So I’m doing this project over roman engineering in my world history class, and one of the things these roman engineers were good at were Aqueducts. As I was looking at some images at said roman aqueducts, I thought “Wow, these Roman Aqueducts sure are Archy, as most Roman Architecture is. Looks like it wouldn’t make a very good wall.” “Wait, Walls, Aqueducts, Walls + Aqueducts…OOOOooooo! What a D-vious Idea”
So my idea is a bit of a peculiar one, but the idea is to combine an aqueduct and a wall, this combining two things into one and conserving space, AND here is the peculiar and main part, if this aque-wall is ever to be torn-down by enemy forces, water would come crashing down with the rubble, thus drowning the attackers, and turning the battlefield into a sticky marshland, making it harder to move and easier for archers to pick off their prey!..you lose a water supply, but hey, the attackers are thrown off.
So this is a thread for Tacticians, to share their ideas and learn new and unique things and stuff of that nature, so anybody else have any other ideas to share? (this thread may not be so popular as the game has not come out yet and everyone has zero experience)
I like the idea, but if enemies discovered you were using your aqueduct as a wall, could they not just tear it down, surround your town and wait for you to give in?
Siege engines. That would bring any city to its knees, especially considering that most of the time, you won’t have the resources to expand your wall far enough to surround your farms, and if you did have enough resources, odds are that your city is so huge that a loss of 20 settlers is negligible anyway.
However, an idea concerning terraced walling has just occurred to me…
Well, considering the multitude of building materials, perhaps a wood or Celtic-style earth wall would surround and protect your outermost lands and farms, while a sturdier one, perhaps stone or wood, would protect your inner town and ye olde shoppes, while a very heavily fortified one would surround your innermost areas, such as your castle and keep, and perhaps you would have some of these walls for your outposts as well, and maybe your mines, too. In addition, a well-established town would be able to raise the level of each layer. For example, you dig out a river/moat outside of your farms, and using the dirt you collected, you could build the Farm Wall. Then, using dirt from a relatively far-away quarry or the like, you would level off the Town area a few voxels above the Farm area, and create certain chokepoints using stairs, gates, or otherwise. Finally, your castle would ideally be placed on a large hill or mountain, as the amount of dirt required to lift that above the Town level would be huge. Surrounding each level would be said walls.
hmmm, the walls may not have to be large per say, if adequately defended, archers should be able to dispatch up to a small army, so I believe a wall should have patrols on top and guard towers every so often, again, im assuming higher elevation=higher line of sight for an archer, if not, it still allows for a place guards can be for rapid response
Yes, but it looked cool in my head, so shhhhh… Anyway, I never said that they had to be large, just sturdy. That means stronger materials. And I do truly hope that elevation is a factor in battle. That would be amazing.
back in the time of walled towns it was known to happen where the attackers just surrounded a town and contained them basically starved them out. people can’t last more than a couple days without water. Personally as much as it does sound like an interesting concept i think that having the water on your wall or incorporated into your wall could be an issue if you are being attacked. if you loose the water flow. your villagers will dye of thirst or if they will try and leave in search of water and die out in the open against i would assume a larger force. a simple wait them out strat and the defenders would lose. I believe the romains used this strat at one time.
I think one particular issue is that the wall would have to somewhat adhere to the flow of water; it’d have to come from somewhere, likely outside the town. If raiders took the source of water farther upstream, they’d be able to stop/poison the water, making it useless as a strategic obstacle and a valuable resource to the people.
It’s not a bad idea, but it depends on the source of the water and the ability to defend it along with your actual town. I’d just be wary about making a bridge parallel to the top of your walls(or closer to it), where they’d have less vertical distance to fight and could even flood the inside of the town using your own water if they took over the top.
My walls are something along the lines of a semi-circle at the base of a cliff, then then there are 2 1/3 walls on the sides of the wall, these walls have no outward facing arrow slots. Then when the army marches inside of my outer walls into my farmland they are hit by both two-lines of archers from back and front.
One thing that I think must be pointed out, you would be just as likely to drown your own people with this tactic. Because there are 3 main ways to assault a castle. By using ladders against the walls, bringing a battering ram to the gate, (both of which would leave the walls intact.) Or to destroy the wall with a catapult of some sort, which is usually done at long range so the water wouldn’t reach the enemy in a large enough quantity to be dangerous.
Yeah, somewhat. Although less like that and more like… hold on… ack, I can’t really find a better pick. Although much less dramatic and much more town-like and broad.
You plan to use archers but the Romans also had some basic siege artillery if I remember correctly (sorry at my school we are currently doing ww2 and I love ww2 history so I haven’t visited roman tactics in awhile)
Although being far better organized and trained a garrison on your walls could still be overwealmed
What if the enemy has armour and siege weapons as well? A battering ram that provides cover from your arrow fire. In terms of the Persians what about war elephants they would charge straight through those walls into your farmland. This idea of having archers inside the first wall is cool. But if they get in the first thing they will want to do is control the gate those archers on the inner wall are gioing to be dead very soon. And then say the enemy is content to hold all that room inside the first wall.
Sure your archers on the other side are going to take potshots. But now they control your Water walls, your farms eft ect
the walls around my farms are those walls that have no outward faces arrow shots. Though Im gonna grow rice so marshy farms seem to make this plan better.
Well obviously if I weren’t an idiot, I would have more water sources than my aque-walls like a back up well, water storage, or an extra aqueduct. If those sources were knocked out as well what is the difference between knocking out seperate walls and aqueducts, and aquewalls and aqueducts?