Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum but I play Edain since 3.7 ^^
I'm very concerned by this subject since I play a lot in LAN (as someone said previously, siege against IA is not very important...).
Halbarad said it justly, today, sieges are done just with a bunch of catapults and some pikes to defend it... Personally, I never played a game (or maybe just one or two) where I needed to build siege towers, ladders or needed to do a several-phases siege (maybe I just didn't play against good players too...).
But I really think it would be good if, at a moment of the game, the attentions of both players (in a 1v1) are fixed on what's going on near the fortress.
I want, as a defender to have the opportunity to send a cav because the aggressor has to weaken one of his flanks to get into the castle...
For now, he just has to sit with his catapults, archers and pikes and right click on my wall-trebuchets. Then, he destroys the gate and it's a all-in.
Sometimes it's more tricky but it's basically how it works now...
One of the main things that I think would be essential is to drastically reduce damages of catapults against units on a wall (but I think you talked about it in your "Road to 4.5").
Second is, as Halbarad said, to make wall-trebuchets more effective than mobile catapults : the aim is to force the aggressor to attack with many different means (towers, ladders, mines...) and to attract defensor attention (understand : "force the defensor to move his screen") on a diversion points, while he takes advantage of this distraction to place mines on the other side of the fortress... this is challenging !
And on the other way, even if there is a breach in the walls, the defensor has still to be able to turn the tables...
So, to return to the subject, I think that making catapults unmoveable while firing is quite a good idea... It gives a better chance to the defensor to take them down.
Anecdote : something to fix, when you command to Isengard balista to roll through rohirrim or infantry, they actually kill them... and making them unmoveable would prevent this problem
It will force aggressor to always pay attention to enemy's cav... And this could be emphasised if catapults are more precious ! Maybe, a way to prevent players to always focus on catapults and win a whole game out of them is to increase their price and command points ?
They may be a real advantage (shooting buildings from afar, preventing heavy losses) but at a cost... And it's a bit historical : catapults, onagers and trebuchets were quite rare, sieges were often done with ladders and rams or by spreading fire on wooden parts or by using ruse (diversion...).
Actually, it would be far more interesting to use catapults in a more disruptive way than destructive ! Using catapults to press the enemy to act foolishly even though it doesn't kill a lot of his men... Using catapults to attract enemy's attention to allow the infantry to put foot on the walls.
I personally prefer a lot infantry battles than catapults battles and I would really like to be forced to use other siege weapons because catapults cannot win alone...
That's my desire and opinion