Battering Ram - Huns

Enjoy the battering ram while it lasts because it is grossly overpowered and likely to get nerfed.

It has a strength of 10 and 300% (!!!!!) bonus versus cities. Two of these bad boys can almost completely weaken an early city letting a warrior or spearman finish the job in a single turn.

Now, perhaps this absurdity could be justified if it weren't for the Huns other unique unit - the Horse Archer. These things are like getting Keshiks in the ancient era. They even start with a promotion.

Why does that matter? The battering ram has no special abilities against a traditional attack. So they are susceptible to be taken out as they approach the cities by normal unites.

But the Horse Archer is so strong it can decimate all the enemy units before the battering ram arrives.

Anyway, my advice is to jack up the difficulty level to Immortal or Deity, set the game to Epic or Marathon, and do a Horse Archer and Battering Ram rush to get the rare domination victory on higher difficulty levels.

The game is already a joke on anything but Immortal/Deity (I seriously can't fathom why people do youtube vids on lower difficulties).

So you are likely to beat the opponent to a pulp regardless if you use battering rams or not. But the higher difficulties give AI loads of units so you can't easily squeeze the rams in and take out a city just like that.

Also, walls. Deity/Immortal computers get them super early. Horse archer is good but not nearly a force like Keshiks.

Infiltrator said:

The game is already a joke on anything but Immortal/Deity (I seriously can't fathom why people do youtube vids on lower difficulties).

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Because not everyone is as good as you! I'm playing one above normal (can't remember the name) and I am beginning to win relatively comfortably, but that was only by saving up scientists and then popping 6-10 techs to get a early science victory and by going to war. I can't imagine myself being able to win at a higher difficulty with the (absolutely required) GS nerf.

I can understand new players playing prince, emperor etc. But after you figure out that the AI is essentially on a calculator-level, you realize that you can get away with everything, tech randomly, throw units away.. you will win eventually.

To bring it in focus with the thread, I can see how the Ram may be OP in such difficulties, but in comparison anything else you do is also OP. It doesn't matter if you stomp them with Rams early on or a bit later with Keshik squads.. the only instance where I would consider rams slightly OP is when a warrior gets promoted right off the bat and even then you will have a hard time taking the enemy capitol as they will have at least 2-3 warriors and a couple of archers + scouts if you are on deity/immortal.

Infiltrator said:

I can understand new players playing prince, emperor etc. But after you figure out that the AI is essentially on a calculator-level, you realize that you can get away with everything, tech randomly, throw units away.. you will win eventually.

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Even on Prince the AI gets substantial bonuses. A runaway AI can either steamroll you or get tons of gold and win diplo. Of course Prince is much easier if you use the exploits or play aggressively... especially if you do both. Play nicely and don't use the exploits, and Prince can be a challenge, depending on how the dice roll.

Now in a multiplayer game, spawning next to the guy playing Huns sounds like nothing but bad news. They have zerg rush abilities, and the best you can hope for is taking their cities like you could for any other civ.

What I would do for balance is this:
- reduce battering ram to 200% or maybe 250%
- give ALL Hun units 10% or so city attack
- give the Huns a -20% or so reduction in city defense

Then there is more of a "conquer or be conquered" feel for players near the Huns.

I guess you could say that in the current situation, people might gang up on the Huns as is, so maybe the current balance is all right.

headcase said:

Even on Prince the AI gets substantial bonuses. A runaway AI can either steamroll you or get tons of gold and win diplo. Of course Prince is much easier if you use the exploits or play aggressively... especially if you do both. Play nicely and don't use the exploits, and Prince can be a challenge, depending on how the dice roll.

Now in a multiplayer game, spawning next to the guy playing Huns sounds like nothing but bad news. They have zerg rush abilities, and the best you can hope for is taking their cities like you could for any other civ.

What I would do for balance is this:
- reduce battering ram to 200% or maybe 250%
- give ALL Hun units 10% or so city attack
- give the Huns a -20% or so reduction in city defense

Then there is more of a "conquer or be conquered" feel for players near the Huns.

I guess you could say that in the current situation, people might gang up on the Huns as is, so maybe the current balance is all right.

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I play as a warmonger about 90% of my games. If I see someone is going ahead far away I just let him. Later on, I just find a choke point at which he'll dump all of his units. I don't know what you mean by "exploits" but there is only so much one can do when the AI throws ranged units in front of your melee ones.

The battering ram's weakness can be far more easily exploited by a player rather than the stupid AI. Sure, it's a great weapon if you have the upper hand. But if your siege comes to a halt and the rest of your army can't support it, it's a dead weight.

The human opponent does not need to account for the Ram as it's technically defensless. Even throwing warriors at him is cost efficient. The only problem is if a human player actually gets 1-2 rams around your city and you don't notice them coming. But that is not a balance problem.

If I saw a human attila I would always monitor his army and the path between him and me. As long as you see the slow rams coming, you have enough time to prepare. If he's right next to you, then attack him. Like I said, rams are useless on the defense and if he makes some trying to defend he's gone.

If you feel that you're lacking competition in G&K, try playing against a couple of allied Huns then

Infiltrator said:

The human opponent does not need to account for the Ram as it's technically defensless. Even throwing warriors at him is cost efficient. The only problem is if a human player actually gets 1-2 rams around your city and you don't notice them coming. But that is not a balance problem.

If I saw a human attila I would always monitor his army and the path between him and me. As long as you see the slow rams coming, you have enough time to prepare. If he's right next to you, then attack him. Like I said, rams are useless on the defense and if he makes some trying to defend he's gone.

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Thats where Horse Archers come in, to kick the butts of slow & clumsy warriors & spears who might hurt ur rams. HAs have 1 less ranged strength than composite bows & 4 IIRC, that is quite powerful indeed.

Dont forget that Horse archer CANNOT move after attacking(unlike Keshiks), so while they can do a lot of damage, spearman can and will kill them if you have enough to survive the initial volley.

Does anyone else thing the real reason Hun feels not just OP but a little silly OP is the fact that horse archers don't even require HORSEs? I mean, the Khan doesn't even get that!

Magical Horses!

I'm facing the Huns for the first time, they spawned VERY close and DoWed me quick, I bought a cataphract (with 150 faith) and squashed the ram quite quicky.

Last night I played as Attila on Great Plains, one of the easiest games I've played, it seemed easy managing happiness even after I conquered 3 civs. The horse archers last a long time, depending on the terrain, by the time I got to Hiawatha in the forest to the east I sent them out to hunt barb camps or the random rogue CS (usually bribed by Hiawatha)

keeping in mind that the Battering Ram has -33% defence penalty, they're really weak.

Also, Horsearchers are also weak on defence.

This just means the AI needs a tweak to defend itself better.

MadDjinn said:

keeping in mind that the Battering Ram has -33% defence penalty, they're really weak.

Also, Horsearchers are also weak on defence.

This just means the AI needs a tweak to defend itself better.

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Defense penalties or no, Atilla is a bit overpowered early.

I played an immortal game where by turn 150, I wiped out Babylon, Songhai, and Germany. I had England down to two cities. Only two unit types I used were horse archers and battering rams.

For no strategic resources, and only 4 techs, you get what maybe be the two best early UUs in the game. Pottery may come into the mix to get the shrine so you can get the pantheon of the +30 HP by a friendly city. Build a barracks after the 2nd horse archer and go down the left side of honor, and you've got horse archers starting with shock 2, and a short skip to logistics.

You also generate great generals left and right. Bring in the second GG to replace the first, and plop down a citadel right by their capitol.

If all civs are overpowered in a different way, are they really overpowered? I've played most of 3 games now: Celts religious, Egypt wonder builders (even better now with the pantheon belief and many additional wonders) and Carthage conquest. All were similarly challenging when I play Immortal (my skill level) but would feel grossly overpowered at Emperor. I haven't tried Huns though so I can't say for sure that you're wrong. It's just hard for me to imagine (looking at stats) that they would be a better conquering civ than, say, Carthage. (I'll defer to MadDjinn for the final word on this though.)

Big J Money said:

Does anyone else thing the real reason Hun feels not just OP but a little silly OP is the fact that horse archers don't even require HORSEs? I mean, the Khan doesn't even get that!

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They were a nomadic barbarian tribe that lived by the horse. I am chalking it up to they got the horses in the last place they occupied before the game started. With that in mind I think it would be a good addition to add maybe 2-4 free horses for them that if they die after being built you do not get the resource back. Would be more like a barbarian tribe that settled down and can't\don't pillage anymore.

So, I am a Prince (for new things)/King (for stuff I am good at) player. I just played me a deity game (marathon, standard, Pangaea, all other things normal) as Attila. Won it easy style. I just had to see how broken the ram was. I did nothing but tech straight to it, and then build a f-ton of them, rolled over the enemies. It was silly. I did have to buy three archers for home defense (got archery from a hut...also, my first warrior got upgraded from a hut too), but yeah, that was silly.

EDIT: I tried this because last night I was playing a King game with a friend (we were teamed on a Pangaea, king, marathon, standard map vs 4 other teams of two) And I was at war with 4 civs at once (2 of the teams), fighting all 4 civs at the same time (aka, I wasn't just fighting one side of the duo and ignoring the other), and rolling people (as Attila) with NO help from my friend (he was just techin). So I was just curious how far I could run with the idea that a million battering rams = win everything.

EDIT 2: I just realize this sounds very brag-tastic. That is not my point. I have NO business playing at Deity (I get my butt handed to me at Emperor on a regular basis right now). I posted this to show that a very specific strat (rush ALL the civs with ALL the battering rams) is just really really really silly. The ram is probably mostly okay (maybe just needs a small nerf). But when you spam them, things get silly REALLY fast...

Pazyryk said:

(I'll defer to MadDjinn for the final word on this though.)

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Oh, Attila is a beast alright.

but the problem is still with the AI, not with the units (except maybe adding the horse requirement to the horse archer).

But I also think that it's plausible to remove the Range promotion for horse based archery units given that they tend to use 'short' bows rather than 'long' bows. Would make more sense and force people to put their units in danger to attack something.

edit: to point out the issue:

The Battering Ram has Cover I + a defensive penalty (-33%). This averages it out to 10 combat strength vs. ranged and 7 combat strength vs. melee - when on defense.

To handle this, all you have to do is have units in front (battering ram can't attack) and the city/archer unit to attack as well. I have lost decent numbers of battering rams to city attacks, but the AI still needs some work.

If you are playing vs humans and somebody has the Huns... ALWAYS keep a unit at the capital, I took out China in 17 turns by getting battering ram with a ruin upgrade, sent ram to capital, only took 2 hits on the capital to take it... before the warrior could cross the river to defend!!!

MadDjinn said:

Oh, Attila is a beast alright.

but the problem is still with the AI, not with the units (except maybe adding the horse requirement to the horse archer).

But I also think that it's plausible to remove the Range promotion for horse based archery units given that they tend to use 'short' bows rather than 'long' bows. Would make more sense and force people to put their units in danger to attack something.

edit: to point out the issue:

The Battering Ram has Cover I + a defensive penalty (-33%). This averages it out to 10 combat strength vs. ranged and 7 combat strength vs. melee - when on defense.

To handle this, all you have to do is have units in front (battering ram can't attack) and the city/archer unit to attack as well. I have lost decent numbers of battering rams to city attacks, but the AI still needs some work.

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Well, I don't know about that.. the horse archer loses effectiveness a lot faster than the Keshik - obviously because it comes earlier, but the average effective time span of the Keshik is much wider.

Sadly, both the ram and HA upgrades have no use when you promote them - HAs become Knights, who have no use for range upgrades and Rams become trebuches, who have no use for melee upgrades. Really sad how Firaxis fixes Crossbowmen only to ruin UUs like these.