Castle Walls - some thoughts and observations

I thought I would post about some of my observations about the current choices for castle walls.

First let me say that the following comments are meant to be constructive, and are presented here for discussion. I absolutely love the idea of this game, and what it is striving to do.

Now, on with the discussion:

Given that a 'block' in game is 2.5 meters, I believe it fair to assume that the thickness of the 'wall' block is about 1/10th to 1/8th of the size of a full block, or roughly, lets say 3 decimeters (about a foot). Using as our point of reference the castles built by Edward I in Wales - castles built with a purely military purpose and typically considered to be the height of design for castles whose main purpose was martial - (military castles), a wall of this thickness would basically not ever be used, as they were simply too unstable. (this is perhaps why the current Structural Integrity treats these walls as if they were made of matchsticks and toilet paper.)

Let us, for the sake of this discussion, think of walls in 3 varieties - the first being curtain walls - the exterior walls which would be subject to attack by siege engines. The second category of walls would be exterior walls not subject to direct attack from siege weapons - walls used within the enclosure of the castle to create attached rooms, and finally walls used to divide the interior structures into distinct sections (subdividing walls).

Now let us reference Conwy Castle, considered (along with Harlech and Beaumaris) to be the height of 14th century military design. (Please forgive the apparent anglo bias, as there were excellent French, Italian, Spanish etc military designs built at this time, but the sheer number built by Edward (designed by James) allowed for a perfection of form.)


The curtain wallls of this castle and its supporting towers at their base were roughly 5 meters (16 feet) thick and they slowly tapered such that at the top of the towers were roughly 3-4 meters (10-12 feet) thick.

Internal exterior walls were about +/- 1 meter (3-4 feet) thick, and the subdividing walls about 2 feet feet thick.

If the game were to attempt to match these dimensions, we would need three basic wall block types, with all subsequent supporting varieties (windows, arches, portals, etc...) Those being - curtain wall (capable of 6-7 meter thickness), exterior wall (just under meter), and interior wall ( at about 3-4 decimeters).

Lets focus on curtain walls: These blocks should have a single exterior side distinct from the other 5 sides (ashlar pattern - see below) and then fill pattern on the remaining sides (rubble / cobble), and a rotatable corner block that has the ashlar pattern on two sides. Using the Conwy example, we would currently need to use two of the existing 'cube' blocks to form curtain walls at 5 meters thickness. For 8.5 meter thickness (and there were walls built at this thickness (20+feet)) we would require a third 'fill' block. For this we could use the "cube" block already in existence, which would be placed in between two appropriately oriented the ashlar pattern blocks.

This would work for thickness at the base. Tapering - to match the thickness at the top of a wall, may simply be beyond the technical scope of the game. As of the latest update we do now have a steep slope angle block but at 60 degrees, it really does not match the gradual taper we see in evidence with the towers at Conwy (or Harlech, or Beaumaris). Let us say for the sake of argument and for limitation of function that towers will maintain their width regardless of height (something the medieval engineers could not actually accomplish until much later - using Gothic arches, and buttresses, etc...)

Now the walls at Conwy were about 12 meters high (40 feet) with the towers reaching about 21 meters (70 feet). Conwy is notable for the hieght of its towers, but they do not deviate significantly from the mean height of towers built at that time. The towers, of course, were rounded (superior deflection of incoming projectiles). If we wanted to replicate a design of these rounded towers, it would require a series of blocks such that the radius would be about 10 meters (5 meters wall, 5 meters open space / interior space for stairs / rooms). I have not done much work with geometry so I am not up to task do determine the exterior and interior curve required to achieve this given the current block size of 2.5 meters, but I know we would need both an internal curve and an external curve block, both with and without windows / loops, and the subsequent battlement attachments. (See next.)

Windows and arrow loops:. The current thick blocks have no windows or arrow loops, however windows and arrow loops were built into these very thick walls, such that there were deep 'dugouts'(if you will) or approaches, so we do need thick blocks with both arrow loops and window openings that work at multiple thicknesses. In order to do this with a 2 block thick wall you would need one block that had the external window and dugout, and another that simply had the dugout - access space, which would lead up to the first block. Usually the approach lines of these dugouts were not parallel but rather vertical approach lines to the window (as sort of a triangle), which would further complicate the issue of multiple block wall designs, so in my mind parallel / symmetrical dugouts would be appropriate.

All of this discussion arises from the current destruction mechanic in the game. For example, if you build a tower using the available 'walls', typically a single shot at the base of the tower can effectively destroy the entire structure. At first I thought this made the projectiles far too overpowered but on review, I believe that this is in fact appropriate physics. If anything the current structural integrity mechanic is far too generous concerning the existing walls. These walls should really not be able to support anything of any considerable weight, such that that any height more that 2 cubes, or 5 meters, will cause them to collapse upon themselves. Basically, no castle designer in his or her right mind would ever use the current 'wall' given its thickness as a curtain / defensive wall, or even as a 'safe' external wall that not exposed to projectiles, or internal load bearing wall. At most, they would be used as internal partition walls.

That said, the in game demo castle uses these walls extensively, and based on the scale of the game it does appear that they are intended to have some utility as curtain / defensive walls. Perhaps all this comes down to the observation that we need more options for walls - that the current 'cube' which seems to be designed as a foundation for walls, is basically what would be used as fill for a curtain walls - compressed between the ashlar pattern courses of fitted blocks, and that any wall designed to defend against large projectiles would at minimum be a full 'cube', (if not two), wide.

If we agree on this, then a rethink on the round tower design is required, such that a tower could be built with either two or three full cube blocks, containing 2 or three full cube open (floored) spaces between the walls. Unless they come up with a way to allow the user to set the degree of curve on a block, (such that each player could custom build a round tower) my guess is that, with a design limited to fixed curve blocks, round towers would be restricted to 3 variants based on wall thickness (1,2,or 3 blocks thick). The current round tower design allows for 2 varieties - completely solid (which were really never built as there was no internal access) or ridiculously thin walls which would collapse in a stiff breeze.

A note on aesthetics / medieval masonry: The current wall blocks display a cobble or loose rock (aka filler) pattern, but such a pattern was intrinsically unstable given the mortar that was available in the day. Thick walls used cobble only as fill, between two parallel external courses of cut stone placed in an ashlar pattern (or a variant thereof). Irregular (cobble) walls demonstrate poor energy transference (when struck) which is terrifically inefficient and prone to fragmentation. Ashlar patterns would receive and transfer incoming projectile energy in a way that would diminish the force and distribute it more evenly, dramatically improving their capacity to absorb projectile energy, and ensuring the overall structural integrity of the tower / wall.



Thanks for your consideration of these ideas, and thanks to the developers for this fantastic start of what could be a terrific game.

 

here is a better image for you thats a higher res as i couldn't really see the other 1


you could mod the blocks you know, and i totally 100% agree that there needs to be more curved blocks so we can make larger rounded towers, and windows for the full cubed blocks, some castles has the cross type windows like the conwy

 

Thanks, the original was just to show the proportionality of wall vs open space, but I guess i could have used a bigger image.

FYI -the 'cross type' windows are often called 'arrow loops" - allowing arbalest and / or archer the ability to utilize both a horizontal and vertical line of fire.

With regard to moding the blocks, while technically you can mode anything, I think that walls are so integral to the core game that mods would introduce significant problems, and that as such the issue should be addressed by the developers.

 

i just made this, idk if it would help, but i did this with struct integrity on to demonstrate block strength, placing 1 more layer on the wall will collapse it so it doesn't have the same strength as the Block column i built because the surrounding pieces



i should also note that having more then 2 block thick walls will also cause it to collapse, i tried adding a row of blocks on the bottom and it collapsed, i should also note that having more then 2 block thick walls will also cause it to collapse, i tried adding a row of blocks on the bottom and it collapsed, HOW EVER the new diagonal pieces does not cause it to collapse if i try adding a row of them instead.

 

Unless youre building the city of Troy, this is hard to imagine being realistic. Now, Im not saying that it isnt possible, but the way the physics are in the game now, it just makes sense.

 

Ubiqanon, thank you for a well constructed and reasoned post. The Welsh castles are a favourite of mine (spent a lot of time around them when I was younger) and, like you I'm struggling to see them replicated in ME, something we definitely should be able to do.

We do need to find a modder who can build us some blocks specifically for this type of construction I think, but I don't think any of the current problems are insurmountable (unless you count the profusion of required blocks for very slight angle changes or variable-radius towers.

 

I approve of this post/thread.

Very well thought out and raises good points

 

@ animedan.

Thank You for the Color descriptions!

was having a hard time with the blocks, maybe now i can have a little bit of an easier time.

 

It is possible to surpass the limit using arches. Left is 13 blocks high, 2 deep, the right is 18 blocks high and 2 deep.



And then utilising the compound building with the thin walls can make it look normal. It seems that the weight of the walls isn't added to the arches, or that they weigh much less compared, it doesn't really affect the structure.

 

more info and pics i did can be found in this thread https://forums.keenswh.com/post/discussion-on-strength-of-blocks-particularly-stone-and-support-issues-stone-supports-to-the-developers-7320973?pid=1286407404#post1286407404

 

this guy made a column of different blocks 39 stacks high before it fell

 

@ Ubiqanon:
You bring up some issues I've been wondering about myself. It's of course still early days in the life of this game so no telling what it will end up being like, but OTOH stuff like the size of building blocks is something that is a fundamental element of the game, like a standard unit of measure, upon which most of the rest of the salient game mechanics and gameplay in general depends. Thus, any changes there will necessitate much rework in other areas. It would well be, then, that we shouldn't expect any major changes and will have to accept a bit more deviation from the real world than we might like.

The big issue I see in all this is balancing the effectiveness of player-made siege artillery on player-made masonry. This isn't a game of massed assaults against massed defenders. It will be either the player alone or with a mere handful of other players or NPC bots against an equally small force, with both sides relying mostly on artillery and other warmachines instead of personal weapons. This means that artillery has to be able to knock down castles. And because of limited personal time available to play, ME artillery must be considerably more damaging per shot than real siege engines were, taking down walls and towers in minutes-to-hours instead of days-to-weeks. But OTOH, if the artillery is too devastating, there's no point in building castles anyway.

This is the situation we're in right now. A single shot creates a practicable breech in the wall and renders a tower useless by destroying the interior stairs. That will have to change IMHO. Otherwise, nobody will build castles--they'll build earthworks. Stone walls, even the thin ones, must require multiple hits before they fail. But at the same time, SI still needs to limit construction to a reasonably realistic height. IOW, the damage done by projectiles needs to be nerfed significantly while leaving other things like ballistics and SI more or less the same. Do that and we'll have an easier time accepting building walls that are rather thinner than in real life.

 

I very much appreciate your functionalist approach, which places as the central paradigm of its purpose (and as such asserts the necessity) the idea that a game is ultimately designed to be a short diversion, in which players may face off and through their own ingenuity attempt to overcome the other, and that the necessity of time being what it is, that all structures must be vulnerable to siege such that they may be reduced within a matter of minutes, or at most hours, rather than days / weeks. Given this paradigm, there should be no way that a player utilizing a defensive strategy (Castle building) can ever create a completely invulnerable castle. Should such a thing be possible - such that no offensive strategy or action could create the possibility of victory, and if such were possible then the game would of course no longer be a game - the possibility of victory would never be in doubt. This is most assuredly something to take seriously (it is the natural antithesis or other side of the coin to the idea you presented whereby castle walls are so ineffective as to be completely useless.) The challenge of course is that the defensive player wants to believe that such a construct - the perfectly impregnable castle - is possible, that by the ingenuity of their design (they are engineers after all) they may create a castle that cannot be breached. This is the functional paradox that I think lies at the heart of what this game can do - it frames the games potential appeal, if you will allow.

The defensive player must be in some tangible way rewarded (and this can only be measured, in think in this game, by an increase in survivability of a structure) by ingenious design, and by the efficiency of resource allocation. We have yet to see how the availability of resource, and the efficiency of its collection, will be a contributing factor. Typically this is a key factor in any such strategy / military sim game - the speed of collection and distribution of resources often has a major impact on which, of two teams, will win a conflict in which the use of those resources (for us it is the construction of castles and machines) in the most efficient and effective fashion. So how do you give advantage in a game such as this to a player who has very effective resource allocation changes? I think it must be obvious that this player must be able to build stronger walls.

There is no reason for a siege weapon that can attack at distance without the pre-existence of the archer. All siege engines were designed to work outside of or at the limit of archers / arbalest that have gained the height advantage that the walls and towers provide. I am trying to imagine a siege v siege fight in which small weapons take no part, and for me the idea is so abstract and divorced from what I imagine medieval combat to be, that it would give me very little satisfaction. I believe such a game would appeal to a minority of players, and this would limit the games customer base, which does not make good financial sense. That said, I do agree that siege weapons should be a major factor, and also that the battles will be small scale, but I do not agree that personal weapons should have such a restricted a part as you suggest, or have a significantly reduced part. The analogy may not be apt, but you cannot have ice cream with only milk, or only sugar, you must have both, so the argument becomes one of proportionality- you must have personal weapons (archers to keep siege weapons at distance - or such that they must be designed to defend against archery) otherwise the siege weapons are not checked or restricted as they should be. Distance restrictions would effectively be voluntary - relying on good sportsmanship, or you could of course argue that counter siege weapons would keep invading siege weapons away. Fair enough to some extent, but it still comes across as artificial restriction, and also contradictory to the idea of castles - the gaining of advantage of ranged weaponry (both archers and siege) through superior height.

Your approach does, as you readily admit, render an historically accurate approach, such that siege engines would require many days in order to reduce a wall, rather too excessive and impractical. But I would suggest to you that your paradigm is restrictive in part to your own vision or preference, and that other equally valid, or shall we say appealing and entertaining criteria exist. For example, i believe it is reasonable to assert that for many the appeal of the game will be in the ability to recreate structures that exist in the real world, to scale, and then to lay siege to those structures, using machines that were appropriate to the time and place, to see if the structure and design would have held up. In this way, we may recreate, with relatively appropriate physics, some of the great battles / sieges in history. Many of the Total War games include these 'Historical Scenerio' battles, and personally I find them to be some of the most satisfying and challenging scenarios / games that are possible to experience. For many, the appeal will be in how well the game allows them to build, forgive the cliche - to their hearts content. This last criteria places considerable emphasis on a preponderance of variety of construction - basically lots and lots of blocks / items, pieces. (A lego set with massive variety.) The closer the game comes to allowing these players to build structures that either exist solely in their imagination, or are fairly accurate replicas of what we see in history, the more satisfied these players will be. They will not care so much for SI, or for ballistics.

You present two conclusions - 1 Projectile damage should be reduced such that an single hit is less catastrophic, and that catastrophic damage would require multiple hits at the same location (requiring both strength and accuracy). I agree.

2: Structural Integrity must restrict the defender from creating castles that are impossible to breach. I am not so sure. SI functions currently to restrict the height of a given structure, and to some extent restrict the use of overhangs, but it really does nothing to regulate or restrict the depth of walls, and I would argue that this latter component is just as critical, if not more so, than height in determining impregnability. The restriction here, as I see it, should be resource management and speed of effective building. These are mechanics we have yet to really see. Now in creative mode, depth of wall is currently regulated by the blocks we have available, rather than by the SI.

Finally - your argument is to some extent a suggestion to make the best of what we have already, and this is of course a decent and pragmatic approach. But I would counter that, since we are in the early stages, the presentation of alternative approaches, and since the entire framework of the game is presented through the lens of history, that approaches that take into consideration historical examples - in particular thickness of wall as it was used in castles for which the primary consideration was military function, is something that is well worth considering.

When reconsidering my post you could probably break it down such that:

1. Cube blocks should have a facing on one side that looks more like cut / patterned stone rather than cobble. They should be much stronger than they currently are with regard to resistance to shock (ballistic damage). It should take multiple direct hits in a single spot to shatter a cube block, and the smaller projectiles should really not be able to damage these walls (other than superficially) at all.

2. We need a third wall block - a 1/2 block if you will, (a half cube) that could be used for things like exterior internal walls (walls inside the bailey's but still exterior). These walls should be stronger that the thin partition wall. These walls could also be used to add strength to cube blocks. (Allowing for walls of 3.75 meter depth, rather than either 2.5 or 5.) Basically its an argument fo more variety. Such walls should support weight at say 10 meters, (4 cubes tall) but otherwise unless appropriately supported, will collapse if built higher. These 1/2 walls could be destroyed by smaller projectiles (given a preponderance impacts.)

3. The SI on the partition wall - thin stone wall should be such that it will collapse on itself if it is anything over 5 meters (2 blocks) tall, unless appropriately reinforced. I actually have no problems with its current frangibility: such a wall, when struck by a projectile from any moderately strong catapult, would probably completely shatter, as it does now in the game. Really, the problem as I see it is that the game currently lets you use this wall to build towers up to 14 blocks tall. Given the proportions of the wall (about a foot or so thick), and limitations of technology at the time, this would only be possible with a prodigious amount of internal structural support- basically the interior of the tower would look like a Roman aqueduct on steroids. The improbability of such a design not withstanding, to build a wall / tower that is effectively 34 meters tall (over 100 feet) with external walls that are only just over a foot thick, and are comprised of mortared stone, is on its face absurd.

4. I would also argue that the crenelations as currently designed are inappropriate for a military castle. They were historically much thicker, and the merlons (the taller of the two vertical sections) were between 6-7 feet tall. The crenelations we currently have are in line with those that were typically decorative - non functional, that appeared in the later 16th & 17th century with the transition of focus of a castle from its military role, to is domestic role.

 

@Ubiqanon
First off, for mentioning atlatls, IMHO the most significant human invention since friction fire but sadly obscure these days, I commend you to every one of our ancestor spirits so that they may guide your future path into all that is good, in this world and the next.

Historically, the main reasons for building tall walls were 1) to make them taller than practical scaling ladders could reach, and 2) to give defending weapons longer range than similar attacking weapons at ground level. But tall walls are big targets to artillery. As long as gravity and torsion were all that could propel artillery, and those took considerable time to do much damage, then tall walls were great. Artillery range was within bowshot of the parapet so the only way even artillery could reduce a castle was if the attacker had sufficient archers to sweep the castle's parapet clear of defending archers from rather close range. Which basically meant the attacker was going to win anyway and was only bothering with assault to save time to advance further into enemy territory before the season turned or the service time of a feudal levee expired. If time wasn't of the essence, then the attacker would probably use mining instead of artillery, or a combination of both. And if the defenders had only enough manpower to defend themselves but not pose a significant threat to the rear of an advancing army, then the attacker could just bypass the fort, leaving a only small guard behind to neutralize the defenders if they decided to come out in the open.

Then gunpowder came along and artillery suddenly greatly out-ranged personal weapons, plus was much quicker at reducing stone walls. When that happened, tall stone walls disappeared. This put attackers and defenders at roughly the same altitude so neither had a range advantage and escalade was again possible. This made defenders expand outwards, creating multiple layers of defense that the attacker had to overcome. The attackers countered with saps and parallels, and a continued use of mining. But because a wider fortress could contain a bigger garrison, it was harder for the attacker to bypass fortresses, at least if the defender lacked initiative. And so things remained for several centuries, until further advances in artillery allowed indirect fire, which forced defenders underground, which is pretty much where we've been since WW1.

In ME, not all these factors are in play. Maps are tiny so there's no bypassing fortresses outside of moderated meta games. And forces are tiny so there's no overwhelming numerical advantage to either side, nor even numbers to crowd parapets or siegeworks with massed archers. This works to the disadvantage of the defender because he lacks the archers to keep attacking artillery at a respectful distance, and building low, wide works increases his perimeter and further stretches his limited manpower. And meanwhile, once terrain SI and spreading fire come along, mining will further give the advantage to the attacker.

All in all, it's a very difficult gameplay balancing problem. I'm glad I'm not responsible for coming up with a solution .