Tower issue - Suggestion discussion

[Siegfried]

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?

The range is a very delicate topic.

At a first glance, your idea sounds good. Make the radius of the catapult larger than the radius of tower. But I think this is bad idea. Look at the following screenshot:


A defensive line filled with archers is very strong, therefore the catapult. But an offensive line with archers has the same strength. It is absolutely the same. In this screenshot neither player can move his archers. But the catapult has a larger range than the tower, so it kills all tower without a problem.

Here, towers are completely useless, they just buy you the 15 seconds until they are burnt down.
A catapult with a larger radius than a tower behaves like a even stronger version of a tower. It has a larger radius and it can move.


So the next guess would be to make the catapult radius the same as the tower radius. But this is nonsense, because catapults are useless now (except you would want to make them invulnerable to tower stones, but then they'd still deplete towers making towers useless again ...).

Countering a superweapon with another superweapon is a very tricky thing.
That's why I think a tower should rather be made a regular weapon, taking away the superpower.

[EDMatt]

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.

don't go offtopic, the following image was before shiledpatch and biulderrush block.

[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.

don't go offtopic, the following image was before shiledpatch and biulderrush block.

hoe does the shieldpatch change the towers and builderrush in any way? you got militia nowadays and shielded units still die as fast.

[EDMatt]

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?

The range is a very delicate topic.

At a first glance, your idea sounds good. Make the radius of the catapult larger than the radius of tower. But I think this is bad idea. Look at the following screenshot:


A defensive line filled with archers is very strong, therefore the catapult. But an offensive line with archers has the same strength. It is absolutely the same. In this screenshot neither player can move his archers. But the catapult has a larger range than the tower, so it kills all tower without a problem.

Here, towers are completely useless, they just buy you the 15 seconds until they are burnt down.
A catapult with a larger radius than a tower behaves like a even stronger version of a tower. It has a larger radius and it can move.


So the next guess would be to make the catapult radius the same as the tower radius. But this is nonsense, because catapults are useless now (except you would want to make them invulnerable to tower stones, but then they'd still deplete towers making towers useless again ...).

Countering a superweapon with another superweapon is a very tricky thing.
That's why I think a tower should rather be made a regular weapon, taking away the superpower.

I feel like I want to add a very interesting quote that i found on Kam remake site, I believe Lewin himself wrote this line

In KaM you must work with the terrain and find suitable places to the defend.

Kam is all about holding your line on a good possition, not letting the enemy advance and maneuvering around that area, and if you are pushed far enough, the game shouldn't be at a standstill for 20-30 minutes because of towers blocking the way and no way to maneuver around .
Siegfried, your example is set in the enemy front line territory obviously? so the defender already lost his ground , but that doesnt mean that he should be able to hide behind his towers forever? do not forget also the cost of those catapults, those 3 or 4 catapults would cost around 10-8 xbow men. a full squad of xbow, so the attacker is already at a disadvantage, even more so if the catapult will have to replenish its rock supply every 5 -7 shots.

I belive that by the time the catapults are built and are brought forward to the battlefiled and destroyed all the towers, the defender should have had enough time to build more army .

Also I do not think that the defender should be relying on towers killing enemy units rather buying enough time so that if he is on the bad foot , will have some time to build more army.

Also Siegfried, I invite you to compare the cost of those towers to the cost of those catapults and tell me your cost

[dicsoupcan]

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?

The range is a very delicate topic.

At a first glance, your idea sounds good. Make the radius of the catapult larger than the radius of tower. But I think this is bad idea. Look at the following screenshot:


A defensive line filled with archers is very strong, therefore the catapult. But an offensive line with archers has the same strength. It is absolutely the same. In this screenshot neither player can move his archers. But the catapult has a larger range than the tower, so it kills all tower without a problem.

Here, towers are completely useless, they just buy you the 15 seconds until they are burnt down.
A catapult with a larger radius than a tower behaves like a even stronger version of a tower. It has a larger radius and it can move.


So the next guess would be to make the catapult radius the same as the tower radius. But this is nonsense, because catapults are useless now (except you would want to make them invulnerable to tower stones, but then they'd still deplete towers making towers useless again ...).

Countering a superweapon with another superweapon is a very tricky thing.
That's why I think a tower should rather be made a regular weapon, taking away the superpower.

I feel like I want to add a very interesting quote that i found on Kam remake site, I believe Lewin himself wrote this line

In KaM you must work with the terrain and find suitable places to the defend.

Kam is all about holding your line on a good possition, not letting the enemy advance and maneuvering around that area, and if you are pushed far enough, the game shouldn't be at a standstill for 20-30 minutes because of towers blocking the way and no way to maneuver around .
Siegfried, your example is set in the enemy front line territory obviously? so the defender already lost his ground , but that doesnt mean that he should be able to hide behind his towers forever? do not forget also the cost of those catapults, those 3 or 4 catapults would cost around 10-8 xbow men. a full squad of xbow, so the attacker is already at a disadvantage, even more so if the catapult will have to replenish its rock supply every 5 -7 shots.

If you have no way to maneuver around that means it is a flaw in map design, not in actual gameplay mechanics. and still if you have a 4 vs 4 situation 10 xbows are really units you can miss in order to get 4 units that can destroy towers really fast and thus rendering enemy defenses useless, you just take turns in shooting at towers while allies refill their catapults and so towers will be rendered useless. But if you are able to maneveur around and not have to attack in a small chokepoint there will be no problems in attacking.

[EDMatt]

we can sit here and have a discussion about it all day, but at the end of the day this is all mere speculation based on our experience in the game, there will be no harm in testing this in the next beta release, I am interested in Kroms and Lewins point of view of this.

[Ben]

It would be a more annoying thing to test, because it involves a lot more than tweaking a few stat values. However, if Lewin and Krom are up to adding siege weapons into the game, I'd very much like to test them.

[Siegfried]

Siegfried, your example is set in the enemy front line territory obviously? so the defender already lost his ground , but that doesnt mean that he should be able to hide behind his towers forever? do not forget also the cost of those catapults, those 3 or 4 catapults would cost around 10-8 xbow men. a full squad of xbow, so the attacker is already at a disadvantage, even more so if the catapult will have to replenish its rock supply every 5 -7 shots.

The screenshot was not made of an actual map. It's purpose was to show an catapult abuse line when their ranger is bigger than tower range.
You're right about the cost. But why then introduce a catapult that can be abused when you could just add these costs to the tower? Make them expensive to build and you will unlikely face a tower wall. A few towers to defend your main buildings can still be maintained.

No, the defender should not be able to hide forever. Hiding between towers is lame and no fun at all. I agree on that, that's why I take part into that discussion and try to find solutions. It's the catapult that I think is a bad solution. There are others.
The screenshot shows that catapult will promote that lame gameplay. With a catapult instead of a tower. And that's not the gameplay that I'd like to see in the game.

I belive that by the time the catapults are built and are brought forward to the battlefiled and destroyed all the towers, the defender should have had enough time to build more army .

It's good to have a defensive building. In my opinion, troops are meant to be offensive. You should do attacks with them.
Troops waiting between towers don't attack, I dislike this.

But if you can take down a tower without risk it's just a delay and has no defensive power any more. This leaves the game without any defensive building, so you have to put even more troops for defense. This worsens the situation instead of improving it.

Also I do not think that the defender should be relying on towers killing enemy units rather buying enough time so that if he is on the bad foot , will have some time to build more army.

I agree in consideration of the offensive power of towers. But we cannot make towers useless, because they have a defensive meaning, too. And in the defensive role, they absolutely should be able to kill enemy units. In my opinion, a defensive tower should not just be a delay.

Also Siegfried, I invite you to compare the cost of those towers to the cost of those catapults and tell me your cost

We absolutely agree on that point. It's a matter of cost.
It's our conclusion that differs. I suggest that we increase the cost of a tower to make it unlikely to build a massive tower wall. Because, as we've said, it comes down to the cost in the end.

I guess we are reaching the end of our discussion.
So I suggest the next testing release should increase tower cost. Let's try it and see how it works. It's even less work than introducing the catapult. And don't forget that an implementation of the catapult in the suggested way will use the sprites, so they are not available for later implementation any more.

[EDMatt]

i suppose your solution is a suitable one. But i am still not convinced about it , i cant see the cost of towers raising higher than 3 wood and 3 rock, and that isnt sagnificant enough to change things, especially since many players decide to add towers overtime.. Ur suggestion about simply making towers more expensive will only work to some degree, but not as well as i would expect i fear, having thought about what u wrote, i still stand sstrong by my first idea ,bringing catapults to the game.. The idea can work but figuring out the balance can be tricky, thats all.

[dicsoupcan]

i actually think siegfried his idea is a step towards a better solution, maybe you can increase the cost for every tower you build, so at some point they become way to expensive to build.

[EDMatt]

i actually think siegfried his idea is a step towards a better solution, maybe you can increase the cost for every tower you build, so at some point they become way to expensive to build.

Maybe everytime u build a swordfighter, make the armor cost 1 more ironbar? U see where im coming from? This type of thinking wont work very well as u are limiting a player and setting boudaries arouund his possibilities. Maybe also make militia cost 1 more axr everytime its trained?... ( im using phone to write , many typos , keys too small)

[dicsoupcan]

thanks again for the personal attack, but it will actually put no limitation on towers you can build, you only pay more and thus are discouraged from towerspamming. if you want to towerspam you are prepared to pay the price.

[Ben]

Another problem with increasing tower costs is that a few towers is great, but mass towers built over the lategame is obnoxious.

[EDMatt]

thanks again for the personal attack, but it will actually put no limitation on towers you can build, you only pay more and thus are discouraged from towerspamming. if you want to towerspam you are prepared to pay the price.

I dont see any personal attacks, u are seeing things, why would we want to discourage people from building towers if we dont discourage people from building farms or pigfarms or even militia troops or iron troops, it sounds too unrealistic and is forcing it too far down peoples throats. There should be a tactic and a counter tactic, knights and pikes for example, catapults and tower, axe fighter militia and sword fighter' ying and yang i guess. In my eyes the only strog argument against towers so far was put forward by siegfried about the range of the catapult, which can be worked on im sure, if we test it well enough it can be figured out hopefully

[dicsoupcan]

ridculing someone's idea is a form of a personal attack, but besides that.

i think the idea has more potential then adding a unit to the game that renders the other ''unit'' useless. discouraging towerspam is a better alternative because you have to think how many towers you actually need, instead of relying on it as a shield. and if you are prepared to spam them you are prepared to pay the price for it.