Best promotions for Siege units

[TheDS]

When I build Siege units like Catapults, Trebuchets, Cannons, Artillery, and Mobile Artillery, I almost always choose to use the Barrage promotions to increase collateral damage to enemy stacks. These units can be used under any circumstance, not just attacking cities, and they cause damage to several enemy units at once, allowing me to obliterate large stacks quickly.

On occasion, when I know a target city is going to be a tough nut to crack, I may use the Accuracy promotion to reduce the number of units needed to beat down the defenses. Also, on occasion I've tried other promotions, but I don't see a whole lot of benefit. I see more benefit in causing 20% damage to 5 units with one, than in causing 100% damage to one with that same unit. The remaining units in my stack will have a considerably easier time defeating units at 80% strength than those at 100%.

However, the Trebuchet has this huge city-attack bonus, and I can't help but wonder if giving these units further such promotions does anything useful. It occurs to me that such units might be much more likely to survive a combat, but if they're unable to cause significant collateral damage, then they've not done their job to make it easier for successive forces to wipe out the defenders of the stack.

So, I'm putting it to you to tell me what I'm missing out on.

(And yes, I tend to lose a lot of siege units, but they're generally cheap enough that it's better to lose one of them than to lose an infantry unit.)

 

[control740]

I used to do the barrage upgrade, until I realized siege weapons already do collateral damage at full strength, and that extra 20% from barrage didn't seem so worth it to me anymore. Now I always get city raider first, I far prefer keeping more units rather then sacrificing so many for a bit of extra collateral damage, haven't looked back.

Oh, and city raider is definitely worth it on Trebs, that's another 20% off the defense of the defender(and 25 and 30 for CR2 and CR3 of course). A CR3 Treb gives a -175% modifier when attacking cities, that will bring a CG3 Longbowman down to 3.4 strength, or a CG3 musket down to 4.5.

 

[oyzar]

#1 don't upgrade the sige weapons before you go into actual combat. In flat combat i often upgrade to combat with somewhat similar ods as it greatly increase the odds of the unit actually surviving(especially if there are few enemies). Against large stacks it is hard to beat barrage though. The same apply to city raider against cities though if your force is mostly cats in the older versions(vanilla and warlords) city raider cats can easily take cities alone which makes barrage worse. Of course this applies even more to city raider Threebuchets.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Link to previous bibliography on siege promos

Executive summary: I don't believe Barrage is doing as much good as you think it is.

 

[madscientist]

95% of the time I use the CR promotions. The few times I don't I generally take the barage since the units are defensive while persuing a peaceful victory.

 

[Refar]

I start with CR. Novadays (or i just did not noticed earlier) CR also unlock Accuracy. I try to get 3 or 4 cats promoted to accuracy to quickly remove fortification - those ACC cats never go on suicide misisons of course.

Suicide Cats i upgrade right before action. CR on cities, Combat in the field. Rarely Barrage, unless i meet a relly huge stack. While it might do more damage to the stack it does not help against a tough defender on top, neither does it improve the units chance to survive.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

I used to go about Siege promotions the same way as you, but I'm a CR convert. CR makes a huge difference and will increase the chances that your suicide units, especially trebs, live to sucide another day.

 

[Gliese 581]

CR is usually the best imo.

 

[Verge]

CR exclusively.

 

[Shadzy19]

CR on city's otherwise combat

 

[Sjaramei]

City Raider 99% of the time , maybe Barrage/Combat/Drill (i don't notice much difference, these are for suicide anyway ) if i expect some stack vs stack action in the open