Predator145
Prince
- Joined
- May 22, 2020
- Messages
- 456
I played an always war monarch game (except I can trade with a civ and then declare on the same turn). I would see a defender and an artillery unit. I got a stack of 3-5 one time with defenders. I've also seen them drop off artillery type units via boats in 20k games on emperor. Sometimes, they would only drop off say a trebuchet with no defender or attacker. It was quite silly, and could have happened since the defender in the boat might have gotten disbanded due to a unit support issue.
I played some on deity, BUT, I was using a modified version of the Quick Civ mod, so that might have thrown things off.
What I can say is how their stacks perform on high levels against the human player. At mid and lower levels they seem to be cheap captures, I agree. I thought I remember seeing earlier in this thread a mega stack of AI units with artillery type units that wouldn't be a cheap capture.
Also, I've had a few trebuchets bombard my armies before (the AIs won't attack a 7 hp fortified 3 unit, 3 defense army before tanks and maybe not a 6 hp fortified 3 unit, 3 defense army), which if they had enough trebuchets, could mean that they would attack it that turn. And I have a habit of using armies to cover workers who have made rails, so that could be bad. Though, likely the AIs probably need artillery proper and rails before they could pose a serious threat to my armies, and then they would have to use them in the right way, which they probably wouldn't.
I've seen enough debug to know that the AI doesn't now how to organize its artillery in response to armies. The trebs may bombard your armies if they happen to be near by. Otherwise they'd be heading off in a stack towards your city where they will hang out there for a while bombarding because they don't know how to follow up with a proper attack while your armies are free to ravage their interiors.
Speaking of armies, IMO they don't feel like they belong in the game. They just feel shoehorned into it. I'll start with nerfing them down to 2 transport capacity but then you still end up with 3 cavalry armies that the AI can't deal with until bombers. 1 transport+5 HP bonus without a "larger armies" SW seems to be the most balanced based on my last year's test. It would still allow you to use them as highly mobile battering rams and rapid defensive response force. But they'd be far more mortal on deep pillaging missions.