Buggy Feature | |
As of Master of Magic v1.31, Wall Crusher is known to be malfunctioning in at least one way. Please read the Known Bugs section below. |
Wall Crusher is one of the many Unit Abilities available in Master of Magic.
During a siege battle at an enemy Town surrounded by City Walls, a unit with Wall Crusher can target individual wall segments just as it would target enemy units. Any attack it makes this way, as well as any attack that it initiates against an enemy unit standing on a tile with an intact wall segment, has a chance to reduce that wall segment to rubble.
This allows the unit to punch through walls, making holes for other units to move through. The destruction of wall sections also reduces cover for the Town's defenders, making them easier to hit than before.
Wall Crusher is a fairly common ability, possessed by exactly 14 different units. The majority of these units are Normal Units, particularly Catapults and Engineers from different Races. A few Fantastic Units also possess this ability.
There is no known way of adding Wall Crusher to a unit that does not already possess it.
Description[]
Towns of strategic importance are often surrounded by walls for their protection, causing problems for any assailant that wishes to conquer them. Walls restrict passage and give the defenders a place to hide, making it difficult for a hostile army to enter the settlement without high casualties. Thus, an attacker needs to consider the various means to get through such walls.
Wall Crushers are often units with a powerful attack that can breach straight through the wall itself, though the ability can also represent technical expertise in demolishing walls without the use brute force. In any case, a unit with Wall Crusher can be vital for siege operations – at least when no other method of getting through walls is available.
Effect[]
The Wall Crusher ability only comes into play when conducting a siege battle at an enemy Town that's surrounded by City Walls. It has no effect in any other circumstances.
A unit possessing Wall Crusher can target enemy wall sections just as it would target enemy units. This includes any of the 12 segments of the wall, skirting the 4×4 Town Proper area representing the Town itself on the combat map. Whenever such an attack is ordered, it has a certain chance (see below) to instantly turn the targeted wall segment into rubble.
A destroyed wall section is passable to all units, as though it was not there. This allows ground units to enter the Town through the new hole, instead of trying to come in through the – usually heavily-defended – gate section. Furthermore, any enemy unit hiding behind this particular wall section loses most of the protection that the wall provided prior to being destroyed.
However, all wall sections are automatically repaired as soon as the battle ends. Two consecutive battles in the same Town will both start with a fully-repaired wall surrounding it, even if every single section was destroyed with Wall Crusher or other effects during the first battle. The only way to get rid of the wall is to demolish the City Walls Town Building itself.
Destruction Chance[]
The chance of destroying a wall section depends on the distance between the wall and the Wall Crusher unit. If they are adjacent, then the chance to destroy the wall section is 50% – regardless of the Attack Type used – while in all other cases it is only 25%. The Attack Strength of the Wall Crusher unit has no effect on this chance. Engineers, possessing weak attack scores, have as much chance to destroy a targeted wall section as a pair of powerful War Mammoths with very high attack scores. Additional damage properties and Attack Types are also ignored. For example, a unit with a Melee Attack and a Thrown Attack still only gets a 50% chance to destroy a wall section it is adjacent to.
Making a Hole[]
The primary benefit of City Walls is that they block all ground units. Such units cannot move through a standing wall section, and those on the outside cannot make Melee Attacks against units on the inside. They can only pass or perform hand-to-hand attacks through one specific section – the gate facing the besieging army. Thus, the defenders can concentrate on holding that point to prevent all enemy ground forces from getting through.
When a wall section is destroyed, it becomes a new hole. Any unit may pass and attack through this hole as though there was no wall there. If units can be sent through into the Town, they can nullify much of the defenders' advantage – instead of having to do tough combat at the gate in order to gain access. The more holes there are, the more opportunities the attacking army has for getting units into the Town without too much opposition.
Reduction of Cover[]
Units located on the same tile as a standing wall section receive a +3 bonus to their Defense score against attacks coming from outside the walls. This makes those defending units harder to kill, and can pose a serious issue for opponents relying on Ranged Attack units. The attacking army can try to solve this problem by destroying these wall sections with Wall Crushers or other effects. While a demolished wall section still offers +1 to units hiding behind it, this is generally much easier to overcome than the full bonus of an intact section.
Attacking a Unit Behind a Wall[]
Whenever a unit with Wall Crusher attacks an enemy that is taking cover behind a section of the City Walls, it will also automatically make an attempt to dismantle that wall section. This most commonly happens in the case of Wall Crushers with Ranged Attacks, but can also normally occur at the gate which, while it can be moved or attacked through, does still count as a wall section for the purpose of providing protection.
However, the latest official version of the game is unfortunately inconsistent with regards to Melee Attacks against wall sections with units behind them. Technically, a Wall Crusher should be able to attack any wall section. Yet, if the Wall Crusher is a ground unit that is normally not allowed to attack through a section, then a defender on the other side will effectively prevent it from attacking that section. In other words, the ability only allows attacking a wall section if either there is no enemy on the same tile, or the enemy there can naturally be attacked by the Wall Crusher – for example, if the Wall Crusher is flying.
In any case, the chance for destroying the wall section remains the same: 50% if the Wall Crusher is adjacent to it, or 25% otherwise. The attack against the wall always comes after the attack against the enemy unit, meaning that the outcome has no bearing on the resolution of that particular attack against the target – it will only affect subsequent actions.
Units with Default Wall Crusher[]
Exactly 14 different units in the game have Wall Crusher by default. 9 of these are Normal Units, and 5 are Fantastic Creatures.
Normal Units[]
Air Ship
Catapult
Beastmen Engineers
Draconian Engineers *
Dwarf Engineers
High Men Engineers
Klackon Engineers
Orc Engineers
War Mammoths
- Draconian Engineers are not available in version 1.31.
Fantastic Units[]
Colossus
Earth Elemental
Fire Giant
Stone Giant
Storm Giant
The Engineers, the War Mammoths, and the Earth Elemental are only able to utilize the Wall Crusher ability in close combat. However, rest of the units all have Ranged Attacks as well.
Acquiring Wall Crusher[]
There is no known method of adding the Wall Crusher ability to any unit that does not already possess it by default.
Known Bugs[]
As described above, a Wall Crusher can only attack a wall section on the same tile as a unit if it is also able to attack the unit itself. This is likely not how the ability was intended to work, but rather an overlooked side effect of the way it was implemented. Considering that with the exception of the Air Ship, all Wall Crushers are ground units, and that such units can not initiate Melee Attacks through an intact wall segment, it is actually somewhat difficult to make meaningful use of the ability in close combat. Typically, it will only work at the gate and the corner towers of the wall.
A more severe – but fortunately also quite remote – issue stems from the fact that the game does not use a separate targeting map for spells in combat. Instead, the map it creates is filled out based on the currently selected unit. While this has no practical relevance for the vast majority of spells, Wall Crushers do mark intact wall segments – that they could attack – on the targeting map in a way very similar to how units are represented on it. As a result, if the active combat unit is a Wall Crusher, and the player is casting a spell that targets an enemy unit, empty tiles with intact wall sections can become valid targets.
In most cases, if the spell is then cast, it will merely result in wasted resources. However, if the Wrack Combat Enchantment is in play on either side, then the game can instead either crash or become severely unstable. This is because the area of memory referenced during this process falls within the image data of Wrack's combat icon. If it is altered, then the game will no longer be able to draw it properly and, in the worst case, can freeze immediately upon trying to do so.