Warlords: Trebuchets way overpowered

I just started playing a warlords game and I think the trebuchets are massively overpowered. I am in the medieval era and added trebuchets to my attack stacks. With Charismatic, barracks, 2 Generals, and Theocracy, I can produce units with 3 promotions in my HE city and a CR3 trebuchet is obscenely overpowered.

A stack of trebuchets can knock down city walls and then have an 80% win chance plus withdrawl plus collateral against healthy CD longbows. Of course, only the first bow or maybe two in the capital will be healthy because of collateral. My maces have been reduced to escorts because trebuchets blow them out of the water. I just put a stack of trebuchets with a couple of shock elephants, pikes, and maces next to a city and I can't think of a decent counter. You can't hope to leave you units in the city and any counter attack will be bloody especially if there is a forest or hill next to the city.

Does anyone know what was planned as a counter for trebuchets? The CR promotions are obvious since trebuchets are purely a city attack unit and they make city defence suicidal. There must be some obvious counter from play testing I'm overlooking.

I've used similar grenadier and cannon stacks in Napoleonic wars before to cut through rifle stacks. With rifles at least the first couple of cannon attacks are at bad odds before the slaughter. Trebuchets just tear up everything in a city often with no losses.

Also, great generals make a cheap West Point for the HE city without using the second national wonder slot. I hate to think about imperialistic leaders dropping a bunch in a high food city with the Globe Theater.

Well, I would think that cavalry are their designed counter. Obviously, though, if you combine trebs with elephants or pikes, it's going to be hard for the cav to counter them, but that's the advantage of a mixed army.

The problem, as I see it, is that cav don't get defensive bonuses, which means there's no *defensive* unit that can really counter them...

It seems Catapults with drill and barrage are the counter to trebs because they have one more strength point. I usually have stacks of them in my border towns for defensive offense. Seems to me the only counter for stacks of anything is a stack of collateral damaging units, along with some mounted units with upgraded flank. With the advent of the stable it should be easier to get some mounted units with Flank I + II as well as a strength promotion. This would be the logical counter, even to a mixed force.

that's true, i think that would work nicely. too bad the ai probably won't do it,

futurehermit said:

Well, I would think that cavalry are their designed counter. Obviously, though, if you combine trebs with elephants or pikes, it's going to be hard for the cav to counter them, but that's the advantage of a mixed army.

The problem, as I see it, is that cav don't get defensive bonuses, which means there's no *defensive* unit that can really counter them...

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Cavalry?!?!? This is like calling riflemen the counter to axemen. Trebuchets are Macemen era, not cavalry era.

I would guess that you should use maces then later knights when you get them.

I cant imagine the AI producing such a large stack in that era. More to the point why would you let such a large stack get so close to your cities? If the unit is taken down before it reaches the city your fine. Im in a early war on current game. Biggest AI stack is about 4 units if that. 1 unit weakens other destroys. Im sure 5-6 macemen would reduce most attacking stacks. One assumes you were watching what the AI was up to? If not why not???

Still waiting for my warlords wahhhh.

RobertTheBruce said:

I just started playing a warlords game and I think the trebuchets are massively overpowered. I am in the medieval era and added trebuchets to my attack stacks. With Charismatic, barracks, 2 Generals, and Theocracy, I can produce units with 3 promotions in my HE city and a CR3 trebuchet is obscenely overpowered.

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Yeah, I don't understand why they made trebuchets so strong at attacking cities directly. It seems a degenerate strategy to me. The defense to a stack of CR3 (or even CR2) trebuchets must be attacking them in the field, rather than hunkering down in the city and letting them use that +175% city attack bonus. But the AI isn't going to be able to do this very effectively.

I agree with Robert that the trebuchets seem to OP, just from a stats perspective (don't have the expansion yet). Trebuchets were used to break down heavy enemy fortifications during a siege, and I don't think were ever really used to directly attack actual people, so it doesn't make sense to give them so much attack versus units. It would make more sense to give them a large bonus to reducing city defenses, and then a negative bonus to attacking units.

Cavalry?!?!? This is like calling riflemen the counter to axemen. Trebuchets are Macemen era, not cavalry era.

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sorry, i was being vague, i didn't mean cavalry the unit, i meant cavalry the *class* of units (i.e., guys on horses).

futurehermit said:

sorry, i was being vague, i didn't mean cavalry the unit, i meant cavalry the *class* of units (i.e., guys on horses).

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Mounted would be the proper terminology for it.

Single player trebuchets are big problems for the AI. A power 2 knight parked in a city vs a CR3 trebuchet is 4.0 vs 10.0/(2.55) or (4 vs 3.92) which is about a 55% change to win. After the first knight, collateral damage puts every combat ifurther n the trebuchet's favor. Power 2 is not the Ai's favorite promotion for knights and most cities won't have knight defenders. CD2 longbows (4.0 vs 3.6 IIRC), maces, pikes, and elephants are poor defenders against trebuchets. I didn't see any units with anti-siege promotions but I've never seen any units with anti-siege. I don't think the 25% would make much difference against the 175% anti-city modifier the trebuchets can quickly get.

I'm sure MP players will use stacks full of cats to punch through the trebuchets' defenders. The trebuchets are hopeless for anything other than city attack as they should be so a good counterattack is the best and maybe only solution. I don't play much MP and I'm suprised the AI seems totally helpless against trebuchets. I'm not that strong a player or creative a tactician and I fell into this the first run through. I was playing at Prince and the Ai never tried a serious large counter attack against my stacks.

DaviddesJ said:

Yeah, I don't understand why they made trebuchets so strong at attacking cities directly. It seems a degenerate strategy to me. The defense to a stack of CR3 (or even CR2) trebuchets must be attacking them in the field, rather than hunkering down in the city and letting them use that +175% city attack bonus. But the AI isn't going to be able to do this very effectively.

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Yup, you probably thought of this just looking at the stats. Its a very unbalancing unit for SP games. The AI is easily crushed by trebuchets. It takes no skill to turtle and play nice with your neighbors until engineering and then mop up all the other civs in a single sweep.

RobertTheBruce said:

A power 2 knight parked in a city vs a CR3 trebuchet is 4.0 vs 10.0/(2.55) or (4 vs 3.92) which is about a 55% change to win.

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Well, I think the first, and biggest, problem here is that the Combat 2 Knight is sitting inside a city...

Trebuchet's sound weak enough in the open, and even with +175% city attack can conceivable not come close to some garrisoned Longbows I've seen out there.

I, for one, am glad they put in a relatively clear counter to the Longbow unit. Perhaps the biggest problem is that they linked it with Bombard and collateral damage, but the actual niche role of a solid anti-Longbow was necessary.

Nares said:

I, for one, am glad they put in a relatively clear counter to the Longbow unit. Perhaps the biggest problem is that they linked it with Bombard and collateral damage, but the actual niche role of a solid anti-Longbow was necessary.

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Why should there be anti-everything units? In Civ4, they put in a little bit of RPS among the units, but they didn't overdo it the way that most RTS games do. Now they seem to be going too far down that path. It should be a perfectly reasonable defensive strategy in Civ4 to build a mixed stack of defensive units, and sit in your city. It should be possible to take such cities, but difficult and require taking losses. Now they have made it too easy.

DaviddesJ said:

It should be a perfectly reasonable defensive strategy in Civ4 to build a mixed stack of defensive units, and sit in your city. It should be possible to take such cities, but difficult and require taking losses. Now they have made it too easy.

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Well, my point was that mixed stacks weren't really necessary. Longbows can benefit from enough multipliers such that they're near impossible to dislodge with anything close to a parity in number of units on either side. The only real way to defeat them was with a stack of CR units, most likely Macemen, accompanied by CR Catapaults to soften the Longbows up.

Knights and Pikemen were near irrelevant, though could be applied, Knights because the effect of Combat promotions is more significant for them, and Pikemen because Mounted units are a preferred unit class after Archery units for the AI.

I have yet to play, or even purchase, the Warlords expansion pack, so I haven't actually seen the effect of Trebuchet's in practice, though I will agree that they sound overpowered. I do not think this is because of their niche role of pure city attackers, but moreso because they can effectively "do it all," by not only being one of the best city attacking units, but also being capable of very necessary collateral damage, as well as having the capability to reduce city defenses (they have that, right?).

Personally, I always thought Knights would make a good anti-Archery unit, but they were never made to be one. They're role as anti-Siege units (or, more specifically, anti-Catapaults) was never really valuable enough, and certainly took back seat to their two-movement points and ability to work in tandem with a very small stack of defenders (say, a Maceman and a Pikeman) in order to more effectively pillage.

Beyond that, Knights have a very definate hard counter in the Pikeman, and do not benefit from being a final defender in a stack (Trebuchet's benefit from this Siege unit rule, correct?).

Nares said:

Well, my point was that mixed stacks weren't really necessary. Longbows can benefit from enough multipliers such that they're near impossible to dislodge with anything close to a parity in number of units on either side. The only real way to defeat them was with a stack of CR units, most likely Macemen, accompanied by CR Catapaults to soften the Longbows up.

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I haven't had any trouble taking out longbowmen with knights. A knight with Combat 2, vs longbow with City Garrison 2, is favored, 12 to 11.94. (Compare a maceman with CR2, vs longbow with CG2, which is a decided underdog at 8 to 9, suffering first strikes to boot.) Often the defenders only have CG1, or you can soften them up with a catapult, or the knights have Combat 3, etc. Especially in Warlords, where knights can get an extra promotion more easily than longbows (with Stables).

Personally, I always thought Knights would make a good anti-Archery unit, but they were never made to be one. They're role as anti-Siege units (or, more specifically, anti-Catapaults) was never really valuable enough, and certainly took back seat to their two-movement points and ability to work in tandem with a very small stack of defenders (say, a Maceman and a Pikeman) in order to more effectively pillage.

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I don't really understand what you're saying here, but knights are very effective against all defenders but pikemen, plus they are fast. In the era where they are available, they are the clear attackers of choice (until the introduction of trebuchets, which seems likely to change that), unless the defense is very pike-heavy (which the AI isn't).

Trebutchets win when attacking cities.
Trebutchets lose on open ground. (They are STR4, +100% when attacking cities. They can't do it all, they're probably the most specialized unit in the whole game.)

Every unit in the whole game counters Trebutchet's, as long as it isn't sitting in a city. If he has a single Mace, Crossbow, Knight and Pike defending them, crush him with multiple Knights. If he has an even larger stack, crush him with multiple Catapults.

The AI sits in his cities, as always, and Trebutchets SP make Medieval age easier. Diety is still no cakewalk.

treb are not overpowered... a longbowman with garrison III and a wall and a castle and maybe more with warlords units is really hard to take, and don't forget this is easily doable in Warlord... and now castle give free trade route so....

walls and castles are worthless before trebuchets! they just give you a few turns for your escorts to heal up while the trebuchets bombard away. a trebuchet with equal promotions to a longbow (i.e. CRII vs.CGII) is a 4 vs. 4 battle, with the odds tipped in the longbows favor due to it's first strike. they are so overpowered that the barbarian scenario involves buying 2 axes, spears, and chariots to defend as many trebuchets as you can afford at any given time. i haven't had a chance to play a real game yet, but i'm crossing my fingers it won't play out this way. at least get rid of the withdraw chance!