Battering ram does not wait for ransom response - v 8.0

[KeySmasher]

I made a save when I had a ransom demand so I can test out a few tactics. The raiders were split between two locations that I could tell, and I didn’t notice the 2nd location until I went with my test. The test was to wait until the winter storms before denying them so I can see if they are affected by the cold. It seems they are not but I’m not sure that is a bug. During this event, I got word of a building being attacked that was on the other side of town. Here I could see the battering ram and I decided to load from my save six months prior and check out my options for defeating that.

The load ended up making the game run really slow, and as it turns out, the battering ram went to town on my wall early and then started aiming for guard towers. I had to set a bunch of villagers on it. In my first test, I tried to let loose the soldiers in the barracks against a formation of raiders but they would not attack them, even if explicitly told to do so. At the very least, I figured this would trigger an automatic deny response to the ransom and start the battle. To my surprise, the battering ram could still be attacked while delaying on any response to the ransom, but probably because it was already engaged as an attacker.

I can’t be certain at this point if this is a bug from reloading the save, or if the battering ram will always attack without waiting, but since the first round it didn’t hit my wall until six months later when I clicked deny to watch how the storm affects the raiders, I’m assuming that in the first round before reloading, the battering ram did not attack.

[tigon]

The battering rams seem to be somewhat independent of the main army but don’t usually attack on their own unless you load in a save where the battering rams are already waiting (although I haven’t come across it yet in 0.8.0). The behaviour was that they attacked on there own whilst the terracotta army remained in place until either the deadline or the denial. You can’t attack them to provoke them but villagers won’t go near them, which is really annoying when they form up close by where walls need repairing and towers are half-built.

You can game the situation, which is almost certainly a bug and not intended.

Repro:

1. Get a ransom demand from an army with at least one battering ram
2. Save the game
3. Return to main menu and/or load the save
4. Watch the battering ram(s) instantly set off on the attack with the Terracotta Army standing rigidly in formation

At this point, if you’ve got troops on hand, you can take out the battering rams without interference.