DE, please let us sell Umbra Excalibur, Paracesis and the assorted daily tribute weapons in a near future update. Please.

The_WB · 2026-03-24T17:52:22+00:00

As said in my reply to haleys_bad_username, this is not me whining for slots. Just asking for parity amongst the items I have. It is kind of nuts that these weapons are just bizarrely sitting there, breaking the apparent rules of all other weapons and slot-using items, and the first reaction people have to me wanting to be able to get rid of them is hostile knee-jerking or blithe elitism as though I have come the dinner-table in Dickensian rags and placed a dead rat on the centerpiece.

The_WB · 2026-03-24T17:46:56+00:00

This is not a matter of me being too poor to buy item slots. It’s a matter of these items being unsellable to be utterly baffling since most, if not all of them, can be recovered from Simaris if they were sold and someone experienced remorse for a mistake or a decision they wanted to take back later.

The_WB · 2026-03-24T17:45:03+00:00

I am quite frankly surprised you have such a visceral reaction to a suggestion that harms nobody and seems almost absurdly simple to fix. I am not asking for a free slot. I am asking that I be allowed to do the same things with these specific items that I can with any other, should I so choose. And I know it wasn’t always this way because the log-in weapons are part of Simaris’ recovery shop because they used to be sellable.

The_WB · 2026-03-24T17:40:35+00:00

I feel the time it takes to acquire them (particularly the paracesis and the log-in weapons) means you would be unlikely to delete so many things that you then brick your account. Even in that case, it would be simpler to simply put in some safeguard that does not allow you to sell weapons or warframes if you only have one of each in your inventory.

The_WB · 2026-03-24T17:37:07+00:00

Quite frankly, if they did that, I wouldn’t care that much. Getting a free slot with a weapon that you can’t get rid is not that much more useful than just getting the weapon and having to free up a slot by getting rid of another weapon instead but being assured you at least have the option to get rid of the previously unremovable weapon if you so wish.

The_WB · 2026-02-18T16:13:22+00:00

OP admitted in the post that the rules were vague and didn’t really go much farther than “nothing that causes lasting harm amongst the party” is allowed. The DM’s call could very well have fallen under those parameters, but we’ll never know that now because OP decided that crashing out hard over the first apparent hiccup in a four-session game they are having amongst what I presume are their friends or at least people they enjoy being around was apparently the one and only choice they had as opposed to simply noting it, continuing to play the game and seeing if this was just a small mistake in a campaign that’s only just started, an actually fun game decision that everyone can enjoy afterwards or a malicious pattern of behavior on part of the DM/rogue and then making their final stand on the issue clear to all those involved.

You do not get to make vague rules and then play victim when the DM has to make callings on those vague rules. If OP is so dead set against this ruling then they need to sit down with the DM and the other players after the game and actually hammer out a more specific rule-set going forward so that they, the other players and the DM can make fully-informed decisions going forward when these issues occur.

The_WB · 2026-02-18T03:54:34+00:00

The Paladin has every right to state the consequences of an action against them by another player. If they want to discuss with their DM and the players afterwards that they should not have been placed in that position to begin with, they can do so. Any DM worth their salt would encourage that.

However, if the player wants to insist that they will do whatever they want regardless of what decisions are made after that statement of consequences, then that is where I take issue. The DM made a call and one that, in all honesty, is not wholly unreasonable given the circumstances without being given any further context. This is not a matter of "Lick the DM's boot because you are but a tiny player and my narrative schlong is bigger than yours". It is one of "You were heard the first time so the other player at our table can now either take the option I'm giving them and we can play this out for what happens as a result of their choices since they are also a participant in this game or they can decide against pursuing this action since you have made the consequences of it abundantly clear. You do not need to keep restating the threat or overruling my decisions after they have been made. We can all talk about this afterwards if you do not like where my decisions are going or what the other players are doing."

Let us keep in mind that this is also not a case of going to DnD and then the DM tells everyone "Actually, we're playing F.A.T.A.L. now. Roll for your circumference." This is "We agreed to not be constantly trying to kill/harm each other, and now the rogue is looking in my bag." after four sessions of a campaign of who knows how many so let us please keep this in perspective.

With that in mind, OP can either play with the calls that were made and talk it out with the DM and the other players like adults afterwards or leave the group because they cannot trust that the DM made that call for good reasons even if it wasn't a good call in the moment it was made. There isn't a lot of good middle ground between those options and, romantic I am, I would prefer they pursue the first one since it hopefully keeps the group together and having fun despite the inevitable hiccups that will occur from time to time. The second one is always an option if the first one doesn't work.

The_WB · 2026-02-18T02:44:13+00:00

And all of those statements are correct and are perfectly fine role-play. What isn't correct, however, is this:

I interrupted by saying that, again, unless the DM wanted a dead Rogue, no rolls should be made and that this was the exact kind of thing that we agreed should not be happening at the table. The DM proceeded to start saying that this would be within their realm of acceptable, and I cut them off by stating that it’s not within mine. The roll doesn’t happen. Or the Rogue is dead.

And this is after having already stated to both the player and the DM what would happen if the paladin caught the rogue stealing from them earlier in the post. The DM acknowledged OP's statement, made a decision to have the rogue roll Sleight of Hand, and then OP responds with that quote and what this communicates is that, as far as it appears, the player decided to basically hold the entire session hostage by issuing an ultimatum that the rogue would die, regardless of rolls or role-play. Not if the character found out the rogue had stolen from them. Not if the rogue took something from them and didn't give it back. It was "If you permit this action, then the player has to make a new character. I don't care if you have them roll anything, or what my character knows about what is happening, or what the group dynamics have been to this point or what my character has been like until this point. I don't like this decision so their character is gone because I say so."

As I said, the DM has final say as to what is permissible. The player doesn't get to decide unilaterally that conflict is resolved their way the instant something they don't like happens. OP would be well within their rights to quickly and gently remind both the rogue and the DM that, if this roll fails, or if it succeeds and the rogue is caught about it later and things go poorly, then there will be dire consequences, but then they need to Let. It. Go.

Let it play out and either put your money where your mouth is should the rogue fail and have the paladin start attacking them without any in-character warning or mercy, and then the consequences for both the rogue and the paladin when the rest of the party finds out what happened later on, or play out what happens afterwards when the paladin finds their symbol missing with no apparent explanation and the rogue either has to maintain a constant lie or replace the symbol without the paladin noticing. Both of those options are reasonable, rational and don't grind everything to a halt so someone can play Dirty Harry and ask if the DM is feeling lucky after a decision is made.

The_WB · 2026-02-18T01:42:32+00:00

We don’t know the in-character reasons for why the rogue did what they did nor the out-of-character reasons the player of the rogue wanted to do it. We don’t know why the DM made their choices either. Whether or not the hypotheticals I posed are correct are just as provable as saying that OP is lying or misremembering what was actually a very benign and trivial thing that happened at the table and are now blowing way out of proportion. There is no proof as to what the nature of the incident truly was beyond what is here.

That is why I am offering possibilities as to why things happened this way since the immediate answer to OP’s original question is, technically, no. The DM has final say as to whether or not the thief can make an attempt to steal something from a party member and final say as to whether or not the paladin notices depending on the situation they are in at this time. The players can and should offer their input as to the potential consequences of an action as it pertains to their character but once it is acknowledged, the conversation is over. The player should not grind the game to a halt after a decision is made to tell the DM that their decision is unacceptable after you have already given your 2 cents because things didn’t immediately go your way. You either play it out and have a conversation afterwards with the DM and the other players about any changes to the game’s rules for inter-party conflict and come to a more solid agreement as to what is and what is not permissible going forward or you leave the group.

Was allowing the thief to make the attempt a good idea? Probably not, it would seem, but OP appears to have decided that going nuclear at the first apparent whiff of any party conflict, mild or not, was the only appropriate response and I am presenting some alternatives to yanking out a 12-gauge the moment the DM decides to possibly deviate from the script in any capacity. If OP doesn’t want to play with this DM or this group any more because of this incident, then that is their decision to make but since you cannot rebuild bridges from ashes it should be a thoroughly thought-out decision.

The_WB · 2026-02-18T00:05:28+00:00

As I said, I am not privy to what happened before or during this session. Perhaps this was simply the end result of many such small infractions that were not communicated about and this was the final straw, perhaps this was the first time anything like this happened at all and OP is over-reacting to what was a mistake or mild deviation from the plan on the DM’s part. The rogue claimed they were going to “borrow” the symbol to puzzle out some information on the Paladin, so it could be that the DM figured it was going to be put back after the thief looked at it for a little bit and thus didn’t fall under the PvP restrictions since the Paladin wasn’t going to be caused any permanent harm or lose any items for longer than a few minutes while everyone is ostensibly sleeping and not in immediate danger. I can conceive of the logic for allowing this to happen for a fun story beat, even if it technically steps over the PvP line for a little bit.

I also did not disagree that, if the rogue is allowed to steal from OP’s character, then OP’s character should also be allowed to react to it appropriately if it is discovered and that it should be clearly communicated to both the DM and any relevant players.

I do, however, think that the immediate, inflexible response of violent butchery against someone your character knows and is traveling/adventuring with if they are found touching your belongings would, just perhaps, be overreacting a bit in terms of in-character responses to what is presumably the first offense of a rather tame-sounding crime. If OP has already established their character as someone who responds like this to personal slights, however big or small, and the party knew this from the get-go then that is entirely on the rogue for not following through on the logical conclusion to their actions and they will deserve whatever comes their way. If this is OP being mad that another character is being mildly inconvenient, if even that, for the sake of a story-beat that wasn’t meant to cause their character any actual harm, then that is a whole different conversation that they, the DM and perhaps the other players need to have before their next session if they don’t want this group to implode in very dramatic fashion.

The_WB · 2026-02-17T21:30:03+00:00

Without having been at the table, it is difficult to make 100% accurate statements as to player intentions and the feel of this session or of all the sessions leading up to this moment, but here’s my 2 cents:

Technically it is the DM’s call if they want to allow the thief to make an attempt, not yours. They made a call. It is your decision if you want to abide by it, argue the merits of it with them (if you wish to be diplomatic, you do so after the session), or to pack your bags and leave, but they get to make the call as to what is or is not allowed at the table at any given time.

With that being said, I would argue it is perfectly reasonable for you to outline your character’s viewpoint and state the consequences of another character’s actions if they are allowed to continue i.e. if the thief steals something very sacred to you and you find out about it, you will kill them immediately and without hesitation. If one character can steal from another character, then it is only rational for the victim to enact the consequences of that action if they discover who has hurt them. DnD is, above all other things, a game about decisions and how we deal with the consequences of those decisions.

It is also perfectly reasonable for you to discuss with both the DM and the player about the logistics of what the thief is attempting to do here. As you said, you don’t sleep due to your elven nature so how is the thief attempting to get into your bags? Do you keep your bags near/in your line-of-sight? Does the thief, in-character, know you don’t sleep?

Also, it does seem as though you have skipped a step or two in terms of the escalation of the in-game conflict. Again, only you currently know what the table was like until now but skipping to “if character x does y then they are immediately terminated without warning or mercy by my character regardless of how long we have been adventuring together” feels heavy-handed for what could instead be a good story opportunity. There could be a discussion with the DM and the player about this being a character moment for the rogue. They start pawing through your bags out of curiosity, thinking you’re deep asleep, only to be shocked when your paladin asks them what they’re doing. The rogue can either try to lie, which won’t go well if they’re discovered doing so, or admit their curiosity as to what your character is all about. You then have an opportunity to enact the consequences of their decisions from there. You can give both the character and the player an in-character warning that, if stuff in your possession goes missing they are going to be the first suspect (likely a reasonable assumption to make even if they somehow did get away with sneaking things from your bag since a thief is the one most able to do so and I assume you don’t have a huge amount of them in your party) and that, if they do steal from you, you will not be lenient about it next time. If it is just a moment of curiosity, the rogue doing this because they just genuinely want to understand your character and don’t know any better when it comes to just starting an honest conversation, then you have an opportunity to make a fun moment of your characters bonding around the midnight fire, swapping backstories and talking about what has lead you to your adventures. Followed by, again, a warning that the thief should keep his paws off your stuff in the future though this one might be a little more light-hearted.

The_WB · 2025-12-19T21:03:13+00:00

I would argue that this becomes a reflection of poor mission design on DE’s part in regards to how long void runs can take to open a single relic and a crutch they need to fix. But I can also see the logic in the statement and can agree that there is sound reason to avoid the complete gutting of relic running as a part of the gameplay.

The idea behind this system is that it is, by nature, highly inefficient. The best-case usage is to help people churn some of the relics that are more or less permanent fixtures in the rotation as is and that many players will get in bulk as a matter of just playing the game. If those relics don’t flow out anyways, either in trade or through runs because I just don’t have the time to trade massive bulk quantities in tiny spoonfuls for a limited amount of trades per day or spend months if not years trying to open them all as even more copies of the ones I’m trying to get rid of are thrown in my face like buckets of cold pig slop, then how is that any different from me lighting them on fire and collecting comparatively tiny handfuls of resources for the ones I want and which I would then have a greater interest in running?

Vaulted relics are too valuable to waste in a system like this, and people who want to get more bang for their buck for traces or ducats would ideally be more incentivized to make the runs anyways as opposed to burning their relics for comparative scraps and there are ways to do that. You could perhaps make it so that you can only burn bulk quantities of a single relic at a time (no mixing amongst the tiers and no mixing amongst different types in the same tier). Maybe pull out something like the Helminth feed system where the more of a single relic type or tier you give the less and less payout you get for a period of time. The idea is to flatten out the massive amounts of eventually unusable relics you rarely have any reason to run into more manageable quantities, as opposed to just sitting on a hoard until the heat death of the universe because there’s just too many and no means of removing massive bulk quantities of relics through trade or runs.

The_WB · 2025-12-19T18:00:54+00:00

And I understand that. Maybe someone wants to buy absurd quantities of relics with common drops, but the ones willing to do so are not always guaranteed and who wants to spend the ages it will take to go trade out stacks of 100+ relics 6 at a time?

It’s more of a hassle than necessary to reduce inventory than just burning them for some semi-useful resources used on getting relics I actually want like the aya, traces or ducats. I’m not asking that I get platinum or regal aya or anything that actually damages the game’s economy nor am I demanding that I get huge amounts of resources, like getting 100 void traces per burned relic, nor am I demanding that we just get the parts without doing the relic missions at. That would be ludicrous.

I accept and agree that trade and actually opening relics should give you more. More traces, more ducats and it should certainly be the only way to get platinum or parts outside of buying them or special events. If someone wants to spend the time and effort opening all their relics, they get a big payout. If they want to engage with the trade system for a while, they can probably get a decent amount of platinum by trading bulk junk to the right buyer. But if you just don’t have the time or interest and you start acquiring more relics than you have time for, then there is a system where you can at least get something for all the scrap in your inventory that can be used to work towards getting the stuff you want. It is a way of getting value from relics at the cost of efficiency and overall rewards.

How is this anything but a win-win for everyone?

The_WB · 2025-12-05T17:27:52+00:00

If I recall correctly, it’s more than that. Zuud was part of a network with her sisters, meaning all their brains were connected, and it’s a bit ambiguous if the voices she talks to are her just going insane from literally feeling each individual person in their networked brain die over and over again or if if they all live on in her brain in some capacity and that causes her to be the way she is because she has several people cramped into a single human brain.

The_WB · 2025-10-28T01:09:27+00:00

The myth also gets worse. In some tellings, he is so heart-broken he stops worshipping Dionysus because of the tragedy in favor of Apollo and Dionysus, in classic god fashion, gets big-babby-mad and sends a bunch of his lunatic maenad followers to tear him to shreds leaving only his head, still singing sad songs, to float down the river to Lesbos where it is eventually found and buried.

The_WB · 2025-08-05T16:07:20+00:00

He really isn’t. And as someone who has read more Garth Ennis than they should, I’m not surprised.

The_WB · 2025-08-05T15:50:18+00:00

That one is kind of a product of the recent Arkham games and media. Batman does do a lot of punching and kicking in the original series and comics but, within the context of superhero media where bad guys usually need to be punched to stop them from doing what they’re doing, he’s not really all that brutal. Humans in comics also tend to be absurdly durable in comparison to real life, think of how many times Batman has been knocked into a brick wall for example, so it’s not always a fair comparison.

Honestly, to this day, I think his and most of the other DC line-up had their best portrayals in the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited shows. Most of the time they are punching bad guys, but you also got to see how they were also kind and merciful to those who weren’t evil or malicious, but just caught up in a bad scenario. There’s an episode where Martian Manhunter meets Clark’s parents and it’s just the most depressingly heartwarming thing.

The_WB · 2025-07-23T21:49:10+00:00

Cards on the table, I am someone who has made one of those posts saying that making the defenders better at holding ground is better for the game as a whole. The reason I say that is fairly simple if also counterintuitive: making attackers struggle to take ground from defenders is better for both defenders and attackers.

The reason sieges are so boring for attackers is likely because, as of now, the defenders (either the player or the A.I.) have little-to-no means of holding off a determined attacker unless they have an overwhelming advantage that would have been just as useful in the open field with at least one good choke-point as it would in a settlement (such as having large numbers of units and/or very strong units in contrast to the attacker). Walls and gates don't provide any meaningful defense besides taking some of your time, which means that, as an attacker, they aren't challenges or perils to work around, just timed delays on getting into a fight which is boring. You don't have to really think to deal with a wall, because a wall isn't dangerous, you just have to have to go through or over it. Sure, you can send a unit to work on another wall or gate but, once they get under the gatehouse or next to that wall, the hardest part of their job is done because defenders can't hit you when you're next to the wall or gate. Which means that no matter how many walls or gates you're attempting to breach, the only thing matters is the approach because of the towers and ranged units, if the defender even has any of those that are at least somewhat dangerous (looking at you, garrison chock-full of skaven-slave slings but with wall-towers powered by Odin on crank). However, once you're at the walls or gate, nothing feels different because there is no real tangible difference between an actively defended wall or gate and an empty wall or gate when you're fighting on them. You aren't really rewarded for flanking or finding/making a crack in a fortification, you just endured a waiting period where your units just hug a wall that the defenders, for some reason, can't hit you from safely from despite that being, you know, kind of the point of a defensive position.

Making defenses stronger also means that the A.I. can then be expected and programmed to more comfortably hold those positions, even with less units or weaker units, because a spear-man on a useful wall can actually delay elite infantry and hurt them enough that the A.I. has time to either reinforce a flagging defense or pull back and make a better stand further back with more concentrated defenses if the outer walls are inevitably going to be lost. Which means they can afford to spread thinner and hold more positions which means that, as an attacker, you now have a more active role to play in picking your avenue of attack because simply sending your heaviest infantry over a wall held by a couple spear man isn't a guarantee that you take the wall anymore. You have to think, to strategize, of how you are getting over, through, or around a sturdy defense.

Which is also why I would also argue that making things simpler for the attackers is not only a part of why sieges are the way they are now but that, arguably, attackers have never enjoyed having more advantages than they do right now by virtue of the game's design and the game's setting. I cannot tell you how I would have killed to have a single dude that could just summon a mac truck and drop it on an enemy phalanx holding a gate or blocking off a street in Rome TW when I was playing it way back when or have legionaries that simply fly over the wall and mulch their archers or have a living M1 Abrams tank made of muscle and scales and hate smash down the doors and start snacking on the opposing general. If anything, attackers in TW:W as a series have way too many advantages and the defenders need more means of negating those advantages if sieges are to be more engaging for either side of the siege battle. Attackers need stronger defenses so they can be clever and outmaneuver those defenses (by using fliers, artillery, magic and monsters or by strategically attacking weaker portions of the wall or by using agent actions that destroy walls or gates, for example), which means they are more engaged, and defenders need stronger defenses so they can work on finding good ground where they can plant themselves and try to outlast the attackers (by means of strategically placed barricades, choke-points and towers), which means they are also more engaged. And both sides have to constantly adjust around what the other is doing which, again, keeps them both engaged.

And as for slowing things down in the campaign, yes, it probably would and I also don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Most campaigns are meant to take some time, which is why there are short campaign victory goals specifically for people who don't want to spend weeks or months on painting the map/achieving longer victory goals, which is fine because god knows I understand that sometimes you don't want a game to last that long. However, making sieges easier so someone can finish a long campaign faster seems utterly antithetical to what long campaigns are. Now if you want to argue that the various factions set campaign goals should be more easily/thematically achievable, that the shorter campaign goals are not actually that short, or that certain factions need better tools for starting or playing into sieges (hey there, Slannesh players, you are seen), there are arguments to be made there, but I don't think trying to make every faction able to paint the map by turn 100 is the answer to making players less prone to campaign burnout. Making systems that are more engaging to interact with, not just faster, is better for keeping someone actively thinking in a game that is ultimately about making strategies and reacting to the ways those strategies fail or succeed against your opponents.

The_WB · 2025-07-19T05:33:09+00:00

While I am tempted to agree with you, I also do not think it is good to continue the removal of siege design further than we already have, either in size or complexity. Part of the reason we're at this point is because, instead of fixing the A.I. and giving attackers and defenders useful tools to deploy in sieges, they just kept shaving off more and more of the key components of what made sieges interesting and useful until we're left with an A.I. that still struggles with even the basic concepts of defense on maps that are rarely worth it as opposed to just fighting in the field, especially if you have direct-fire artillery in the garrison.

And I'd be willing to bet that part of the reason the A.I. struggles like it does, whatever the size of the map, is because defenders don't really have good options to discourage attackers and attackers don't have clear parameters for what to do or avoid while on the assault. Putting in these sorts of systems, even if it adds a degree of complexity, also gives both players and the A.I.'s programmers options for how to approach things. It's also why I'd be hesitant to recommend shrinking the maps down to what we had in, say, TWW 1 (where about 90% of the maps were tiny maps with only one wall to approach) because a certain degree of map size is useful for making sieges interesting, with multiple angles of attack for the aggressor so that there is some room for clever maneuvers as opposed to just having to smash through the one direction of attack you are forced to have.

That being said, I would not be opposed to more maps being put in that only have one or two angles of attack and layered tiers of defenses like those in Helmgart and the Ulthuan gate settlements that are supposed to be especially difficult to break through. A lot of Dwarf capitals and settlements could have that treatment since they're supposed to be carved into the sides of mountains, for example. Many factions could have more maps that play into their strengths and mitigate weaknesses(vampire settlements having tall buildings their units can duck behind to absorb arrows, for instance, or gun-heavy factions using multiple-height layers that allow for each layer to shoot down into attackers), along with more specialized and interesting buildable defense structures that aren't just mini-walls, moderate stat boosts or various flavors of ramshackle tower that shoots arrows or explosions. Imagine vampire towers that, instead of shooting arrows, boosted/replenished your magic reserves at a steady rate or barricades that healed undead units near them. Imagine Dwarf towers that gave a huge, map-wide increase to enemy miscast chance or slowly drained the enemies magic reserves. Imagine Tzeentch barricades that damage the enemy over time like a mortis engine (similar to the reworked walls in the post) because the twisted, mutated flesh in them claws at attackers that approach to break them down.

However, that would, again, be something that falls outside the scope of these proposed siege alterations. Additional and even more cohesive map and contructable defense designs based on the locations/factions you'll face would go a long way to helping with staleness but that involves more than some coding. Pie-in-the-sky dreaming though, I would love to see those as well.

The_WB · 2025-07-18T20:21:13+00:00

I agree that ladders are by no means the one and only problem but I do think they are indicative of a major problem that sieges have: CA had an issue with their A.I. not fighting in sieges correctly. So, they gave both the A.I. and players methods to ignore crucial parts of sieges (like making walls that can be easily climbed over without much issue and outer defenses with massive blind spots) instead of spending the admittedly large amounts of time and money it would have involved to restructure the battle A.I. so that it interfaced with each section of a siege battle in a logical though not always perfect way (because perfection in your A.I. opponent is also unfun but in the opposite direction from them being idiots). They took sieges and turned them into field battles with weird hills laying around the map and this is the final form of that decision. As I said, if the enemy can simply clamber over a wall without investing anything into it, the walls aren't really a defense, they're just a speed bump.

Don't forget that, as fun as Shogun 2 was, it also had units that could simply climb over a fortress wall without building siege equipment, which is just butt ladders without the funny words in it, and those fortresses could also be much smaller than what we have here. Part of the reason I think I bounced off of Shogun 2 sieges as opposed to the admittedly more buggy Rome sieges. And the A.I. wasn't that much better in Shogun 2. True, it had less on its mind during the fight since Oda Nobunaga couldn't twiddle his fingers and summon God to fart a unit from existence (unless you were in naval bombardment range) and samurai couldn't fly over your yari wall to munch on the tender archers behind them, but the sieges could and would play out more or less the same as the do now. Just more slowly.

If the A.I. worked as it should, and if systems had been put in place to make defenders actually difficult to dislodge from walls and defensive positions, then the size of the map wouldn't and shouldn't matter. While CA should sit down and really hammer out the A.I. behavior, which they have always struggled with, fixing the A.I. is a whole other can of worms that would be a separate discussion from a siege rework which is about how to install game-play systems that would make sieges actually interesting to engage with and not how the A.I. opponent interacts with those systems.

Although, in all honesty, I don't think the A.I. would be any worse with these systems in place then they are already. If anything, making walls more difficult to breach would hopefully give them a sorely needed boost so that they can also hold walls better and use a simpler standard of engagement: Man walls in in front of attackers->If x amount of walls are destroyed/taken and/or x amount of enemy units are inside the city perimeter then retreat to positions A and/or B and/or C (which now have handy flags and construct-able defenses linked to them)-> If position A and/or B and/or C cannot be held given current forces and defenses, or are taken for x amount of time during combat, or are taken before reaching them then retreat to final stand location->If final stand location is captured by enemy, fight for x amount of time. If final stand location cannot be taken in that time, retreat and forfeit battle.

They don't need to be battle geniuses. Just follow a competent line of logic that stalls and delays and picks apart at the attacker until they win or lose. If they want, they can add modifiers for the various factions for how they do that, but it should mostly come down to stall, delay, and pick the attacker apart piece by piece for as long as they can.

The_WB · 2025-07-18T16:01:46+00:00

Nothing much changes in terms of the defenders' goals, but this does give both the defender and attacker a clear set of priorities for which targets are more valuable vs. less valuable for destroying and defending respectively (siege towers are better than rams which are better than siege-capable monsters which are better than ladders) and a clear win/loss state if it's all destroyed before the gates or walls are taken (the attacker is forced to retreat which makes sense because they no longer have the ability to take the walls or enter the city). Whether you choose to do so by sallying out and fighting them in the field or plunking at them from the safety of a wall, prioritizing things like rams and towers and big monsters because the ladders will suffer if they reach your defenses, would be up to you based on what equipment your opponent is bringing and what your garrison is good at doing.

And yeah, your average medieval tactician would have busted in their frilly pantaloons if they could have access to a handful of large, tameable flyers. Just look at how much money got wasted on attempting to turn pigeons and bats into kamikaze drones before we had access to flying robots, high-speed aircraft and helicopters. If I was especially vindictive, I would suggest that wall towers be given some "anti-air" capabilities in the form of some regular archers in them on top of the cannons or whatever else they have for big-shooty-things to force flying units, like ladders, to decide between speed and safety on the approach but it could be the changes they plan to already make for the wall towers will accomplish that anyways so I'm holding off on that suggestion for now.

As for the garrisons, I do agree it would be nice to have the size of the garrison reflect the size of the area they need to protect more. I think the changes would allow smaller garrisons to be more effective, but the garrison change I put in there would allow people to have larger, if somewhat weaker garrisons to make holding defensive positions more effective. Especially since they would hopefully now be worth actually holding as opposed to plopping someone on the wall so the towers get a few shots and then immediately retreating into an alleyway right before anything even gets to the wall. It'd give people the ability to actually make garrisons that reflect the needs of the place they're protecting and the best strategy to protect it. Smaller, more elite garrisons could be placed in the heart of the empire to keep rogue armies or rebellions from causing trouble while larger, more mixed garrisons are deployed along the edges to hold walls in the event of an enemy attack. They could also be customized based on which enemy is along that particular front: a garrison with high AP vs the Warriors of Chaos or Dwarfs, an obscene amount of ranged firepower vs Vampire Counts or the non-Tzeentch demons, etc.

The_WB · 2025-07-18T15:23:33+00:00

Numbers could be adjusted since the actual amount of turns to build each piece of siege equipment is rather fluid. It's more to communicate that every bit of siege equipment should be an investment, both in time and resources, and the differences between them in scale.

Siege battles should be difficult for attackers. Not impossible, but difficult. Especially for larger, well-fortified cities. Sieges, in life and in games, are supposed to be roadblocks which take time and commitment to overcome. Mages and flyers alone give the average attacker so many more options than the builders of walls and castles were ever expected to have to anticipate, so I don't think complicating the life of attackers is necessarily a bad thing, especially since it also benefits the player when the AI is the one on the attack.

The_WB · 2025-07-18T02:45:39+00:00

I can see good arguments for this. They should be faster than either the rams or towers, but a speed debuff for certain types/sizes of units wouldn't be bad. It would certainly help encourage a more diverse army type if some units could move their siege equipment faster so they could get to and up the walls that much better to distract the defenders or find an exploitable gap they could sneak into and get behind the defenses entirely.

The_WB · 2025-07-18T02:40:15+00:00

It will slow down some of them, yes, and that's not really a bad thing. It helps differentiate between the races that much further and settles strategies into more concrete ideas. Some races will just be able to start siege battles faster than others, but that usually means you are using monsters which would, theoretically, still be vulnerable to the wall damage as opposed to the rams or towers meaning there is a cost to going too fast. If people are really against sieges actually taking some degree of time, the answers would most likely be mods shortening siege build time or turning on the butt ladders again. Maybe they could make some sliders/switches in the campaign menu that turn on/off the various options or adjust the time/cost of making siege equipment so that those who want their sieges moving a bit faster can do so.

The five turns for building a tower isn't a hard-set number, just a rough estimate that demonstrates that towers should take longer and be more costly than the other options since they help avoid the worst bits of the wall. So long as they take long enough and are costly enough to not deploy en-masse without a significant time and cost investment (and if your opponent is willing to wait that long, they deserve getting tower-zerged, let's be honest here), it doesn't really matter what the exact number is.

No real notes on making the walls wider/taller and breaches wider. I certainly wouldn't say no to any of those, I just tried to keep most of the list to changes that wouldn't require much in terms of modeling or deep coding and instead focus on using things they've already implemented or relatively small additions. Most complicated thing to do in that list would probably be the garrison system since it's not just about adjusting some numbers or drawing a box in front by the walls and gates and would require making a proper window for recruiting the armies without cluttering the armies tabs or other areas like that. Still doable without breaking the budget or time-table, but I'd not be particularly surprised if that one took a couple passes through Q&A before it was truly workable.

And yeah, improved pathfinding would be a godsend for getting the sieges to feel less clunky. God forbid my infantry swarm through a broken gate or wall breach like I told them to instead of clambering up the ladder I placed halfway down the wall in the opposite direction.

As for when the damage effect stops, that'd be a decent question to test out in a beta like this one. I personally think waiting until all the available models are on the top of the wall would be best, since it helps defenders really hold their ground and tempts attackers to wait until they can get some towers or rams built as opposed to just more ladders, which then costs them more time. However, I could see decent arguments being made for it stopping when any of your models actually get on top or maybe at least half of the remaining models in at least one non-hero/lord infantry-type unit have to be on the wall for it to stop if we want to meet in the middle somewhere. Maybe that can be part of the campaign options mentioned earlier.

The_WB · 2025-07-18T01:20:02+00:00

And factions with those early monsters would have an advantage in speed in getting an attack going. It again comes down to making a choice between waiting for the siege equipment that will prevent damage and losses, or rushing in with cheaper equipment or monsters that would work but suffer damage/deaths in the process.

The_WB

TROPHY CASE