Amount of artillery to bring?

[Pinstar]

I know to bring enough to bombard city defenses to 0%, but I've always been shakey as to how many extra to bring to use as softeners. Part of me wants to bring lots more and soften every city, but part of me thinks that using those hammers to include a few more main troops would be just as good.


I'm sure the correct answer is a mix of the two. How many softening artillery units do you bring per city you intend to conquor (And by artillery, I mean any tech level. Cats, Trebs and cannons included).

 

[axident]

This is what happens when you have no oil but a sizeable tech lead, and your neighbor provokes you by building Apollo.

At minimum bring enough to assure victory. Bring enough regular troops to capture the city and move on, esp. in BtS where siege units can't capture cities. I like to spend no more than 3 turns bombarding, too. This varies greatly from city to city, depending on how tough the enemy is. E.g., modern era, enemy has 5 infantry, +60% cultural D. Then probably 5 artillery, 6 infantry, 1 medic is the bare minimum you'd want to fight with, assuming neither side can reinforce. Your question is way too broad to be specifically addressed because maybe he can reinforce/build stuff, maybe you want to be 100% sure that he can't successfully counterattack your newly-captured city the next turn, etc.

 

[LedHead]

three words
"use your spys"

If you can take it in one round why spend 3 bombarding? Then all your siege is softening...

 

[zienth]

One word:
Enough.

How much is enough?
Standard answer number 1: It Depends.

If he's got dozens of troops in the city, you'll need a lot more siege than if he only has two.

If he's got grenadiers and you have musketmen (like in my last game), you'll need more siege units to make sure each of the grenadiers is weakened a lot or the musketmen won't have a chance. If he's got longbows and you've got riflemen, you don't need many, maybe just enough to bring the city defenses down, maybe none at all.

If you've only got the same number of non-siege troops as he has defenders, you'd better have plenty of siege because you need to make sure your troops win every fight, or you won't get the city in one turn (and he'll have a chance to reinforce and probably heal faster than your troops). If you've got 4 troops for each of his, you don't need many siege units, assuming you're willing to use a bunch of troops as a "forlorn hope" to probably die while weakening his troops so the remainder of yours can get decent odd and finally win.

That being said, as long as he's got 7 or fewer defenders, I like to have at least 4 siege units, so that each defender will take at least 4 collateral damage hits. Assuming that my troops are not too far ahead or behind in tech, that's usually enough to give me survivable odds in each of the fights. But even then, if he's got CGII longbows on hills and I have catapults, my cats may not be able to scratch his best defender, even though everyone else in the city will take collateral damage, even if I've got a dozen cats.

There really isn't a solid rule of thumb that one can give, because the possible situations can vary so much. It's like asking "how many troops do I need to be sure of winning a war?"

Zienth

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

How much artillery to bring? All of it.

They are called disposapults for a reason.


My usual rhythm has the military city building all of my elite attacking units, and everybody else building siege (when they aren't working on their own infrastructure).

 

[axident]

How much artillery to bring? All of it.

They are called disposapults for a reason.


My usual rhythm has the military city building all of my elite attacking units, and everybody else building siege (when they aren't working on their own infrastructure).

Reversed for me; siege engines can't level up as much with the BtS nerf so I tend to build siege in my GG/HE/WP city while everyone else makes regular troops.

Edited to add: This approach also lessens war weariness.

 

[UncleJJ]

I find there is a big difference in the siege units surviveability when softening if they get produced with at least 5 exp. Maybe the first one or two die but after them the others retreat and severely weaken the defending stack. You can even get reasonable exp points (for GGs) if you attack carefully with seige and then finish off the defenders with your regular troops. That way you can get two or even three bites at the cherry.

So I try to produce my seige units with 5 exp and if I'm running Vassalage or Theocracy that means everywhere otherwise its in a city with a MI. Early on I usually promote catapults with CR2 before I have trebs and then Combat2 afterwards, so they can attack stacks in the field or cities depending on the need for collateral damage. Trebs get CR2, always. Cannons do both jobs so some get CR2 and some get Combat2. I haven't yet found a use for barrage. A few early cats might get CR1 and Accuracy and are used to reduce defences and like Accident in his screenshot , I sometimes find I have them in my SoD well into the modern age.

 

[Molon Labe]

It really does depend on what you're facing. Protective civs on a hill can be a real pain and suiciding a lot of artillery will ease the headache. In my last game I was going after Gilgamesh and he had two CG2/Drill Infantry on a hilled city. My CR2/Combat1/Pinch tanks had didn't have good odds until I softened his guys up with air strikes.

Early game, I plan on sacrificing at least three artillery per city. Often quite a bit more if it's on a hill or heavily defended. I don't like to lose a lot of troops taking cities and prefer to suicide artillery vs. soldiers.

 

[slobberinbear]

I build enough barrage/accuracy siege to reduce the walls in one turn. After that, I will roll out the suicide siege units. If you have a medic in your stack, it can be worthwhile to attack with all of your siege to get the xp. If you are trying to conserve your siege, I will throw maybe one suicide unit for every 3 defenders as a very rough ratio. This is assuming tech parity. With a tech advantage, you can use fewer siege units, or even none at all against newer, 20% cultural defense cities.

If your foes are mainly city defender types (especially longbows and units with a lot of drill promotions), be aware that collateral damage is less effective on them. You may just need to hit them with strong city attackers -- e.g., maces with the city raider promotions, etc., and save most of your siege for the next battle.

Keep making siege until the war is over.

 

[Big Boss Man]

In my opinion - It's always a good idea to know what units your seige units will face ahead of time . You will be better able to ratio your promotions for them . You will need several older units to bring down walls if the target is at a 60 % defence bonus . If you want to be quick and cheap , three cat's promoted will most likely take two turns . Do defend them so you don't have to build more wall busters . Upgrade them later they will be even more effective at the job . Ratio suicide seige units for your attack stack who will mop up weak defenders after the fun starts . If you will be going on a rampage , don't stop building suicide seige units ! Replacements will surely be needed .

 

[Molon Labe]

Keep making siege until the war is over.

That's a very good point. You will need to keep making more as they don't tend to last too long.

 

[Handel]

Once you have armor the artilerry is for defence only.

 

[Sjaramei]

33%-50% of your stack and you aren't supposed to lose very much else than the suicide artillery so bring well promoted troops to defend (Shock Axes, Spears/Pikes etc. ) and a medic unit to heal them quick. Bring twice the amount of siege if the target is protective.

 

[madscientist]

I gotta say I use siege engines ALOT less in BTS than in Warlords. I do bring some but mostly (not always, but mostly) for suicidal collateral attacks.

1) If the city is on the coast I bring a large number of Frigates/Destroyers
2) If the city is landbound I will try a spy first.
3) USe bombers if I have flight and radio.
4) If the spy fails (I send 2 if I can to a city) or it's early yet I will then bombard the city with what ever seige engines I brought.

Minimizing the siege engines to use bombers/spies/navies allows me to attack with much more mobile units such as knight/Crussairs/cavalry/tanks. I like this way better rahter than dragging arround alot of highly promoted trebs/cannons/artillery.

BTW: Impressive stack of Artillery in Axidents Screenshot.

 

[axident]

BTW: Impressive stack of Artillery in Axidents Screenshot.

Thanks and that was in Warlords so it was a whole lot of non-nerfed siege action. Basically it took a while to get to Mech Inf, the best unit I could get without oil. I certainly wasn't going to charge Mansa's tanks with just Marines. While waiting for Robotics, I had to build SOMETHING for my army in the meantime...

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Anybody done the math yet on how promotions change survivability of siege units?

 

[axident]

I find there is a big difference in the siege units surviveability when softening if they get produced with at least 5 exp. Maybe the first one or two die but after them the others retreat and severely weaken the defending stack. You can even get reasonable exp points (for GGs) if you attack carefully with seige and then finish off the defenders with your regular troops. That way you can get two or even three bites at the cherry.

So I try to produce my seige units with 5 exp and if I'm running Vassalage or Theocracy that means everywhere otherwise its in a city with a MI. Early on I usually promote catapults with CR2 before I have trebs and then Combat2 afterwards, so they can attack stacks in the field or cities depending on the need for collateral damage. Trebs get CR2, always. Cannons do both jobs so some get CR2 and some get Combat2. I haven't yet found a use for barrage. A few early cats might get CR1 and Accuracy and are used to reduce defences and like Accident in his screenshot , I sometimes find I have them in my SoD well into the modern age.

I agree with that except the Accuracy part. I don't use that promo because I need to be able to substitute one unit for another, instantly. It might save a turn or two, but I'd rather have battlefield flexibility. I've also moved away from combat promos for field arty because, well, maybe it's just me, but war weariness seems to hit harder and faster in BtS, and I'd rather suicide as few siege as possible. If this means building a larger siege engine escort, so be it.

I didn't feel like rushing Mansa's fighters/tanks with marines/arty so I beelined Robotics (this was in Warlords) and went Mech Inf/arty.. while waiting for Robo I had to build stuff to keep my power rating up, that "stuff" was arty.

 

[slobberinbear]

Anybody done the math yet on how promotions change survivability of siege units?

I wish someone would. Since BTS, I have been going with barrage + accuracy for most of my siege, on the theory that they'll be decent wall-busters and collateral damagers. But I'm not sure if City Raider (or even Flanking or Drill) isn't a better way to go for the city attackers. I am finding my barrage/accuracy siege units rarely survive when attacking.

 

[madscientist]

I wish someone would. Since BTS, I have been going with barrage + accuracy for most of my siege, on the theory that they'll be decent wall-busters and collateral damagers. But I'm not sure if City Raider (or even Flanking or Drill) isn't a better way to go for the city attackers. I am finding my barrage/accuracy siege units rarely survive when attacking.

I don't have numbers but most of my seige wepaons I use are still CR I or CRII and I find they survive a surprising number of times. I generally only give the collateral promotion if I plan to use the seige engine for defense aginst fairly large AI stacks.

 

[zienth]

I wish someone would. Since BTS, I have been going with barrage + accuracy for most of my siege, on the theory that they'll be decent wall-busters and collateral damagers. But I'm not sure if City Raider (or even Flanking or Drill) isn't a better way to go for the city attackers. I am finding my barrage/accuracy siege units rarely survive when attacking.

I used to go barrage+accuracy, but lately I've been going more towards CR+accuracy for a few units and CR2+ for the rest. I got tired of seeing multiple barrage units be unable to do any damage to the toughest defender in a stack. Sure, the other units in the stack take lots of collateral, but that bloody longbow on a hilltop is still laughing at 6.0/6.0 and destroying everything that tries.

If I go with CR, the first cat will usually get at least one hit. Then the next cat is facing a different longbow at 5.5/6.0, which makes things a little easier. The third cat will be facing an even weaker opponent and will have something like a 25% withdrawal chance, the 4th cat will be above 50%, and later cats will be even better, often 95%+.

With all barrage, the 4th cat might still be looking at an undamaged defender and <1% withdrawal chance.

With swords/cats against longbows, I like to have 3 or 4 CR1/accuracy cats to take down defenses quickly, and at least a couple of CR2 cats. I can usually spend one turn bringing down defenses, and the second turn suicide the CR2 cats to blunt the toughest defenders so the CR1/accuracy cats will be able to continue with decent chances of survival. I usually lose the first couple of CR2 cats, have a couple of badly damaged cats, and the rest of the cats need one turn of healing or aren't damaged at all.

Of course, this does leave me with a fairly ineffective siege train if I have to hit a stack outside of a city. But I don't often need to do so when I'm on the offensive. When at all possible, it's best to leave units unpromoted until they're about to attack, so you can pick the best promotion. A unit at 5/2 experience can be used to bring down city defenses, weaken city defenders, or do lots of collateral to a stack in the field. A unit at 5/10 experience can only do one of the above effectively.

It's just hard to get out of the habit of promoting then as soon as they get the experience ("Oooh! Blue Sparkles! Must promote! Shiny!")

Zienth