Tower issue - Suggestion discussion

[Shadaoe]

Hi,

I have a vision of towers that perfectly fits the purpose they currently have :

-towers are the only defensive buildings in KaM
-defensive buildings are done to annoy the enemy attacking you and buy you time to fight back
-time to fight back gives you a chance to overcome the loss of the first fight and make the game winnable even when you lost the first fight in the middle
-making the game winnable even after losing the first fight is a matter of gameplay and balance
-balance is what we seek

-the attacker who won the first fight just needs to feed his army (yes I do mean making a viable economy that allows you to feed soldiers)
-feeding his army lets him have a greater army than the one who lost the fight because : he lost fewer soldiers, and he should produce more new soldiers (well, don't produce them right now otherwise food problems), and if he doesn't manage to have more soldiers even after winning the first fight, then he just didn't have a good enough economy to feed a better army
-if he doesn't have more troops he loses, if he does he has a great chance of winning, that's a matter of balance
-balance is what we seek

Basically, yes it is annoying to counter a huge amount of tower but I have several points that tend to make me think that the towers are perfect as they are now (as always, my humble opinion, that can have flaws and errors).
You say that when one lost the first fight, towers make the game winnable for this person : I don't see any problem in that. Should all the games be : 60 minutes of building -> one fight -> end ? No, in my opinion !
-if the defender manages to fight back, that might possibly mean that he focused less on the first fight and did a better economy, allowing him to overcome the enemy
-if the attacker won the first fight, he has a greater army, and if at the same time, he was good enough to have a viable economy, he's going to win, as he can afford meat shields. By the way, if he won the first fight thanks to his "micro skills", and has a good economy, then he has : more" micro skills", more troops, a better economy. I don't see what is wrong with that ! With an easy way to destroy tower it would (in my opinion) be impossible to win after losing the first fight, which would destroy KaM Multiplayer for me, as fighting 10 minutes after 60 minutes of building a city is the wrong direction to me.

THERE IS NOTHING that the player can do to successfully attack with least amount of casualties even though he has more range units, and melee.

That's, in my opinion, the basic principle of defensive buildings : allowing you to kill more enemies than you lose troops and have a chance to fight back if you defend well and use your army efficiently. It's still very much possible to win against a defensive player if you have more army ! Especially with "micro skills".
That means, having both a good army (maybe not as big as we can see sometimes) for the first fight, and a really good economy that supports the feeding of soldiers to keep an advantage over the enemy, because if he can't feed soldiers, you'll always end up with a larger army.
I would hate it if when you focus a lot on economy you have no way to fight back ! Towers are that way in my opinion

It's just my opinion and I'd be happy to change my mind if I'm proved wrong with arguments (because yes, the principle is that if someone who doesn't agree with you at first reads good arguments, you can change your mind and finally agree).
Thanks for reading.

[Siegfried]

I see your point, but I can't completely agree with it.

The towers can be refilled and therefore stay untouched in an unfinished attack. But the archers between the tower lines are not. And once they are gone, the towers are not that big problem any more. Still time consuming, but no real thread.

So the difference between towers and a group of pikemen still is the higher cost of the latter.

But let's think for the catapult. How big should the attacking radius be?

*edit: this was a respone to Matt and pawel, not to Shadaoe

[EDMatt]

I see your point, but I can't completely agree with it.

The towers can be refilled and therefore stay untouched in an unfinished attack. But the archers between the tower lines are not. And once they are gone, the towers are not that big problem any more. Still time consuming, but no real thread.

So the difference between towers and a group of pikemen still is the higher cost of the latter.

But let's think for the catapult. How big should the attacking radius be?

*edit: this was a respone to Matt and pawel, not to Shadaoe

Also that towers will not halt your production of iron or leather, for example if you finished your iron production and go on to build towers, your iron production will still work provided that you have enough serfs.

Lets talk about the catapult, the idea behind it is that catapult has 7 shots and once shot has to be refilled using serfs, 7 stone into a catapult or more, this can be tested.

As for range the catapults range.. it should be a counter, so range should be maybe greater than an archers (2 or 1 tiles greater), therefor it will not be easily outshot , nevertheless the catapult should still break quite easily if one has managed to out micro the other.
25 damage per hit?

[pawel95]

I wanted to add that I see a possibility to balance cataputls well. For example when we will see after longer testing that catapults are too much OP and it would come true, what disco and other said, that towers would be useless. I thought about a refill of stones for the catapult. So the catapult would have like 10 stones(1 tower would be destoryable) and then the catapult needs more stones, so I have here 2 possibilites:

When the catapults would be good balanced, but not perfectly(defender wouldnt have much chances):
A.) Serf would bring stones to the catapult

When after testing it looks like the catapult would be total OP(what I dont think,that will happen):
B.) You need to drive back with your sloooooow catapult to your base(to your siegeworkshop) where the catapult would be revilled, you would need 3-4 catapults to have a chance to shoot constantly on the towers of the enemy=>Big costs.

[EDMatt]

Hi,

I have a vision of towers that perfectly fits the purpose they currently have :

-towers are the only defensive buildings in KaM
-defensive buildings are done to annoy the enemy attacking you and buy you time to fight back
-time to fight back gives you a chance to overcome the loss of the first fight and make the game winnable even when you lost the first fight in the middle
-making the game winnable even after losing the first fight is a matter of gameplay and balance
-balance is what we seek

-the attacker who won the first fight just needs to feed his army (yes I do mean making a viable economy that allows you to feed soldiers)
-feeding his army lets him have a greater army than the one who lost the fight because : he lost fewer soldiers, and he should produce more new soldiers (well, don't produce them right now otherwise food problems), and if he doesn't manage to have more soldiers even after winning the first fight, then he just didn't have a good enough economy to feed a better army
-if he doesn't have more troops he loses, if he does he has a great chance of winning, that's a matter of balance
-balance is what we seek

Basically, yes it is annoying to counter a huge amount of tower but I have several points that tend to make me think that the towers are perfect as they are now (as always, my humble opinion, that can have flaws and errors).
You say that when one lost the first fight, towers make the game winnable for this person : I don't see any problem in that. Should all the games be : 60 minutes of building -> one fight -> end ? No, in my opinion !
-if the defender manages to fight back, that might possibly mean that he focused less on the first fight and did a better economy, allowing him to overcome the enemy
-if the attacker won the first fight, he has a greater army, and if at the same time, he was good enough to have a viable economy, he's going to win, as he can afford meat shields. By the way, if he won the first fight thanks to his "micro skills", and has a good economy, then he has : more" micro skills", more troops, a better economy. I don't see what is wrong with that ! With an easy way to destroy tower it would (in my opinion) be impossible to win after losing the first fight, which would destroy KaM Multiplayer for me, as fighting 10 minutes after 60 minutes of building a city is the wrong direction to me.

THERE IS NOTHING that the player can do to successfully attack with least amount of casualties even though he has more range units, and melee.

That's, in my opinion, the basic principle of defensive buildings : allowing you to kill more enemies than you lose troops and have a chance to fight back if you defend well and use your army efficiently. It's still very much possible to win against a defensive player if you have more army ! Especially with "micro skills".
That means, having both a good army (maybe not as big as we can see sometimes) for the first fight, and a really good economy that supports the feeding of soldiers to keep an advantage over the enemy, because if he can't feed soldiers, you'll always end up with a larger army.
I would hate it if when you focus a lot on economy you have no way to fight back ! Towers are that way in my opinion

It's just my opinion and I'd be happy to change my mind if I'm proved wrong with arguments (because yes, the principle is that if someone who doesn't agree with you at first reads good arguments, you can change your mind and finally agree).
Thanks for reading.

Most ppeople expect their spam of towers to defeat the enemies large forces, I have seen this many many times, people are too reliant on towers, why? beacause it successfully works as a superweapon and a block, and not so much as a tactically placed structure that will fend off any backdoor troops comming into your base.
You say that feeding the troops will make you keep the advantage? for how long? untill you have to strike the enemy town and go through those nasty towers, right? feeding the troops will do nothing but replenish their strength , it doesnt make them immortal against towers, it doesnt matter if you feed or dont feed your troops, fact is that a nicely placed towers spam will prevent you from getting a good possition and will take away your advantage one way or another.

[WollongongWolf]

I think the idea is good, but needs some really decent thinking, and surely lots of tests (and sprites?), but I think it would be worth it.

Guessing out of this topic (and others) the main problem is massing them, so this should be prevented. What i would see is be allowed to have only 1 siegework (at a time?) and let it produce like 1 machine every 5 minutes and only from the end of pt on (if there is a pt of course). Or perhaps produce them as pigs or horses? (in steps, but that would mean a lot of new sprites ). The advantage is that as a map editor, you can disable the shop (depending on the need of cata's, mainly for example on camper maps).

Attack rate: taking a tower done say in 30 seconds as a target? 24 bows do it in 33 seconds, xbows in 55 (:O) seconds, so say 2 cata's can do that, that would already require less space to attack.

Costs: perhaps have carpenters ride them as an addition to the original costs? (to make it more realistic, but again, sprites). Why carpenters and not recruits? Because otherwise you have to divide recruits over barracks and the shop, that might not always come in handy. And a carpenter comes close a technician (he even creates it!), so that would be my most logical choice to pick. Since iron is often limited, it might be either iron troops, or catapults? That's the choice you gotta make. Perhaps increase cost a little (though then it would be the only building to hold more than 5 thingies of a kind), or if you take the produce-in-parts idea just increase the cost (say 3 parts all costing 3 iron and 3 wood).

Probably lots of stuff that might require a lot of time, but in my opinion worth it.


p.s. having stones to be added to the catapult is not really what I like, since you basically make a mobil anti-tower-tower (a tower only killing other towers). Since it's an offensive unit often out of base, it wouldn't make much sense to me to have serfs running back and forth across the battle field to bring stones (that would be a long way, imagine these slow creatures have to walk all that way back )>

[EDMatt]

I think the idea is good, but needs some really decent thinking, and surely lots of tests (and sprites?), but I think it would be worth it.

Guessing out of this topic (and others) the main problem is massing them, so this should be prevented. What i would see is be allowed to have only 1 siegework (at a time?) and let it produce like 1 machine every 5 minutes and only from the end of pt on (if there is a pt of course). Or perhaps produce them as pigs or horses? (in steps, but that would mean a lot of new sprites ). The advantage is that as a map editor, you can disable the shop (depending on the need of cata's, mainly for example on camper maps).

Attack rate: taking a tower done say in 30 seconds as a target? 24 bows do it in 33 seconds, xbows in 55 (:O) seconds, so say 2 cata's can do that, that would already require less space to attack.

Costs: perhaps have carpenters ride them as an addition to the original costs? (to make it more realistic, but again, sprites). Why carpenters and not recruits? Because otherwise you have to divide recruits over barracks and the shop, that might not always come in handy. And a carpenter comes close a technician (he even creates it!), so that would be my most logical choice to pick. Since iron is often limited, it might be either iron troops, or catapults? That's the choice you gotta make. Perhaps increase cost a little (though then it would be the only building to hold more than 5 thingies of a kind), or if you take the produce-in-parts idea just increase the cost (say 3 parts all costing 3 iron and 3 wood).

Probably lots of stuff that might require a lot of time, but in my opinion worth it.


p.s. having stones to be added to the catapult is not really what I like, since you basically make a mobil anti-tower-tower (a tower only killing other towers). Since it's an offensive unit often out of base, it wouldn't make much sense to me to have serfs running back and forth across the battle field to bring stones (that would be a long way, imagine these slow creatures have to walk all that way back )>

there is already ready sprites for the catapult, and there is a building for it too, animation and everything is already made, look on TPR units. also not to mention cost is already expensive, 5 iron bars and 5 wood.

as for your statement about it being "tower kiling towers", it is not, it is a catapult destroying towers, nothing new.. look at the history books.

[WollongongWolf]

there is already ready sprites for the catapult, and there is a building for it too, animation and everything is already made, look on TPR units. also not to mention cost is already expensive, 5 iron bars and 5 wood.

as for your statement about it being "tower kiling towers", it is not, it is a catapult destroying towers, nothing new.. look at the history books.

Apparently i wasn;t clear, trying to explain a bit better: who is moving the catapult? That's what I read was one of the wishes of the designers to have, but it needs some sprites.gl

Another sprite might be showing several stages of the catapult in workshop. You can do without of course .

Costs is something to balance, nothing to say about before it is tested

Tower killing towers, I meant like, a catapult needs ammo to be refilled, which is like a tower. Generally you can pick op stones from the soil .

[pawel95]

Another sprite might be showing several stages of the catapult in workshop. You can do without of course .

That is not needed. You also dont see in the Leather workshop if the guy is making a leatherjacket right now or a woodenshield. Its only one sprite(you mean animation) for both things. The same is in the siegeworkshop in TPR, so no sprites are needed here. You can see how the guy is making "sth"(a balista or catapult) that is enough.
About the sprite of moving catapult you could be right, but this could be added also later after testing

[thunder]

hi!
i tried it again at the third time...


Always discuss about katapult, because ballist has one shot one kill. (sometimes the xbows, bows can do this-it is depend from the attacker units)
Catapult is the most OverPowered unit. one shot 3kills. It is starnge. Maybe the best active defence ever it hink.
Catapult always better choice than ballist.
Anyway i hope the TH units will be arrive earlier than siege units;)

(at first time i wrote 25lines, second times just was 16, and now,,,,):(

[EDMatt]

hi!
i tried it again at the third time...


Always discuss about katapult, because ballist has one shot one kill. (sometimes the xbows, bows can do this-it is depend from the attacker units)
Catapult is the most OverPowered unit. one shot 3kills. It is starnge. Maybe the best active defence ever it hink.
Catapult always better choice than ballist.
Anyway i hope the TH units will be arrive earlier than siege units;)

(at first time i wrote 25lines, second times just was 16, and now,,,,):(

Maybe read the topic before posting such nonsense

[dicsoupcan]

You can destroy the towers with bowmen attack his allies, force him to attack you because of hunger. There are things you can do, and as i mentioned before those spaces on the screenshots are defensive already so the attacker already needs more numbers to attack. It is not the fault of the towers. If you have an open space it is impossible to defend that with towers so in my opimion the towers are not op and there is no need to make them completely useless.

I am so glad to hear that a counter of towers is waiting for hunger. But also in open space, such situations can also be created, have you not seen my towers on location 1 back in the desert? I haven't seen anyone ever successfully go through my 20 towers ever whenever I spammed towers, and keep in mind that field is quite open. quite an optimistic point.

Also keep in mind dicsoup that this is a 1v1 situation I are referring to.

If it is a 1 vs 1 situation and you manage to win in the middle you should have enough troops to finish the game anyway, but why would you want a catapult just for 1 vs 1 while you also need to keep teamgames in mind? I still do not see why catapults will be usefull.

[Shadaoe]

After a discussion on TS with EDMatt and Romek, I had a clearer idea of the proposition :

I think it could add some variety and a better way to clear towers, although I still think that it shouldn't be too fast to let someone overcome a lost fight.
The main argument in favor of it is variety, it's true that sometimes it lacks different strategies. I didn't encounter such heavy problems with towers, but based on the dicussion we had it seems to be a problem and maybe (with proper balance/test) it could work and :
-add more variety
-be a possible (but not mandatory) way to destroy towers and add more variety while not making it impossible to defend towers.

Overall, I think the idea can work, but my main concern is balance (a new unit, and defense stil lneeds to be viable), I hope to see the debate evoluate even more, as it is interesting to discuss about that !

[Da Revolution]

In my opinion, this topic only discusses adding the catapult without considering any other options. Yes, towers can be annoying. But why are you complaining about them now, they have been around for ages?
Also the screens give a bad example, it are narrow entrances and all/most of the locs do have multiple ways to enter the city. If you win the first fight he'll never have enough to defend all of them, so it's just a matter of picking the right side to attack. This gives you a challenge instead of just shooting some stones on his towers, but I'm sure you are able doing it. I believe in you!

I know a solution for people that dislike camping, play open maps where it's impossible to defend all entrances with towers. So ask mapmakers to make for example maps without unnecessary mountains.

…I haven't seen anyone ever successfully go through my 20 towers ever …

So actually you are the one causing the problem. Most players DON'T spam towers. So they get kinda punished as well for people that do spam, since they don't cause any problems yet they lose their defenses.



This image is just an example of a tower spammer who lost his game. He wasn't able to defend all sides.

[dicsoupcan]

yes revo has a good point, and besides as you can see his allies need to defend him because he has a little army. This is most likely due to the fact that the player has no economy because he spent too much in making towers.