Wow, that tower looks great.

Tried changing the terrain under the tower to prevent units from moving onto it but it didn't change. I then tried casting firestorm and again it didn't change the terrain under the spell. Is anyone else seeing it work or is it broken?

N/A

Well I tried placing a single tile stamp under the unit but it didn't seem to work for me. I can't think of any other way to stop other units from walking through the tower after it as been killed. I guess I will have to just live with it even if it looks stupid every once and awhile.

Perhaps you could replace the graphic with a "ruined tower" graphic as an on-death condition?

Doesn't seem to work... I tried a few tests with different combos.  It works in strategic but not tactical

Can't think of any other way to stop units from walking on there.

Could you put a small fence on all four sides that keeps units out?  Or what is the code for the city siege map center square that blocks troops?  I recall that SD had to fix them after their first iteration to keep troops from walking through them...

Love that all of you awesome modder types are brainstorming this thing together!!

The code to set up the siege maps were specific to the tactical map by placing blocked tiles. I recall removing some blocked tiles from some of those maps. I do not recall of a way of placing a blocked tile in a location.

Give the "Ability_BlockedTower" to the Tower unit:

<BlockedTower>

<!-- ABILITY -->
<AbilityBonus InternalName="Ability_BlockedTower">
<AbilityBonusOption InternalName="Ability_BlockedTower">
<GameModifier>
<ModType>Unit</ModType>
<Attribute>BattleAutoCastSpell</Attribute>
<StrVal>Spell_BlockedTower</StrVal>
<Value>100</Value>
</GameModifier>
</AbilityBonusOption>
</AbilityBonus>

<!-- SPELL -->
<SpellDef InternalName="Spell_BlockedTower">
<SpellType>Tactical</SpellType>
<SpellTargetType>Self</SpellTargetType>
<HideInHiergamenon>1</HideInHiergamenon>
<IgnoreCastAnim>1</IgnoreCastAnim>
<IsCastable>0</IsCastable>
<ValidTerrainCategory>City</ValidTerrainCategory>
<ValidTerrainCategory>Land</ValidTerrainCategory>
<TerrainStamp>Stamp_BlockedTower</TerrainStamp>
<StampMorphTime>1</StampMorphTime>
</SpellDef>

<!-- STAMP -->
<StampType InternalName="Stamp_BlockedTower">
<IsCore>0</IsCore>
<Frequency>0</Frequency>
<TileWidth>1</TileWidth>
<TileHeight>1</TileHeight>
<MapTile InternalName="Stamp_BlockedTower_Tile_0_0">
<LocalX>0</LocalX>
<LocalY>0</LocalY>
<TerrainType>Submerged</TerrainType>
</MapTile>
</StampType>

</BlockedTower>

Known issues / Info:

• UnitType CityDefender #3 did not cast the spell (#1 and #2 did...). Not sure what/where the limitation is as I didn't do extensive testing. Could be related to the CityHub upgrades.

• Enemy Archers cannot target the unit if the unit is submerged (If(?) that unit is the only one left, the game hangs --> Have to use auto-resolve). Using another type of blocked tile might fix that.

• Water does not appear on all maps but the tile is still blocked. 

• Units can move out of the blocked tile but not onto it.

• It's possible to melee a unit even if on a blocked tile.

Alright thanks Primal_Savage. I got it working the way I want it!

What do you think I should do with this mod? Obviously this is going to go into a mod that changes up City Defenders. I want to make sieges distinct from normal combat. I'm thinking of removing city archers and replacing them with towers. Also I would reduce the number of city militia but do something like Parrotmath's mod where they can upgrade to leather armor.

To make it more interesting I could make catapults do extra damage to towers, and maybe even throw in a early game siege engine. I'm experimenting with creating a ballista using the <GfxAttachment> tag found on caravans.Just need to find a way to rotate things.

Anyway thanks again for all your help. I will be sure to credit you guys.

City defender archers do garbage damage, as is. When I attack enemy cities, I just ignore them until everything else is dead.

If Catapults will do extra damage against them, they need to be buffed.

Can they default to companies (x6)? And/or get the yew longbow by default? Give them armor piercing?

Come to think of it, shouldn't all city defenders be companies?

I have towers use the best bow available.  You can do that but you can't have them choose the best size. They are whatever size you set them to be, which sucks because they don't scale. A group of 3 militia is a waste of space late game. On top of better bows towers also have a significant defense bonus and small bonuses to several other stats.

A group of 3 guys in a tower makes much more sense then having groups of 3 archers defending cities.

Awesome!

Yeah a big defense bonus makes sense and will make them much more useful than normal militia archers.

I'd also go for an init and accuracy bonus..... being in the tower means they can attack more easily and accurately than being on the ground.

Towers should get a free volley at the start of the battle, as well.  

With Parrotmath's permission, it would be awesome to have burning arrows if the city has a pitch pit resource from a swamp tile.

Either as a tech that can be researched or just as part of the base mod you could have a special shard-based defender show up for each shard type attached to the city:

Air: Phantom warriors

Earth: Crag Spawn

Water: Poison Nagas

Fire:  Ignys 

Life: Wisp

Death: Bone Golem Or Plague Zombies (with your plague carrier trait from Blood and Mana)

Could make it where each level of city growth gives a better level unit or a tougher version of the same unit.

Looking forward to your mod!

You can use my mods for these towers if you want (if you include my mod with it, just some credit where credit is due is all I ask). The ability would just require the improvement to the city. Instead of flaming arrows I would rather see the ability boiling pitch, follows similar to the burning hands spell where it targets several people in front of the tower and burns them.

Have fun with it.

Oh, even nastier!!   

Burning pitch sounds really cool but I'm worried about the balance. They are already much tougher then city archers and it would be possible to get 3 or 4 of these in a city. They are supposed to help city defenders, not be murder machines.

I was thinking of throwing in some variations though and mixing up the town types. Conclaves could get a single mage/flame tower, towns more militia, and for forts I will see if I can put a catapult on a tower.

Released the first version and switched the thread name.

I tried making a catapult tower and got it working but the catapult moves around everywhere when it fires so I probably won't include it.

This mod has been added to the Regularly Updated List of Mods for E:LH.

Good Morning

Really like the direction you are taking with your mod; even though you make my only two additions obsolete. :p

https://forums.elementalgame.com/445925/page/1/#3432250

- Adds in a lesser catapult earier in the game and turns the catapult into a greater catapult with a few extra surprises.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/451304/page/1/#3441614

- Changes the balance of city defenders, adjusting the number of archers and militia as well as adding in Mages, Knights, and Crossbowmen to the Conclave, Fortresses, and Towns respectively.

By all means, if something from these mods can save you time or can make your mod better, please make use of them. I can easily see myself shelving my works for yours.

- How are the archery towers destroyed? Can any unit target the tower base? Will you specifically require seige units to destroy these types of structures?

- Will the Militia upgrading their armour be any different from Parrotmath's MilitiaArmour mod?

Going to keep my eyes on this one...will probably try it out in conjunction with the 1.6 patch.

lol Whoops. I forgot to add the new tiles to the upload. Fixed now.

A thought...

It would make a lot of sense to me if City Towers were persistent, i.e. if you dislodge the defender you can take up residence in the City Tower, gaining some bonuses yourself.  This could be the closest thing we might see to actual building terrain modifiers in tactical combat.

You could also have a unit 'CityWall' that the defencders autocast at the start of combat, and remains in play until dispelled/destroyed.  City Defenders would deploy in the City Wall square (similar to what you did with towers), and attackers could scale the walls (defense bonuses to units in the square that other units must overcome), and then use the city wall squares for defense against counterattacks...

You'd want the defender's deployment squares to line up in this case, to create the illusion of a solid wall, which might require some fine tuning of the various battle maps.  If you were really bored, you could have 15 deployments squares in 3 lines of 5, with impassable terrain to either side - think Minas Tirith!

I tried using it in conjunction with Blood and Mana and it wouldn't load the game.  I tried putting the files in the mods directory several different ways without success.  Is there a readme with the file that i missed?  Thanks!