Catapults and siege weapons

How do catapults and other siege weapons get XP outside of buildings, GGs and civics if they cannot win fights?

+1 XP for withdrawing after the attack, same as mounted units with flanking.

oh ok thanks.

Also, siege weapons can get XP when defending.

Concidering the suicdal nature of siege units in the game, i wouldn't be to concerned about how they get experience

well you can get cats that deal more collateral damage lol

Refar said:

Concidering the suicdal nature of siege units in the game, i wouldn't be to concerned about how they get experience

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The trick is to use the freshest siege for the initial attack...subsequent siege units then survive

Have the siege that did not go on suicide attacks mop up the critically wounded defenders, like the longbow with 0.1 strength left.

@StrandedonEarth

Siege can't attack units damaged beyond a certain percentage. For example, catapults can't attack if the defender is at 25% health or less.

Also, use the obsoleted units first and the most modern to bombard; on its own the computer will automatically bombard with the least advanced units when they should really be killed off. Im fairly certain that units costy the same amount in maintenance whether its a catapult or mobile artillary.

just promote down barrage line with initial XP and dont worry about gaining XP

nbcman said:

Also, siege weapons can get XP when defending.

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Normally, you don't want to be defending with siege, although Hwachas and cannon vs medieval stacks are exceptions (although in the latter, you might still want counter units as knights with combat II or better will have decent odds vs cannons, >50%). Hwachas, however, are pretty funny in that they own the crap out of...well every classical defender in the game other than elephants (usually CR will beat defending HAs). They don't want to DEFEND against HAs, but serve as appreciable stack D otherwise.

I found that Accuracy Catapults are extremely useful. When i get ready to go to war i go into Theo. Just a few of them can can help enormously. CR2 Trebs get pretty good odds against LB. If your really worried about getting siege units some xp play as spain and watch though CR3 Trebs smash LB to pieces.

@Stewie: Accuracy trebs are much better than accuracy cats. Once trebs are in play, all cats should be promoted along the barrage line for use in the open field against enemy stacks.

@everyone who has problems with the slow exp rate of siege: If you are warring with Trebs then you should have LB's as well. Which means vassalage is available. And Theocracy should be an option by that point. Barracks, Vassalage and Theo produce a 7exp unit. You may lose a couple CR2 trebs in the beginning but after the third city you have CR3 trebs. I attack with every siege unit possible in every city assault. Not only does it mean more exp for my siege but it also means fewer losses. And more GG points as well. Contrary to popular belief, siege units withdrawing from an attack do NOT contribute to War Weariness. So all the extra siege attacks are nothing but beneficial. More exp, more GG points and more exp. Some of you will argue that you can get more exp for your units if you attack @ 75% odds vs 99%. Are you factoring in the lost exp when 1/4 of the attacking units die?
TMIT ( a respected warmonger) and I will never agree that all you need to wage a successful war vs the AI is a mountain of siege units, lots of garrison troops for new cities and adequete stack defenders. This is for the attacking army. A defensive SOD to repel attacks should be composed of barrage siege, mounted units and shock/pinch promoted units with the highest base strength. Apply siege units to weaken antimounted units. attack with mounted to kill/weaken the siege then mop up.
Once siege becomes available, it is the single most effective manner of waging war because there is no real counter for collateral damage. Drill 2-4 can lessen it but it cannot be avoided. If you bring enough siege units, even flanking won't stop you. The enemy needs too many mounted units to do enough flanking damage to kill a siege unit. No matter how weakened a siege unit may be, it does the exact same amount of collateral damage.

You can level trebs vs barb cities.

CivCorpse said:

@Stewie: Accuracy trebs are much better than accuracy cats. Once trebs are in play, all cats should be promoted along the barrage line for use in the open field against enemy stacks.

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Nope. 16% bombard for 50 hammers is (slightly) better than 24% bombard for 80 hammers. Of course, this pales in comparison to cats producing 2x as much collateral damage per hammer, which is also true against cities.

CivCorpse said:

@Stewie: Accuracy trebs are much better than accuracy cats. Once trebs are in play, all cats should be promoted along the barrage line for use in the open field against enemy stacks.

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I disagree.

Accuracy trebs are only 50% better than accuracy cats. They knock 6% off a castle defence versus 4% for the cats. Since they cost 60% more, technically they're less efficient at reducing defences than cats.

Also I would argue that a barrage + accuracy cat is not much worse than a barrage 2 one in the open field (and equally likely to survive). Meanwhile an accuracy + CR treb is much worse at attacking a city than a CR2 one and more likely to die. That is the way they should be compared, taking account of the impact chosing accuracy has on their main role since that uses a promotion. The barrage + accuracy with CR2 trebs is therefore better than barrage2 cats with CR + accuracy trebs.

there was a thread a few months ago on the subject of the efficacy of the barrage promo. Not sure if that was fixed in 3.17.

At any rate, I rarely use the barrage promo except for defensive catapults. The rest of the time, my siege is rolling along in my stack of doom and the AI civ is turtling inside his cities. I like having 4-6 accuracy promoted siege and the rest pure City Raider for survivability. The extra damage from barrage seems, to me, outweighed by the large boost in survival from CR II.

@timmy I think my preference for trebs also come from playing marathon speed where a Treb is a 2pop whip vs a 1pop whip for a cat. Also you need fewer trebs which reduces the unit maintenence costs. But the chief reason it is a lot cheaper to upgrade trebs to cannons. On normal speed it is 80 for a treb and 170 for a cat. On Marathon it is 140 for a treb and 320 for a cat.

@ Uncle JJ: The accuracy trebs are for bombarding cities not attacking the cities. I usually bring about 7-8 accuracy trebs if i am facing a civ that has castles built. And 15-20 CR2 Trebs. I like siege I use the accutrebs to knock off 40% or so, then the CRtrebs knock off the rest. The next turn the CR trebs attack. I like huge stacks of siege because those damaged in the first attacks can bombard while fresh trebs attack. This means I only have to stop and heal my stack once every two-three turns. I have a game online somewhere called "sticks n stones" where I used nothing but trebs, stack defenders and garrison units. I took 12 cities defended by LB's and lost a total of four units. In that game i had a grand total of 6 accutrebs, which could knock down cultural+walls defense in one swipe. If I had used cats I would have need 8ish?. The increase in upgrade costs to cannons would have been 1440 gold.

slobberinbear said:

there was a thread a few months ago on the subject of the efficacy of the barrage promo. Not sure if that was fixed in 3.17.

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Let me guess: this one? Covers the changes in the 3.17 patch.