so i arrive at a city with a giant stack of macemen, war elephants and catapults. the city had a cultural defense of 125%. ouch. that needs to go. so the catapults began bombarding: total damage done in one round was 23%. guess how many catapults i had? 16 catapults. that is just absurd.

Send them back to the workshop for repair. hehe. I do think Castles now are harder to breakdown. More time and effort.

That is what you get if they already have castles (engineering) and you are bringing catapults to the party instead of trebuchets. Did you have any with 5XP you could promote with accuracy?

I find even Trebuchets are slow with castles. Either you build many trebuchets, or use the easier solution - a spy.
You need to collect enough espoinage points against that opponent and perform the incite revolt mission. The defences will go down to 0 for 1 turn. Then use your catapults to soften defenders and maces to finish the kill.
Make sure to bring 3~4 spies to each city in case they fail. Still cheaper than trebs, but you have to collect espionage points. If you can arrange it, every turn the spy stays in the city will make the mission cheaper by 10% (up to 5 turns).
In such early war I find that I have to increase my espionage slider ans low my science. That is one disadvantage compared to trebs.

I agree with the spy thing but at that point in the game it is unlikely that you would want to dedicate that much commerce to espionage, and if you did you'd be better off stealing engineering instead of dropping defenses. Strategic use of spies is warranted for a city or two but if the entire front has castles (don't waste them on castle-less cities for sure) then it will be too expensive. Plus, a slow moving war isn't that bad and with proper stack defenders (where are your cross-bows?) holding your position against counter shouldn't be too much of a problem. After the first couple of cities is when the WW will start stacking up and then you may want to speed things up with spies or just sue for peace. Once their main stack is defeated and you have a sufficient sized SoD the AI isn't likely to put up a proper counter offensive even if you delay.

castles are supposed to be quite difficult to take until cannon....

Duh. Take Cannon for Castles, not Catapults.

i was warring against the tech leader. he was miles ahead of everyone else but i had no choice. everyone else still had no better than walls.

What made you decide on city assaults instead of a pillaging campaign (which are where your catapults would shine anyway)?

catapults don't shine at pillaging, knights do. but besides that he had no cottages and i needed his cities because i had so little land myself.

Wage defensive war. Lure his units onto a square where only YOU have cultural influence and proceed to decimate his stacks. Or pay through the nose for peace while teching up. Bringing catapults against Castles is just bad.

fine we have some suggestions (none of which would have worked anyway because of the weird situation) but do you guys not agree that 50 years of bombardement to get rid of one city is ridiculous and unrealistic?

Taking years, decades, and centuries to move armies around is unrealistic.

What speed do you play on? By your numbers you are talking about 5 turns with 16 catapults. For me on marathon, including empire management, that takes maybe 20 mintues?

...but do you guys not agree that 50 years of bombardement to get rid of one city is ridiculous and unrealistic?

Castles are supposed to beat catapults ... it's like pikes vs. horse archers

In the situation you've described, the best thing to do is to use espionage. You don't have to ramp up the slider if you plan ahead a few turns. Three spies per cities is more than enough, then simply incite revolt and invade. Often you get the spy back and can reuse it. The cost in terms of espionage points is totally manageable if you keep the spy stationary in the city for long enough (5 turns is the maximum effect you can get, as mentioned before).

The only situation in which this is difficult is when your opponent runs a high espionage against you, making the missions more expensive as well as increasing the chance of your spies being detected (thwarted).

The AI usually sucks at espionage play, however, so this is rarely a problem.

I use spies heavily in my campaigns, even if I'm one generation ahead militarily. With spies you can move a completely mounted assault force (curassiers or cavalry) from city to city quickly and don't have drag slow cannons around. Makes those wars a lot shorter.

espionage works against one city but it can't work against multiple 125% cities

Castles are supposed to beat catapults ... it's like pikes vs. horse archers

yeah but it didn't work like that did it. armies don't turn up at a castle and then turn away again because there massed catapults couldn't knock holes in walls.

guys this post was mostly a rant because the game had been going so well and this really screwed it up.

I understand that.

So next time, don't make that mistake. Bringing only Catapults against Castles is nearly always a terrible waste. Don't waste your time. Wait for them in your borders and kill their stacks on favorable ground.

that why i always try to build the GW at the beginning . It cheap , protection form barbs , 100% GG (good for defensive war too) and you can have a GS from there , either settle or save him so when you have war later just burn him . you will have like 4.5k EP , you can revolt like 10 city with that amount of point . It is a very good investment :)

yeah but it didn't work like that did it. armies don't turn up at a castle and then turn away again because there massed catapults couldn't knock holes in walls.
They dont? LOL, what makes you think that? Of COURSE building Castles turned armies away, or deterred them completely from even bothering to try such a foolish wasteful ploy.

tycoon, I understand your frustration, but you are suggesting that Cats should be better because in THIS game THIS leader out-teched you, and you want what you want NOW. Come on, bro.

Sorry. Either build Trebs (which are BARELY better), jack up your spy points, or dont go to war with em at all. Decades to take down a castle with inadequate technology isnt the slightest bit unrealistic. In fact, whats unrealistic is that they CAN eventually take it down. Those cities should be able to laugh at your puny weapons indefinitely, without a worry in the world unless you bring something better. Because yes, many an army left castles unscathed because they simply could not beat it. Whatever makes you think they didnt?

Even in an early war it should be possible to get some useful espionage points. If the other civilization was the obvious target to DOW on, because of the lack of space, then setting all the espionage points per turn against it since the beginning would have provided more than enough points. Settling an early Great Spy (from the useful GW) and putting a courthouse in the capital are also big.

Either way, I've also been through that experience before, a huge stack of siege (cats and trebs) against an enemy city with a castle, and it took forever to demolish the cultural defences (maybe 5 or 6 turns). Perhaps another espionage mission, sabotage castle, could be useful... :D

I actually like the BtS siege changes ... they mean there is an "Era of Defense" after the Ancient/Classical land grab phase. You can still take a city or two but EPs are generally in short supply, siege is weak and very vulnerable to flank attack.

Early ReX is obviously much more important than before. Still, it can be frustrating (as in your game) when you need to fight out of a tough start. In this case spending a few turns on the Espionage slider may be the way to go :dunno:

Check out Dirk1302's Steel beeline in the Immortal University II thread. 12th century cannons will do the job :lol:

do you guys not agree that 50 years of bombardement to get rid of one city is ridiculous and unrealistic?
It's one turn, and quite balanced. The fact turns are presented in years is just window-dressing. It's a game, remember.

That said, a version of Civ that halts all building constructions and teching each time a war breaks out for, say, 20 turns of just moving units, would be quite interesting. :)

They dont? LOL, what makes you think that? Of COURSE building Castles turned armies away, or deterred them completely from even bothering to try such a foolish wasteful ploy.

tycoon, I understand your frustration, but you are suggesting that Cats should be better because in THIS game THIS leader out-teched you, and you want what you want NOW. Come on, bro.

Sorry. Either build Trebs (which are BARELY better), jack up your spy points, or dont go to war with em at all. Decades to take down a castle with inadequate technology isnt the slightest bit unrealistic. In fact, whats unrealistic is that they CAN eventually take it down. Those cities should be able to laugh at your puny weapons indefinitely, without a worry in the world unless you bring something better. Because yes, many an army left castles unscathed because they simply could not beat it. Whatever makes you think they didnt?

this wasn't a rabble that turned up at their city gates. and this wasn't one or two catapults either. it was sixteen catapults, 25 maces and 10 war elephants. inside there was six longbowmen and a couple of crossbowman as well as a musket. it would have taken 5 turns (normal speed) to bombard the defenses down, so i just went for it. lost ten maces but took the city. yay.

so lesson to be learned there: in the face of overwhelming defense don't use catapults, sacrifice your units, they aren't worth much anyway.

:lol:

Accuracy promoted trebs might take 2-3 turns to knock down 100%+ cities, but not much more if you have 8 or so. Most cities won't be THAT stacked. CR trebs are pretty much the key to medieval warfare, because unlike cats they don't die en masse' to longbows.

Cats aren't great vs castles...cats are CLASSICAL siege...

Trebs have twice as much bombard attack as catapults. So I wouldn't agree with saying "barely better".

espionage works against one city but it can't work against multiple 125% cities
Sure it can. Obviously you need to plan accordingly, it won't be enough with just the EP from your palace, divided among all the civs you know.

When facing castles, just like with anything, you need to use the appropriate countermeasure. Castles are strong in defense, and they are meant to be that way. If it was easily possible to mostly ignore them (as it was in vanilla), they don't add much strategic depth.