Best promotion for suicidal catapult?

[GKey]

It's clear, that accuracy is best to bombard cultural defense.
But what promotion is best for suicidal catapult, when attacking city?
In my game I have catapult with 2 promotions available (barracks + GG settled).
So what are best promotions before city attack?
Barrage2?
CR2?
Or may be CR1 + Barrage1?

 

[coanda]

City Raider is almost always best.

 

[Murky]

You can either go with CR2 or Barrage II. I think it would depend on the defenders. If they are just Archers then CR2 is going to have the most chance of withdrawal. If there a lot of melee there then Barrage II is going to do more damage to their stack but you will probably lose the catapult.

 

[vranasm]

CR works usually better for me... have no statistics on hand, but it seems that with CR i can get some lucky withdrawal sooner

 

[GKey]

Thanks!
City Raider promotion increase chance of withdrawal? Did not know about that.

In my game I face protective archers, so did not even consider chance of surviving. Just was thinking what promotion will cause more damage to defenders.

 

[vranasm]

Thanks!
City Raider promotion increase chance of withdrawal? Did not know about that.

In my game I face protective archers, so did not even consider chance of surviving. Just was thinking what promotion will cause more damage to defenders.

no no absolutely not... but since it influences bonuses you get higher relative strength and you can get some lucky strike easier...

 

[GKey]

Thanks again.
So in terms of overall damage CR beats Barrage?

 

[Murky]

Thanks!
City Raider promotion increase chance of withdrawal? Did not know about that.

In my game I face protective archers, so did not even consider chance of surviving. Just was thinking what promotion will cause more damage to defenders.

Yes and no. It doesn't improve the % chance of withdrawal, but it improves the chances of it winning the combat and surviving. Since the catapult withdraws if it wins, having a greater attack will increase the chance of winning the combat then withdrawal...

So in terms of overall damage CR beats Barrage?

No, because Barrage increases collateralize damage more. If there are enough defenders you could potentially do more overall damage than with CRII.

 

[vranasm]

Thank again.
So in terms of overall damage CR beats Barrage?

i would say more direct to first defender...and since usually there are 1-2 really tough defenders (like 2 LBs with cg2+fs) it's better to get the damage concentrated on 1 target through better bonus (if I remember correctly from some other thread it actually doesnt work like bonus but instead reduces enemy bonus if it's higher then yours).

I think some people will provide exact math, or try to look around

edit:

Murky beat me to it. Exactly as he points out in both points.

 

[obsolete]

Flank I & Flank II !!

 

[GKey]

Thx, Obsolete, I have another question though so you can expand your sarcasm even further.

What are mechanics behind collateral damage? Is it fixed or depends on damage that was actually inflicted by attack?

In my case I was leaning towards CR1+barrage1, thinking something like: more damage to direct target from CR1 - more collateral damage to rest thus multiplied by barrage1.

Does it make any sense?

 

[Tyrael]

Go up the CR line. Your cat has a higher chance of survival and will do more damage to the defending unit (which is the strongest one).

 

[bobbyboy29]

Ok so almost alway CR is better. Why? Because you should have excess cats and so you want to be able to minimise your losses. In a normal scenario there is usually 1 or 2 pretty hard to crack defenders (longbows or archers) and then the rest sitting in a city. Usually, the only cats you will lose will be to those first two. So its most important to do the most damage directly to the main defenders as soon as possible (no point doing extra collateral to defenders you won't even attack this turn).

The only case where barrage may be preferable is if there is an even spread of equally strong defenders (i.e six CG1 archers) and/or you don't have enough siege on site (shock horror!) in which case there may be a case for barrage as you will need to damage these units which aren't facing you currently for higher subsequent chances of survival.

Normally however, if you have a reasonable chance (at least 30%) of withdrawing without promoting, you should go CR as ideally you want to survive the fight and live to fight another day.

 

[z0wb13]

Thanks again.
So in terms of overall damage CR beats Barrage?

“You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” donald rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense.

like others have said, CR first is usually best because you damage the top defenders the most. barrage will be better if you totally outclass the defenders. it's just that most people have 2 types of artillery: bombard (accuracy) and suicide (CR). barrage might work for some type of mop up cannon if you have steel without rifling.

that said, suicide siege might not be the best first attackers. if you happen to be playing one of the few civs that have (relatively) easy access to guerilla 3, archery units are cheap and expendable.

 

[mirthadir]

Actually, Drill can become quite viable; particularly if you are a good bit ahead in the air war (e.g. maces + cannons + airships vs lbs/muskets or arty + fighters + rifles/rifles + MGs + airships). With a large enough tech lead the all Drill army can just flatten AIs in record time. Something truly massive, like smacking around Toko's LBs with arty and airships can make drill very nice.

The real trick to suicide siege is to leave them unpromoted until just prior to use. My general rules are:
1. If I have good odds with no promotions, do that - save the insta-heals.
2. If it isn't a complete suicide - go CR in hopes of preserving the cannon.
3. Suiciding, if the top few defenders are the biggest worry - CR
4. Suiciding, if the stack is absolutely huge - barrage.
5. When in doubt go CR.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

4. Suiciding, if the stack is absolutely huge - barrage.

If you skip this one, your pattern is sound. There's a hard cap on the number of units you can damage with siege. There's also a cap on the amount of damage you can do. So either you have enough siege*, and Barrage is just getting you to the cap faster, or you are trying to finesse something.


* - there's no such thing as enough siege.

 

[drlake]

I only use barrage when I'm suiciding the cat against a stack in the open, such as the enemy SoD. None of the other available promotions do anything. You could leave it unpromoted in hopes it survives, but that seems silly to me. If it survives, I've got a cat with suboptimal promotions and it did more damage to the stack. I can live with that.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Barrage-Accuracy at 5xp rules, 12 catapult-turns can take down walls, and 5 cannon-turns can take down anything. Therefore, keep your 4xp barrage-catapults alive in hopes it survives the next attack for accuracy. Alternatively, get the Great Wall, trap some poor barbarian in a tiny pocket of neutral culture, and exercise all your siege on him.

 

[bobbyboy29]

Barrage-Accuracy at 5xp rules.

You do know that CR leads to accuracy as well? And that its the easier way to get the exp....

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Ahahaha, holy crap, I think you're right. All this time, I promote up the CR line for those guys by instinct, and ignore any other button. I just read Barrage-Accuracy somewhere, and assumed that was it.