Ideas - New Units and Buildings (Brainstorming)

[krisdw]

Edit: And Here it Is!

The White would be the players color here.

Good work! Graphically, it fits in KAM nicely. Now the question is: can it fit in gameplay wise?

[GreatWhiteBear]

again, IMO, not until we have a moat.
Which doesn't need to be that hard, just use the water terrain type. No sprites but it would require some nice scripting.

[Shadaoe]

I've never seen walls that weren't entirely surrounding a city :p I think that's totally worthless to include walls if they don't protect you.
Also walls without gates/that limit the way you can surround yourself :
-is not realistic (no need to explain here)
-won't improve the gameplay (it's my opinion only) : if you build some walls, without gates, that only can reduce the entrances, the only effect you'll have is giving your enemy a good way to siege you and totally block your village

Walls, even with gates and even if you could surround your entire city with it might not work very well with the kam gameplay in my opinion.
If they are well balanced though, it can be interesting, some random ideas that maybe could balance such a feature :
-a high cost (already said)
-a quite long (not too much though) building time
-available only after a lot of buildings
And even with ideas (these or any others) to reduce the effects, maybe it'd still break the whole gameplay. Even if this game has more variations for the player in the offensive units than in the defensive buildings, we can already see some "bunkers" here and there. Throwing walls that can totally block everything might be .. risky :p
The idea to balance walls so they can't block, like I said before, could not be really useful and make the walls a waste of time and materials. Although maybe it would be the best balancing idea ever, I don't know, we can't imagine all of the factors that will impact the gameplay.
To finish this quite long post, the impacts of the "walls" feature on the gameplay could be desastrous, even if it sounds self-evident in a medieval game, it doesn't sound self-efident in kam (for me).

[GreatWhiteBear]

How about available after Barracks, gold melter and at least one weapon producing building have been build?

[caykroyd]

Also walls without gates/that limit the way you can surround yourself :
-is not realistic (no need to explain here)
-won't improve the gameplay (it's my opinion only) : if you build some walls, without gates, that only can reduce the entrances, the only effect you'll have is giving your enemy a good way to siege you and totally block your village

- If we put gates, it would surely be overpowered. Gates are walls that only allow your troops to pass, aren't they? I could already imagine the effects that would have
- if you build some walls, without gates, you can reduce entrances to fully open maps, you can block entrances to other maps that have few entrances already, and those would have even fewer.
- though i see your point, i don't think i can answer this dilemma.

you'll have is giving your enemy a good way to siege you and totally block your village

block your village from what? don't you want to block your village? they wont siege you if you make your walls around your village.

[Shadaoe]

- If we put gates, it would surely be overpowered. Gates are walls that only allow your troops to pass, aren't they? I could already imagine the effects that would have
- if you build some walls, without gates, you can reduce entrances to fully open maps, you can block entrances to other maps that have few entrances already, and those would have even fewer.
- though i see your point, i don't think i can answer this dilemma.

-You can also use the AoE 2 system, the enemy troops can also go through the door when it's opened. (and it's realistic )
-I didn't understand

block your village from what? don't you want to block your village? they wont siege you if you make your walls around your village.

I said that if ever a system so you can't totally block an entrance and you can't build gates was used, you would have only some narrow entrances, which are so easy to siege. And you could be blocked into your village easily (the enemy can trap your armies).
Whereas a totally wall-surronded city, with gates that you can put where you want, is really harder to siege, since you can come up from anywhere.

How about available after Barracks, gold melter and at least one weapon producing building have been build?

Sounds fair to limit the early development.

[Siegfried]

Attention: the following paragraph contains much cynism. So if you know that you easily feel offended, please skip it. None of the following is meant personal, it's rather a persiflage of different ideas.


Walls?

Hmm. Then I put a wall around my town, put some crossbowmen behind them and - voila - it's the perfect defense. The walls are better than some pikemen in defense as they will survive longer. They will hinder knights to rush trough and kill my crossbowmen. The only way of killing those crossbowmen will be to attack with other crossbowmen. But the defending troops will shoot first, and crossbowmen only have 1 lifepoint, this will result in a huge loss.

So yes, including walls will result in perfect defense.

But wait! The opponents could use these tactics, too? So how shall I attack him? Maybe rush before he can build walls? But if the peace time is that long - or the walls are available that soon, than this can't work.

Or, wait, even better: we include fog of war! That means, that the enemy doesn't even see my wall+crossbowmen, so he cannot see the weak (or unfinished) points of my defense. This makes the defense even foolproof.

end of cynism - return to seriousness

To finish this quite long post, the impacts of the "walls" feature on the gameplay could be desastrous, even if it sounds self-evident in a medieval game, it doesn't sound self-efident in kam (for me).

You can hardly say it in a better way. I absolutely agree with Shadaoe here!

[Lewin]

I feel that walls/moats/battering rams are just being suggested "for the sake of it". Why does the game need these things? How would it improve the game?
I agree with Shadaoe and Siegfried, it would mean that every match ended in a stalemate. Defenses would be 100% perfect and unbeatable.

People keep asking me to implement a tower limit, because they say towers cause the game to end in a stalemate. But 1 tower can be defeated by running 5 militia at it! If people complain about towers, how will they feel about walls which you cannot simple run past. (I personally don't think tower limits are necessary, I think people just aren't varying their tactics enough. Sure it takes a long time to kill 20 towers with crossbowmen, but have you tried rushing them with militia, attacking multiple places at once, etc.?)
There's also another thread here complaining that most maps only have 1-3 small entrances to defend. With walls, this could be reduced to one or with gates zero!
The gameplay would be completely ruined.
Sure, it would be kind of "cool" to have walls and moats and battering rams, but the game would be unplayable.

[GreatWhiteBear]

That brings me back to the LONG RANGE catapults and balistae.(10<range<15)
I was thinking about having long range siege equipment destroying the walls
(Also damaging the units on top of it.)
As a defense, the enemy would have to "rush" out and destroy the siege equipment.
This way, the walls will only buy someone more time to either train more troops, or to have an ally flank the enemy.

BUT, this would result into a whole different game mode.
It should be only available on big maps and the host should decide, or by vote.
So I'd suggest leaving the topic in a void, to be considered neither good nor bad, adding value to the game nor removing from the game, important nor neglect able.

[Kridge]

Haha nice. The first is from Age Of Empires II, or not?
I like it. Good work, with which program have you done this work? Photoshop only?

Yes, and yes. Created with Photoshop only.

Good work! Graphically, it fits in KAM nicely. Now the question is: can it fit in gameplay wise?

Thanks!

Sure, it would be kind of "cool" to have walls and moats and battering rams, but the game would be unplayable.

I don't think the battering ram would make the game unplayeble. It might even fix the issue with towers, actually. The way I see the battering rams COULD be used:
Cost: 5 timber, 5 iron, 4 leather. (I don't know, but this looks fair).
Defense:
- Suffers almost no damage from ranged units (only other ranged siege units), since the recruit sits inside the battering ram.
- A stone from a tower inflicts only loss of 1/2 or 1/3 of the health points.
- Is very weak when attacked by melee.
Attack:
- Inflicts almost no damage to troops.
- Inflicts great damage to buildings (like -20hp, or something)
Speed:
- 0,5/0,75
I think this solves the tower problem, since you would need like 2 or 3 battering rams to take down a tower, and the battering ram survives in most of the cases attacks by archers. Also, the towers go down fast, because of the great damage they do to them.

[Kridge]

Maybe we should try it ingame, with a selected group of players, like 4 for the idea, 4 against the idea. It might convince the ones for the idea that it is a bad idea, or convince the people against the idea that it is a good idea. But only when the idea is developed far enough, of course.

[GreatWhiteBear]

It fixes nothing. Lets compare them with militia.
Stones till death: 3 vs 1
Hit chance of tower: almost 100 vs 66(estimation)
so 2 militia would have the same chance against a tower as a battering ram.
BUT... The ram is slow and can't kill the serfs, which would result in the towers being resupplied.
The ram costs 5timber and other stuff, a militia costs 2timber and 1 gold.

No damage from ranged huh?
One militia walks up to the ram and destroys it. No need for ranged.
This is the worst balanced unit.

Too expensive, too slow, not enough damage and gets too easily destroyed by towers.
Horrible.
I also don't agree with leather. Why did the battering ram have hides on top?
The hides were soaked with water to prevent the ram from catching fire.

[caykroyd]

It fixes nothing. Lets compare them with militia.
Stones till death: 3 vs 1
Hit chance of tower: almost 100 vs 66(estimation)
so 2 militia would have the same chance against a tower as a battering ram.
BUT... The ram is slow and can't kill the serfs, which would result in the towers being resupplied.
The ram costs 5timber and other stuff, a militia costs 2timber and 1 gold.

No damage from ranged huh?
One militia walks up to the ram and destroys it. No need for ranged.
This is the worst balanced unit.

I wouldn't go sooo far saying it is the worst balanced unit. I rather think i seems quite good. Every good thing needs a bad part of it. Can you hope to send the ram on its on? In this case no. You would send it first to be the archers focus but you would have to send men behind to protect it. Its the same with archers. Can you send them on their own against cavalry? No, you need protection. The ram will have to be protected by melee units, like archers.

But I agree with the tower point. The ram is far too expensive to be compared with militia when talking about destroying towers - its specialization. It makes no sense to send the ram first because of its high def against arrows, but at the same time not be able to do that because it will be destroyed by the towers too easily and its too expensive to build.

I also don't agree with leather. Why did the battering ram have hides on top?
The hides were soaked with water to prevent the ram from catching fire.

Yes, so they did have hides on top, huh? If i understood correctly, your point is that there is no necessity to put hides on it because in kam there is no pitch to be thrown to catch fire. Well, use leather or not, i do not mind, as long as the cost of the ram is reduced (i think it shouldn't use iron or use very little, rams didn't have much to be made of iron - the head perhaps)
even though there is no need, it would look quite nice with hides on top of it and would fit reality, though it would not have any use for the units inside the game.

[GreatWhiteBear]

But the archers would focus the troops as soon as they would stop shooting the battering ram.
You'd have to move slower because the ram is going slow, result: the enemy will shoot even more of your troops.

yes, no leather since there is no fire.

I would say ranged siege equipment or no siege equipment.

[pawel95]

I would say, that siege equipment must be there. It is a part of KaM. Ok, maybe a little bit better balnced and slower/not so strong...
But I would say without the equipment there would be a big hole in the KaM history (said dramaticly )