Cover and defence vs cities

Thorak · Apr 9, 2014

I searched for an answer regarding how cover works vs cities and what to do to reduce the damage my units takes from city attacks but I found a contradicting thread which only confused me so I decided to do some own testing. I have come to the following conclusions after collecting some statistics in a hot seat game vs myself:

1) The defence vs city attacks is ranged strength rather than normal strength. I did some tests with hwacha and now I realise that it is very strong. This also explains why siege units dies so quickly vs city attacks compared to ranged units.

2) Cover doesn't work for ranged/siege units vs cities. In fact, I am not sure even terrain bonuses or fortification works vs cities. I tried having an xbow in a hill and fortified and the damage didn't differ as far as I could tell vs a xbow on a plain. I didn't have time to test a citadel, but if it is as I beleive it won't work for ranged units either.

3) Cover does indeed work for melee units. I had 2 spearmen standing on a plain, one with double cover and the other without any cover at all. The one with double cover took a lot less damage (1/2 to 2/3 of the one without promotions).

Conclusion:
Don't take defensive promotions on ranged units, but on melee units it works just fine. The later era ranged units (gattling and so on), will probably not be so good on defence because of this either which could explain somewha why it feels like they are rather fragile compared to melee.

beetle · Apr 9, 2014

Thanks for experimenting and reporting.

Thorak said:
The defence vs city attacks is ranged strength rather than normal strength. I did some tests with hwacha and now I realise that it is very strong. This also explains why siege units dies so quickly vs city attacks compared to ranged units.

I am a little confused by this. Don’t siege units have relatively high ranged strength? If so, and if they used ranged strength for defense, they would be expected to hold up better. Or do siege units defend with their nominal strength while only archery units defend with range strength?

Also, does cover help range or siege units hold up against other range or siege units?

Browd · Apr 9, 2014

Siege units actually have relatively low ranged strength (e.g., 8 for catapult, 14 for trebuchet, 20 for cannon, etc.). When attacking cities, they get a +200% ranged strength bonus, but not when defending (and, no, you can't tell that from the Civilopedia description, which just says "+200% Bonus vs Cities").

Also, they have the No Defensive Terrain Bonuses promotion, which means hills, forests, jungles, forts, etc. are worthless to them.

beetle · Apr 9, 2014

Browd said:
Siege units actually have relatively low ranged strength...

Well that explains it!

Hemul · Apr 9, 2014

That sounds immensely stupid :eek:

Doesn't it make all (ranged) siege before artillery pretty pointless? At least they told the AI about the cluster, so that they attack with mostly bows instead of siege....

Thorak · Apr 10, 2014

Hemul said:
That sounds immensely stupid Doesn't it make all (ranged) siege before artillery pretty pointless? At least they told the AI about the cluster, so that they attack with mostly bows instead of siege....

Yepp, this is why most people don't use siege units in most cases. Ranged units are simply better, at least until cannons (with the exception of hwacha). I must try a hwacha Korea rush and see how it works out!

TLHeart · Apr 10, 2014

hwacha is good against units... gets one shot destroyed by cities. gets NO bonus against cites either.

Thorak · Apr 10, 2014

TLHeart said:
hwacha is good against units... gets one shot destroyed by cities.

This is totally NOT true and is one of the main reasons why I created this thread. Thanks to hwacha ranged strength it is the strongest unit in the game in defence vs cities compared to other units in the same era.

Alphons Rodulfo · Apr 10, 2014

Thanks for finding this out. It is probably still worth it to have a cover promotion for siege units because cities tend to be defended by ranged units.

Does the cover promotion help melee units when they attack a city?

Calouste · Apr 10, 2014

Thorak said:
Yepp, this is why most people don't use siege units in most cases. Ranged units are simply better, at least until cannons (with the exception of hwacha). I must try a hwacha Korea rush and see how it works out!

Siege Tower is also a pretty good siege unit. 12 base strength and a free Cover promotion.

Thorak · Apr 10, 2014

As a sidenote: Battering ram and siege towers are siege weapons, BUT since they are melee they will most likely benefit from the cover promotions.

I didn't test this, but my common sense tells me it should be so.

Talamare · Apr 11, 2014

You don't use Ranged Strength when determining how survivable a unit is

The reason Siege units die to cities is because they have terrible actual strength, The might Catapult only has 5 Strength, meaning it is as killable as a Archer in the open.

Trebuchet are hardly better with a pathetic 8 strength, they die as fast as Warriors do! (Well Faster! Since Warrior can get terrain bonuses and can Fortify)

So why are Hwacha actually kinda of good at taking cities? Unlike the pathetic 8 Strength of Trebuchet, they have a TREMENDOUS! INSANE! MIGHTY!!!!! 11 Strength... Comparable to Spearman

Neither Battering Ram nor Siege Tower gain defensive terrain bonus either, but with 10 and 12 strength respectively and the Cover ability they can survive quite a bit.

Let us do some quick math to see how killable each of these are
Catapult -with cover = 5 - 6.6s
Trebuchet = 8 - 10.6
Battering Ram = 13.3
Hwacha = 11 - 14.7
Siege Tower = 16

Let us not forget the Era we get each unit, Siege Tower comes out at the same time Catapults do, and you can easily see a massive difference in how killable each of them is

Lets add in a few melee units
As I said Warrior is comparable to Trebuchet, so the same number applies however
Warrior can also be in the jungle while fortified
That 8 - 10.6 can easily shoot up to 16.64

Tho this just proves how impressive the Siege Tower is, Its vanilla version has the same ranged defensive strength as a Fortified Warrior with the Cover upgrade in the Forest

Edit - Oh yea, This is also why most people use Composite Bowmen and Crossbow men to take Cities, They have 7 & 13 strength respectively and can get terrain bonuses

Thorak · Apr 11, 2014

Talamare said:
You don't use Ranged Strength when determining how survivable a unit is

The reason Siege units die to cities is because they have terrible actual strength, The might Catapult only has 5 Strength, meaning it is as killable as a Archer in the open.

Trebuchet are hardly better with a pathetic 8 strength, they die as fast as Warriors do! (Well Faster! Since Warrior can get terrain bonuses and can Fortify)

So why are Hwacha actually kinda of good at taking cities? Unlike the pathetic 8 Strength of Trebuchet, they have a TREMENDOUS! INSANE! MIGHTY!!!!! 11 Strength... Comparable to Spearman

Neither Battering Ram nor Siege Tower gain defensive terrain bonus either, but with 10 and 12 strength respectively and the Cover ability they can survive quite a bit.

Let us do some quick math to see how killable each of these are
Catapult -with cover = 5 - 6.6s
Trebuchet = 8 - 10.6
Battering Ram = 13.3
Hwacha = 11 - 14.7
Siege Tower = 16

Let us not forget the Era we get each unit, Siege Tower comes out at the same time Catapults do, and you can easily see a massive difference in how killable each of them is

Lets add in a few melee units
As I said Warrior is comparable to Trebuchet, so the same number applies however
Warrior can also be in the jungle while fortified
That 8 - 10.6 can easily shoot up to 16.64

Tho this just proves how impressive the Siege Tower is, Its vanilla version has the same ranged defensive strength as a Fortified Warrior with the Cover upgrade in the Forest

Edit - Oh yea, This is also why most people use Composite Bowmen and Crossbow men to take Cities, They have 7 & 13 strength respectively and can get terrain bonuses

Once again this is incorrect. Run some tests and see how much damage a hwacha takes vs a city compared to a pikeman. Pikeman has higher strength but still takes more damage. Same with xbow but the difference isn't as clear.

Testing cover is tedious, but testing ranged strength vs city is rather quick.

ravenmagus · Apr 11, 2014

Siege towers are actually really amazing. They're tough, they deal a ton of damage to cities, and since they're melee, they can actually capture the cities too. Not to mention they give a GG like bonus to surrounding units when they're next to a city.

Battering rams are pretty amazing in the early game too - a warrior promoted to battering ram in the first few turns via ruins is capable of wiping out a civ single handedly.

It is my experience that siege towers do benefit from their Cover promotion. They can take a real beating from a city.

Thorak · Apr 11, 2014

ravenmagus said:
Siege towers are actually really amazing. They're tough, they deal a ton of damage to cities, and since they're melee, they can actually capture the cities too. Not to mention they give a GG like bonus to surrounding units when they're next to a city.

Battering rams are pretty amazing in the early game too - a warrior promoted to battering ram in the first few turns via ruins is capable of wiping out a civ single handedly.

It is my experience that siege towers do benefit from their Cover promotion. They can take a real beating from a city.

As I mentioned a few posts up, siege towers and battering rams are melee units so they do benefit from cover even though they are siege units.

Talamare · Apr 11, 2014

OMG, Okay - Allow me to begin by apologizing

I just finished doing some heavy testing in game

ALL Ranged Attacks vs another Ranged Unit uses their Ranged Attack value for a defense

Ranged Attack Defensive Values are NOT modified Fortification or Cover when being attacked Defensively

Ranged Attack Defensive Values IS affected by terrain and PROMOTIONS (but not Cover)!

That is correct, If you have the Offensive Promotion for the terrain you are currently standing on when your Ranged unit is being Ranged Attacked, you will receive the bonus. Note the bonus will NOT be stated on the list of bonuses but it will affect your Strength and the amount of damage you take

I also tested Melee Units they are 100% working as intended

I must say this is an absolutely MASSIVE bug

beetle · Apr 11, 2014

Thanks Talamare. Are you saying that the Cover promotion works only for melee units? Are you saying that siege units do not benefit from cover when attacked by siege or other ranged units? (Can non-siege ranged units even get the cover promotion? If so, does it ever benefit them?) Did you test all types of ranged attack, e.g., archer v. archer, archer v. catapult, catapult v. catapult? I am not surprised that cover does not help ranged units versus cities (only because that bug has gotten a fair amount of discussion), but I will find it disappointing if there is no situation at all where it helps ranged units.

Non-siege units are suppose to get the defensive benefit from terrain, so I am relieved your tests confirmed that. I am surprised that you say they do not benefit from fortifying, but it would be unusual for a ranged unit to be fortifying rather than shooting (unless attacked from the fog). It is no surprise that siege units do not benefit from terrain directly, but if their attack promotion matches the terrain they are standing in, does that help them defensively? Your post seems to imply that it does, but that would surprise me too.

Sorry to reply to your helpful post with a request for more help...

Talamare · Apr 11, 2014

beetle said:
Thanks Talamare. Are you saying that the Cover promotion works only for melee units? Are you saying that siege units do not benefit from cover when attacked by siege or other ranged units? (Can non-siege ranged units even get the cover promotion? If so, does it ever benefit them?)

Non-siege units are suppose to get the defensive benefit from terrain, so I am relieved your test confirmed that. I am surprised that you say they do not benefit from fortifying, but it would be unusual for a ranged unit to be fortifying rather than shooting (unless attacked from the fog). It is no surprise that siege units do not benefit from terrain directly, but if their attack promotion matches the terrain they are standing in, does that help them defensively?

Sorry to reply to your helpful post with a request for more help...

I understand I may have worded poorly, it does not help that this feels almost unbelievable. Please, understand that I believe this is a MASSIVE bug. I believe that Ranged Attack should be defended with Strength Stat, Not the enemies own Ranged Attack Stat

Ranged Units can get the promotion Cover
Ranged Units get NO benefit from Cover
-Since Cover only affects Strength
Ranged Units are NOT benefiting from Fortifying vs Ranged Attacks
-This is pretty big incase you wanted to try saving a mid health Ranged unit who is unable to run away
-Fortifying affects melee units attacking you normally

Offensive Promotions are increasing the Defense if you are standing on their promotion terrain.
-This applies to all Ranged Units who are being Ranged Attacked, not just Siege units.
-Note it will not be a listed bonus, you will need to do the math yourself.

Example for this after increased testing
If the enemy unit has a promotion for Open Terrain, and you are currently standing on Open Terrain. When YOU Range Attack him, his offensive promotion will apply to his defense. I tested this with both Siege(well Hwacha) and Ranged Units, it applied both times.

beetle · Apr 11, 2014

Thanks for the clarification. This is very disappointing news. Not just counter-intuitive, but broken.

Talamare · Apr 11, 2014

City Attacks do not apply to the Promotions thing (probably because they cannot officially stand on terrain), Also does not apply for the City Specific % bonuses (I am referring to the 50% bonus to city and fortified units... Tho now I wish I checked against a Fortified Ranged Unit before closing the game >_>)

Tho honestly, if it did... It would make Siege units actually not completely terrible

+200% Strength on the Defense vs City Attack for Siege units would probably balance them

Cover and defence vs cities

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