New Siege Implementation: Siege Chess

[MrBunzy]

Island vaults could for sure be a problem. Maybe a minimum distance from water to be able to build archery towers? Might screw over some already existing villages.

[rye130]

I'm not sure how much "chess" is actually going to happen...

Let's say hypothetically that archery towers have a range of 15 tiles

The way I see it playing out is that people will build a ram 16 tiles away, let it charge up for 24 hours, then move it up against the walls.

During those 24 hours the ram is charging you don't really have any way to do anything about it unless you have brimstone for a catapult.

With their ram charged they place a couple of catapults to dispose of any archer towers you already have or that you may potentially put up during the 2-3 hour window when they will be moving the ram to your wall. There is effectively only that 2-3 hour window where the defender can use archery towers to destroy the ram, and because of the catapults and the archery towers having a 1 hour charge time, the defender cannot keep archery towers up to defend.

With the ram fully charged, and moved up against the wall, your wall breaks quickly and your entire village is destroyed over the next couple of hours.

Is there something I'm missing here?

[loftar]

How would sieging an island vault work? The rams would be forced right up next to the walls, and I assume they would basically eat as many archery tower shots as the defenders build.

Catapults may very well be able to take those out, but we may also consider naval siege machines if necessary.

[loftar]

With their ram charged they place a couple of catapults to dispose of any archer towers you already have or that you may potentially put up during the 2-3 hour window when they will be moving the ram to your wall. There is effectively only that 2-3 hour window where the defender can use archery towers to destroy the ram, and because of the catapults and the archery towers having a 1 hour charge time, the defender cannot keep archery towers up to defend.

There are several ways to potentially counter that. To begin with, archery towers will have less initial charge time than catapults before they can attack the catapults, so that's one thing. However, catapults also have a limited number of shots before they enter their "next round" cooldown phase, so you'd need a certain amount of catapults to take down a certain number of archery towers. I imagine there may also be strategies to the likes of having the catapults need to take out inner towers, and then building outer towers to take them down once they're in far enough.

True enough, if the attacker is determined enough, you may need to start thinking about getting brimstone to build your own catapults, but I'd imagine archery towers being versatile enough to force the attacker to take you quite seriously before that. I don't imagine many would spend the resources to build 10+ catapults on a hermit claim.

[rye130]

There are several ways to potentially counter that. To begin with, archery towers will have less initial charge time than catapults before they can attack the catapults, so that's one thing. However, catapults also have a limited number of shots before they enter their "next round" cooldown phase, so you'd need a certain amount of catapults to take down a certain number of archery towers. I imagine there may also be strategies to the likes of having the catapults need to take out inner towers, and then building outer towers to take them down once their in far enough.

True enough, if the attacker is determined enough, you may need to start thinking about getting brimstone to build your own catapults, but I'd imagine archery towers being versatile enough to force the attacker to take you quite seriously before that. I don't imagine many would spend the resources to build 10+ catapults on a hermit claim.

Your catapults would be outside of the range of the initial archery towers so the charge time thing doesn't make much of a difference. But I guess you could build enough archery towers to overwhelm the catapults.

You are still left with only that 2-3 hour window to do anything though aren't you? Sure you get a 24 hour warning but the ram is only in range for you to interact with it during the hours its moved into range of archery towers. If those 3 hours are during your sleep hours or any other real life commitment, you're kinda boned. Rams used to be "balanced" with the 24 hour dry time because they were easily destroyable at any time during that 24 hours. Now they get buffed and made way harder to destroy and the only easy way for most players to destroy them are during a 3 hour

Sure most people won't spend the resources for 10+ catapults but I don't think it'd be necessary in most instances.

[MooCow]

This system is well worth implementing.

The most important question is whether archery towers will require bone glue, hard leather, metal, iron, or steel.

If they just required stone, wood, and cloth, you would have to truly starve them out over a long time. Making it require steel would just be obviously unfair to noobs.

[Sevenless]

If there's no big fight going on, with brimstone decaying as it does, it wouldn't be much to throw together a ram/pult or two from surface brimstone or this system would become unwieldy in the amounts it would require for actual faction warfare. The main thing that keeps hermits safe is that attacking them is a lot of bother for what little you get, and I'm not sure this system really has that as described. I'm just throwing out ideas but maybe brimstone should become a permanent resource? This further cements this into being a resource contest between big factions yes, but it also means any resources spent on a hermit are ones not kept to defend your base or for trading to people who need it more. That at least makes raiding people casually more of a decision in how to spend your resources.

Second thought: Wouldn't this cause similar 24hr guarding issues if people just slapped down archer towers outside the walls/beside the siege engines? Would it make sense to require archery towers to be attached to a wall to be built?

Also: Palibashing was the scum of this game empowering bored griefers to ruin noobs and hermit's days. Join late in the world? Get rekt scrub the only defense you can build is obsolete as of 2 months into the world! Making walls off claim have 0 soak I'm all for, it would stop the current walling local resources issue in its tracks and I can't think of any super critical edge cases. Everyone claims their walls except for abusive bullshit.

[pheonix]

If your going to add archery towers can we get rampart walls then (super strong expensive wall u can walk on like a player made cliff we can jump on to shoot from) and trebuchets for ultra long siege battles slowly mobbing boulders at each other with a very high randomization and does alot of damage to walls if your lucky to hit one.

[loftar]

Second thought: Wouldn't this cause similar 24hr guarding issues if people just slapped down archer towers outside the walls/beside the siege engines? Would it make sense to require archery towers to be attached to a wall to be built?

Part of the point is that, since archery towers and the siege engines proper take time to activate, you wouldn't have to constantly watch them. Yes, you'd have to be there occasionally, but I would imagine that the siege engines not getting rekt if you leave for five seconds would improve the situation quite significantly.

[rye130]

Second thought: Wouldn't this cause similar 24hr guarding issues if people just slapped down archer towers outside the walls/beside the siege engines? Would it make sense to require archery towers to be attached to a wall to be built?

Part of the point is that, since archery towers and the siege engines proper take time to activate, you wouldn't have to constantly watch them. Yes, you'd have to be there occasionally, but I would imagine that the siege engines not getting rekt if you leave for five seconds would improve the situation quite significantly.

Wouldn't the defenders building an archery tower next to the ram effectively rekt it unless there are already catapults in place to break it since archery tower is the fastest drying siege machine?