Age of Strategy Forums

There are circumstances in which a few units become absolutely useless. Mainly because, they move slowly AND are unable to cross forested tiles to provide support.

Such units include, but are not limited to...

Banner Carrier (beautiful infantry, but Can't provide his morale bonuses to nearby troops because of one or two obstacles)
Catapult
Trebuchet
Ballista

(All are EXCELLENT support, but the fact that they are unavailable to move around on forest choked maps makes them... Lacking.)

Wagon (Used to transport siege and slow infantry, but the fact that it cannot move in woods, makes them fall into the same category as the above-mentioned siege)

Siege Tower (slow moving and can't proceed through forests, makes traversing a map nigh impossible)
Battle Ram (mainly used for it's defense vs arrows, it isn't as feared as a swordsman who costs half as much) can't reach forested defenses

The usefulness of such is difficult enough to employ on heavily forested maps.



I suggest: Instead of taking away movement, maybe reduce the movement by half.

All siege machines should have some disadvantage.
They are superior already (catapult is greatest AoE and single unit damage, ballista has best damage/turn cost, ram has greatest survivability, while being good transport, trebuchet - greatest range and damage to buildings, wagon is most useful unit ever).

The only one I could agree, that have limited use is banner bearer. It's unit used to support infantry and in forested areas infantry can have limited access to that or just train centurion, which is superior in most situations.
It's a shame aura (or in fact any ability) cannot be activated on some conditions (I could have used that for few things), so we would just disactivate this aura in forest.
On the other hand why exactly shouldn't it work in the forest BTW?
Banner bearers give morale boost not by being visible, but by people knowing it's here. He could just shout, talk, whistle or humm something distinguishable just to let others know.

Also there is whole bunch of chariot units, which cannot go there too.

Looking at the problem universally however - I would add something more - some kind of forest road/building (3-5 turns to build by ambidexterous worker).
I just don't know how should it look like. I need some idea (the best would be image) what could be used.

A road would work in the siege cases.

Maybe something similar to bridges, but buildable on forest and mountain tiles.

As for the regard of Banner Carrier, Can this be implemented?

Changed: banner bearer can walk through forest (also cost-> 3, as he was too bad choice comparing to centurion) .
Added Road - buildable in 7/5/5/4 turns (laborer,+ambidex,worker,+ambidex). Buildable in forest only - allows for move, is passable by enemy and occupiable - so it only really blocks enemy dogs, as other units incapable of occupying aren't allowed into forest anyway. It has 40 hp and 10/10 armor.