The other problem with Ass Ladders is that it removes the possibility of giving certain units a special "can climb walls": spider units, gutter runners, chameleon skinks, et al. Heck, you could even have Vampire Coast monsters disgorging little dudes who are riding on their shoulders....
You could have them getting over as a unit, since the major negative of ladders is having your soldiers take a minute or two to climb while getting slaugthered, so if spiders could all get up there as a single group in 10 seconds it would be good, avoiding that time where the first to arrive are fighting 150vs5
Ohhh that's something i can see, those towering creatures could be battling the units on the wall without stepping on them, some of those could climb and do slighty mostly flavor damage (5%?) because of their height just for fun and maybe flank some of the units that are trying to stop infantary from climbing down the walls
I think my biggest gripe is how the towers you build are identical. They're the same between factions and even the same between tiers! Well actually I don't know if it's my biggest gripe, I seem to have a lot around that level with this game! They just didn't improve anything with WH3 like enemy units routing into your city, the gate bug, and the stupid walls...
Or their reinforcements spawning IN the city, which is something I had happen in one game recently. Forgot which city it was, but it was one around Nagarythe's starting point. The entry point for their reinforcements was literally behind one of the capture points inside the city. XD
I think the fundamental thing im looking in sieges is that it's primarily about keeping the enemy out. The walls should be your main defense, not just a very temporary hurdle for the enemy to pass right over/through... Helms deep is epic because the enemy breaking through is such a major development.. It's our heroes starting to lose hope.. In Warhammer the attackers get past the walls in every single siege.
Lets face it. It's a moba with lots of micro management, not a strategy. They want us to micro on the streets, not let us attack frontally. There used to long be cinematic battles.
What siege battles lack is tactical diversity. Even with the new map layouts, most siege battles end up feeling the same anyway. Because most factions are given the same approach in both defense and offense. Skaven, spiders, and ethereal units shouldn’t have to use ladders to bypass walls. A Karak siege shouldn’t play the same as a Bretonnia siege. Every siege equipment, tower and defensive fortification has the same function with a different coat of paint. Sieges needs to be mechanically different to complement their visual difference.
I also hate that walls are useless since every units have a ladder. I also hate that defensive equipment can only be placed in predetermined (bad as fuck) locations.
Thats not exactly how medieval or shogun Era castles worked. They often did have essentially a villages worth of people to actually keep the castle running with food wood, etc. But it is true they didn't need a whole city around them
Honestly my biggest gripe is that sieges are where uniqueness goes to die. Most of the problems I have could be overlooked because I would be having more fun if ghosts could walk through walls, Skaven could sap, huge monsters could clamber over, zombies could WWZ their way over, Dwarves could add cannons to walls, keep the pop-up towers but only for Orks etc etc.
All sieges being "ass ladders and gate-breaking doggos/infantry" as an attacker and "pop-up towers and maybe walls" as a defender in the exact same 5 layouts is like having a Dwarfs vs Skaven battle where slayers rout because the dwarf chariots charged into a unit of skavenslaves with slings and lost, so the dwarf wizard casts the "Buff" Spell from the "Magic" lore of magic (the only one) on the dwarf wolves fighting the Skaven furies, who can be attacked in melee while flying because the AI doesn't understand what a flying unit is.
There's a mod I was looking at that made the pop up towers pre battle only and compensated the amount of supplies so you could build a fair amount that i liked the idea of, other than something along those lines I have to say magic pop up towers every minute or 2 during battle just has to go they are a dumb arcade idea that's ruining sieges and just drag them out, placing them before hand then having the system disabled worked well tho.
I always felt the Dwarf/Ork and Skaven where a massive missed opportunity where you have have some very unique underground map designs what have smaller caves and sections that flying units were unable to get in to or were forced to land before they could enter.
@@zaleost I still wish the underway was an actual second map layer that connected settlements with tunnels. The way it is now is just super lazy and lacks any strategy.
Great point about the defenders being able to walk through the barricades and prevent the attackers from destroying them. That has really frustrated me. And when a barricade pops up suddenly your units forget where they were walking to.
Maybe a good update would be to make the unit automatically attack barricades if its on his way rather than trying to find another way. Because they are so easely destroyed anyway…
One point on Shogun 2 sieges: the reason the inside of the castle is so empty is that you're not fighting in the actual town, Shogun 2 provinces had a separate building chain and slots for the town and a separate building chain and slots for the castle. You win control of a province by controlling the castle, so the siege battle takes place there. You don't actually ever see the farms houses shops etc in a siege battle because that's not where the fight is happening at.
@@phillipharrison886 Samurai did not live in the castle. They reside in their own houses in the outside, in the town or villages. The lord would rally them when needed, else they are not in the castle. Not like in movies.
except real armies did fight inside of towns and cities, and castles had more than just walls and a keep in the middle. shogun 2 siege battles are, by and large, kind of cheap in their overall construct.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 in sengoku era japan? Why? What's in random towns that's worth fighting over? If you're the defender you want to hole up in your purpose built castle when available, or ambush the army on it's way to besiege it. That's not gonna happen in some town in the middle of nowhere. If you're the attacker why do you care about taking random towns, your goal is to control the administrative center for the area of land you are looking to take, and/or get rid of the military aristocrats on the opposing side of the conflict. Conveniently both things are happening at the local castle most of the time.
@@TheWujuStyle "whats in random towns worth fighting over" outside of the fact that towns are defensible and that they are full of things such as food and loot, as well as most of the population. Idk, you tell me why the fuck someone would defend the thing that makes their goddamn province worth a damn. Europeans loved their goddamn castles but even they understood that sometimes you have to fight in or near a town or city, whether to gain defensive advantage, defend your territory, or because going around the town takes more time than marching through it, lest we forget that most settlements were surrounded by farmland which is less than apt to march through for an army, thus making the path along developed roads to a place where you can extort food and loot from locals more worthwhile. Why the fuck do you think so many japanese towns and cities, especially old ones, still have walls if there was never intent to use it defensively against would-be attackers? War is all about attrition and leaving your food sources to be gobbled up by a marching enemy army is beyond stupid. Which is without mentioning how most castles were generally attached to a city, town or at least hamlet since lords, oddly enough, wanted to have direct control of their immediate fiefs. your argument is legit befuddling. the city of Kyoto was all but annihiliated during the years of fighting in and around the city, yet the concept of a battle occuring in an inhabited area is apparently alien. i get that people love shogun 2, but stop trying to defend lazy design.
For me the main huge issue with chokepoints and barricades is that they completely break unit pathfinding. Units will break up or chage routes or just get stuckin narrow corridors so you have to micro every single one of them all the time.
@@FilipMoncrief That's because cities in Attila had larger pathways, specially near the walls. There was usually enough space for two units to fight side. WH 3 siege system is very reminiscent of Attila but it manages to be worse than it.
Important thing to note about Shogun 2 walls is that a certain number of the unit models would fall to their death based on how high the wall is. I think that would really help to balance ass ladders in Warhammer.
The one point I disagree with you on, are the chokepoints, since forcing the attacker to fight in tight corridors is exactly the whole point of any fortifications throughout history. It’s supposed to take away your advantages and ability to move around. If anything, maps in TW III are more forgiving than they should be, since even relatively small castles in history would have multiple sets of walls and gates, to trap the invading forces between them. I’d expect a tier V city to be able to fight off 20unit doomstack with just it’s garrison, because that’s basically what cities were built for: holding off assholes who want to kill your people and take your stuff.
The thing is some factions in HW, unlike historical ones, are particularly terrible at choke point battles like Bretonia and Slanesh. Why would you build your defense in a way that actively hurts yourself?
I agree with this. Chokepoints and corridors are good thematically, and I think they suit the gameplay. I also agree that CA made a lot of effort actually to open op the maps, like most corridors are huge, and the streets are incredibly wide, so moving units aroung is not an issue. I actually think some of the maps look more like Hot-Wheels tracks because of this. They just neet to get rid of the supply system, keep the victory objectives, in plazas and such, for units to fall back to and hold. Just remove the buildable towers. The towers should be there statically around the map always, and then let us build the barricades in the deployment phase. Edit: I support the idea of both having narrow corridors and wider open areas, the Rome 2 sieges like the one showed were pretty darn great. Just do something with the god damn copy paste walls in WH... And well also the siege equipment, I think the siege towers and rams look awful and stupid, especially the dwarf ones...
@@bz6587 Regardless of your faction, it's always advantegous to force your opponent to lose time and stamina zigzaking around your defences in tight corridors, while you shoot at them from above. Any race specific traits are just a cherry on top; with Slaanesh or Bretonnia you can just hide the cavalry outside and strike from the rear, when your opponent is nicely packed inside your walls, with no way to escape your cycles of charging. Doesn't make having multiple chokepoint a bad idea. Anything more sophisticated than historical data would require a really good imagination and effort, since developers would have to consult military experts to figure out how medieval cities could protect themselves against dragons/magic/monsters. However that is asking way too much out of Creative Assembly, since they're rather uncreative, despite their name.
Agreed. Shogun 2 was following historical precedent, based on how armies fought sieges during the Sengoku Period, in which the walls were never meant to completely halt an attack but give your troops the ability to shoot and stab at attackers, and tiring them out before you engaged with their forces at various designated areas within the fortress. A lot of this was brought about by the Bushido culture the Samurai class enforced onto the peasant soldiers/ashigaru, which encouraged soldiers to fight hand to hand and one on one. This is why Nobunaga was such a prominent figure, he disregarded the strategy and tactics that were common, utilizing gunpowder weapons and formations, mixed unit tactics, for his levy forces. As a result they see him as cowardly by his opponents, as he scoffed at the impractical nature of the Bushido spirit when it came to tactical fighting. Most of the rest of the world, especially the West, instead built walls designed to hold off attackers for months or even years, and often built more layered defenses within the fortresses and or cities and towns, including a keep/castle that would be the ultimate holding point if they breached the outer defenses. As said in this thread, many would build death traps (Barbicans for example) for invading forces, forcing them to fight between gates/walls/barricade structures, with fortifications that would let them attack from higher/safe points. All the while, on the ground of barbicans, some castles would have actual booby traps, such as spikes, caltrops, floor/wall blades, etc. this isn’t event to mention more common anti siege defenses like outer wall and keep wall moats. They could legitimately design maps based on different factions fighting styles, and mechanics related to that if they wanted to but they won’t do it. It’s the kind of thing I wish wasn’t hard coded, so modders could give us more realistic sieges that give attackers real disadvantages in a non-gamey way like we have with wall tower ranges and defensively supply system/barricades/inner tower mechanics.
Reminder while Rome 2 do have Burnable Iron Gates, getting through a Gate in Rome 2 is super dangerous due to Boiling Oil which can literally melt any unit, making it important to use a disposable unit to neutralize the gates first by going through the gates.
that happen in even Rome 1 as I remember correctly and people could fall off from walls -_- that feature was removed. it was so epic to see that in 2004
one aspect that I think is a big issue is just the amount of them, 80%+ of battles in a campaign are sieges, even if they were almost perfect that 'almost' would wear on anyone very quickly when its battle after battle after battle.
That is related with the AI at the moment. They simply dont move enough, they sit there in their settlements waiting for you to come and once they are besieged they will rarely sally out.
Ai is just a coward which hides in their settlement or going for overkills to ensure the win. I had a skaven which sieged an empire t3 settlement without garrison and an half stack army inside with 4 army stacks of mid tier units.
A solution could be to only have walls on minor settlements when they reach tier 3. Makes them rarer, almost unheard of in the early game, and at least a bit less common in contested areas towards the late game.
Yes, this has been my frustration as well. Battles on the field seem few an far between -- and when a campaign gets going I'm either taking or losing a settlement every turn.
Unique racial pre battle deployables would be boss. And ya multitiered defenses are very cool. One of my favs from WH are the empire super forts on the mountain ranges that have a secondary raised wall to fall back to. Fingers crossed we see dome of these great ideas made for WH in future updates.
My wishlist for better WH3 sieges that's feels like it's not too much to ask: * No placeable towers, possibly create some fixed (not shit-looking) towers inside the settlement with defense buildings * Realm of Chaos battles can keep the current towers * Barricades behave realistically and are not destroyed by any unit within seconds * Similar with gates - only siege attackers or battering rams take those down quickly I feel like the WH3 devs were looking to capture that multi-layer cake defense that Shogun 2 had, and it would be nearly there if not for the failings of the build-a-base mechanic. Fix the most glaring problems and it gets much better. And of course, the paper-mache gates of the Warhammer World have felt ridiculous ever since you figured out how quickly Empire Swordsmen take them down. I fail to understand why that is still a thing.
Funny thing is that many major settlements actually have towers built into the maps, but they are useless. They are thematic, bigger, nicer and more sensical than the pop-up towers but they are just decoration.
And just place the barricades wherever you want to... I like the idea of layered defences, but also that it would be difficult to take settlements and would even require specialized armies. Honestly I wish they'd make the sieges more difficult, as in the defenders have a huge advantage, but also have options to bribe the defenders to open the gates so that you start some kind of "ambush" battle against the defenders or similar options. That way you have more difficult sieges but also slightly more variety and options to work around them.
@@ivanlagrossemoule They had almost this exact thing in Medieval 2, where your spy could open the gates and the battle started without giving defenders time to set up.
@@brianlevor6295 heroes can damage walls (ie create breaches) in the Warhammer games. The Witch hunter can at least, and I'd imagine the equivalent for other factions could.
My main problem is that siege maps are nto tailored to each race's strengths: This is specially obvioys for races like the Skaven and the VC who would rely on powerful magics, devious contraptions and a good amount cannon fodder to whittle down the attackers as they advance. Imagine that the skaven would have something along the lines of explosive Skavenslaves with different payloads: Acid for Armor, Sharpnel for maximum damage, HE for AOE, some cataclismic Warp bomb as the ace in the whole. All of of this with warp mines and temporary Rat Ogre Summons to represent the chained defence-beasts. For the VC imagine that each fresh kill adds to their "supply, and they rely on unit summons to represent the rising of the dead attackers, having progressively powerful summons to represent the winds of death getting stronger as the carnage goes on. From hordes of zombies to powerful Hex Wraiths, Wraths, crypt horrors,graveguard, etc
God this. I dream of sieging a Dwarf settlement that is actually designed around the quirks of the race. Huge gates which are far more of an engineering feat compared to the greatest structures built by Man. Multi-layered walls with those chokepoints to complement the strengths and weaknesses of Dwarfs. A couple of raised areas for artillery. Special paths that maybe Miners can only take? Would make them really cool as a flank unit during sieges. I detest the tower + barricade building, sure it's useful for any faction but I just kinda wish that every faction had their own form of defenses during a siege. Akin to your ideas with units.
Have you fought in a wood elf tree, the entire front area is a barely defensible kill zone that the AI deploys all of their troops in outside of the firing range of all of their towers, there are no good places to put archers that is protected in any appreciable way, and if you bring arty they just stand around and die.
I feel this since I play a lot of tomb kings. Their garrisons are already awful, and the siege mechanics don’t help very much since their towers also aren’t that good compared to other races.
I think that it all comes to the issue of balancing and pacing. Honestly, with a large number of settlements and too many different factions in warhammer, a mechanically complex siege battle will drag the game on forever. And unlike historical TW where humans fight each other, there are so many races, and faction mechanics for the player to learn. Putting too much stuff in and forcing a beginner to learn all of those is a bad user experience design. Game is supposed to be enjoyed, not a real war simulation. I myself find the current game content to be quite overwhelming, and don't need it to be more difficult to learn. If people are looking for a more complicated and enhanced experiment, I suggest installing mods. Mods that allow more different siege equipment and defense weapons. With the current WH3, it is possible for the modders to execute more interesting ideas and perhaps, someone is able to make a siege battle overhaul mod.
12:41 Could you imagine how great it would be to see the city's populace trying to resist and fight against the invaders? Example, you have a Skaven settlement and random skaven slaves are popping up to defend in a hasty panic, or how about seeing Sigmar Priests defending an Empire settlement as they come rushing out of the temples in a religious zeal. That'd be awesome to see and help make them more entertaining.
damn, Rome sieges look fun! I grew up with games like Battle for Middleearth so im used to nearly indistructable, nearly unclimable walls and doors than can hold for quite a bit. Walls are ment to be scary to attack imo
this was all really obvious long before the game even released. they were actually quite transparent for once and showed that this was going to be how the game worked. they made videos describing and showing this stuff and uploaded it as part of the marketing.
I think the comparison to Shogun 2 sieges was really spot on. As some who played WH1 & WH2 before playing shogun 2 I vastly preferred Shogun's sieges over Warhammer's for all the reason's stated. Well Said!
i think it has a lot to do with HOW they scale the walls, while i myself prefer rome 1 and medieval 2 system, i can tolerate shogun 2 just fine because they scale the walls SLOOOOOOOOWLY, and if the wall they are scaleing is rly tall (there are some maps where you can scale directly to the 3rd level from the ground) if you put range units there the units that are scaleing the walls would rarely make it to the top, another thing is the map itself, and i am surprised that zerk did not mention it, the map OUTSIDE the town is to SMALL, what all the previews total war had was a BIG outside part, imo the tower range is fine AS LONG AS we get a bigger, A MUCH BIGGER outside area where we can move shit around, not just for the attacker but for the defender as well, you see, in the previews games having 2-3 units of cav as the defender was absolutly phenomenal, because i could harass the enamy, or go after there arty, or intentionaly pull back from the first layer of defences, setting up a strong defensive pozition much forther in, and than w8 a bit, after the enamy moves in the cav goes after the arty (if possible) or just SLAM into there rear (witch was ussualy the archers) and in thous games there was no such BS as in WH where archers win battles vs cav, nope, you made a mistake and cav got into the archers line? THEY GONE DIE, like it should be!
I do like the idea of using your supplies for defenses, but after the battle begins the defenses are fixed. The Rome 2 push ladders also made a lot of sense. Also, for each settlement battle the city or settlement should gain experience, resulting in more supply points. And armies garrisoned can allow for additional supplies, which could be boosted by the general's or hero's skill tree. Thoughts?
Maybe allow changing/upgrading things you've built with new supplies gained during battle, but like everyone says, you can't build a whole tower in 30 seconds, or even during the longest battle.
Wow, I started playing Total War with Warhammer 2, so I wasn't aware of all the cool features that some previous games had. Uh... huh. Some of those sieges in earlier games look really fun.
I think that's what CA has recently been counting on - that Warhammer players have no prior experiences with older games, and won't realize how bare bones it is when compared with them. Not to demonize them - previous TWs had a tenth of the factions and mechanics Warhammer has, but they went deep to compensate, and that depth is really missing now.
In Three Kingdoms, you could use fire to your advantage, setting a whole city ablaze to demoralise the enemy and more importantly, take out their towers and barricades. Unfortunately, it seems buildings are fireproof in Warhammer. Would be nice to set the Oak of Ages on fire.
Sieges are hard to balance. They're exhilarating when you hold off an overwhelming force with a shit garrison but when the tables flip, you don't wanna have your main army bled dry as the attacker. Stuff like chokepoints everywhere and the supplies are skewing this to the defenders direction, which is why so many peoples cheesed sieges since WH1. It's not fun waiting days for replenishment after every major settlement. They also show the breadth of preferences in the community that's hard to cater to. Like when I heard people clamoring for bigger, 360 sieges for WH3 I was scared CA would actually deliver since that sounded like a micromanagement nightmare to me. The only siege battles I actually enjoyed were the Empire forts - one access point, logical chokes, good firing platforms. A solid, focused Helm's Deep experience. All I'd want was more and more tiers of chokes and platforms as you upgraded them and to rework factions capitals into them. Sieges really shouldn't be nearly as prominent in WH as other TW games. Siege logic just doesn't bring that much to a game where doomstacks like full flying cavalry or full SEM exist. Sieges without infantry just don't work and so many races just don't really field infantry in numbers warranting a siege focus.
Yes, this exactly captures the problem. Sieges need to offer major advantages to the defender so it's possible for human players to (try to) defend with just a garrison, but NOT offer major advantages to the defender so human players don't get bored and annoyed by their army getting trashed every time they dare to expand their empire. And sieges need to be huge and expansive to give a sense of drama and spectacle and make you feel like you're fighting over a massive city, but NOT huge and expansive to be manageable to play and for choke points and desperate last stands to be meaningful. Inherently difficult problems.
Well you could solve the problem by giving the attacke a big bones to refill hus troops after he conquered a major city. Our you can provide some cannon fodder units in the siege options who disappear after the fight
Solution: make the AI have severely reduced siege hold out time. Then have the ai sally out after suffering a certain amount of attrition. This is how it worked in Shogun 2, you really only had to fight offensive sieges if a relief army was on its way and you needed the castle for a defensive siege.
The worst is when part of your city defence is a cannon. Absolutely useless. Why can't I start it on the wall? Yeah, I shouldn't be able to move it up and down mid battle, but let me start the thing up there.
There is a mod to allow Skaven weapon teams on walls, but it should absolutely be possible for everyone to deploy siege units on special parts of the walls
I mean my only real issue is the new tower defense mechanic. I don't see the issue with choke points, sieges are supposed to be battles of attrition. Some more open areas may be nice bit I think it should still be like 80-90% chokepoints
Game programmer here. Your not asking for to much from “implementable” side but from design side with monsters, flying units, and crazy lords making a balanced and fun system with above mechanics would need much effort but doable. With many creatures in warhammer they could come up with many things such as certain Skaven digging below walls, beast men that can jump off walls and so on. That said Rome 2 should have been used as a base.
MSB and new sieges are literally the definition of “careful what you wish for” I think it would’ve been so much better without any of the buildings and just the maps lol
Haven't played shogun but damn during that sync kill I could hear somber music from a movie playing in my head. He even reached for his weapon at the end when he fell the ground. Got some real Boromir vibes from it. Too bad they keep removing features people love.
@@Grauer1510 There's actually a different mod that does the same thing but works with port settlements. It's called "Minor Settlement Battle Remover", just found it the other day :)
EXACTLY! As much as I can understand the challenges of the implementation. If it could be done so many years ago with older titles, I see no reason why it shouldn't be implemented now... It's not like they didn't make most of money on this game anyways... It's insane how they fail to realise that the siege battles and faster than ever steam-rolling campaign is what is killing this game and making people bored of the game within few weeks. It's INSANE for me tbh... 1) Look at the size of the maps, the actual size. Previous TW games had WAAAY larger maps, entire background seems gigantic in TWW yet actual fighting space is tiny, in some cases You can barely squeeze 1 unit through, while in previous games You could place 2-3 units next to one another and that was A CHOKE POINT! in TWW maps are completely immobilizing troops, are ridiculously tight even if they're huge, they're just badly designed. While most of the spaces like some markets or seemingly open little squares, turning out to be invisible walls just because there's a fence there, which can't be crossed, there's so much unused space on most of the maps, it's actually ridiculous. 2) MORE OPEN SPACES! RE-DO THE SIEGE MAPS! 3) Ladders are beyond MAGIC! Even daemons using them! lol xD But on a serious note, pushed, wheeled ladders were rather rare occurrence in the historical battles. They were usually carried by soldiers. BUT that being said this should still be the case, and a unit like that should be slower and suffer heavy vigour penalties, that would also give the chance to limit the number of ladders and assign them even in the battlefield to the units, just like towers or rams are. 4) MORE OPEN SPACES!! RE-DO THE SIEGE MAPS!! 5) Damage to gates, yes. It's absolutely dumb that normal units can attack and damage Gates. Still we have large units in TWW, monsters, but even they should have some type of penalties in damaging the gates. Unless they are single entities which could have no penalties and actually could take gates down equally to lets say rams. Even in LotR, trolls couldn't do that much to the main front gates of lets say Minas Tirith, they were only useful in attacking smaller gates in the inner city. Same should be here. 6) Quality of sieges, walls damage, traps etc is significantly decreased in comparison to titles like Rome or even friggin Medieval in which sieges were actually one of my favourite types of battle... While in TWW i literally HATE them... I don't get that... So much potential gone to waste. 7) MORE OPEN SPACES!!! RE-DO THE SIEGE MAPS GOD DARN IT!!! 8) YES! Maps were way more interactive, more immersive. 9) Ropes only for light infantry for fast climbing, ladders for heavy and others. Etc. Changes like that might not be essential but would give a lot of tactical flavour and could be simple to implement. 10) Sieges are actually making attackers stronger vs AI... AI just sits and wait, while scattered all over the city so You can pick them up one by one. This is stupid af. It's easier to defeat 10-1 army as attacker than as defender... Because of how badly AI operates in those trillions of tiny, tight choke-pointy streets, in ROME or Medieval, You had streets as well, but there was few of them, so AI didn't get lost that easily, everything was larger and not so cramped up. I think ALL Siege maps needs a do-over, and even just that simple change, would help a TON, it's not so hard and doesn't require any changes in the programming, JUST RE-DO THE MAPS!!!
In the older titles i dont like seiges cus the ai gets buggy on my units They are hard to control and command on the wall and somehow my seige monster got thru the gates without breaking it leaving it alone attacked and unable to attack the gates to get the rest of my armies support
The issue with sieges is that they don't fit well into the rest of the game, at all. Sieges are supposed to be narrow fighting and choke points, it's a city. If walls and gates were more of an obstacle, if barricades worked better and could block of all streets, sieges would take hours to play, and as they are already bad as is why would we want them to take longer? TW: WH is a game about movement, units and tactics, strategy and battlefield maneuvers. Sieges are about choke points, restriction of movement, slowing down, attrition. They are at complete odds, which is fine IF sieges were rare. Like a strange spice, something different. But they are not rare, they are constant. The issue with sieges is frequency.
I know it wasn't popular, but Three Kingdoms had some of the best settlement battles I can recall in Total War. Being able to MANUALLY place my defenses was huge for me.
In Napoleon TW, you could chill back and use artillery to level walls and open city gates to open up some space; that would be impossible for WH3 as artillery ammo is too low for that
@@RamonesFan201 NTW and ETW had a range of 'artillery forts' of different sizes and for the European, Middle Eastern and Indian cultural groups. The layouts were all fairly same-y however.
Possible solution to artillery ammo? Have a new siege equipment that is just an ammo dump placable. It's static but has a replenishment range and value to resupply ranged units? Can't be moved inside or anything but allows slow siege, also gives a target to Sally out and try to destroy to prevent the slow whittle down. Maybe explodes when HP reaches zero or something?
Everything you said is spot on. The seige rework for this game is so bad it made wh3 almost unplayable for me. It wasn't perfect in 2 either of course, but i'd take wh2's seiges anyway over this mess.
Wh2 sieges were objectively worse, I'm glad they at least made an attempt. Sieges within the warhammer setting are just hard tbh, and I'm not sure they'd feel good however they did them, people don't like using units and sieges are supposed to be super duper easy so, I think CA is just gonna make people unhappy regardless of what they do with sieges.
@@fidelcashflow4940 They're both bad. Even Age of Wonders 3 had more fun siege battles, and those tend to slow down the gameplay to a crawl. Tactical variety for each faction is severely missing. I'd rather they remove walled sieges and replace those with minor settlement battles.
I disagree on the chokepoint issue. The problem is that there are too few genuine chokepoints, not too many. Settlement battles ought to be easy for the defender and very hard for the attacker - instead, in TWWH you have no true chokepoints because there are ten roads leading to every capture point. If you use a unit to block a street, it doesn't matter - the enemy doesn't need to fight it. It can just turn a corner into another street and have a straight shot at your back lines. That's the worst aspect of the siege design in TWWH 3 in my opinion: you need more units to defend a settlement than you need to attack it. In every fortification design in history, it was the other way around: fortifications are designed to allow few men to defend against many. This really needs to change. And for those who say "this doesn't translate well into gameplay", I say you're thinking too narrowly. There could be specific units and buildable siege equipment for each race that would allow the destruction, or bypassing, of certain defenses. Artillery could play a role. These things should have their economy costs balanced so that capturing major settlements would be more expensive/time-intensive than minor settlements. There could even be another tier for certain significant settlements: Want to take Altdorf? Well, you're going to need money & time, because with those you could construct a few queen bess type cannons to kill part of the walls, or mine them, or prepare a spell to destroy them etc depending on your faction. Without it, you'll stand no chance, with it, it's doable, with plenty of artillery, it might work but no guarantees. What do you guys think?
7 months late, but I absolutely agree with you. Even with a fully upgraded garrison and a reinforcing 20 stack, you do not have NEARLY enough men to man the walls, and certainly not the 800 chokepoints in the streets. The maps are simply way too damn big. Realistically, a city of that size would have a garrison of THOUSANDS already there. Not 3 units of Dwarf Miners. It blows my mind that they had this shit figured out in 2006. Because you didn't have these problems in Medieval 2. The mechanics were very simple: [For Defenders] Hold the town square, or die trying. [For Attackers] Take the town square, or kill the defenders. And sieges were great. Other things Zerk mentioned like 360 degree settlements were also a thing. You attacked from whatever angle you wanted.
@@cmasonw 7 months ain't too late :) and I absolutely agree. Sieges in Medieval 2 were great, and I see no reason why they should be any different in Warhammer 3. Hopefully they will fix it in Pharaoh, I've no hope for them fixing it in WH3 at this stage.
I'm coming to Total War from 4X world, so I'm having quite a lot of fun with campaign map part of game. Battles I mostly auto resolve (not playing on higher difficulties yet). Recently I tried to challenge myself to play Immortal Empires campaign with fighting manually all battles. It went OK for a while, even had some fun while doing it. Eventually I failed with that challenge though. Settlement/siege battles were too much of a chore for me and I can't stand them. Indeed I mainly agree with "not enough space"/"choke-fest" arguments. Those maps are boring compared to open battlefields battles. It's just putting units against each other in choke points and waiting to see which one will survive this. Magically reappearing towers that I just destroyed also not helping in liking this part of game.
Don't worry, most people fail at that challenge as sieges are always a huge chore, and honestly for me even normal battles becomes a chore when it's 40v40
I used to play Total War for the battles. In Medieval 2 and Rome Total war I never Auto-Resolved. But with the advent of Total War Rome 2 battles have become so garbage that I auto-resolve everything I can and just play it like a Turn based Grand-Strategy. Which is why Attila is my favourite TW game
In WH3 I have been been using a mod which disables all siege building during battles. So all towers, blockers, etc have to be put down before the beginning of the battle. Then when they are gone, they are gone. Also that drives me crazy when the AI runs through their own barriers.
What I would want is to remove walled sieges completely and instead using the mod you mention to replace walled sieges with minor settlement battles. Sieging is just poorly designed in this franchise, it's just not fun and lacks tactical variety for each faction.
My main thing is just that I wish there were more LAND battles. I miss the land battles. It seems like in my campaigns in tww3 its hard to draw the AI into land battles, all fights take place in settlements unless the AI has overwhelming numbers and are willing to attack you.
@@ross.metcalf ...speak of the devil, the new patch attempts to address this. Low level minor settlements will be land battles now. If you wanted to avoid them altogether you would still need a mod however.
@@TheTankbus Yeah, I was happy to see the change notes. Think its finally in a state where I want to get the guys together for a big simul campaign! :D
Building should be at start of the siege and that is it. Right now truly most of sieges are the ones I skip in auto-resolve... previously I loved them. I have to say though that maps are fantastic, so much effort was put into all of this, people wanted something different - now they don't like it. That is my view on the situation. Having said that - it's a normal process of adjusting aspects. As long as CA listens to people or makes some well described, detailed opinion polls. Each of your points could have several options or to leave it as is/exclude for future. Easy to poll all of this.
While it is somewhat CA's fault for not explaining it very well or making it obvious, there is a reason to capture the various points during a siege battle in TW:WH3 other than the supply system. There is a "momentum" mechanic for attackers which increases for each point they capture and grants them charge bonus and melee attack (iirc). The momentum mechanic goes up 5 tiers of increasing effect (1 for each point), and can have it's effects decreased or denied if the defender retakes captured points.
The Best Sieges were in Total war Attila. Large Maps, Gates and Walls were much stronger ->A big disadvantage for the attacker. Also you could combine your attack with your Navy.
I can see why CA implemented a bunch of these simplistic changes into the Warhammer games, such as the ass ladders and magic elevators. Flying units, Monster units, (and flying Monster units), units which could logically go over or through the walls with little effort. These changes keep infantry units competitive in sieges when compared with this second rate shaboingery. Although I agree that the Rome 2 way of setting up traps and barricades is far better than the Fortnite style supply system we have currently. Also having the objective points give army wide leadership penalties/buffs like you said sounds really good.
While I overall agree with pretty much everything you're mentioning here my absolute biggest gripes with sieges atm are two things, the gates and the lack of stairs to the walls. I'm pretty new to the Total War series, Warhammer II was the first one I played, but since then I have also played Total War Troy, and while that game is by no means perfect I got a taste of proper wall defence in that, positioning my troops strategically not over the entire walls but around the stairs to block them. And then if I had to leave the doors I could camp outside the stairs on the ground and wait for the enemy to try and leave. Just that makes fighting on/with walls a lot more fun and engaging. And then yeah same about any unit being able to break gates. I understand large monsters like giants or dragons but bloody warhounds should not be able to knaw through castle fortifications, but maybe that's just me.
I think one of the big problems with TW Warhammer is scale. Since the first game the maps have been descaled to make it look more spectacular. However, this has caused units and battles to lose focus. Dragons look like flies walking the streets of some cities. This is also seen in the walls, many times they seem simple barricades compared to the rest of the city, when they should be the most remarkable elements in a siege. The design of the cities has improved but some seem illogical, lifeless, they are just elements that generate strange spaces. Where are the houses? What are those huge endless wells? I also think that the walls need a rework, as they are not very organic elements that do not go well with the rest of the city.
I think part of the problem no one really talks about is how the addition of SEMs reduces the size of the army by replacing the 120 men you’d have in other games with… a guy.
I scrolled looking for this comment. Yeah I think alot of the stated problems come from the introduction of single unit entities aka monsters. They kind of ruined the old balance of missile units versus infantry versus cavalry. They had to make everything tankier just to make the action more manegable. And Shogun 2 sieges would not have been so great if your gunline infantry shot down maybe five guys total before abandoning the wall. Also you can't give rush factions access to gate-busting monsters unless everyone can bust open gates, because that would further disadvantage range-heavy armies who are already having a harder time getting over the wall anyway.
The thing I don't understand is that we *told* them we hated the buildable towers as soon as they were revealed. They had over six months to do something with them; and it's not like you can't do anything as modders have fixed it. Somebody influential at CA must just be really wedded to the idea, cuz otherwise I just don't see why it ever made it into the game.
Sieges in TWWH 2 were less involved but the path finding was so much better. In TWWH 3 My problem with all those choke points is my units will take a terrible path unless I go with single entities so I find myself avoiding cavalry and infantry as I know they will get wrecked in sieges but my monsters and heroes will find their way fine.
You hut the nail on the head with this video awesome work... only if we could get the bosses to see this and agree I think when they made it "more appealing for a wider audience" they assumed that non total war players are a little dumb they should have never changed from there old gameplay loop that's what mad total war so different and appealing
Lost me with chokepoint rant. Urban maps are always going to be cramped, that's to be expected - huge open spaces in the middle of a city (outside of the occasional city square) are not particularly realistic. (Edit: those Shogun II castles are pretty silly; I've been to the real thing and while they do have open courtyards, they're mostly a series of chokepoints and you can't just climb up anywhere.) Otherwise I agree with most of your points, and would add that siege equipment needs a serious overhaul. It's too hard to build rams and siege towers, and they're too slow compared to ladders and simply attacking a gate. Siege towers and Rams need to move and build faster. Gates should be much tougher to crack without a ram, either being immune to infantry damage or preferably to have boiling oil to drop on attacking infantry. There needs to be a greater penalty for using ladders. Multilevel siege maps are a must as well, and defenders should have pre-battle deployables in both sieges and encampment battles.
16:00 that's what made me a total war fan aside from the campaign map. The Matched combat and Sync kills were epic. A Samurai fight, a Roman Shieldwall or a Hoplite phalanx were amazing to watch due to animations. Now they keep hiting the air and having a heard attack
One of the main problems with each new Total War release is that they strip out mechanics and replace them with half-baked gimmicks. If they struggle to make something work the first time around, maybe they'll use it again, but more often then not they'll just remove it since why even bother trying to fix efine something when you can just dumb it down and strip it out.
As a TW noob (only played WH2/3) I definitely feel like 3 has a weird "sameyness" even when compared to 2 in regards to its sieges. Maybe it's just how I'm making the AI play but if I'm attacking it's globs at the gates or first chokepoints and either the better glob wins or I sneak a stealth unit in to cap and win the settlement that way, and if I'm defending, well, they don't attack unless they have an overwhelming force so I either win via towers or get overwhelmed while trying to protect the entrances how I see happen to the AI when I'm attacking. From WH2 I do have some stories where sieges went weird and unexpected things happened, I have yet to get much of that in 3, and I feel like that's pretty objectively a bad thing.
one thing that I'm really want to see is formation and mustering, I hear many people calling Shogun 2 or Three Kingdoms unit are all the same and lack diversity but in those game because your unit are the same as your enemy the one that make a difference is how well you use those you could have two spearman going at each other but if one in turtle formation the other one would get exhausted first while the one in turtle formation is still fresh and pretty much less damage then you break formation and counter charge the exhausted opponent, in warhammer I feels like all I'm doing is getting an OP unit of your race then just point them at enemy then repeat and occasionally cast magic and when unit damaged I'll just disband or merge then recruit fresh one in one turn meanwhile in 3K if you lost half of a unit you'll gonna want to redo it cause it'll took 4-5 turn just to replenish or recruit them in Shogun 2 you can quick recruit but you can't merge unit plus most unit other than ashigaru need at least 2 turn and recruiting slot is also low since you wanna invest in select region for a castle so either wait another turn or just push on
My biggest (personal) problem is I don’t like how cities can be captured with the main point still being under your control. Some of the main points are really defendable and it’s a shame that whilst outnumbered you have to spread your army out so thin and you’re unable to use the really cool areas. I wish all points had to be taken and there was just a leadership debuff for losing supply points.
Being able to construct defensive buildings on the city view in the campaign map would be better. Then we could permanently customize our cities. That would be cool as opposed to the lame current state of affairs.
Most "improvements" were made to make the ai have a fighting chance, but it makes the player have to use the same tactics as the ai, such as rushing and deploying all over.
@@divout6688 This is genuinely how some of the people on the team think about the game. Instead of providing fun mechanics/units and then allowing players to break them as they wish (cheesing/exploits in a single player game doesn't hurt anyone, lol) they are more concerned with exactly how people are playing and patching out fun units/abilities because they are too powerful. That and the whole game is patched based on what mutiplayer weirdos are up to, and that's a small fraction of the playerbase.
I respectfully disagree. I think there are a lot of things that can be improved, but I wouldn't lose sight of how fantastic this game and this series is. Mods improve on a flawed but already-excellent game.
@@kianqalashahar I could agree with that statement for WH2 where I have only a few minor mods installed. But vanilla WH3 is such a slog with its endless minor settlement battles and cowardly AI that I honestly can't enjoy it without modding it to hell.
I do think the choke point gripe is kinda weird. For gameplay sure but when building cities in times of war yea they are going to be built with as many choke points as possible to slow an invading force.
I'd really like to see boiling oil or faction specific versions pouring down on enemies as they pass through the gate. Pretty sure this was in medieval 2 and Rome 2.
Ít was there in Rome 1 and Medieval 2. It was in fact so powerful and so difficult to avoid ( because you would need to use ladders or siege towers to capture the gatehouse, and somehow, sometimes, it would still pour boiling oil killing everything) that I just ended up avoiding sieges altogether or blasting through a wall instead. Fun fact: it was not used at all. There is no historical evidence of it ever being used, and it is purely a Hollywoodesque idea. As historian Roel Konijnendijk says, it is needlessly elaborate. You can through boiling water and it achieves the same, without having to burn things for no reason, or just throw rocks, plenty of them available without any need for too much unnecessary preparation.
Possibly although the uses of hot sand being poured over attackers exist, regardless rock's etc were dropped onto the heads of assaulting forces from murder holes. This being a fantasy setting I think a few poetic licences can be taken, could definitely see dwarves and skaven shooting fire down on attackers and other races having their own faction specific variant.
WH3 is a game where the devs got so wrapped in doing new stuff that they forgot that it was supposed to be fun first and foremost. I doubt they will but I definitely wish they would add a check box that would allow for WH2 settlement sieges or even 100% land battles.
What i dont like on minor and major settlement sieges is that that attcker has too many ways (like into the last point theres abou 5 ways how to get there) and its almsot impposible do efectievly defend all of them. Also its impposible to defend every supply point because you are mostly outnumber when defending.
yeah, you cant put units to face other units on the walls, if an enemy is on the wall, you should be able to e.g. position your gunners in a line 90° turned to shoot at them
@@generalharness8266 that too, but thats a general pathfinding problem in settlements i believe(if you mean e.g. a unit only attacking with a few models while the rest stands in a square 5m away) but i think i always have this near dockable points, so if its that i assume you get this on walls even more frequent
@@randomredshirt5274 Yea I had a game in 3 where I saw enemy running at my archers I tell them to pull back and my melee inf to charge. Not this distance would have been about a quarter of crossbow range (don't know how else to describe the distance). My infantry decides to run away from them instead and my archers get wrecked.
Also wall have advantage for the attacker! The main penalty you may suffer in a fatigue penalty. Once you reach it it can't affect more. Meanwhile for the defenders the guy on a wall always have their back secured + you are not able to shoot them! So in the field battle you can use you cavalry to strike on the back, you have archers that can shoot or you can flank them. On the wall you have none of that!
Yeah , I like the new siege overall but I agree that it often feel too cramped. Some map are okay but some have obstruction everywhere. For the gate problem, maybe only unit with the siege trait should be able to attack gate.
Fantastic video, you finally summarized all of the doubts and frustrations of a tactically minded player who don't want to win (or lose) his/her sieges in TW Warhammer easy. I completely agree on all the points you discussed, besides the one on the chokepoints, where i'd like to have a few open space areas in the settlement but not the whole town/city (with the exception of Bretonnian settlements, which would definitely be better as you illustrated). At the moment, the superficiality of the sieges holds me back from investing in buying TW 2 and 3 and the related dlcs. It must feel empowering for younger players to conquer three settlements in a hour of campaign gameplay, but if you're a tad older and can afford less time for pc games, it's definitely more rewarding having to develop an actual tactic and take a hour or more to win a settlement battle well (as in suffering few casualties). Thanks for the effort, always precious.
Yes! I agree with most of this. Buildable towers & barricades during the battle? Get RID OF IT!! Absolutely despise them. Towers, take days or months to build, not seconds. Ridiculous. Walls and gates! Yes yes yes. I despise that every unit can climb any part, and gates are silly puddy. The elevator walls are also the worst, they are nonsensical. We already have flying units... let's be realistic with our land ones eh? I actually like the size & scale of the cities, but agree that they require some more open areas. Something akin to a forum, things like that.
I mean the biggest thing, by MILES AND MILES AND MILES, the number one unforgiveable sin this game commits.... Walls. The walls.... THE GOD DAMNED WALLS!!!!! They need to mean something, they need to be better and they need to actually make your ranged units useful, they need to be more defendable, they need to provide bonuses and they need to be something there 2 units can share a wall section to allow both melee and ranged units to defend against those scaling them.
Those sieges for Shogun 2 were so good. And it was so simple, just some walls, a few levels, and open space. I want a mod that just ports these maps to Warhammer 3 and see how it feels.
You mention Helms Deep and Minas Tirith as example of cinematic sieges, those aren't 360, and that's exactly what makes them cinematic, they're not as empty. One of the main gripes I had with previous TW games was exactly this, there's no way you can cover the whole city no matter how many units you have, they can just go around and climb walls, I'm super happy it's not 360. Regarding tower ranges, they're perfect, you have spaces on the map where you can avoid them, you're placing units if that's what you want you can go there. If there was easy room to just move around, it would absolutely invalidate them, they're already not as effective as they should be TBH. Regarding building things inside the cities, I think it's a huge improvement over before, it makes you able to actually fight not just get overrun, I agree it's not great implemented, maybe instead of towers have buildable platforms for ranged/artilery, with some special solutions for non range factions. Also regarding choke points, that's the whole point of the sieges, attacker is supposed to be at a HUGE disadvantage, if anything I feel like it's not enough tbh, you should need a huge army to take even a base garrison and probably a super elite army with a LL to take a fully upgraded lvl 5 settlement with max walls, if not 2 armies. That's kinda the whole point, I never got why you're so against the current thing, it's not perfectly implemented, but it's by far my favourite thing about the warhammer 3, I thought it was crazy that before you would just have generic mini land battle with no advantage. All that being said, I absolutely agree with all your suggestions, sieges felt WAY more fun in rome 2 and other games, but tbh I have no idea how it would all be implemented with magic/monsters/flying, I mean... you plan your spikes and oil and fire archers and stuff and Manfred flies in masacres arches spams spells and its all gone. But here's hoping for the future.
Something I think that could be cool or immersive with the whole choke point thing is make abit of the city destructible or building that you have in the settlement be actual buildings you can see in the battle as well. The less buildings in the settlement the more room in the battle map. An make those buildings on the map distructable to the amount of damage the building takes dictates how much campaign map damage it has taken
We've had this in previous total war games. Particularly the siege escalation system from Attila where longer overmap siege resulted in a very battered settlement whenever you actually engage the battle.
Minor Settlement Battles should be a close-copy of the Domination multiplayer game mode. It's a fun game mode that a large portion of the Total War Warhammer 3 community don't interact with since they don't play multiplayer. Moreover, CA wouldn't have to create anything new and instead just scrap the settlement battle maps and adjust some numbers when balancing for campaign. This would be the best solution with the least amount of work since everything already exists. Scrap the wacky and buggy settlement maps (that both the AI and your units can't path for shit through) for simpler, flatter Domination maps (the current Line of Sight bugs for gunpowder units would be less noticeable too!). Adjust the defensive buildings (walls, garrisons, etc) in the campaign map to give even more supply so that you can spawn units (in addition to your initial garrison) at the start of the mode as a sort of choose-your-own garrison. If you want to go one further: have some heroes with a "add supplies in region/province when defending" blue line; this way you can still be rewarded for having heroes out on the campaign map (especially those heroes that have terrible campaign effects/were heavily nerfed from Warhammer 2 to 3). Fuck knows what they need to do about Siege Battles though. Siege Battles will need a total overhaul so I don't expect to see siege changes for quite a long time.
Indeed, siege battle in Warhammer is BORING. Build a tower in one minute in the middle of a battle... God damnit, that's ridiculous. Even the ranged units are almost useless in the wall, this is a downgrade compared to previously Total war games, the Rome 1 have better siege mechanic than Warhammer... That's is just stupid!
This video completely outlines the core issues with WHTW, it's extremely dumbed down and arcadey compared to previous installments. Animations, mechanics, the lack of those little things like pre-battle general speeches in Rome, or formations whatsoever aside from some cavalry ones. It kept me away from WHTW up until immortal empires, and even now, it's very obvious if you're somebody who's played the older games. It's disappointing to view CA from that POV as well, as it's seemingly declined in the quality of it's products.
I really don't even want to play this game until this is fixed. I just booted up after winter sale, got ALL the DLC that I want, was STOKED to play. Was having an absolute blast for hours until I had to defend a settlement. It just sucks the will to play right out of you. I highly doubt CA fixes this though, and it's a big ask for modders, which depresses me thinking that this is just how it's gonna be.
Agree with everything you said. Most of the things you mentioned can also be changes relatively easy compared to massive reworks. Some battle changes to, battles are still way to fast.
The point about gates being destroyed faster by dogs than infantry carrying a battering ram is a good one. It's not an exaggeration to say that at this point battering rams are useless. I don't really care for 360 degree sieges, except in minor settlements, or rare situations. I really disliked in ToB how little of the siege map was utilized during many sieges. Boring waste of space. They were huuuuuge, and my army and the enemy army occupied maybe 1/6th of it. I think the point about choke-points has some merit too. I like choke-points as much as the next guy, they're a big part of being able to mount an effective defense, but I think they're symbolic of sieges feeling the same. Some epic sieges should be sprawling complicated cities, while others should be long entryways, or an extremely fortified entrance, or a place with more open areas (parks or something) as you mentioned. And like what you mentioned with Shogun, I think a multiple wall set up would be a neat design for one siege type. I'd say my two hopes for sieges, and settlement maps in general were more complicated, interesting, and unique settings for major cities, along with smaller unique minor settlements. Like, seeing the local natural features on the campaign map incorporated into the visuals in the siege, or even as part of the strategic layout. For minor settlements, I wanted to see some cool little towns, castles, a fishing village, an orc camp, a mining town, an outpost, a necromancer's hut in a graveyard, an elf grove, not a suburb of Los Angeles. Genuinely one of those cases where less would've been more for me. But I also wasn't interested in the buildables from the beginning out of fear of it becoming like a tower defense game, so while I was kind of biased, I tried to not pass judgement until giving it a try. And so far I feel very neutral about them, but overall am unimpressed. I don't really feel like they added anything, they just feel like a gimmick. If they could be placed anywhere, it would be a little better. If towers looked unique, did unique things, it would be an improvement. I feel fairly limited by resources every time, and they're not very effective, or engaging to build/use. They're also incredibly inaccurate and murder my own guys as often as the enemies. I honestly wish they'd just put the resources towards something else. Ass-ladders have always been a non-issue to me. I feel like whether they're lubed up and stowed away in Sigmund's prison wallet, or dutifully constructed and carried to the wall really doesn't matter to me either way. Would be happy if they were included or not. Literally doesn't matter if you ask me. Also, I never knew how good Shogun 2 looked. That samurai was looking pretty damn good honestly. Kind of surprised. The stages of destruction on walls is a neat feature too, along with gate-burning. Warhammer was my entry point and haven't gotten into the older Total Wars, but pleasantly surprised at some of the features and graphics quality (at least of more recent titles).
Everything is a chokepoint...umm Zerkovich have you been to a city? They are called "streets"! You can 100% move your units around tactically by taking another route to get behind enemy formations. The new maps in TWW3 actually give you a reason to bring cavalry! I think the real problem is too many players wanting to play in real time rather than pausing and actually executing complex strategies, attacking from 5 different directions. Sure if you want to play in real time you can only do simple tactics...
I think the key is the ass ladders and walls. If those are fixed the rest wouldnt feel that bad. Chokepoints are really fun when you are retreating because you lost a wall. I was tinkering with some files, giving my units +40 melee defense on the wall and giving gates 50x the health. It actually felt much better, I felt like its worth to hold the walls. Obviously these numbers are not balanced, but if we dont remove the ass ladders walls should give a very strong boost to defenders. Also ladder climbing speed should be reduced, especially for heavy infantry. That would greatly help even weaker units to overwhelm the attacker and always have a number advantage on the walls and make siege towers more valuable. On the gates, yes, I also think only units with siege attacker should have the ability to attack the gates AND gates should have much more HP. Also we are in a magic world, yet someone just can hit the gate for 5 minutes? There should be burning oil, magic, poison, acid and whatever raining down on them. The gate should have a dmg over time effect on anything attacking it.
form the sound of it sieges have no problems like the point of siege maps is to be defensive with checkpoints to widdle your enemies down. (and are countered by having giants or AOE spells hammer them.) Miner settlements I do agree have a problem, Edit: I play Shogun 2 sieges sucked it was always better to not do sieges and wait. (Way too in favor of defending only thing it got correct was troop losses as they claim the wall.)
But there is a reason to hold all the points. As defender, you get +15 melee defense on all your units. For every small checkpoint the enemy gets, they get a melee attack bonus the more points they have. Saying there's no reason to hold all the points is wrong, and I wish this video was made more informed. Also, if you dont like chokepoints in settlements, then... sorry? Thats how real sieges work. You complain about the unrealistic mechanics of the game when you dont personally like them, but when other mechanics are realistic, you say they aren't fun. The elevators problem is fine for me, I dont want MORE buggy movement as units try to climb up stairs on the walls, and I dont want the added performance costs on an already demanding game either.
Make a new game with next to no new content, expect people to chuck out another chunk of cash for Mortal empires 1.1. While adding quality of life features from previous' games mods that you dont credit, and adding new features in-house that no one wanted and now everyone hates... Then you have influencers and partners telling you this is good, and you should buy this! Then months later, once the money runs dry? Its time to rip it apart. But yea! Keep pre-ordering Total War games!
I think one thing you missed is how the enemy AI would rather defeat you by attrition than fighting even the garrison. In Warhammer 3 the Great Bastion was a letdown since the Kurgan forces would rather whittle you down than fight, and when I do have an army sitting at the great bastion, I'd end up sallying out for a field battle. It makes settlement battles absolute trash. Back in Warhammer 2 I would often pull clutches against a full stack with just a fully upgraded settlement garrison with walls. In Warhammer 3 the AI would siege until your garrison until half health; I get that it gives time for your forces to come in, but at that point what point is the garrison beside being a counter of how long I have to intercept.
Some of the alleged mistakes are actually quite realistic. The defenders usually had methods to exit the fortified city and getting back in, without the attackers being able to follow. Though I admit these methods have not been graphically represented in the game. And fortified cities usually had choke point wherever one could fit, since the defenders expected to be outnumbered. That may make the game less fun to play, but that's how defences actually worked.
so i agree and disagree with your points. the points I agree with. ass ladders shouldn't be a thing. I'd be more than happy to wait a turn or two to build siege ladders, or for the more rush factions, have to get a research that allows troops to use things like grappling hooks or climbing claws (thinking of the, Skaven there) to be able to climb them without the use of ladders or towers. magic elevators need to go as that makes no sense to me either. smaller units should not be able to break down gates and that should only be reserved for monstrous units or single entity monsters. pop up towers and barricades should/ shouldn't be a thing. it makes sense that if you're being sieged for a few turns you could be able to build make shift defences in that time, but they shouldn't just be pop up buildings in a middle of a siege. just pop them down at the beginning to help you pick were you want to fight and hold the enemy when they get in (and they will which I'll get to in a minute) to force the player to have to think on where they are committing their forces. now, the mammoth in the lounge, the walls and gates. they are pointless because they are pointless. your quick to compare them to older games, more specifically the historical games, but ancient, Rome didn't have war hydras, Greece didn't have squads of minotaur's the size of trucks charging the gates. Japan didn't have giants, that in the lore are as tall as castle walls, kicking down brick and mortar like they were made of sand. Beastmen literally have a tier 2 or 3 building that gives them shatter stone on demand for any army that has it. same with the champions of chaos and their chaos gifts that gives it to All armies while its active. Even if that wasn't case there is everything from giant bats, to Pegasus knights and not to mentions dragons that can just fly over walls making them null and void even further. this is why city defence towers have such long range, its the only way you can realistically get any meaningful damage on your opponent before its runs through your walls faster than a finishing line ribbon. this is why choke points and pop up towers are spread around settlements in such disgusting amounts. they are the only real defence a low level defender has a against a tier 3 doom stack. so i can understand why the devs made it the way it is. now that being said i honestly do agree with you that siege battles need to be changed, in the early game I do find them as fun and tough challenges but once you start getting some ringers in your armies or shatter stone they quickly become boring. but its a hard balance to get when your games set in a world were magic and monsters make walls as useful as, Boris Johnson in a pandemic. anyway rant over, hope I least brought some decent arguments and what not. love your videos and content they've been a real help getting me getting better at TWWH3.
05:07 actually it is considered normal for a castle to have many choke points and as few open areas as possible. You want to be able to defend a fortress against a potentially overwhelming amount of enemys, so you dont want to give them a chance to play there cards. So I think, rationally, the amount of choke-points is justified. Even if you want to argue, that it is more of a settlement, than a fortress, there have never been major settlements with huge open areas all over the place. To use your given area effectivly for building housing, choke-points will accure.
