City walls

[Catwalk]

This one produced so much discussion on Dragonsword that it warrants its own thread.

City Walls are currently a very problematic building. In particular, it often serves to handicap the AI player. The benefits of being able to move to close range before emptying all your arrows on the enemy is quite massive. And the defense bonus is IMO unimpressive to begin with.

I propose the following, assuming it's technically feasible:
1) Ammo level is doubled at the start of combat for all defending units in a town with city walls.
2) The AI is tweaked to give higher preference to ranged units for town defense (might be problematic)
3) The defense bonus is upgraded so it doubles the unit's ranged defense
4) You're given a -3 penalty to hit when firing at units behind city walls, regardless of distance.
5) Both points 3 and 4 disappear entirely for units behind broken walls.
6) Making them a bit more costly to produce and maintain

[I like Serena]

This is something I agree wholeheartedly with!

As it is, City Walls are a nuisance!
They handicap the defending player, and they give all the advantages to the attacking player.:neenernee

Every time I conquer a city, the very first thing I do is to sell the City Walls - they even cost maintenance!
The only positive thing is that they yield some money selling them.

And things like Wall Crusher or Catapults are effectively totally useless - there's never any reason to use those abilities.

I'm willing to look into this, to see if I can do something to strengthen those City Walls.
I'll take the suggestions you have under consideration, but obviously I can't make any promises!

[Catwalk]

I do think they help the human player a bit, problem is that they massively handicap AI players. Which also means that any boost we give city walls will still benefit the human player far more. Making them cost more might help balance that, as you're more strapped for resources than the AI.

[luddite]

It sounds like it would be a lot of work to fix these, so maybe just remove them at first, and find a way to fix them after modding the more basic parts of the game.

[b0rsuk]

I like walls so much I often take 2 Nature books and Wall of Stone.

Despite manual only mentioning +3 against missiles, it deffinitely provides a boost in melee. How about giving units inside walls HP regeneration (1/turn) ? This would help against ranged units which are often weak. There are citizens to help.

Wouldn't it be possible to make AI more aggressive in certain circumstances ? Like, when it has a massive ranged disadvantage ?

How can you say it's so easy to just shoot units behind the walls ? I understand this with longbowmen, javelineers and slingers. Not everyone has these units. So with the rest of races you produce ordinary bowmen and conquer cities with them ?

[Catwalk]

It sounds like it would be a lot of work to fix these, so maybe just remove them at first, and find a way to fix them after modding the more basic parts of the game.

That's actually what I did for the first version of Catnip. If it's an either/or proposition the game works a lot better without them. From what kyrub told me last time I think changes would be realistic down the road, and it's a fairly high priority.

[Psyringe]

Hmm. Interesting ideas.

Feasibility aside, I think the best solution from a rules/balance perspective might be to make the city walls themselves shoot ranged projectiles at the attackers, as if they had catapults or the like in their towers. That would make them a more positive combat factor for the defender, would not require the AI to build more ranged units, and would be quites realistic.

The problem is whether this is feasible. I don't think it will be possible to treat the walls as any sort of active combat unit. But it might be achievable to have a battlefield enchantment that throws one physical attack (without a range penalty) at a random enemy target per turn? Basically that would be the ranged attack capability of a Warship, combined with the "attacks a random unit each turn" property of some combat enchantments.

[Catwalk]

While that could work, it wouldn't feel "right" to me personally. But main factor to me is how we can make City Walls work properly with a reasonable amount of effort, don't want to burn out poor kyrub.

[kyrub]

@Psy
It could help the gaming side of MoM a lot, I think. My big problem with this type of changes is that I dislike anything that steps over the graphic representation or theme of the game. I had similar problems with the old swimming settlers suggestion, horrible, albeit functional. Swimming to Americas... what would Colombo say?

you don't see anything that should be shooting --> the walls should not shoot at you

On the other hand, I could probably see the Fortress of the enemy wizard shooting magic shots at you. Because it is there, full of power. And it would make the capital attacks a really hard option. And it would make re-banishing of an enemy wizard (to boost fame and score) painful.

[b0rsuk]

Hmm. Interesting ideas.

Feasibility aside, I think the best solution from a rules/balance perspective might be to make the city walls themselves shoot ranged projectiles at the attackers, as if they had catapults or the like in their towers. That would make them a more positive combat factor for the defender, would not require the AI to build more ranged units, and would be quites realistic.

What's realistic in missile strength not depending on units behind the walls ? I disliked this in Heroes of Might & Magic. It would also be quite hard to balance, it would be either useless in late game or terrifying before late game. Guardian Wind would also become one of best spells. Cities with walls and melee units only can be quite hard to conquer already.