Catapult threat

Hi all,
This is my first post here. I've been playing civ3 from time to time since almost a year now. One of the biggest frustrations in the game are the catapults. I find them obsolete. When i use them to bombard a city, they do the job only 10% of the time. Are there any rules concerning the use of catapults? Or anything I should know to make them more efficient?

And by the way, do you guys know any good strategy to do a siege? I used to try to make the ennemy cities starve to death by surrounding them with my armies but it ain't working. The best way I found so far to take over a city is the hard way : charge into it until it's yours...

Hope u guys help me out.

welcome to the boards...as you can see i am new myself. While ive been playing only a short time.i do know how bad catapults suck..they keep missing. However..i fount out that once you upgrade them to cannons they become more more useful..and hit more often. THis can only kee p happening as you upgrade them..and upgrading them is actually quiet cheap (at least for aztecs..it is like 50 or so gold i think).

Anyway..hope that answers your question.

Javier

Catapults rule.

not only for cities, but also for units outside of cities.

they do slow down your army movement, but make it possible to fight wars with little or no losses.

They work well against spearmen and other defence 2 units. when the AI has stronger units, you will need stronger artillery.

Yes, you need a lot of them, but remember, you don't need to lose any units if you use your catapults to lower all units to 1 hp.

Bombard units are necessary tools for any worthy base siege. When faced with a strong defensive neighbour like the Sumerians, Greeks, or Carthaginians, I always use catapults to deal with them before I send in the swordsmen and/or horsemen. When I hit the early Middle Ages, I upgrade my catapults to trebuchets to help deal with the accursed Dutch, Japanese or French. The going is somewhat easier due to having Knights most of the time, but often the target cities are large enough to give the defenders a large advantage. Batteries of Cannon are much better, of course, but you need Saltpeter and Iron (unless you're the Koreans, who need only Saltpeter), but it comes at a time when you should be preparing for the Industrial Wars anyway...

Technically, you don't need bombard weapons until the Industrial Age -- which is why you get Artillery the same time as Infantry -- but they're a good insurance policy against harsh defenders. If you do up the cost:benefit ratio, using many bombard units with a satisfactory number of attacking units is cheaper than going all Horsemen/Swordsmen or all Knights. The cheapskate in me tends to favour the Pikemen/Longbowmen/Trebuchet combo over the more standard Stack of Doom (SoD) of Knights.

For me, and many other players, bombard units are necessary for continued military success...

Post Edit - One other beneift of using bombard units is that they can help even the playing ground when you're short on strategic resources. Nothing is as bad as being without Iron or Horses, or both, and having to fight a war with a neighbour who has both. Your only viable attacking units in the Ancient Age without Iron or Horses are Archers. As a result, you need Catapults to help take care of the opposing defenders, even if they're "only Spearmen." In short, bombard units cannot be denied.

- Rep.

Thanks guys for your posts, that was fast! Anyway, I was looking for some tips on how to increase their efficiency. So far I like to use them against boats to protect my islands. But is there any specific terrain or setting that will increase their efficiency?

Nope, there's nothing that will improve them besides going into the editor and giving them better stats or a lower production cost. Artillery doesn't work like it did in SMAC, where a unit's elevation affected how well it worked. It would have been easier to code into CivIII if the developers chose to do so, since there are only three or four elevations in the game: water, basic land, hills and mountains. I dunno what that should give them though, maybe just a better bombard rating, but definately not a higher rate of fire though.

Reprisal said:

I dunno what that should give them though, maybe just a better bombard rating, but definately not a higher rate of fire though.

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That is too bad.
As for the second topic, I have found that my citizens cannot work in squares infested by ennemies. This means if I surround an ennemy city with my mens, the city's citizens shouldnt be able to produce anything neither and they should start to starve. However this is not happening. What is even more frustrating is that they still get vital ressources like iron to their town even if i invade the roads (i dont mean to destroy them, just get my swordmens over them, which should logicaly block all trade).
In other words, it is impossible to take over a city simply by assieging it.

PanMatej said:

That is too bad.
As for the second topic, I have found that my citizens cannot work in squares infested by ennemies. This means if I surround an ennemy city with my mens, the city's citizens shouldnt be able to produce anything neither and they should start to starve. However this is not happening. What is even more frustrating is that they still get vital ressources like iron to their town even if i invade the roads (i dont mean to destroy them, just get my swordmens over them, which should logicaly block all trade).
In other words, it is impossible to take over a city simply by assieging it.

Click to expand...

The siege is one of the hardest things to do effectively in a Civ game...mainly because of the 21 square city radius. You'd hace to have 20 units, each on a seperate square in order to prevent all the population from working...and they would slowly die off, but the city would never reach pop 0 because of the city square producing food (usually 2 or more).

As per the trade idea...yes you should be able to cut off access to a resource by standing in the middle of the road, but I have a threory about that...since your units don't gain the benefit of roads in enemy territory, it can be guessed that they aren't on the roads (to avoid detection or to avoid startling the populace or something) and thus can't control the roads. The only way to be sure is to pillage the roads...roads can be rebuilt easily once you gain control of the territory.

Now back to sieges...the easiest way to siege is to get a really good defensive unit or three, and a lot of artillery...throw in a fast unit or two as well, and the enemy city won't stand much of a chance. Send in your fast units first, and pillage as much as you can. Your fast units should be tearing up the road network and other improvements. After a few turns, slowly move in your artillery (catapults, cannons, artillery, radar artillery) with your defensive units (spearmen, pikemen, musketmen, riflemen, infantry, etc). When your artillery is in range, fortify your defensive units with the artillery stack "underneath" them...then bombard the city. You want to make sure the barracks is destroyed and the city is down to a pop 6 or lower. That way the defensive units gain nothing from being in the city and can't heal very fast. THEN you can send in your attack units.

As per defending shores with artillery units...this is best done with artillery and a massive road network...having bombers in your exterior cities (or on carriers along your coast) also helps, but before that I wouldn't worry about it...ships can't do too much before that, although frigate bombard raids are annoying.

Well, those are just my thoughts.

PanMatej said:

As for the second topic, I have found that my citizens cannot work in squares infested by ennemies. This means if I surround an ennemy city with my mens, the city's citizens shouldnt be able to produce anything neither and they should start to starve. However this is not happening. What is even more frustrating is that they still get vital ressources like iron to their town even if i invade the roads (i dont mean to destroy them, just get my swordmens over them, which should logicaly block all trade).
In other words, it is impossible to take over a city simply by assieging it.

Click to expand...

I would rather pillage to cut there income/food/production with a few effective units. And, you need to pillage the road to cut the resources/lux. Logic does not always apply in Civ III.

Also... if you pillage ALL the roads around the enemies capital, it breaks any trade treaties the AI has at the time. Very effective to destroy the AI's rep, and cut any supplies they may be recieving from another AI. I did this once, and watched the AI choke. I waited about 15 turns after pillaging everything... then almost walked into their cities. Also, I got a lot of workers as the AI sent them out to repair the damage. Remember... captured workers are free (no upkeep).

Two catapults per city size is what you want before pikemen. Then you need 3 per city size for pike.

Some cities such as the capitol will need more than that.

I will keep one city producting seige weapons for the entire game. The more the better...

dresdor said:

The siege is one of the hardest things to do effectively in a Civ game...mainly because of the 21 square city radius. You'd hace to have 20 units, each on a seperate square in order to prevent all the population from working...and they would slowly die off, but the city would never reach pop 0 because of the city square producing food (usually 2 or more).

Click to expand...

Ok this is true for the latter ages, when ur units are so powerful that it isnt much of a trouble to take over a city. But in the early ages, siege was the only way to go. That's why they were building up walls and fortresses, wich are obsolete in our days. And i think it should be that way also in this game, the designers should make it easier to capture a city in the early ages by assieging it.

One way to do that would be to make it impossible for your citizens to produce anything in the squares where the ennemy's armies are INCLUDING the squares surrounding them. Another way would be to make it possible to kill the citizen if u are on the same square as him, that way the governor would change his citizens into a specialist so they dont get killed. Thus forcing a rebelion or starvation in the long run.

I'm gettin excited while i drop these ideas. Is there any way i could code this myself? I havent touched the editor yet. Do you think there is a source code of civ3 out there?

Keep in mind everything is on a scale here...each square is 10 miles by 10 miles...which is a lot of area for a unit of soldiers to patrol...when you make it 80 miles by 80 miles...it becomes nearly impossible for soldiers to patrol effectively.

When inside the production zone of a city, military units "occupy" squares and make it impossible for a city's workers to harvest the resources in that zone. Would it be possible for this to occur using the entire bombard range of a catapult, trebuchet or cannon? In asking, I mean that an cannon would be able to make all productive squares within its range impossible to use? My logic being that if a city worker can be bombarded when s/he goes out to work, s/he probably won't actually go out to work.

Basically, it would be a way of making having bombard units more worthwhile, even if they're not as good at bombarding a city.

If X = Productive Square, B = City, and O = Unproductive Square:


Then, if a Range = 1 Artillery Unit (A) is in the area, the squares marked Z would not be productive due to the Artillery's "Zone of Control."


Does that make sense? (Do Code tags work on this forum?)

- Rep.

yea it all worked... i think its a good idea, also mean you could starve a city before invading it then starve it down (which i think kinda ruins invasions

on the overall catupult idea i love them, just i often a) forget to build enough and b) get them stolen.. oh well

WackenOpenAir said:

Catapults rule.

not only for cities, but also for units outside of cities.

they do slow down your army movement, but make it possible to fight wars with little or no losses.

They work well against spearmen and other defence 2 units. when the AI has stronger units, you will need stronger artillery.

Yes, you need a lot of them, but remember, you don't need to lose any units if you use your catapults to lower all units to 1 hp.

Click to expand...

You can never have enough cats, build many and then build some more !!
They are very effective on defense (fortified in city) and will help knock of enemy hps when you are on the offensive.

Reprisal said:

When inside the production zone of a city, military units "occupy" squares and make it impossible for a city's workers to harvest the resources in that zone. Would it be possible for this to occur using the entire bombard range of a catapult, trebuchet or cannon? In asking, I mean that an cannon would be able to make all productive squares within its range impossible to use? My logic being that if a city worker can be bombarded when s/he goes out to work, s/he probably won't actually go out to work.

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This is exactly what i'm talking about. This would make it easier to assiege towns in the early ages. It would take 4 catapults placed in each corner of the town to make it starve. But then in the latter ages it would become too easy to capture towns since units become so much more poweful. So i propose to include in the "military tradition" tech, a limitation for the artillery so they can't attack citizens in the surrounding squares. I call this war etics.