Source
r/aoe4•
m00zilla

Siege units should have a crew

It looks horribly out of place and really breaks the immersion of the game to have an inanimate object trundle along and fight on its own. Having a crew to operate siege engines would look great and be a good indicator of reload progress and function.

It might have been difficult to implement when Age 2 came out but there's no reason not to have this in a game coming out in 2021. Age 3 has manned siege and it looks great, and units like bombards are manned in Age 2. It would only need to be visual, and not be something that requires micromanaging of tasking units to siege. Even if siege is constructed by infantry in the field, a crew being created along with it isn't any less realistic than new soldiers coming out of a building that has never had anyone enter into it.

In fire mode, units like artillery and catapults should have at least one crew member to aim and load them, and in limber mode they could be pulled by horses or oxen (same for packed up buildings). Units like rams and siege towers could get away with no visible crew since they could potentially have a crew enclosed inside. Manned siege would open up room for smaller scale unit options like traction trebuchets, swivel guns, and petards, which wouldn't be possible without a person to man them.

Posted Jun 19, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

15953
orientalsniper•

It might have been difficult to implement when Age 2 came out

It's mostly a design choice, Relic has been more than capable of doing that with Company of Heroes, be it HMG, mortar or even tanks.

38
Gerrent95•

Original release of age of empires 2 was several years before Company of Heroes. As for the re-releases, Yeah, keeping things the same, but with updated graphics was the design choice due to popularity, wasn't it?

9
orientalsniper•

I assume that's it, that's why AoE4 is based on AoE2. My only gripe is people assuming Relic is not capable of producing a realistic looking RTS game, if anything they are the best at it.

9
TheOfficialTwizzle•

aoe lookin like coh is my wet dream

9
Cattaphract•

It would be great for singleplayer. It would fucking suck in multiplayer. Coh is not a traditional rts, they have other gameplay priorities

1
coldwind81•

Is Age 4 really supposed to be another Age 2 though? That seems to defeat the point of making a new game

5
orientalsniper•

An improved AoE2 is what I wished for the last 15 years and I think (might be wrong) I'm in the majority.

4
Circle_of_Oasis•

I am fine with bigger siege weapons like trebuchet not being manned to make it look cleaner but one-man siege should be manned. Even Organ Guns and Bombard Canons in AoE2 are manned.

25
m00zillaOP•

I don't really see how that would add clutter. It would only have to be one or two guys standing right next to it that would turn a handle and load the sling. If there was an upgrade for something like a treadwheel trebuchet the crew could even be entirely contained in the trebuchet.

16
[deleted]•

[deleted]

18
craftsta•

I agree. I'm not usually bothered about graphical implementation but on this point it gets to me. I feel a little dude (just one is fine) running with the seige weapon with basic animatIon would add a lot to immersion. I don't even care how lazy the graphic is. The more so even the better so its non obtrusive even.

21
tess1254•

MANNING SIEGE EQUIPMENT!!

15
Racist_Potato•

HERE COMES BESSY!

7
Lobstersnaps•

Deeeecomissioning

2
filetitan•

I agree completely.

13
JordD04•

I like the lack of siege weapons because I think it helps keep the battlefield clean. I would mind siege weapons with an individual operator though (like AoE 2 organ guns and bombard cannons). AoE has never been about realism for me and I'm happy to compromise on realism if it benefits the gameplay.

12
bluesharklet•

Not all of us are here to play the game competitively you know. I only play for immersion. I'd like to see an option that let's you turn siege crew on and off. It's a $60 game, they should be able to do that at least.

5†
BannedForATypo•

Comming from aoe3 and seeing cannons without their crew is really weird imo, but I guess they wanted to make aoe2 players happy that always boast about "readability"

9
BumblerTV•

This, please, please, please. It looks so odd without it.

8
Forgiven12•

Absolutely! It shouldn't even require explanation why this kind of corner cutting is bad.

7
CamRoth•

I don't really care either way as long as it doesn't clutter things.

6
-SH0O0GUN-•

Stronghold Crusader has this system, doesn't destroys fun, it should be considered.

6
Racist_Potato•

Stronghold in general has such a system, not only crusader.

But yes, I can see how such an engineer system can work in aoe. The sieges are really well done in Stronghold and requires planning from both defender and attacker.

Though, if you compare combat between the two games then in aoe micro management and countering is way more import. I think a main reason is because it deals with scouting. In Stronghold, walls are really important and combat is much more planning and army composition.

So, I think engineers can work, but I'm not entirely convinced whether it fits the aoe series as good as it did for stronghold.

3
-MugenNoSora-Chinese•

Best would be to have an option to check/uncheck to display them or not so that everyone is happy.

I don't mind but it certainly looks odd and I can see why people want them to have a crew.

5
piat13•

I actually like it the way they are. Makes it feel like old school RTS and to me it doesn' t really feel that out of place. I just need a bit of suspension of disbelief, and the deploy animations with the yellow ghosts do help a little with that. But I realize that's just me :)

3†
Habieru7•

Yes seeing them roll around autonomously is kind of weird, definitely makes sense if they had a crew manning them.

2
IntriguedToast•

Absolutely. It's a step backwards if AoE3 can do it and AoE4 doesn't bother. No need to be independent unit crews like in CoH (though that would be cool, with being able to capture enemy siege too) - just the visual like before.

2
Gaius_Iulius_Megas•

I don't like using siege in aoe2 because they have no crew (well except of course cannons). It was possible to give the artillery in aoe3 Operators, why not also in aoe4?

1
DMC_AU•

It's relic, what do you expect. Graphics is not their speciality, making disappointing games is. I feel the same but, very lazy game design.

1
phoenixv1s•

It would be nice if it was like Compnay of heroes..

1
pikedastr•

Disclaimer, i agree with the post, in the sense that implementing crew is easy and makes siege less awkward-looking in cinematics.

However, and i have to throw this bone to the devs, unmanned siege makes them much much clearer visually, and playbility is miles ahead in my priority list than realism, so i have to put this aspect of the game in the "design choice" shelf in my little self-entitled player head.

I do have strong opinions about other aspects of the game tho.

1
m00zillaOP•

I really don't see how a crew detracts from clarity in any way. If playability and visual recognition is all that matters everything should just be abstract polygons to avoid wasting time trying to differentiate between things like a knight and a lancer

2
pikedastr•

of course it detracts, its objetively easier to identify a siege weapon with no pseudo-infantry around it, you can argue its not really that easier, but its simply impossible to be harder or equally easy.

about the polygons, i mentioned a priority list, not an absolute superiority of readability, and there are plety of ways to differentiate a knight from a lancer besides their weapons, for example colloring their horses differently, or having a tottally different silluette, nothing is black or white dude.

1
m00zillaOP•

And there are plenty of ways to differentiate a siege crew from an infantry soldier. Have you ever once been faced a player using bombard cannons and thought that their army was twice the size because they have an operator?

1
PardonMaiEnglish•

Rise of nations has em!

0