Should dwarf settlements/karaks have the same defensive strength/layout as the rest?

[Pyrrhus the Molossian]

From what I saw they were quite powerful while defending. Their missile units can survive in melee for a while and they can simply tear apart entire enemy formations with their firepower. They even have airborne units which can do bombing runs. I'm thinking their only weakness is attack from the air as those gyrocopters don't seem terribly sturdy.

[Bust Nak]

This would be balanced on the campaign map with fewer numbers and/or higher upkeep etc, and fits the lore anyway, and also assuming it would actually be that difficult, since we don't even know how good defensively they're going to be in the actual game.

You can balance it how you like on the campaign map but there is a hard limit of 20/40 units in an army. A full stack might be 10 times more expensive than a green skin full stack, but unit for unit, a Dwarven army has an advantage in defence.

[Person012345]

There's a guy on the official forums who seems to think the dwarfs are so OP that even lowering their defenses makes sense because they can win almost any field battle etc.

Presumably he's just really bad at Total War?

I was actually a defender of magic torches, I mean why not?

Because there's no risk-reward. I don't like ladders appearing out of nowhere either, but torches pulled out the soldiers ass really isn't much better and there's no real downside. The best example imo was wall scaling (not magic torches) in Shogun II. You could scale the walls, but there was an inherent casualty count to it. Men would fall off. In a game where you can buy siege equipment that doesn't inherently result in casualties and the ability to scale walls that does and it's a tactical trade off. That's what I want to see but pulling a ladder out of your RPG pockets is not the solution.

[DavidtheDuke]

You can balance it how you like on the campaign map but there is a hard limit of 20/40 units in an army. A full stack might be 10 times more expensive than a green skin full stack, but unit for unit, a Dwarven army has an advantage in defence.

Yes, and that does not mean they would be impossible to fight in a karak.

Presumably he's just really bad at Total War?

I don't know, but many anti-karak-guys seems to be TW players first and can't imagine assymetrical campaign balance etc. I do think actual karaks like in the lore would be overpowered though, TW logic can only be stretched so far, but I think there is a compromise somewhere instead of completely ignoring them and copying templates from ACROSS RACES.

[craziii]

torches are believable. burning down gates was one of the real methods of gaining entry into a settlement. it isn't magic torches. just because you don't like it, doesn't make torches magical. it is why so many people were happy when ca replaced torches with flaming arrows. it is the same, just even more believable.

magic ladders is crossing the line. just like kam wrote, make the troops carry it from the beginning of battle would solve all problems. give every unit that is able to carry one a free one. ca is worrying they would be targeted by players, well speed them up. don't give them a speed penalty, same speed as without ladder, ing voila, problem solved. but ca has decided they don't want to shoulder the cost of animation. ladders isn't even a problem when compare to the super small siege area on the battle map. that could make siege battles extremely boring as every battle could become the same with the limiting siege battle maps.

[DavidtheDuke]

torches are believable. burning down gates was one of the real methods of gaining entry into a settlement. it isn't magic torches. just because you don't like it, doesn't make torches magical. it is why so many people were happy when ca replaced torches with flaming arrows. it is the same, just even more believable.

magic ladders is crossing the line. just like kam wrote, make the troops carry it from the beginning of battle would solve all problems. give every unit that is able to carry one a free one. ca is worrying they would be targeted by players, well speed them up. don't give them a speed penalty, same speed as without ladder, ing voila, problem solved. but ca has decided they don't want to shoulder the cost of animation. ladders isn't even a problem when compare to the super small siege area on the battle map. that could make siege battles extremely boring as every battle could become the same with the limiting siege battle maps.

I don't mind the missing animations as much as I don't like the mechanic itself: Torches or ladders. The idea you can bust down a IRON GATE in Rome 2 or scale the MASSIVE walls of Altdorf with impromptu ladders IMMEDIATELY is crazy. It should be harder than that to attack such a city, let alone basic barricades at your local Warhammer village.

[joedreck]

You are right. It looks easy to conquer. Where is the castle ditch!? Barricades!? Traps!? It would be great if the Champion could prepare before battle, similar to Rome2. Just a little bit.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

I've never understood CA's reluctance to make siege battles seriously in favor of the defender.

The defender has every advantage, but CA keeps stripping those away. Why even have gates if any unit can destroy them just by running up and throwing burning chunks of wood at it? Why even have walls if units can just sprint up to them and climb?

Siege assaults should be rare and very costly for the attacker. Make the actual sieges more interesting. Give more chances for sallying out, for skirmishes to whittle down the defenders, and for different ways to make them surrender. And, different types of surrender, defending on how low their morale is.

[Person012345]

torches are believable. burning down gates was one of the real methods of gaining entry into a settlement. it isn't magic torches. just because you don't like it, doesn't make torches magical. it is why so many people were happy when ca replaced torches with flaming arrows. it is the same, just even more believable.

Low level wooden gates - fine. Massive metal gates - not fine.

[HigoChumbo]

Low level wooden gates - fine. Massive metal gates - not fine.

I think it would be an enlighting experiment to craft a few torches and throw them at a wooden door, see how long it takes to burn (that is, if it even catches fire at all).

burning down gates was one of the real methods of gaining entry into a settlement. it isn't magic torches.

There is a difference between burning down gates and burning down gates by throwing torches at them. Everytime I see that I can't help it but imagine the torch bouncing away from the door, or just resting harmlessly at its foot.

I highly doubt hurling hundreds of torches at a gate was an actual historical siege tactic. Pots of burning tar or something like that I could believe. Tearing down stone structures with burning charcoal and urine, yep, I could believe. Hurling torches at castle gates to burn it? Not so much.

Even getting a fire going in a chimney requires some technique, you don't just expect a wooden trunk to catch fire the moment it becomes in contact with a flame (and that's not even taking into account that the burnt surface would act as a fire insulator).

[Person012345]

I think it would be an enlighting experiment to craft a few torches and throw them at a wooden door, see how long it takes to burn (that is, if it even catches fire at all).

I'm personally not claiming it's historical or realistic. But y'know, I can see it for gameplay simplicity. There's a downside there, it'll only work in certain circumstances and it'll be limited. I actually don't care if it can be justified by saying it's like something that happened in real life once if it's a bad gameplay mechanic. I mean clearly it isn't "realistic" for a dozen men to be able to run up to a fortress and throw a few firey sticks at the door to gain unrestricted access or nobody would have bothered to build forts and there would have been many fewer long term sieges in real life (since starving out the enemy was the standard procedure for dealing with sieges during the medieval period, which is roughly the technological time frame warhammer is set in, with deviations of course). But if it works in gameplay terms then eh, sure, I can see wooden doors catching fire with torches. If they're setting metal portcullises on fire though, they're magical.

[HigoChumbo]

I actually don't care if it can be justified by saying it's like something that happened in real life once if it's a bad gameplay mechanic.

I don't care about it being historically accurate or not as much as I care about it being immersion breaking. To me, throwing torches at gates is the modern equivalent of the old Age of Empires days where you could tear walls and castles down with pikes and arrows. If you see an arrow shot against a wall, what your mind expects to see is it bouncing back causing no damage. It's the same concept with torches. In the situation below, I would not expect the wooden plank to catch fire at all (and this would be hoping that the torch landed exactly at the foot of the door, which is unlikely).




When I see a dragon in a movie, I don't care about it being accurate or not, dragons don't exist, but I do care about the dragon looking feasible, as in having a proper sense of weight and physicality, well engineered animations, etc. If I get a dragon which flies around without even flapping the wings as if it were a jet, my immersion is instantly gone.

But if it works in gameplay terms then eh, sure, I can see wooden doors catching fire with torches. If they're setting metal portcullises on fire though, they're magical.

Burning down defensive wooden gates just with torches is probably as magical as setting metal portullises on fire.



As for gameplay justifications, what's the point of sieges at all if they provide no defensive bonus whatsoever? Just map variation? In Warhammer specifically, what makes Dwarven engineering and fortification planning better than that of orc or humans? Is fighting against better units the only difference one would expect between attacking a dwarven fortress and an human city?

[Person012345]

As for gameplay justifications, what's the point of sieges at all if they provide no defensive bonus whatsoever? Just map variation? In Warhammer specifically, what makes Dwarven engineering and fortification planning better than that of orc or humans? Is fighting against better units the only difference one would expect between attacking a dwarven fortress and an human city?

Well I agree, hence why I don't like the concept of a no-risk easy way of attacking a fort. If you aren't going to prepare because you have, say, an overwhelming force and want to get it done quickly then you should expect to take even more excessive casualties doing so.

I'd actually prefer the game to head back in a direction where more often than not you're forcing the enemy to sally forth. It was fine in Empire because that was the era when castles and forts began becoming obsolete anyway, for a game set in this era where big impressive defensive fortifications should be extremely difficult to take, I'd rather they were extremely difficult to take, a default garrison should certainly have a decent chance of successfully defending against a full stack that has taken time to prepare, let alone one that hasn't.

[Markas]

Are burning torches even used anymore? I thought they changed it to chopping down gates?

[DavidtheDuke]

Are burning torches even used anymore? I thought they changed it to chopping down gates?

I don't even see the difference too much between the two. It's just more believable that guys with big axes can cut through a gate than through matches at it. I wish the mechanic was removed entirely, but alas.

[kelembribor21]

From forums.totalwar.com GDC presentation about Siege AI:

http://gdcvault.com/play/1023038/Have-Fun-Storming-the-Cast

Personally i would love to see different city layouts and even defense of great fortress , i had lot of fun in Reikwald and Shining Way in Warhammer online and would be fun defending /sieging massive fort and not just city.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[craziii]

I don't mind the missing animations as much as I don't like the mechanic itself: Torches or ladders. The idea you can bust down a IRON GATE in Rome 2 or scale the MASSIVE walls of Altdorf with impromptu ladders IMMEDIATELY is crazy. It should be harder than that to attack such a city, let alone basic barricades at your local Warhammer village.

can't help it. this would always be in a total war game now. CA likes it alot. ever since it(wall climbing) got praised to the moon in shogun 2. so, might as well give suggestions that works with it. CA would never give this up, just by the team's reaction to torches we already know the answer, they merely changed it, still the same thing.

Low level wooden gates - fine. Massive metal gates - not fine.

rome 2 had no massive metal gates. steel portcullis is a medieval thing for castles and big cities.

There is a difference between burning down gates and burning down gates by throwing torches at them. Everytime I see that I can't help it but imagine the torch bouncing away from the door, or just resting harmlessly at its foot.

I highly doubt hurling hundreds of torches at a gate was an actual historical siege tactic. Pots of burning tar or something like that I could believe. Tearing down stone structures with burning charcoal and urine, yep, I could believe. Hurling torches at castle gates to burn it? Not so much.

Even getting a fire going in a chimney requires some technique, you don't just expect a wooden trunk to catch fire the moment it becomes in contact with a flame (and that's not even taking into account that the burnt surface would act as a fire insulator).

we really don't have to get into the specifics, but burning gates down was a legit tactic. how ca choose to represent it in a total war game, is up to ca. we can make suggestions, but the final decision is always in ca's hands.

[HigoChumbo]

can't help it. this would always be in a total war game now.

CA would never give this up, just by the team's reaction to torches we already know the answer, they merely changed it, still the same thing.

I wouldn't go that far. Maybe every game which uses "Warscape/TW3", and Warhammer might very well be the last, so who knows if they have gone a bit more ambitious for the next big thing.

Torches are most likely just a workaround to AI inconsistencies inherent to the "engine" ("engine"), should they manage to remove those problems in future iterations, then artificial "patchwork" workarounds would not be required and they could attempt to design something more complex and interesting.

ever since it(wall climbing) got praised to the moon in shogun 2

Was it? As far as I'm concerned people (myself included) praise Shogun 2, not that particular mechanic specifically. I personally don't think it makes sense having the entire army able to climb walls (it's not only weird, it also goes against my favoured concept of fortifications actually having a purpose). It's definately a cool feature, but just for a few specialized units.

we really don't have to get into the specifics, but burning gates down was a legit tactic.

If the end justifies the means, then let's just have romans burn down gates by crouching next to them with a cigarette lighter, whistling Pharrel William tunes while they wait for the thing to catch fire.

Really, that would be pretty much like saying that stoning walls down was a legit medieval tactic and represent that by having a bunch of kids shooting at them with slingshots instead of huge trebuchets loaded with massive boulders.

From forums.totalwar.com GDC presentation about Siege AI:

http://gdcvault.com/play/1023038/Have-Fun-Storming-the-Cast

Looks like it would be quite interesting to listen to their explanations for that presentation.

[craziii]

wall climbing made the shogun 2 campaign map very dynamic as AI can take and lose castles in shogun 2 very easily either way. ca liked that and so did alot of posters on this very forum.

and I do go that far. even the siege escalation is another iteration of that feature. that is every game since shogun 2 having that feature. my conjecture is based on precedent, what about yours? gut feeling?

burning down wooden gates was a very legit tactic till medieval portcullis. you can cry about it all you want doesn't make it any less true. ca just went over board because it wants to give the CAI and BAI crutches.

the new, limited siege area is also another huge crutch made by ca for the BAI.

[HigoChumbo]

and I do go that far. even the siege escalation is another iteration of that feature. that is every game since shogun 2 having that feature.

Every game since Shogun 2 has been built using the same engine. So, again, if they developed a new engine, the lack of the issues which led to those workarounds might make CA approach things differently (and that's a big "might" there, they might as well not change at all).

By the way, and just in case:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"engine"

my conjecture is based on precedent, what about yours? gut feeling?

Since your conjecture is based on games using the same engine and I specifically stated that the grounds for what I suggested as feasible is that they developed a new engine, I don't see how that's a valid counter argument. In any case, I never even formulated a "conjecture" (as in a prediction, judgement or guess), I merely formulated a possibility. You in the other hand made a few rather categorical statements ("this would always be in a total war game now", "CA would never give this up"), which, while indeed based on precedent, are at the very least as feasible as the outcome I outlined (and taking into account that you included the words "always" and "never", I'd even say that your argument has every chance of eventually becoming invalid).

I think it's a very reasonable opinion to suppose as feasible that they could be working in a new engine for the next game, if not only because the current one has been used far longer than any other engine in the series (and is showing signs of age), because the longer than usual development period Warhammer is going to have as a trilogy is going to allow them to allocate more time into developing something bigger (since I doubt they'll devote the same workforce for the second and third games), and were that the case, it'd also be somewhat safe to assume that a lot of the currently standard TW mechanics could be changed or even scrapped. I would not surprised if even some new features included in Warhammer, such as the single-section sieges like these, were discarded in the very next non-Warhammer TW game.

But I insist that I'm not making predictions here, just naming feasible possibilities.

burning down wooden gates was a very legit tactic till medieval portcullis. you can cry about it all you want doesn't make it any less true.

I never said that was not true, so please, don't beat around the bush.

I said that the depiction they chose looks nonsensical (not feasible). I think my example comparing your "burning down wooden gates" (with torches instead of proper means) to "stoning down stone walls" (with slingshots instead of huge trebuchets) was quite clear.

Let's make it even more exaggerated, even if burning down wooden gates was a legit tactic, I don't expect them to give every legionnaire a flamethrower, or the ability to breathe fire or some perfectly historically accurate flint and tinder to do so.

ca just went over board because it wants to give the CAI and BAI crutches.

And as I said, that's probably because the AI has foundational issues, issues which might be resolved should a different "foundation" be used. (---------------------> aka, a new "engine")

My take is that the reason why CA gave the AI torches is no different from the reason why they gave them climbing ropes, or magic ladders, or simplified, standardized city layouts. Programming the AI is hard and being hand-tied by an old engine does probably not help.