Stats for a war wagon - suggestion needed

[Chacal]

Hello dear modders (or lurkers !).

I'm slowly, but surely, polishing my small mod for an eastern Europe inspired nation for Dom3.

I would like to build for them a War Wagon, a bit like the Hussites and the Poles used, but slightly modified, to conform to Dom 3. It would consist of a wagon, with 2 horses and a crew of 3 or maybe 4 soldiers.
The armament would be a halebard (maybe something longer) and 2 or 3 crossbows. Or 1 or 2 crossbows and a large shield.

It should be able to resist against a knight charge.

As there is no true war machines in Dom3 and the engine is not really suited for them I'm thinking about maybe, 2 or 3 units, with 10hp each, once the first is killed the second one remplaces it (with one crew and a weapon less) until there is no crew. However there is a problem as the warwagon would be probably size 4 and it would be too easly destroyed by archers. Maybe the war wagon should have some parry value to help protect of incoming missliles ? And probably a good defense stat as it's difficult to hit somebody hiding before a one or two meter wall of wood. I would probably give however only basic protection as the soldiers were rather poorly armored and once hit should die easly

The other problem would be the horses. A smart enemy would try to take them down first i imagine. (In reality the war wagons fighted immobile, but Dom3 let me do what i like )

There is probably more problems like how should it work against magic etc..

What's your opinion, suggestions or ideas ?

Thanx

[Aezeal]

Trample, high strenght, decent move, high armor, low defense

give is multiple shapes each resembling a number of crew
so
first shape 10 HP, 3 attacks OR 3 arrows fired (pplz on machines/wagons should always have a bow)
AND a trample attack of the machine it self
wait this wouldn't work with high strength.. the regular attacks should be low strength.. so normal human strength and a HIGH power trample attack
then after 10 damage (first crewmember dies)
shapechange to 2nd form
again 10 HP, now 2 attacks or 2 arrows AND that trample attack
shapechange to form 3
with 10 HP and 1 attack and one arrow
and then if that one dies the wagon rampages (attacks in random direction with only trample attack) and takes 1 damage each turn (and give it low HP so it dies quickly and one has to actually kill the damn thing)

[Chacal]

Thanks Aezeal for your suggestions,

Multishpe design is the way I think. However I think we need a high defense low armor profile, if an arrow or a blade hit someone on the wagon he should be easly disablead. The difficulty being to hit somebody hiding in the wagon.

When coming to trample, I have tried what you suggest and I find it's a bit overpowered, the trample effect make far more casulaties than the crossbows or the weapons. And artistically I don't like too much the effect of a wagon going here and there on the map. Finally I'm not sure if we want another Elephant style unit. I'll try now without trample and see what happens.

It's a great idea to do what you suggest with a rampaging trampling wagon to end it's life when evrybody is dead on board, but is this effect possible to mod ??

Another question : the warwagon by default is firing but not moving. If i set it to attack then then the range weapons are not used. Is it possible to move and fire ?

[Tichy]

First kills could off the horsies, making it an immobile archer platform? Subsequent kills would be picking off the archers.

First kill higher hp lower defense/prot; subsequent low hp, higher prot, low def?

[Frostmourne27]

Just a note: if you give them low protection and high defense they will be super vulnerable to archers, unless they have a ton of hp. Def is not relevant to shooting. You could give them shield based armour though, which makes them unit harder to hit, but doesn't work vs. really strong hits, AN weapons and has 50% effect vs. AP.

[Shovah32]

Or they could have a high defence and a weak shield called 'wagon cover' or some-such that has low protection but very high parry value.

[Sombre]

I worked out how I'd get the Empire war wagon working for the Warhammer: Empire nation.

Form 1 - Two horses, some missile prot from a shield much like the one Shovah describes. It has 3 missile weapons, one long range mutliple shot one, one medium range and one close range. Each of these only has 1 ammo. It has trample. This means if it isn't hit it will fire off the long range, move closer and fire off medium, then close range, then finally it will trample.

But if hit hard enough, it switches to..

Form 2: One horse. As form 1, but slower and lacks long and medium range weapons, forcing it to still try and close in to use the 1 shot from the short range. If this is damaged it goes to..

Form 3: No more trample. No more moving. Better cover effect, higher natural prot, ok hp and several melee attacks from the crew. It also regains the medium range missile weapon with 3 ammo, so it can fire at stuff as it flees, or still be useful if both horses got blasted half way to the enemy.

So basically it advances while firing, then tramples, if it takes too much damage it stays put and either fires away or kills stuff up close in melee.

After battle it always returns to form 1.

Pretty tough unit.

It's a bit different from the hussite style defensive war wagon you're after, but maybe it will give you some ideas.

[jutetrea]

Sounds like a sweet unit, have it been implemented or still in design?

[Sombre]

Still in design. I have all the code in my head and it's totally doable, would take a few minutes to type out. But the graphics will take a while.

[Chacal]

Frostmourne27 said:
Just a note: if you give them low protection and high defense they will be super vulnerable to archers, unless they have a ton of hp. Def is not relevant to shooting. You could give them shield based armour though, which makes them unit harder to hit, but doesn't work vs. really strong hits, AN weapons and has 50% effect vs. AP.

Shovah32 said:
Or they could have a high defence and a weak shield called 'wagon cover' or some-such that has low protection but very high parry value.

You are right, I'm using for now for test purposes a shield with parry value of 7 and it's good enough to not get killed with evry arrow. The results are that with poor armor (those of soldiers in fact, something like 8 for now) but high defense (from natural and shield) and the good parry value, the wagon needs to be ganged up by some soldiers to be defeated and resist pretty well to 'light arrow density'. It resist pretty well too against a knight charge, thing wich was the first purpose for me. I'll test it against a high density arrow rain to see if i should choose a higher parry value.

I'll try to make him enough good to not loose more than one crew against 5 standard infantry but to die swiftly if more of them come.