Are trebs really worth it?

[Dnomal]

When warlords first came out I though they were great, I'd use the charismatic trait and upgrade them like mad, but recently I've moved back towards catas and I started to wonder if trebuchets were really worth the effort?

Trebuchet: 60 production 4 strength 100% city attack, -25% bombard
Catapult: 40 production 5 strength -15% bombard
(both have a 25% withdrawl chance)

Meaning you can get 3 catapults for the price of 2 trebs.

Assuming that you group catas or tebs together then you will have 15 strength worth of catas, with the ability to take down a cities defence 45% a turn.

While two trebs, would give 8 strength, with 16 IF you were attacking a city, able to bombard a city by 50% a turn.

Now on the power graph you would get more points for having 3 catas than 2 trebs. Admitadely you'd have to pay one extra gold for the upkeep (or two for pacifism), but you would have you second cata finished while the first treb would only just have been finished.

Thoughts?

 

[HiroHito]

they are worth it only if u get to build them, but I wont spend a single penny on upgrading cats to trebs.

 

[Hitti-Litti]

Trebs are excellent. Cats are good for defending/crushing stacks, but trebs destroy cities effectively, you only need few land units to protect 'em.

 

[vra379971]

Trebs all the way. What you say is true mathimatically. However...

You assume three things:

1) The power graph matters much.
2) A few more cats are going to make a seeable dent on that graph.
3) While you will lose cats at almost every city if you are in an attacking mode, most trebs will survive and thrive, and won't have to be replaced. Not to mention, the upkeep itslef can be painful, and if you're bringing just cats to bear on an equally powerful foe, I pity the results as you'll be langushing in tiher lands as your cats dwindle, dwindle and dwindle...and your borders are farther and farther away. A +4 strength boost is the biggest bonus for any troop in the game. Macemen really, that have no counter other than horse archers (and you really should have a spear or two in your force). Use them.

 

[Elandal]

cats don't upgrade to trebs, they upgrade to cannons..

I think both cats and trebs are useful and have a place in the battlefield. Cats are cheap. They have higher base strength than trebs, so their collateral damage is stronger. Outside city attacks, cats are better. Trebs OTOH have high city attack bonus. Unlike cats, they can actually go against a city and survive.

Generally, I give cats barrage promotions and trebs CR promotions.

 

[HiroHito]

cats don't upgrade to trebs, they upgrade to cannons..

Shows how many times I tried LOL

 

[futurehermit]

trebs are good to mix in, but are too expensive usually to only build them. i still build cats. trebs are too expensive to suicide. so suicide cats and mop up with trebs.

 

[DarkFyre99]

I'm a great fan of trebuchets. They've got the bombardment strength of an artillary piece, which means that they don't have to be upgraded once they're obsoleted by cannon. They pack enough of a punch that they aren't as suicidal as catapults are, and while you're waiting for them to be healed, they can bombard with the rest of them.

Catapults do have their uses, since trebuchets are city raider specialists. They're great for weakening enemy stacks outside of cities, so I always keep a few as border guards. But my offensive armies are always packing trebuchets once they're available.

 

[nilsmo]

15 strength worth of catas....
While two trebs, would give 8 strength, with 16 IF you were attacking a city

In this case 2x8 is worth much more than 3x5. If you go against a group of longbows (strength 9 when defending a city), your trebuchets will have good chances of winning and getting upgrades, but your catapults will die much quicker. Battle chances don't go up linearly (e.g. when individual units are matched 2:1 the stronger one has a 99% chance of winning, but when matched 1.2:1 the stronger one has only something like a 65% of winning).

Suppose there's 4 longbows. Here's a typical scenario with 4 trebs:
1. Treb one loses, causes lots of damage to the longbow, causes lots of collateral damage (win chance is 20%)
2. Treb two wins, causes lots of collateral damage (win chance is 60%)
3. Treb three wins easily
4. Treb four wins easily
5. Spare unit beats the last longbow easily

Now something 6 cats would do:
1. Catapult one loses, causing a bit of collateral damage, and little damage to the longbow (win chance is 1%)
2. Catapult two loses. Bit of collateral damage. Little damage to the longbow (win chance is 1%)
3. Catapult three loses. Bit of collateral damage. Damages longbow. (win chance is 2%)
4. Catapult four loses. Bit of collateral damage. Little damage to longbow. (win chance is 4%)
5. Catapult five loses. Bit of collateral damage. Damages longbow (win chance is 10%)
6. Catapult six loses. (win chance is 15%)
7. Spare units beat a longbow.
8. Next turn longbows have extra promotions and are totally unbeatable.

Trebuchets rock much more than catapults versus longbows.

 

[Elandal]

Wouldn't the cat cause more collateral damage than treb due to higher base strength? Not really that big a deal though - the primary target does not take collateral damage, only what is dealt in the combat itself. And there the treb will do a lot of work, while cats, well, die.

 

[Dnomal]

In this case 2x8 is worth much more than 3x5. If you go against a group of longbows (strength 9 when defending a city), your trebuchets will have good chances of winning and getting upgrades, but your catapults will die much quicker. Battle chances don't go up linearly (e.g. when individual units are matched 2:1 the stronger one has a 99% chance of winning, but when matched 1.2:1 the stronger one has only something like a 65% of winning).

Suppose there's 4 longbows. Here's a typical scenario with 4 trebs:
1. Treb one loses, causes lots of damage to the longbow, causes lots of collateral damage (win chance is 20%)
2. Treb two wins, causes lots of collateral damage (win chance is 60%)
3. Treb three wins easily
4. Treb four wins easily
5. Spare unit beats the last longbow easily

Now something 6 cats would do:
1. Catapult one loses, causing a bit of collateral damage, and little damage to the longbow (win chance is 1%)
2. Catapult two loses. Bit of collateral damage. Little damage to the longbow (win chance is 1%)
3. Catapult three loses. Bit of collateral damage. Damages longbow. (win chance is 2%)
4. Catapult four loses. Bit of collateral damage. Little damage to longbow. (win chance is 4%)
5. Catapult five loses. Bit of collateral damage. Damages longbow (win chance is 10%)
6. Catapult six loses. (win chance is 15%)
7. Spare units beat a longbow.
8. Next turn longbows have extra promotions and are totally unbeatable.

Trebuchets rock much more than catapults versus longbows.

I find that statement crazy you're making odd assumptions, like you would have no backup army ready to march, i dont build cata/trbe armies and send them out, i have a ration of one seige for every 3 or 4 non seige. Furthermore you are not taking inot account the element of risk in you presumptionss. I dought that many catas would all lose in a row, i've never seen that happen, even whena ttacking cities with longbows with sity defence 3.

Also there is another thing i havent mentioned, overflow if a city has a production of 30 (say), then the first cata would be 2 turns, overflow would be 10, so the next would be 1 turn, and so on and so forth.

While in the same city with 30 production this would happen, the first treb would take 2 turns, with no overflow, and so on.

Meaning you have a cata deal of buy one get one half price meaning.

In Ten turns from your 30 production city you would have either:
7 catas strength = 40
or...
5 trebs strength = 20 (attacking city) 40

Now look at those figures and reconsider, expecially since when you are fighting its not always offensive taking cities, but sometimes fighting armies, in which case catas come out superior anyways, Trebs are one puropse, catas are multipurpose.

 

[mice]

, and while you're waiting for them to be healed, they can bombard with the rest of them.

Is that true? I thought if they were bombarding they wouldn't heal.

On normal speed its a lot about logistics too. The dead catapult might have to be replaced and moved up to the fight. The trebs endure better so there isnt so much movement time and protecting the moving unit.

 

[shadow2k]

Meaning you have a cata deal of buy one get one half price meaning.

Who cares? Would you ever consider building Axeman after you have access to Macemen? I mean, it's the same thing when attacking cities, str 5 vs str 8, except that Axes come at an even cheaper ratio, being half price. You could have twice as many Axes flinging themselves into the walls of the cities! But nobody would do that, right?

In my opinion, Trebs obsolete Cats. Period. Once I get Trebs, I don't build any more Cats. And once I've got enough Trebs, all my current Cats are going back to sit in my cities with all my other obsolete units.

I don't understand the open field barrage deal. The only time this is ever needed in any of my games is when the AI lands a stack on my coast...right where my obsolete Cats would be, in my city. They aren't going to be running a SOD into my territory when I've got one coming at them. Most of my units are going to have CR promotions anyway, so I only want to attack units in a city. I'll also have some good defensive troops, but that's what they're for...defense. So if a SOD of the AI's comes running up to me, I'll sit in a forest, or on a hill, or in a city, and let them do their job.

The AI never attacks my stacks with anything but cats/trebs anyway. That's because if you built a proper defense for your stack, it's suicide for them to do so. You have the advantage on defense in the open field. They attack with mounted units, your pikes defend. They attack with melee, your X-Bows defend. Whatever they attack with, their odds will suck. If you attack them, you'll always go up against the toughest defender. Better to put them in that situation instead. And they never seem to take me up on it. Your best odds, outside of attacking cities, is always going to be playing defense if possible...because you can pick defensible terrain, putting the odds in your favor.

Cats are weak. They were called suicide cats for a reason, and I hated them because the WW they caused.

 

[shadow2k]

Is that true? I thought if they were bombarding they wouldn't heal.

They don't heal when you bombard. But I think he's talking about still getting good use out of them when they're injured, then healing them with the rest of the injured troops whenever you have time to rest.

 

[Godel]

Postpatch trebs are 80 hammers. They are still good city takers and I tend to build them as my grunt force for taking cities. The exception is when I have the aggressive trait. Then macemen get free strength promotion, only cost 70h and have twice the base strength, which makes their CR promotions more effective than that given to a treb. If maces are your UU (Vikings/Japan), they get even better. In this case I build more maces and less trebs.

What makes trebs good are the withdrawal chance and collateral damage. They also won't receive collateral damage from other siege weapons.

IMHO, catapults have had their day as effective city takers when trebs show up. By this stage you should have a good HE city running and 2-turn trebs are not hard to produce.

 

[popejubal]

Trebuchet: 60 production 4 strength 100% city attack, -25% bombard
Catapult: 40 production 5 strength -15% bombard
(both have a 25% withdrawl chance)

Yep. Looks like a clear winner to me.
Trebuchet, 8 strength, can take a city down to 0% defensive bonus in next to no time.
Catapult, 5 strength, can take a city down to 0% defensive bonus... eventually.

I keep using Trebuchets even after Cannon are available. They still work great to take out leftover legacy troops and they take down city defenses more quickly than cannon.

If I'd rather have a Trebuchet than a Cannon, you can be sure that I'd rather have one than a Catapult.

The only time I'd rather have a Catapult is if I'm defending a city against a large stack of attacking troops. Catapults have only one thing going for them. You get them one tech earlier than Trebuchets.

Edit: Think of it this way: If you wanted to take down a city, would you rather have 20 warriors against that fortified City Defender Longbow or would you rather have one Infantry?

 

[notagoodname]

If i can get triple upgrades (spain gives it with citadels+barracks+theology) then i'll go catapults as the upgrades count for more on the 5str catapult rather than the 4str trebuchet.
Otherwise the choice is easy, trebuchets for taking down cities, catapults for taking down stacks in the open.

 

[shadow2k]

If i can get triple upgrades (spain gives it with citadels+barracks+theology) then i'll go catapults as the upgrades count for more on the 5str catapult rather than the 4str trebuchet

CR3 = 75% city attack

A Cat attacking a city with CR3 is 8.75str

A Treb attacking a city with CR1 is 9str
with CR3, it's 11str

Citadels don't come until Engineering. If you're going to spend 150 hammers on walls and 300 more on a citadel, I'd think that city has enough hammers to go ahead and build Trebs.

 

[JimT]

The combat system benefits the slightly stronger party. So if your trebs are weaker than the defender use suicide Cats. Once your trebs get the edge you can use them to kill a longbowman with reasonable safety (50+% odds and approx. 12% retreat chance. Once a couple of defenders have been killed cats are just as useful.

IMO the main disadvantage of trebuchets is the wait for them. I beeline to Alphabet, so mathematics isn't far away. I then get involved in wars and aim for feudalism/theology for free xp. It takes me a while to get machinery, unless its through peace terms, let alone engineering. When I do I want to build pikemen and maces (no collateral but upgrade to gunpowder) so while I do build trebuchet they are low priority and I will have carved out a sizeable empire anyway.

 

[nilsmo]

I did a little worldbuilder test for cats/trebs vs. longbows. Basically there were 5 enemy longbows in a +60% defense city, and I had either 4 swords and 6 cats or 4 swords and 4 trebs. All attacking units had city raider 1. I bombarded then attacked, and saw what happened.

Trial 1: TREBUCHET: One sword dies CATAPULT: 3 cats die, one withdraws
Trial 2: TREBUCHET: 2 trebs die CATAPULT: 3 cats die
Trial 3: TREBUCHET: One sword dies CATAPULT: 5 catapults die

Here are the totals:
TREBUCHET: 2/12 trebs die, 2/12 swords die CATAPULT: 11/18 catapults die, 0/12 swords die
Initital hammer costs are the same, maintenance is a couple more gold for each set of catapults, and trebs require engineering while catapults do not.

Also there is another thing i havent mentioned, overflow if a city has a production of 30 (say), then the first cata would be 2 turns, overflow would be 10, so the next would be 1 turn, and so on and so forth.

With production of 30, first cata would be 2 turns, second would be one turn, third two turns, third one turn, etc.