I'm curious what the general sentiment is among the community regarding the Catapult and Trebuchet units.
For myself I've typically found them to be too vulnerable to offer any real advantage in warfare. It seems that the AI places a high priority on attacking these siege units with cities or other ranged units, which usually leads to my having to retreat (often times without getting to fire even once) so that they're not killed.
The only real solution I've discovered for this is to use an additional unit (maybe two depending up on how many enemy units are near the city I wish to assault), so that one will draw fire and hopefully my other units can get a shot off in the following round. But this leads to logistical problems in many cases where there is limited space to surround a city, or limited line of fire.
Over the course of many games I have generally found that archer units are more effective for attacking cities. True, they do not receive massive bonuses to attacking cities, but their survivability is far superior. The lack of siege weapons doesn't seem to slow me down more than a turn or two in taking a city, especially once my archers have been upgraded some.
Honestly, at this point I don't really consider building siege units until Dynamite most of the time.... though I do like making canons for city defense.
What have other people's experiences with these early siege units been like?
For myself I've typically found them to be too vulnerable to offer any real advantage in warfare. It seems that the AI places a high priority on attacking these siege units with cities or other ranged units, which usually leads to my having to retreat (often times without getting to fire even once) so that they're not killed.
The only real solution I've discovered for this is to use an additional unit (maybe two depending up on how many enemy units are near the city I wish to assault), so that one will draw fire and hopefully my other units can get a shot off in the following round. But this leads to logistical problems in many cases where there is limited space to surround a city, or limited line of fire.
Over the course of many games I have generally found that archer units are more effective for attacking cities. True, they do not receive massive bonuses to attacking cities, but their survivability is far superior. The lack of siege weapons doesn't seem to slow me down more than a turn or two in taking a city, especially once my archers have been upgraded some.
Honestly, at this point I don't really consider building siege units until Dynamite most of the time.... though I do like making canons for city defense.
What have other people's experiences with these early siege units been like?