Siege battles need work

[maltz]

We all have a good idea about a glorious siege battle:

(1) Shoot-outs
(2) Catapults finally make openings on the wall
(3) Melee troops rushing in
(4) Fierce street fights

I am only in the 3rd map of the campaigns, but I already noticed that the above never happened. I doubt Black Hole really tested them?

(2) The catapult is too inefficient. By the time there is finally an opening, my puny ranged attacks have wiped off all remaining units inside the castle. So what's the point of even having a catapult?

(3) The defenders' melee always come out to be slaughtered. Seriously?! Why not use them to block breaches? Oh right, there is no breaches yet because of (1). Be patient!

(4) No street fights because the defenders have thrown their melee away, the the ranged forces have been wiped off since the catapults took too long.

What's left of the siege battle is all about a shoot-out, coupled with stupid suicide attacks of defenders' melee stacks.

[Mirez]

I disagree, I've had some tough sieges in which they blocked units that came through the game and killed it stack by stack. Meanwhile their masses of archers are destroying me.
Though I've also had sieges in which I just shot everything and they wouldn't come out even after they lost their archers.

I agree though that the catapult is too random, you can't control if even if you spend a skillpoint on it. Thank god you can attack the gate with units nowadays but that can take a while.

[Gaidal Cain]

Actually, I found a way to take control of the catapult:
1. Pick skill that makes it damage nearby units.
2. Place own unit next to section you want torn down.
3. Profit!

[Banedon]

^Doesn't that kill your own creatures?

I find siege battles entirely fine in concept. #2 doesn't happen to me. The damage reduction to ranged units makes it very unlikely that my ranged attackers slaughter any reasonably-sized army before I break into the castle. #4 does happen if I have to break into the castle; with enough force you can hammer the gate down and get in (units at the gate blocks AI melee from coming out AFAIK).

Real things to fix with siege battles:

1. AI should not commit melee units out of the wall unless it has a need to (e.g. to block a powerful ranged stack from firing). The algorithm should include an evaluation of how powerful the ranged firepower on both sides are. If the AI still has considerable ranged power, there's no need to go out; stay in and exploit the advantage.
2. Morale boosts should not cause 2x worth of damage to the gate. Actually 1 Squire should not hit the gate for the same amount of damage as 100 Squires. It's a game balance issue though, not a conceptual one (they both absorb one retaliation) ...
3. There's some buggy AI where the AI's Squire / Praetorian stack will simply stay behind the wall defending even though it has no more ranged damage and no hero either. Result is that they just sit there defending while I kill them with hero or ranged attacks. Not good.

[Mozared]

Meh.

Only thing I kind of agree with is the catapult. But this one's just as random as in the previous Heroes games. I just kind of dislike the idea that you NEED to use a skillpoint if you are ever reliably going to break walls in sieges (or heck, even two in H6 if what you're saying is right, I haven't looked at the War Machines skill yet). If you don't waste the skillpoint, the catapult is so incredibly random that something you don't get a single wall down in ten turns while another time you kill the gate in three.

On the other hand, they could've chosen to just not provide you with a catapult if you do not have the War Machines skill, now that units can kill walls too.

[maltz]

Wild guess: the AI will rush its melee out of the castle if it holds a disadvantage in ranged attack power. That will only make it lose faster, though. So far I've always assaulted castles with superior ranged stack (by campaign design and some basic unit conservation).

[ywhtptgtfo]

Wild guess: the AI will rush its melee out of the castle if it holds a disadvantage in ranged attack power. That will only make it lose faster, though. So far I've always assaulted castles with superior ranged stack (by campaign design and some basic unit conservation).

Not always. If I have superior range strength, I'd much prefer the A.I. to camp so that I can slowly whittle away its stacks. By charging out, it's actually going to have a greater chance of causing some damage before the inevitable victory, which is what the A.I. should want.

[Gaidal Cain]

^Doesn't that kill your own creatures?

Yes. That seems to be what the catapult is aiming for.

(Note: previous message might have contained equal parts sarcasm and empirical knowledge).

[Mozared]

Speaking of which, it's rather baffling that civilizations with the capacity to invent contraptions such as the catapult lack the proper innovation to learn how to target it properly

[parcaleste]

I am thinking of totally different concept about catapults (and ranged units for that matter) nowadays - make one shot with the catapult to cost you 1 unit of ore, make archers to cost you wood when you buy them (or the archers buildings to cost you 1, 2 whatever extra unit of wood per week), they need some for their arrows, right? Of course, some units like the Coral whatevers will not need wood, more like a crystals or so.

There is a lot of exploration on this field that is still to be explored. Have some more few ideas but am lazy writing.

[qiox]

We all have a good idea about a glorious siege battle:

(1) Shoot-outs
(2) Catapults finally make openings on the wall
(3) Melee troops rushing in
(4) Fierce street fights

I am only in the 3rd map of the campaigns, but I already noticed that the above never happened. I doubt Black Hole really tested them?

(2) The catapult is too inefficient. By the time there is finally an opening, my puny ranged attacks have wiped off all remaining units inside the castle. So what's the point of even having a catapult?

(3) The defenders' melee always come out to be slaughtered. Seriously?! Why not use them to block breaches? Oh right, there is no breaches yet because of (1). Be patient!

(4) No street fights because the defenders have thrown their melee away, the the ranged forces have been wiped off since the catapults took too long.

What's left of the siege battle is all about a shoot-out, coupled with stupid suicide attacks of defenders' melee stacks.

2) The default catapult does 3 damage per shot. You can upgrade it to as high as 8 damage per shot to the walls + about 1000 to any units near where it hits.

3) They do not always come out. They only come out if they feel your ranged is a significant threat.

[Kristo]

Actually, I found a way to take control of the catapult:
1. Pick skill that makes it damage nearby units.
2. Place own unit next to section you want torn down.
3. Profit!

Nice to hear from you again GC. Hilarious!

Oh, and based on the other comments it sounds like the AI isn't planning enough moves ahead. It may not be able to do that in a timely manner though.

[RollingWave]

The only thing that REALLY needs changing is ....

A.centeral tower should also auto fire even when there's no units in it. my memory on HH5 is fuzzy but I'm sure thats what happened in H2-H3.

B.AI needs to utilize the central tower garrison thing, right now I've yet to see it do that even once, where as when I defend simply by having my best range stack in the tower means unless the odds are completely impossible I will win without much problem.

Right now, the problem is really that auto fire towers only exist in level 3 walls (which aren't common, and when they do become common you usually have huge armies so they don't make much difference anyway). and the single most useful defensiv feature in HH6 (the central tower) is completely ignored by the AI.

[maltz]

Just tried to attack a castle with a small army (threat level = deadly). Indeed the AI melee now camps inside the castle, and only come out when they want to end my misery quickly.

So I guess the key to exploit the AI's kamikaze attack is to bring more ranged units.