Maybe ‘Units on Walls’ is not that complicated after all, and maybe it’s possible to implement it in one of the patches or in the expansion (at the latest).
In AOK we could garrison units inside the towers, but we could not see them once they were garrisoned. I may be wrong, but I believe that Ensemble can achieve this new feature without much work, because the ‘garrison’ feature is already in the program. [This message has been edited by MosheLevi (edited 09-26-2005 @ 10:34 AM).]
I am suggesting that it would be possible to ‘garrison’ units also on walls, and that we should be able to see them.
At that point the units could not be selected any more, until they are ungarrisoned.
Once they are garrisoned on walls, the units would have a bonus attack and range against enemy units.
They would also have some protection from enemy fire (maybe every second enemy shot would be considered as missed?)
Off course if the enemy uses cannon to destroy a section of wall where units are garrisoned, then these units will die.
Because putting units on walls as part of the ‘garrison’ feature, saves Ensemble from dealing with the following – stares to go on walls, selecting units on walls, and moving units from one section of wall to another.
None of these will be required when using the ‘garrison’ approach and it would still make sense.
There will be one disadvantage for using this approach – since we cannot select the units that are garrisoned, we would not be able to micro manage them, and the units that they will be shooting will be up to them (the AI), not up to us.
Other than that, the people that want ‘units on wall’ will get what they want.
All they have to do is actually show the units on the walls when there are garrisoned, and maintain their animation.
Because I believe it would add more strategy and tactics to the game.
Putting units on walls will offer some additional protection to the defenders (e.g. hit point damage to the defenders is reduced by 50% or so).
This means that the attackers would have to plan their assault more carefully.
It will be harder to break through the walls (when there are units on them), which means that attackers would need to bring along a few cannons to knock down a section of the wall.
Once this is achieved, it will be safer to send in the rest of the units (through that section).
This will force the defenders to come up with units that can counter the cannons, so walls won’t be destroyed.
So as you can see, a new set of tactics is now available to us to play with, and it would make the game more interesting.
I think it would also be more fun and challenging to attack an enemy that has a better defense.
Besides, putting units on walls has been part of warfare for thousands of years now, and it make sense that we would be able to experience that in a strategy game such as AOE 3.