Repair/ Build up walls with worker from Ox Tether

[Halbarad1]

Hi, it would be really cool if we could implement some kind of mechanism, where walls get automaticly repaired (and maybe build) by units. Would be nice if engineers could do that, but we don't have an animation for them (and it would probably be too difficult to create a new one). The only unit that can carry stones is the Ox worker, who normally carries stones from quarry to the Ox Tether and with his ox to the store. My suggestion: The player can switch the function of an Ox Tether (e. g. with a shortcut), so that the ox-tether-worker gets its stones from the storage to the Ox Tether and then uses them to repair damaged walls, towers, gates. He can repair when he is standing on the ground/wall/gate/tower next to the damaged wall. Changing the mode of the Ox Tether could be shown by deleting the ox (guy is working alone) when the Ox Tether is used to repair a building.

If that would be possible, maybe it would (someday) also be possible to build up Castle-Structures like this: You place a wall somewhere and first you only see the grey outline of the wall (like you can see them when you drag walls but not release them). The real wall gets build when the ox-worker brings stone to the walls. Same with towers, only that there are not getting build at once: 1%-50% completed: Could look like a few stones on the quarry-storage 51%-99% completed: Could look like the flat (not 2d) view of the tower (the one you get with right mouse and down)

And with some more changings it could maybe be possible to build up normal (wooden) structures like that, for example if ox could carry wood (ok, that would request a little change of its animation for the ox), we could implement a systems where a guy with animation of a woodcutter brings wood to the ox tether and when the player builds up a new building, the ox would follow the worker of the new building or the guy with the animation of a woodcutter to it so he can build it up there (would be done similar to walls without animation or buy a woodcutter, who is swinging a hammer instead of his axe).

Would be really nice if it can be done

[Monsterfisch]

not a big fan of time-based building construction its been a reason I personally never really got into aoe.

I do like the idea of the auto repair however considering that there is a pitch carry animation for the engineers it should be rather easy to modify it to have him carry a stone instead. Showdown mentioned before that adding new pieces of the gui is rather complicated so I assume the ox idea is a bit far of at this point but having the engeneer do the work should probably be just fine as well the skill could be triggered by assigning an engineer to the stockpile or to the tunnelersguild for example.

[Sh0wdown]

That's a pretty complex idea and major gameplay changer, so rather unlikely to happen, sorry. :/

there is a pitch carry animation for the engineers it should be rather easy to modify it to have him carry a stone instead.

It's not. The "animations" in Crusader are all just 2D texture frames, i.e. the pitch in the carry animation is not an extra model which you can just add, but drawn together in one single texture (animation).

[Monsterfisch]

I know it's not a model ^^ I have done strongholdfile editing in the past I am just saying you would simply change the pitch in the engineer's hand to a stone which is simple enough to pull off. I would certainly offer my service in that regard if you choose to give it a try.

[Monsterfisch]

Here is a quick 10 min edit of the engineer file. So if need be changing the visuals wouldnt be a problem

[YouMoMCallME]

@Monsterfisch Dude you god ! 0_0

[PitchNeeded]

That's great Monsterfisch!

So should we make the AIs repair walls in this way too? I can see a problem: it would be bad for an AI's economy if they had to keep having to create new engineers because the engineers kept getting shot by enemy arrows or enemy tower ballistae while trying to repair outside parts of walls at the front of their castle! They would be better off in that situation just rebuilding walls rather than repairing walls with engineers!

[Monsterfisch]

I think it would be best of a player only feature as currently, the ai has the rebuilding advantage over the player as they can rebuild their walls very precisely and fast since they are essentially using a blueprint.

[Halbarad1]

If it would be possibile to do that with engeniers that would be really nice

[Panbutt]

On the topic of automatically building walls .. is it possible to give the human player an AIV? Some sort of blank AIV that people can use to make castle templates that builds automatically in-game.

[Heroesflorian]

As neat as the idea of wall construction/repair workers sounds, I think something like a player-AIV would be necessary - or at least some "wall blueprints" (similar to the "moat blueprints" for planned, but not yet dug moats) that can be drawn and erased by the player and will (unlike moat blueprints in their current form) stay in place even when a wall has been built there - in order for the feature to make sense.

I mean, sure, it can be annoying to manually repair walls, but without some sort of wall blueprint, the repair workers could only repair damaged wall tiles, and not replace wall tiles that have been destroyed completely - which is the (usually) more important case. A single trebuchet hit, or 2 catapult hits, or just the odd swordsman hacking at the walls, are enough to remove tiles. Thus, if you rely on "automatic" wall repair only to find your walls becoming thinner and getting more holes over time as missing tiles do not get replaced, you will still need to manually replace those tiles and keep an eye on your walls all the time, and thus there is little benefit, as well as the unavoidable (partial) loss of control over your stone reserves.

At least I see myself disabling the feature again as soon as I miss a tiny hole in the wall surrounded by (due to auto-repair) perfectly-healthy wall tiles and a horde of enemy slaves or knights or macemen storms into my castle through that hole...

[Monsterfisch]

a player aiv or blueprint could be dynamically created when the player lays down wall segments it could be a "simple" file that writes down the xy coords of the endpoints where the wall tower gate was placed and in turn could be read by the repair engineers to rebuild the structure.

With that being said I don't think that it would be required to have it that complex just having the engineer repair damaged structures and not destroyed ones would be aid enough to make building and defending a castle more enjoyable as it wouldn't look like a mess that needs to be time-consumingly repaired by the player bit by bit (particular mangonel damage). The player would only repair completely destroyed sections of the wall and potentially improve them while the engineers repair the slightly damaged sections as a little helper to make the castle look good instead of a halfway there ruin.