Topic: Siege Artillery / Catapults

Like the catapults in Settlers II, Widelands could have siege artillery buildings. Examples include trebuchet, onager, ballista, siege cannon etc.

It could be a medium sized building that needs 3 soldiers as its workers. The number of troops garrisoned inside affects the rate of fire, eg:

• 1 soldier: 1 shot per 135 seconds
• 2 soldiers: 1 shot per 90 seconds
• 3 soldiers: 1 shot per 45 seconds

The spread or accuracy depends on the attack level of the highest ranked soldier inside:

• Attack level 0: spread of fire covers an area of fields about the size of a castle or fortress so it can usually hit a big building like that.
• Attack levels 1 - 3: Decreasing spread, likely able to hit a medium sized building such as a barricade or tower or another artillery building.
• Attack levels 4 - 5: Accurate enough to hit small buildings such as sentry posts and guard houses and maybe even enemy soldiers approaching slowly on foot (but not cavalry which can charge artillery buildings - ride for the guns).

The ammunition could be granite or specially manufactured ammo that needs another factory type to produce. The building should be able to store up to 5 rounds in its magazine before needing resupply.

Each time a projectile hits an enemy fortification, it kills one soldier inside at random (could be higher or lower ranked one).

Maybe after all the occupants are killed, 2 more hits on the empty building can destroy the empty building unless the enemy sends more troops into it.

Counters to artillery include counter-battery fire from other artillery, and soldiers assaulting the building directly (as they do other garrisoned buildings) in which case it works like a tower etc and the occupants come out and fight. It can be captured by the enemy like other garrisonable buildings. Cavalry or dragoons could be introduced - need a horse or donkey farm etc, and a cavalry barracks. These faster mounted troops can charge artillery buildings without getting hit and then fight them and capture them.

Another tactic is to garrison buildings under fire with cannon fodder inexperienced troops to save the higher XP ones which can kept be further back and used to attack.

Artillery fire range could be similar to the capture area of a tower or castle but its vision range could be less so it needs a scout to extend its range by scouting enemy fortifications within its field of fire - this makes the scout more necessary. Alternatively a long sight ranged building like a tower could be built beside it so it can benefit from the vision of the tower.

It should be visible from the sight range of a tower or similar while the tower is out of its sight range, this makes the towers and scouts more useful and necessary as you have to build towers or scouts to find enemy artillery near your borders before they fire on you.

Catapults can be used defensively or offensively, depending on the terrain of the border area, and add a lot of strategy elements to the game.

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well, this was a feature in S2 which I liked to some extent. might be a project to write an addon for this.
If I only had more time.

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