I think it would be a good realism change to alter how walls and defenses work. Small raids should not be able to damage walls. In reality, you need sappers or trebuchets to damage city walls. What they should do instead is use ladders.
Instead of having to build towers everywhere, walls should have ramparts that guards patrol along. Then they have to fight hand-to-hand any bandits that manage to climb up and over. This would increase the usefulness and fun of having well armed and armored troops. Armored bandits with shields would take much less damage from arrows and have to be fought with troops on the ramparts or outside.
I think this would be a more realistic approach to city defenses. It would present more upgrade options for the walls, e.g. towers, merlons, hoardings, machicolations, etc. It would eliminate the need to have the very ugly and unrealistic multi-layered walls. It would make barracks troops and their equipment a lot more useful. I think it would add a lot of depth and authenticity to this area of the game.
Good ideas… it is currently ridiculous that one raider armed with a stick club or sword can singlehandedly knock down an entire section of so called ‘Reinforced Wall’ - what are they reinforced with - sellotape?
Raiders seem pre-occupied with walls to an obsessive level. Some will stand there the entire game chipping away and roaming to destroy fieldstone walls and crop gates and fences… we really need this taken out of the raider AI as all it does is annoyingly cause you to have to spend literally half the rest of your game year trailing around looking for gaps letting in livestock to eat crops and commissioning new wall units or wall lengths, all of which is made even more frustrating by the lack of mass prioritisation for walls (without which they never get rebuilt) Raiders should raid not be a mere nuisance kicking down gates, and one raider should not be able to manually destroy an entire house alone or a windmill or foundry, this makes no sense at all. If they used siege weaponry or fire there might be some argument there but a hand held weapon… that’s rubbish.
I think the entire military combat system needs a total rethink; there are so many issues within it that make little sense. Your ideas would make it more fun, more realistic and acvtually bring some value to having walls and troops or towers