Battering Ram - Huns

I managed to conquer 5! civilizations with only two warriors, three battering rams and two horse archers by 1400 BC on King difficulty. It seems extremely easy to get the AI to focus on your other units or bait it so that it leaves its capital mostly undefended. Two Battering rams can then conquer the city in one turn and since by this time most civs have just one city you don't even have to worry about their units.

All it took to take out Korea was two Battering Rams and a Horse Archer on Emperor. 1st attack turn... Horse Archer hits Korean Warrior (doesn't kill), Battering Ram (1) attacks Seoul for major damage, Battering Ram (2) moves into position. On defense, Korean Warrior instaheal attacks Battering Ram (1) for major damage, city attacks Battering Ram (1) still doesn't kill, Korean archer attacks Battering Ram (1) now on life-support. 2nd attack turn... Battering Ram (2) attacks Seoul for major damage, Battering Ram (1) attacks and takes Seoul despite have much less health than city.

Also, somehow I'm whipping everyone with faith points... around turn 100 producing nearly 30 faith per turn with only four cities (including Seoul). Around turn 140 have spawned 4 Great Prophets (3 from faith and 1 from Haggia Sophia). Around turn 160 12 cities have my religion... my four cities plus 8 city-states. So many quests by city states (espec. the most faith produced in 30 turns by 4 city-states) with Huns as top dog.

With the Huns it just seems simple to just found three cities, conquer a nearby capital ... coast along with faith +city states. They are amazing in desert +Petra and Hanging Gardens!! Somehow you get food even on a Mountain tile... weird. And who would've thought they would be such faith whores... the Celts were in the game also and they were left in the dust. If you have a lot of gold/silver and can ally a religious city-state it comes easy, really easy.

the huns can be countered by mounted units, they have nothing to defend against horsemen...

I also like how you can use the resulting army for bullying city states. I can see why a CS would give you some gold when they see a battering ram at their doorstep that just destroyed 5 major civilizations

swimslave said:

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

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No it isn't. It's a very strong unit for a civ that is only strong in the earliest stages of the game, and so needs a very strong unit. It can only attack cities and doesn't do a lot of damage defending itself. It denies the Huns a melee unit stronger than the Warrior against other melee units until they get iron (or Civil Service, if no iron in their territory). Unlike all other siege units it isn't ranged, and so any defenders preventing it getting close to the city nullify it completely.

I say this having lost a city to two hits from a battering ram in my current game; it had however only just grown to pop 2. Not because the ram is overpowered, but because this is the only way the Huns can compete. Indeed they lost their entire army in that attack, and the victorious ram was sitting around waiting to be shot once the city was razed (granted, a human player would probably keep the city and have the ram safely inside).

The battering ram is one of the most interesting design features of G&K, and its power level is pretty much exactly right for what the Huns are - compared with some of the advantages other new civs get, and it's very far from an overwhelming advantage. And speaking personally I like to play a game where I will take losses in a war - it makes it feel more challenging (which is not necessarily the same as being more challenging - I have no prospect of losing the war against the Huns, I've already teched to a point where they have little chance of beating me, and losing a small, newly-founded city likely cost me less in the long run than the Huns losing their army) - and indeed makes the Huns feel like what they're meant to be: a short-lived threat that can rampage through early cities but is unlikely to actually wipe anyone out.

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

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The Horse Archer has a fairly low strength, just a high ranged strength, and ranged attacks take longer to kill things. It's very vulnerable to Spearmen and to some extent enemy archery. As someone else noted, it's a 2-range unit that can't move after firing, so the 4 movement doesn't help it defensively. You're also limited in cities/production that early in the game. By the time you can build up the size of force needed to swarm with horse archers and rams, they're already redundant technology.

Still, using the Rams pretty much guarantees you another Capital, most likely two. There is no way AI can defend against a unit that can one-shot their Capital from outside their borders (very simple to position two rams in range without declaring war).

Even later, if you are willing to sacrifice a few units to bait the AI, you can take at least another civ out. You can easily finance your spree by bullying the CSs you come across with your Rams and keep buying more Rams/Horse Archers.

Also note that they keep the 200% vs cities when they upgrade to trebuchets.

Infiltrator said:

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.

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In the hands of a human player, the UUs are as overwhelming as any other set early on - just read this thread. Knocking them down to earth after the Classical era makes sense to me. That's your chance to generate the snowball effect that will carry you through the rest of the game, without any further UU advantages.

Txurce said:

In the hands of a human player, the UUs are as overwhelming as any other set early on - just read this thread. Knocking them down to earth after the Classical era makes sense to me. That's your chance to generate the snowball effect that will carry you through the rest of the game, without any further UU advantages.

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I can agree with that. If you don't go all out early and take those advantages, You're stuck with no melee, and unpromoted horse archers.

You have to attack early and often to get the ball rolling for something like what I did earlier. And that was the extreme end, of going all honor.

A better test would be on something like a Pangaea map, and see if new contemporary units can hold their own backed by the horse archers. If not, then Attila is a lot less overpowered than it would seem. I'm not far enough into the game to test the other continent. I don't know if Atilla can keep the ball rolling.

Well, started another game with Attila, this time on Emperor, Standard settings. Managed to wipe out 3 civilizations by 850 BC even though 2 of them had more than 1 city and their capital were in a really badly assaultable position (lots of sea and mountains). Difficulty doesn't seem to be a factor in this because I waited until their units were in such a way that they couldn't get to me in one turn. And again, money from CSs and cheaply traded Luxuries allowed me to purchase more units when I needed them (mostly Horse Archers to scout the best invasion positions).

I decided to give this a run. It feels to me just like horsemen were at release, just build a few of them and annihilate every civ on your continent with ease. I got lucky and got my first ram from a hut, then proceeded to 2-shot the 3 CS that were nearby. I got a worker from the last one and have been using him to improve luxury resources as I pump out horse archers that are complementing the slaughter quite nicely.

I had to go a LONG way through jungle/hill terrain to get to the closest Civs but their units were easily destroyed by horse archers and their cities taken within 2-3 turns each. I burned through the Iroquois and Byzantine like nothing, it was just silly. The rams deal an absurd amount of damage and you can upgrade them to do even more against cities. Who cares if they can be killed easily by units if those units are dead before they can get them from my horse archers.

Nerf bat is definitely incoming, I can see them at least changing the rams to needing a special resource just to slow down the carnage.

Txurce said:

In the hands of a human player, the UUs are as overwhelming as any other set early on - just read this thread. Knocking them down to earth after the Classical era makes sense to me. That's your chance to generate the snowball effect that will carry you through the rest of the game, without any further UU advantages.

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The problem is, some early-UU civs have transitions that actually make the unit useful later on. Iroques, Romans, Aztecs, Greeks etc. all have early UUs who do not lose their power as the game progresses, because they have NATURAL evolutions and not some bastardized melee >> range or vice-versa conversions that make them useless.

Infiltrator said:

The problem is, some early-UU civs have transitions that actually make the unit useful later on. Iroques, Romans, Aztecs, Greeks etc. all have early UUs who do not lose their power as the game progresses, because they have NATURAL evolutions and not some bastardized melee >> range or vice-versa conversions that make them useless.

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However, in this case the result of the melee >> range upgrade is still significantly better than if you just produced the trebuchet normally.
The same can not be said for their horse archers.

This game is far too easy below Immortal difficulty as others have said, you don't need to be good at the game to handle Immortal, if you can beat Civ IV on Monarch, Immortal in Civ V is a piece of cake.

swimslave said:

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.

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Two could probably TAKE an early city. One on its own will reduce a city by 75% of its health in a single hit. It also means if you conquer any of his cities, he can instantly take them back if he has even one battering ram nearby/on a road leading in.

However, you are all forgetting one VERY important aspect of the Huns: the unit the Battering Ram replaces? The SPEARMAN! That means they have absolutely 0 means of defeating Horsemen, as their UUs are both weak to horsemen, and one of them replaces the only counter you have against Horsemen until Iron Working. That also means their only frontline melee unit until swordsman is... Warriors! Sure hope they have iron...

Infiltrator said:

The problem is, some early-UU civs have transitions that actually make the unit useful later on. Iroques, Romans, Aztecs, Greeks etc. all have early UUs who do not lose their power as the game progresses, because they have NATURAL evolutions and not some bastardized melee >> range or vice-versa conversions that make them useless.

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Actually, they fixed that. Upgrades still grant their power to the unit even if it switches from ranged to melee and vice versa. I upgraded my chariots into Mandekallu Cavalry and their Accuracy II was still giving me combat bonuses.

bhavv said:

This game is far too easy below Immortal difficulty as others have said, you don't need to be good at the game to handle Immortal, if you can beat Civ IV on Monarch, Immortal in Civ V is a piece of cake.

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That may be true, however any balancing should come from difficulties that most people play on and I will wager that's not Immortal (or Deity).

GlobularFoody said:

Nerf bat is definitely incoming, I can see them at least changing the rams to needing a special resource just to slow down the carnage.

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Problem is, there are no special resources until Iron, and by the time you get iron the rams are nearly obsolete.

I think rams are fine, they are powerful at what they do but as others have said your only melee unit at that point is warriors, so that is a major disadvantage that a smart player could exploit to beat them. I can definitely see early Horsemen being a very effective counter for Attila, horse archers and rams should both prove quite weak against them and warriors aren't going to fair much better.

fivexthethird said:

Also note that they keep the 200% vs cities when they upgrade to trebuchets.

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Trebuchets are 200% vs. Cities by default. Rams are 300% vs. Cities.

It won't get a nerf, trust me. As for the game being a joke, everyone plays at their own pace and level, it's a game for crying out loud!