Anyone Else Find Engineering Skill Useless?

[Teralitha]

For the main character especially. There is not one single party leader/clan leader perk. There is 1 ONE army leader perk which is not worth it because you get tons of influence to keep cohesion up anyway, and a couple of personal ones. Otherwise the entire tree is pointless for the main character to learn. Im never putting points in that line ever again.

Also, there is never any point in building any siege weapon other than trebuchet, for ranged.

For me, its just build 4 trebuchets and thats it. once walls break I charge, the end. Dont need ballistas, dont need fiery catapults... dont need a battering ram, dont need towers. i dont even need any engineering skill or perk to do build any of these.

i will say this though, if we didnt have the magic ability to hide our siege weapons it would be a whole different story. Being able to build then instantly hide your trebuchets is totally unrealistic. Where and how do you hide a trebuchet? Remove that ability and maybe engineering would be useful.

Also the amount of passive influence gain we can get is crazy, even if you are not the king. Constant massive armies would not be so common and repetitive if influence wasnt so plentiful.

1. Remove the ability to "hide" siege weapons. Once they are built, they are on the field.
2. Reduce the amount of passive influence gained from various passive sources.
3. Make it so you need higher engineering skill in order to build different seige weapons. It makes no sense why we can build anything and everything with no skill.

0 skill = Battering ram.
50 skill = Towers.
100 skill = Ballista.
150 skill = Catapults
200 skill = Trebuchets.

Settlement defenses should be similarly scaled.
Wall I = Ballista
Wall II = Catapults
Wall III = Fiery ballista and catapults

Simple Solution.

[LEGACY]

I like the idea of minimum skill requirements.
And the wall requirements as well. it makes sense.

Not being able to hide siege weapons though, not sure about that one.
I guess so, with higher engineering you could perhaps build them fast enough to not get stuck in an endless loop of destruction. But wouldn't the attacking army build them out of reach and move them into place all together? They don't look impossible to move.

It always annoyed me that the AI doesn't use the hide option.

[galadon3]

not being able to put away siege weapons is a HORRIBLE idea, that siege mini-game is boring enough as it is, there is no need to artifically prolong it and with the realism you got that actually backwards.

Why the hell would you completely construct them in range of enemy fire?
Why does the enemy not fire on your construction site?
The answer to that is easy: because its an abstraction of you building all the parts (or in case of a balista, catapult,) the whole thing outside range and then bringt it into firing range when you want to use it. And nobody in their right mind would just pit one of them after the other against a whole enemy barrage.
If anything is unrealistic its the fact that they start out on the field and you have to time pause to put them away until you have all 4 ready to go, they actually should start out being in reserve.

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by galadon3:

not being able to put away siege weapons is a HORRIBLE idea, that siege mini-game is boring enough as it is, there is no need to artifically prolong it and with the realism you got that actually backwards.

Why the hell would you completely construct them in range of enemy fire?
Why does the enemy not fire on your construction site?
The answer to that is easy: because its an abstraction of you building all the parts (or in case of a balista, catapult,) the whole thing outside range and then bringt it into firing range when you want to use it. And nobody in their right mind would just pit one of them after the other against a whole enemy barrage.
If anything is unrealistic its the fact that they start out on the field and you have to time pause to put them away until you have all 4 ready to go, they actually should start out being in reserve.

So why are they built in range of the settlements defenses then? Why are they not automatically built in secret, wy must we move them after they are built? None of it makes any sense in its current form.

If the AI cant do it, neither should we be able to do it. its like the player gets to cheat. It cheapens the victory when you are cheating to win.

[galadon3]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

All Im hearing from you is... "No that would be hard, dont take away my easy button."

Yes I already got that your perception of reality is pretty screwed but I can't help you with that.

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Originally posted by Teralitha:

All Im hearing from you is... "No that would be hard, dont take away my easy button."

Yes I already got that your perception of reality is pretty screwed but I can't help you with that.

My perception of reality is reality. I dont need help for that. I mean, it kinda sounds like you are trying to insult me here without actually presenting a sensible argument. People are always complaining that the game is too easy and lacks depth, well here you go. I offer a solution and you immediately cry that it would be 'too hard.' Where ya gonna go next? More insults I would guess. You didnt even answer the topic.

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by LEGACY:

I like the idea of minimum skill requirements.
And the wall requirements as well. it makes sense.

Not being able to hide siege weapons though, not sure about that one.
I guess so, with higher engineering you could perhaps build them fast enough to not get stuck in an endless loop of destruction. But wouldn't the attacking army build them out of reach and move them into place all together? They don't look impossible to move.

It always annoyed me that the AI doesn't use the hide option.

Ive done this before, trubuchets always win in the end. Well... with some engineering perks. But since you can just build 4 of them without any risk and place them all at once, there is no reason for the engineering skill and thats the whole point.

[kristianjakob]

No, not really. It does speed up the siege setup a bit and time spend in the siege camp is potentially your biggest limiting factor during endgame. That said, I never build siege equipment (time again) so I dont really get an opportunity to level it in the first place.

Now, If you were to remove the option to save siege-equipment; then a smaller army would most likely be unable to compete with the garrison. And with a big army you really shouldnt build siege-equipment in the first place. So, it is unlikely that such a change would really improve the game for anyone.

[Teralitha]

Well I dont know bout that... Here is what can happen when you dont build any siege weapons and think you have a big enough army. - 1800ish vs 300ish.

https://youtu.be/gi8_hnsJAR8

You kinda always need to bring siege weapons, unless you like humilating defeats like this one.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Well I dont know bout that... Here is what can happen when you dont build any siege weapons and think you have a big enough army. -

https://youtu.be/gi8_hnsJAR8

You should probably not (I hope) compare yourself to the AI.

[Teralitha]

You are only 1 character in a battle. Anyway i think ive made my point clear.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

You are only 1 character in a battle. Anyway i think ive made my point clear.

You can command your army.

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

Originally posted by Teralitha:

You are only 1 character in a battle. Anyway i think ive made my point clear.

You can command your army.

You can build siege weapons too, and not lose. Where are you going with this? What does this have to do with engineering skill being useless?

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

You can command your army.

You can build siege weapons too, and not lose. Where are you going with this? What does this have to do with engineering skill being useless?

It reduce the time it takes to defeat a faction, I struggle to see what would be more useful than that. It is hardly a useless skill.

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

Originally posted by Teralitha:

You can build siege weapons too, and not lose. Where are you going with this? What does this have to do with engineering skill being useless?

It reduce the time it takes to defeat a faction, I struggle to see what would be more useful than that. It is hardly a useless skill.

But you dont need the skill to build the best siege weapons. And you only need to build them. How fast you build them doesnt matter because you just hide them til they get built. And you just said a minute ago that you dont even need siege weapons. if we dont need to build siege weapons, then we dont eed the skill. You kinda just contradicted yourself. So why are you arguing with me again?

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

It reduce the time it takes to defeat a faction, I struggle to see what would be more useful than that. It is hardly a useless skill.

But you dont need the skill to build the best siege weapons. And you only need to build them. How fast you build them doesnt matter because you just hide them til they get built. And you just said a minute ago that you dont even need siege weapons. if we dont need to build siege weapons, then we dont eed the skill. You kinda just contradicted yourself. So why are you arguing with me again?

Here is the thing.

On average a faction has 15 towns/castles. If you have an army of 2k and pursue a strategy of building siege-equipment, as you suggest, you are going to spend at least 57 days laying siege to take a faction; without skills or perks that speed it up. And that is just assuming that you build 4 siege-engines and the towers and battering ram. Actually taking down the walls will undoubtedly add to that.

So, having some skill will shave off a fair amount of time.

And yes, I dont do that because you can bring that time down to 10 days by just settling with a siege camp only (again, not accounting for perks and skill). Its not because I dont think the skill is useful that I dont have much of it, its just for lack of opportunity to level it.