Are Trebs ever better than Catapults for collateral?

[MilesBeyond]

Collateral damage is based on raw strength without modifiers, so the Cata's 5 STR is going to do more collateral than the Treb's 4 STR, +100% vs city be damned.

However, collateral damage also only hits one target per round, so surely there must be a threshold when attacking a city where the Treb, despite doing less collateral per hit, is able to stay in for more rounds and therefore do more collateral overall? Has anyone ever crunched the numbers on that to see if it happens and if so, at what point?

 

[Tecumseh1]

That's a good point. I think the general logic here is that trebs are 80 hammers so suiciding cats is a better strategy even if collateral damage might be slightly less in some cases. Suicide 1-2 cats and then CR trebs hardly lose any fights.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Oh for sure, I don't think it would ever hit a point where Trebs are actually better in the sense of being more hammer-efficient. I'm just wondering if there's ever a point where they're better in a vacuum, and what it is.

 

[Fippy]

Damaging the top defender isn't included in your question?
In some way that could be seen as part of collateral.

 

[Gumbolt]

Trebs bring down defences quicker. Once AI have castles those 100% defences are tough. Catapult odds vs longbow is pretty much 2-3%. Albeit it will weaken 3 other units by 0.5 or so. It may do nothing aginst the first defender.
50H vs 80H. With a forge a treb is a 2 pop whip. Otherwise you need 20H. Catapult you need under 20H for a 2 pop whip. Under 13 for a 2 pop whip with a forge.

If the catapult does damage to the first unit then then trebs odds with CR2 (if defences are mostly reduced) will be about 80%. Of course if the city has 8-10 defenders it may play out differently. I suspect come 1000ad catapults have reached the end of their uses. Of course i can be whipping 3-4+ trebs a turn anyway come this point. Played a large map recently using Cat/phants and progressed to knights and trebs. Pretty much rolled over entire map by 1200ad using Chinese. The trebs pretty much did all of the hard work. Of course rolling over 1-2 AI early gave me a lot of cities to build units from. Had 60-70+ units near the end.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Damaging the top defender isn't included in your question?
In some way that could be seen as part of collateral.

It isn't, although it's a good point. My question is more about damage per round vs rounds per battle.

 

[Gumbolt]

Main difference is treb will likely damage first defender more. Catapult may or may not damage first defender at all. Both units will damage 3 other units by 0.4-0.5. Which in later battles might help a treb live. The catapult will 99% of time die against the defender. The treb may have odds of 50-60%.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I'm also wondering - do siege units drop their full collateral payload upon winning? I assumed no, but I was curious, so I ran some battles of Mobile Artillery vs stacks of Warriors. Every time the Mobile Artillery did collateral to eight Warriors, even though it seems statistically impossible for the battle to consistently go for eight rounds (Mobile Artillery has a ~92% chance to win a round and deals ~50 HP worth of damage upon doing so).

If that's the case then I wonder if e.g. the Trebby's higher odds could also translate into more collateral that way, or if I've missed something. Could even be a special ability unique to Mobile Artillery for all I know - not like I build them much.

 

[Gumbolt]

Then test with Trebs. I don't think it changes anything collateral damage wise. If you bring 10-12+ Trebs to a stack after 6-7 attacks the defenders are pretty much down to 25%hp. Of course collateral damage does not apply to catapults or Trebs.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Then test with Trebs. I don't think it changes anything collateral damage wise. If you bring 10-12+ Trebs to a stack after 6-7 attacks the defenders are pretty much down to 25%hp. Of course collateral damage does not apply to catapults or Trebs.

Yeah I think testing it out myself is the main way forward here. And since it's more a matter of curiosity than anything I think would ever actually be impactful for actual gameplay, it might take me a while to get around to it lol. I was just wondering if anyone else had crunched the numbers there.

At least I can probably just run the formulas.

 

[soundjata]

Sorry that I'm taking a tangent from the OP (have no clue about trebuchets and catapults exact capacities) but
I remember the wise words of my CIV4 master @Duckweed:
Luck and fighting probabilities don't matter, as long as you bring sufficient numbers.
This is a sane approach to civ4 I think. Take little risk. Have overwhelming odds