Walls

[Lou the Lou]

I understand it's been talked to death, but I haven't played in a couple years. And all I have to say is: I absolutely hate not being able to build walls in my minor settlements.

I've seen all the discussions and reasons, and I'm not looking to start a one. I'm just throwing my chip into the "this is dumb" pile. This was a jury-rigged response, and really kills my motivation to play (territory is so much harder to hold).

So many good ideas for fixing the "problem" were put forth, but CA apparently just said, "Nah, we're just going to remove the ability to wall minor settlements completely. But you know what we'll keep? The lame in-battle scrap and build mechanic. And being able to move an army from settlement to settlement in a turn or two. And complicated city layouts. Gotta make the pathing in cities as disruptive as possible, because *that's* not a problem at all. Nope, can't be. Gotta maintain that realism, after all."

And I really don't want to hear that it was because the player base wanted it (again, not looking for a discussion, just adding my two cents). People who come to the forums are in the minority within the player base, and I'd bet anything that the players who actually wanted this change were a minority within that minority. Even if there was a vote held, it would be skewed towards people who want the change, because they'd be actively looking for ways to achieve that.

And of course, this is paired with what have become disappointingly pitiful garrisons. What the heck happened to my ability to defend my settlements without keeping an active army in every other one?

Like, really. I might as well just play Wood Elves.

[Grubbs008]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876864283


Here you go.

[Lou the Lou]

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Here you go.

Thanks. I'm aware of the existence of one or more mods which brings them back, but I play vanilla.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

I largely agree with you, in my case I never had a problem with WH1/2 style sieges. Build a wall, get a wall to defend during sieges. They can only come from one direction and that's that. It's simple but I found it fun, I had some really epic defenses on my campaigns back in the previous two games.

Only thing I wish this game had were unique maps for important cities and capitals, but they instead decided to waste their time with the current horrible, horrible system. Oh well.

[Fiur]

Only issue I had with the removal is that people who already put a few hours into the game can't get their money back. Settlement / Siege battles are a key component of the game. I haven't gotten close to the game since they patched the walls out. Been playing a bit of WH2 from time to time. If not for the wall removal I would've probably been on 4k hours by now. Because I loved the second game (never played the first).

[Ainess]

As someone who hardly ever built walls in any of my settlements, I agree (that the walls should not have been removed, necessarily).

But at the same time, why do you even WANT walls? They do practically nothing, they have been garbage since the first game, and still are despite now finally at least having a bit of a buff for the defenders. Minor settlements are generally more defensible than major ones, so if defensibility is the concern, not sure what the point is.

[Zoey]

I think these design choices were made to try to avoid more difficult work. It's a 'good enough' cut corners attempt at making a functional but not great system. It's no secret that TW siege AI has always been terrible. This lead to less aggressive AI that would instead starve you out rather than actually fight.

Which both isn't fun and is easily countered. Either by a close enough army to come in as relief or giving you enough turns to raise an army right next door that can intervene. But with this admittedly less fun and effective defense mechanic. It makes it easy enough for the AI to actually attack and so they do effectively.

As for garrisons themselves this is a real issue as the only time they tend to make a real difference is if you already have a fielded force present as well. It's a completely legitimate complaint. Now we have the issue that there are so many powerful legendary lords as well that any of them decently leveled can even easily solo a garrison force.

I think the game is in a predicament that will never see a solution to this issue. How do you make some garrison defending unit relevant in a game where top tier legendary lord magic user flying through the sky can devastate them with a single spell?

[Grubbs008]

Originally posted by Lou the Lou:

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Here you go.

Thanks. I'm aware of the existence of one or more mods which brings them back, but I play vanilla.

Yikes, I need 40 mods just for this game to be enjoyable. But good on you i suppose.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Lou the Lou:

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Here you go.

Thanks. I'm aware of the existence of one or more mods which brings them back, but I play vanilla.

You want the devs to change something you can change yourself. What. You even say you absolutely hate it yet won't do anything about it. I'm guessing you'd be joyous if the devs made the change apply to every single gamer worldwide, but you can't just make it apply to your games?

[dolby]

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Originally posted by Lou the Lou:

Thanks. I'm aware of the existence of one or more mods which brings them back, but I play vanilla.

I need 40 mods just for this game to be enjoyable.

Yikes indeed in every game most players play vanilla even in the most mod heavy popular titles..

[Fiur]

Originally posted by Sauske:

They do practically nothing, they have been garbage since the first game, and still are despite now finally at least having a bit of a buff for the defenders. Minor settlements are generally more defensible than major ones, so if defensibility is the concern, not sure what the point is.

They did plenty.
-Slowed AI's advance as they usually didn't assault immediately.
- AI often scaled the walls with the units if they didn't have any Siege towers left. Meaning they would be out of Stamina and would fight against fresh Units.
- Gate was a choke point against Cavalry.
- If the walls become too dangerous for the units in combat you can defend at the bottom of the walls. (Loved to do that with the Kroxis.

Yes - Settlement battles can kind of acchieve some of those too. For me personally it was just the time the AI spend sieging. I would have time to react and send an army that was close by or rally the renowned troops.

Even on higher difficultys they were important to slow enemy's advance.
I still think they should have just split the defensive building in 2 different Tiers. Walls being more expensive in that regard for example. Less troops. Settlement cheaper and more troops.

But alas nothing we can do now. I still wait for the day they reintroduce walls for minor settlements. If that happens I will gladly spend the money to get all the DLC's and play again. (I'm aware of the mod's but I like to play Vanilla on my Achievement runs).

[Ainess]

Originally posted by Fiur:

Originally posted by Sauske:

They do practically nothing, they have been garbage since the first game, and still are despite now finally at least having a bit of a buff for the defenders. Minor settlements are generally more defensible than major ones, so if defensibility is the concern, not sure what the point is.

They did plenty.
-Slowed AI's advance as they usually didn't assault immediately.
- AI often scaled the walls with the units if they didn't have any Siege towers left. Meaning they would be out of Stamina and would fight against fresh Units.
- Gate was a choke point against Cavalry.
- If the walls become too dangerous for the units in combat you can defend at the bottom of the walls. (Loved to do that with the Kroxis.

Yes - Settlement battles can kind of acchieve some of those too. For me personally it was just the time the AI spend sieging. I would have time to react and send an army that was close by or rally the renowned troops.

Even on higher difficultys they were important to slow enemy's advance.
I still think they should have just split the defensive building in 2 different Tiers. Walls being more expensive in that regard for example. Less troops. Settlement cheaper and more troops.

But alas nothing we can do now. I still wait for the day they reintroduce walls for minor settlements. If that happens I will gladly spend the money to get all the DLC's and play again. (I'm aware of the mod's but I like to play Vanilla on my Achievement runs).

-which is useless, because it just delays the inevitable. Assuming you have good ranged units and/or artillery, sure, they can buy you some time you can use to shoot at the enemy... except not really. It would have been better to shoot at the enemy marching at you in the open, or, even more so, through the bottlenecks of a minor settlement, rather than trying to get at them behind the walls/on top of walls/in the open when they are not blobbed up at all.
-which is again pretty much useless, being out of stamina has never stopped the AI from wreaking havoc on my units atop the walls, even if my units were roughly the same quality. It does something, but it does very little. Also, the stamina penalty gets applied over time, not immediately, so the first attackers are not really fatigued.
-sure, gate is a chokepoint against cavalry and other large entities, but a minor settlement has chokepoints everywhere, so you can't get flanked and can just block any of those just about as well, except you can actually shoot them properly there.
-and defending at the bottom does what exactly? This just showcases my point, the walls are garbage if you are incentivized to not use them and instead do something that provides no benefit other than shield you from ranged attacks.

Idk, the AI would also often wait to assault a minor settlement, and they can assault a walled settlement as well if they have a siege attacker, which they usually will unless we are talking really early game.

Personally, I barely care what they do with the walls as long as they remain as crap as they are. There need to be VAST buffs to the defenders, or VAST debuffs to the attackers on ladders. And breaking down the gate should be slightly more difficult (restricted to fewer units and slower). Then people might actually bother using siege towers and battering rams, and assaulting the walls with ladders would take the death toll it historically did.

[Necropants]

Originally posted by Lou the Lou:

Originally posted by Grubbs008:

Here you go.

Thanks. I'm aware of the existence of one or more mods which brings them back, but I play vanilla.

Then you truly deserve the clown awards you get.
You don't want a solution you just want to cry about it.

I agree with you about the walls btw, and I agree the mobile defence BS should be removed.
But you can literally fix this in your game. If you choose not too, thats on you...