Knights and Merchants.net Forum

What do you think about giving each arrow/bolt a (very) little chance to kill the occupant of the attacked building?
After all, it makes sense that a few arrows/bolts are able to break through a weak spot in the walls or through the windows and kill whoever is inside...

This would make towers less effective while still being useful (sure, you no longer need to completely destroy them, but you still need to focus them first while the enemy hits your troops).

Also, giving Crossbowmen's bolts an higher chance to break through would differentiate them from Bowmen, and give a reason to rationally choose if you want more Bowmen or Crossbowmen (i.e. Bowmen would be better in an open field battle, while Crossbowmen would be better in taking care of the recruits inside the Towers, thus being better during sieges).

Any opinion?

lol, it is an interesting idea

I think that, should it be implemented, it would work like normal combat, where the occupant has a chance of getting a lifepoint knocked off, granted the chance of a successful hit would be much smaller. Therefore, crossbowmen would naturally receive a buff

I agree with Ben that it is pretty interesting, though I could only imagine it like the occupant has 15 defense points while being in his house (Bowmen, Rogues would have 4%, Xbowmen would have 8% chance to kill him with a shot). Though the problem is that it is very hard to be offensive with axefighters+xbows So imo it wouldn't change much, but I'd like to test it tbh.

I just want to say : YES.

But only for the xbows. For example after every 50arrows have one kill in the building. This is 2shots/xbows if there are 25xbows.

Nice idea i would like it to be impemented

I hope you mean "to test" first. ..

First of all, lets focus - the suggestion is mainly about giving arrows a little chance to kill recruit in Towers.

How little this chance is going to be?
Tower has 250hp, each arrow/bolt inflicts 1hp damage, so it takes 250 arrows to destroy a tower.
If we operate with chances close to 1/100 then on average tower will be disarmed with 100 arrows.
Would that look fair to player to have Tower disarmed with 10 arrows, or still not be disarmed with 200?

1% would usually give the result of not disarming it at all before it is destroyed. Of course 99% could give it, too. So probably 2% for Bowmen and 4% for Crossbowmen (to give crossbowmen a buff over bowmen)? I think it's still not that high (but still slightly higher), and is pretty realistic imo. The 2% should apply to Rogues as well, but I think there won't be many Rogues in building games in the future either.

I like zo phrase my opinion about that idea also:

In my opinion it doesnt fit to the features of the units.
In knights and merchants bowmen were better than xbows against buildings (because of the higher shootingfrequenze). Xbows were really powerful against units.
So the idea in general may be interesting, but giving xbows a higher chance to kill a recruit won't help to bring them back, when you want to do that with your idea.
Also when there is a long game and a player kills the recruit like every 2 min (tower can be repaired, recruit costs gold and will go to the barracks). Btw there where Im living is a historical watchtower that you can visit. Im not sure about the 2D perspective in kam. But I think the tower in kam is much higher than a swinefarm (but it doesn't look lkke that). So I am not even sure if it is even 1 % chance to shoot with a bow like dunno, maybe 10-15 meters high, where a person has like 20qm to move and hide :p so that the recruit would be really hit is nearly impossible.

Erm... 20..what? Squaremetres? Lol.

Tbh I don't get the problem you have with shooting at a target that is 10-15 metres higher (not above I assume) than the ranged unit. Altitude isn't a problem as long as it isn't like 50-100 metres. And a watchtower isn't that high (meanwhile in KaM, if you compare it to other buildings' height in the real life). Also the buildings like Barracks, Schools and Storehouses (and more I guess) where the "occupants" (in the case of the Storehouse, the serf that does his job inside) can't even be seen, this change shouldn't apply to.

But in the case of a tower, where the recruit isn't hiding (if he did, how would he throw stones? I don't mean that a tower which is being shot at should not function as intended, because that would be too easy to work around), or for example an armory workshop, where the carpenter works outside, there should be a chance for them to be killed.

Yeah 20 qm= 4m×5m where such a recruit can move

Serfs, stonemeasons, forester, labours cab be killed. I think that should be enough to destroy a city's econkmy. Btw its sometkmes like that when you play 4vs4 and your city is dead but your goldmelter is still alive and your ally saved you. So you haven't to quit but you have a chance yo restore your economy. When one milita is in your town being able to go inside the buildings (we should imagine the workers are hiding in their houses when the enemy is jn your yown) and kill just the goldmelter, sausagemaaan and an other important guy, its somehow not fair, is it?

Talking about highness of buildings, then it would be more realistic when only catapults could crush recruits in a tower.

The sizes in real life are irrelevant. We are talking about KaM, and I'd say the poor recruit could hide in an approx. 3-4 squaremetres (or even less) circle on the top of the tower (not counting the stairs, because he can't kill anyone from there, can he?).

P.S.: Just figured out what you meant with the 20 squaremetres

EDIT: Idd. But how the heck am I supposed to kill them when I can't get through my enemies' damned towers? This is the problem which's solution Esthlos' idea seeks a solution for (mainly, I guess).
And I guess no-one wrote a word about a militia going into a house to kill the occupant, right?

Still we are talking about 2-4% chance without visual hints when or why it happens .. that's not so good approach.

Hm. And if you somehow made it like there is a random number between 1 and 100, and if it is 1, 2, 3 or 4 then the crossbowman would shoot directly at the recruit?

When tower has about 30%(75) hp, arrow has 1/40 chance to kill ocuppant - i think its more realistic and doesnt change the gameplay balance critically.
When towers has 75 or less hp it means its already without stone or the sieged player cant defend him self so he lose already( smth like that )