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[Neonivek]

Well it doesn't HAVE to be two dwarf portable, but it should be very difficult to transport it.

Heck it would be interesting if weapons like the Scorpian could be used by larger creatures as if they were normal weaponry.

[Starver]

Though I don't think there should be so much of the explosive stuff, doesn't really fit with the DF tech thing

Nope, me neither, I just tagged it on because mortars were a handy reference. 

Though, after I wrote it, I wondered if Mortars were ballistically more like the slingers, high shot, to aim down on something, even behind tall walls and obstacles, and Rockets/Canon might inhabit the Chucker/Loose[1] categories one way or another, depending on which one you thought had the flatter (i.e. more direct-fire) trajectory.  If that's the way you want to classifiy them, though it would simplify the accuracies of game physics if you went that way.

[1] Because you don't "fire" arrows, you "let loose" them.  Well, maybe you do if they're flaming arrows.


@Neonivek: c.f. Detritus the Troll (Discworld) and his Siege Catapult as a personal sidearm?

[BlazingDav]

High arcs are tactically valued for firing over walls to hit targets that would bring value to hitting in a drawn out siege, in DF typically forts would be under the ground and external structures would be for the purpose of securing entry into the mountain normally, technically smashing through floors should be possible, but enemies would and should not have privvy knowledge to underground structures, neither does it fit in their sight, but also itd provide unfair info which they could make the most of and dig (or smash) into your fort possibly before you can handle them.

Though with the fog of war thing, the process of targetting would probably have to completely change, to be honest I'm not sure how, but probably something like, get in, taking out targets in the way and creating a route there, by whatever means necessary, then get in and wreck carnage, I'd almost say they should be forced to explore every entry point they are faced with before going directly to your dwarves.

[mattyb3]

Yes, i think adding or improving siege engines, at least in time for the army arc is a good idea. I'd love to see goblins bring catapults to fire at my fortress, or humans to bring siege towers to defeat high walls/fortifications.

I Don't think these siege engines should be limited in size, but i do think it should be much harder to build the bigger ones.

Although more rare, enormous siege machines where built in the real world, several in ancient times. For example, there was the, Helepolis, built in 304 BC to take the greek island city of Rhodes. This thing was huge; It was over 130 feet high and 60 feet wide! It weighed 160 tons, and actually had two massive catapults inside the tower itself that could be fired.

I'm pretty sure that Alexander the great built something similar, too.

[Starver]

A decent enemy AI would 'target' accordingly.  NPI.

Pesky Fortification-protected bowmen?  Direct-fire them into submission (hit the fortifications, and possibly damage the bowmen behind it while opening up a gap that your troops, possible equipped with ladders to scale climb up the level, or across a channel can swarm through).

Tightly-closed solid castle walls surrounding farmland and various outdoor/simply-built surface buildings containing the workshops, everyone unconcerned because skirmishes are guarding the external walls?  Fling a few stones high over to rain down on their parade, from a distance while your foot-troops buffer the intervening ground.

Yes, it would depend on the enemy knowing what was there, and how much they knew.  And happening to smash through into the hidden subterrainean dining rooms would be a side-effect, not an aim.

This may be beyond DF's currently capabilities, but it's a thought.

[BlazingDav]

True, but maybe giving different units different aims which would progress would help, e.g. a battering ram would target the first raised bridges it could find, then target the first buildings it could find, then whatever other points of interest it can find like buildings and soldiers.

Ballistas would of course target infantry through fortifications, cant really see them as building destroyers =P

Catapults would target buildings they can 'see' regardless of whether anything is in the way, they would just raise the arc if they can if they don't hit it or keep trying *imagines legendary siege operator aiming with deadly precision* either way they wouldn't have an issue with having to target through constructions, but would when they have to target through landscape.

Infantry, would try to path to a dwarf or an underground entrance I'd say every... 5000 steps I guess? Or something so they don't lag everything up, but until they find one they would split up between guarding siege engines from attack by creating a patrol in a circle around them, of course changing for when it is directly set next to a cliff or something, though like wagons I guess siege engines could be given a space limit extending beyond their build, like a z or two where the infantry would patrol negating the issue, this would naturally include their 1 man siege engines. But for more insteresting behaviour, maybe enabling infantry to split, so that once an entrance is finally available, if there are others that don't have a visible path to, the siege engines would target around the next one and a % of infantry would stay behind to guard them.

Travel siege equipment would be an issue I guess, friendly fire should definetly apply to siege engines, but enemy infantry running to a wall with ladders and grappling hooks while its being pulverised by siege engines wouldn't be practical... maybe something where a portion of infantry try to sneak in like an ambush and take over an entrance such as the 'gate house' though really if they find a drawbridge, they should be able to drop it whether they can access the appropiate lever or not. If that fails, siege engines get to work, if not infantry roll in and once they get through the entrance the siege engines would just continue destroying stuff for the sake of it I guess =P

[Neruz]

Historically if you were trying to storm the walls you tended to stop shooting at them.

[Iden]

Going for handheld, and inserting 2x2 into the mix (because 5x5 really seems too big, so reclass 3x3 as massive).

Size\Type	Chuck	Sling	Loose	Bash	Climb
Handheld (personal weapon)	Atlatl	Slingshot	(Cross)bow	Sledgehammer	Grappling hook
1x1 (two-dwarf portable)	Onager	?	Scorpio	Small ram	Ladder
2x2 (built in place/haulable, faster/multi-shot)	Mangonel	?	Polybolos	Battering ram	Siege Platform
3x3 (built in place, or with wheels for beast-haulage)	Catapult	Trebuchet	Ballista	Roofed ram	Siege Tower
Explosive (just for completeness)	Mortar	?Rocket?	Canon	Petard	!!RocketPack!!

Dwarfpower[1]-wise, I'd say only one dwarf needed to operate all these, though two/three dwarf-teams needed to dwarfhandle the portables to where they are needed, after workshop manufacture and during the turning tides of battle, and 2x2s and suitably large beast/set of beasts needed to haul the 3x3, if constructed with wheels.  Also a team of (say) 3 could speed up the 3x3 projectile items (loader, aimer, firer) mean the ram force wasn't insignificant and keep the tower servicable under enemy reprisals (once the bull elephant has been coerced into shoving it into position) on top of the latter's need for troops to take advantage of the created entryway.

The slingers and, to lesser extent, the chucker would need a headroom for their shots appropriate to their ballistic track.  Ditto the larger towers (extensible in situ, according to need, as long as they're not needing repairing) along their path of dragging.  This might feed into the Improved Pathing Algorithm discussions (at least some of the more extreme blue-sky-thinking parts).


[1] As I said before, I don't think dwarfs would use the likes of Siege Towers in attacking, but instead rely on sappers for the same sort of purpose, coming up through the floor, if not collapsing sections of the wall in ways the current cave-in system doesn't allow.  Differing cultures would have favouritism/disregard for various classes of weaponry.  Material differences and effectiveness, also possible through [RAW] definitions.

Actually that's a pretty good system to figure things out by. However, you leave out non-square sizing.

1x1 small ram seems good for a small sized ram, but perhaps the next step up for a ram should be a 1x2 ram. Since a ram would typically be longer than it is wider, 1x2 may be better suited. On that note, perhaps the next step up would be a 2x3.

[CobaltKobold]

Entirely possible to ha'e a shieldwall/other fortification around it. Or something from which to hang it and brace. Plain big rams don't work well because they just pincushion the seigers knocking on the gates,

[BlazingDav]

I can imagine that if Rams were squares, bridges would end up behind awkward corners big ones couldn't get to, having them thinner would make sense, though some of the framework for them is impressive, though giving them an elongated reach (when unobstructed) like the BronzeCollossus would counter it and actually make sense, personally I'd say that they should be manned by 1 dwarf to avoid lazing issues, at least for application when military conquest is beyond your own map, though when guarded by infantry then itd be fair to say it goes faster.

Though maybe ram size could be determined on how its built? Like the basic battering ram could be 1x whatever length =P Then a frame to raise it (with a roof to protect the operator) would be 3x whatever length, then 5 by whatever to guard your beloved infantry, now we just need build a pressure cannon and load the battering ram into it =3

[Starver]

I can imagine that if Rams were squares,[...]

(Also, @Iden.)  That was a rough classification system.  I could see the "1x1" ladders in 'pre-deployed' form as 1x2 (or longer?) when carried by a couple of invading guys, especially as I was thinking that they'd potentially be bridging devices, as well as climbing (when advanced pathing indicates that the capability to crossing a 1-tile trench, if not wider, shortens the entry/egress to an area (or even allows pathing at all), and a tactical group has a ladder at hand that would fulfill the duty...  this sort of thing would already need to be integrated with regard to finding paths related to wall-scaling.  Ditto rams.  Hand rams (the "SWAT Team's Knock" style, though for the life of me I couldn't, and can't think of the actual knicknames I've heard these things called) as "-" or "|" (or the doubled-line version, but I'm not sure that extended ASCII would survive both forum and browser rendering in all cases), 1x2/3 for the a large version, and 3x3 representing a roofed/armoured version.  Really, that's all detail, though.

(And, besides, some castle defences (if not most?) deliberately did employ 'awkward corner' physics to limit various attacks.  Even the traditional 'handedness' of a spiral staircase was made to favour the defending (usually upper) swordsman against the attacking (lower) one, the latter's sword arm and reach impeded by the central pillar that had little negative (and even some positive) effect on the former's ability to be nasty with his pointy, sharp, heavy or otherwise inconvenient-to-the-enemy weapon.)


Maybe think of them as Classes A, B, C, D (handheld, two-man/dwarf/being, Standard?, Maxi) and while I did only put in explosive items as a reference, they could be a menmonically handy Class E.  Although knowing you lot, you'd be going for SuperBallistas the size of standard fortresses, and Super-Catapults that, while disguised as particularly large and well-designed oil derricks, were actually there to throw half a mountain onto the nearest (or next-nearest) Dark Fortress on the WorldGen map.  In a single shot.  So I won't get too hung up on that system of classification, either, lest I have to shuffle the mythical (or not?) explosives class all the way up to Class X to make room.

[BlazingDav]

Although knowing you lot, you'd be going for SuperBallistas the size of standard fortresses, and Super-Catapults that, while disguised as particularly large and well-designed oil derricks, were actually there to throw half a mountain onto the nearest (or next-nearest) Dark Fortress on the WorldGen map.  In a single shot.  So I won't get too hung up on that system of classification, either, lest I have to shuffle the mythical (or not?) explosives class all the way up to Class X to make room.

You know us too well =P

I do admit anything beyond 10x10 would probably be going further than we ought, though a scalable system would be interesting in the conundrum of more siege engines vs. better one, when you are the sieger anyway, or have limited wood =P

Also I just thought maybe we could build siege engines like farm plots, designing a quadrilateral of our preference, that has a size limit of 10x10 and then stick on what bits we want that determines what it is and what it can do, itd definetly save on menu space of varying building sizes of siege engines and even siege engine types, would also help with the skill levels of engineers limiting what can and can't be built in terms of type or size. Also I thought on the education thing when it comes around maybe for siege engineers if you... traded? for a legendary siege engineer to come and level up your engineers unlocking new abilities for them to build bigger and different siege engines.

Also I thought about maybe stitching 'plots' of siege engine together, to create interesting and new shapes, that of course don't exceed a limit of 100 squares (10x10), DF is about flexible ingenuity and design partially.

Also I considered maybe creating designations for siege equipment like your own hand dwarf catapults itd be like patrols, except when a siege starts 1 dwarf goes to each of these designations with their siege equipment and starts firing at enemies if they can reach, though I'm not sure about the travelling stuff =/

Maybe if you can expect your enemy to take parts of your own castle (where castle building will include being able to seal bits of it off in future) then you could create pre-planned, 'Take back routes' where teams of people with ladders and other siege equipment for climbing go along placing them allowing your infantry in (only progressing if there are infantry with them on that note, to avoid lazy issue induced Fun) where they hopefully slaughter the takers, stealing their climbing equipment off the walls and stuff keeping everyone out.

Admittedly it'd be an irony if your enemy managed to get themselves stuck on your roof.

[Belteshazzar]

Well it I was a goblin leader I would catapult trolls, element men, GCS, Imps, and perhaps the less popular among my own troops over the walls for 'surprise party time" with my foes.

[sonerohi]

Why are they being kept square? Toady has the capability to make rectangular buildings. A small scorpio would be, ideally, just like a pump.

[TerminatorII]

You guys do realise the Toadyone has stated that DF is a Moria Simulator? I.E. LOTR? so lets look to LOTR for Balistae guidlines aaand! Bingo! massive 50+ ft long arms on Stationary Trebuchet.


Next!

=)