flying Shards or Blade Wind would be sweet...

Yes many new possibilities exist with spells taken into consideration as an option as well. I'm eager to see what Dominions3 will have to offer.

[Argitoth]

Siege units seem like a good idea to me. The only thing is that some of us don't care to use our imagination to see how it might work. The only problem I see would be the huge balance issues. On a further note: Bog Beast is a siege unit.

But one thing I'm concered about is the graphical side. There's three ways I can think of making the graphics work for a standard catapault.

1. Graphics act like arrows. They fly, fall, hit the ground, and that's it. Disadvantage: It ignores the fact that boulders roll.

2. Graphics act like a 1-round summon spell. Catapault shoots, boulder appears ontop of a square of units, boulder rolls (moves) one or two squears. Disadvantage: You don't get to see the boulders fly.

3. A combination of the two where the boulder acts like it has cast a targeting spell, but when it hits a target, a boulder appears as a 1-round summon spell. Disadvantage: Is it even possible? And then since it's treated as a spell, if you have 5 catapaults, won't battles take way longer?

[NTJedi]

Argitoth said:
Siege units seem like a good idea to me. The only thing is that some of us don't care to use our imagination to see how it might work.

Very true... I know that for sure. The key is game balance and using the options available to make the units interesting and worthy for sieges against fortifications.

Argitoth said:
The only problem I see would be the huge balance issues.

Yes the cost of the unit, its siege bonus and battlefield damage all must be taken into consideration. We don't want these units to be too powerful or too weak. If myself or someone else releases a Siege MOD adjustments can be made as time passes. If siege units are one of the easter egg features in Dominions3 then balance can be seen via patches.

Argitoth said:
But one thing I'm concered about is the graphical side. There's three ways I can think of making the graphics work for a standard catapault.

1. Graphics act like arrows. They fly, fall, hit the ground, and that's it. Disadvantage: It ignores the fact that boulders roll.

2. Graphics act like a 1-round summon spell. Catapault shoots, boulder appears ontop of a square of units, boulder rolls (moves) one or two squears. Disadvantage: You don't get to see the boulders fly.

3. A combination of the two where the boulder acts like it has cast a targeting spell, but when it hits a target, a boulder appears as a 1-round summon spell. Disadvantage: Is it even possible? And then since it's treated as a spell, if you have 5 catapaults, won't battles take way longer?

Well we'll have to see what options will exist within DOM_3... it may provide a 4th or 5th option. Based on the three listed above I would probably use option_1 or option_3. I'll give it more thought after I see what options Dominions_3 offers.

[Saber Cherry]

If the modding tools are sufficiently powerful, it should be possible for a high-cost Engineer unit to gain the "Summon Allies" command, that summons an immobile siege weapon. Sounds to me like a good compromise between abstract and concrete. The seige weapons should have enough upkeep to model several soldiers manning them and many noncombattants maintaining them. Hopefully Doms III will allow disbanding, but if not, the ranged ones would still be good on the defensive.

[DominionsFan]

I think the mod tools will be powerful enough to add siege type units for sure. The Doms2 modding ability was very good imo, and it will be even more powerful in Doms3 as we all know.

[NTJedi]

Saber Cherry said:
If the modding tools are sufficiently powerful, it should be possible for a high-cost Engineer unit to gain the "Summon Allies" command, that summons an immobile siege weapon. Sounds to me like a good compromise between abstract and concrete.

Yes that's one option. Since we're not getting a demo until after the game is released perhaps the developers could give a pre-copy of the modding documentation.

Saber Cherry said:
The seige weapons should have enough upkeep to model several soldiers manning them and many noncombattants maintaining them. Hopefully Doms III will allow disbanding, but if not, the ranged ones would still be good on the defensive.

I agree their upkeep will have to model several soldiers manning the siege engines. I ponder what the Modding and MapEdit documentation for DOM_3 will include that's new. It will be interesting to see how fortification types have been improved as well.

[Fate]

Obviously, a seige bonus has already been implemented, but what about the other effects of seige weapons? They were also used to kill defenders. Maybe some modelling of that could be included in-game? (maybe as a scalable ability, which does x damage to a random, possibly non-commader unit, every turn. Or acts like a certain # of arrows fired at a random unit).