catapults need some love

[Inkling]

i admit i don't think of every strategy, situation, but with two exceptions, i am at a complete loss as to why i would build a catapult over an adept, those two expections being you can't build mages(khazad) or the amurites have hit you with their world spell, so i thought i'd compare them in the hopes i can either prove my point, or someone can show me where my logic has gone wrong.

catapult pros
both a catapult and an adept cost 90 hammers, but the adept costs a further 65 gold to upgrade to a mage to actually bombard with a fireball

a catapult is immediately able to bombard, where as the adept needs 10(?) experience, less with charismatic, ofcourse anything which boosts xp, or the xp rate, and this goes by pretty quick(form of the titan, outpost, arcane trait, cave of the ancestors). especially once you build a few.

"construction" is 60 hammers more than "knowledge of the ether", but unless you have fire mana to start with, you still need an additional 960 to get elementalism so you can build a fire node, plus, you need an empty mana node.

both need a 120 hammer building, so thats a wash(i am ignoring the catacomb librus)

the cataput has a strength 4, where a fireball(and adept) has only a strength 3, and a few things are immune to fire damage, or atleast resistent to it. The catapult also causes more collateral damage.

the catapult bombards 15 percent, where the fireball base is 10 percent.


adept pros
while an adept can't immediately bombard, he ,and the mage, are infinitely more versatile with a few mana nodes or starting mana types, holy shrines, etc. they can skele-spam, or bost attacking troop strenth, etc.

the fireball has less strength, but is a suicide unit anyway, and gets its strength bolstered by the mage casting it. If the catapult attacks, it can still bombard(not in the same turn), but is otherwise laid up for awhile healing, assuming it lives, typically it doesn't

the mage can get mobility promotions, coupled with spell extension and haste, this gives some serious reach to the adept/fireball combo, add in the fact that fireballs fly, and its even better. The catapult can't get mobility and can't even fire after its moved So my entire army is going to be held up, even if the catapults can keep up, simply because they have to wait a turn after they arrive, before they can fire.
heck, in a pinch, the mage can even attack after casting. more importantly the catapult must be next to the city to bombard, where the mage can hang a handful of tiles back(depending on mobility promotions)

while the techs and mages cost more, mages as useful and versatile as they are, and the mana types from elementalism also useful, its not that i am taking these techs just to bombard, i'd take them anyway. so the added cost of the mage and the accompanying technology is really irrelevant.



so with a catapult, you do slightly more damage, have slightly more health, are quicker to come by, but you are vastly slower, more vunerable, limited purpose. The only reason i can see for the catapult is if you are stuck in an early war, where you haven't the time for the adepts to level up. but after that limited window, they are a waste, and their cannon upgrades don't fare any better.

Mobility would help, the ability to fire after moving would help. Admittedly i am at a loss as to further improvements to make them worth while(well, ones that might actually get implemented)

so am i missing something? who builds them and why? What would make them more useful.

 

[Lone Wolf]

"construction" is 60 hammers more than "knowledge of the ether", but unless you have fire mana to start with, you still need an additional 960 to get elementalism so you can build a fire node, plus, you need an empty mana node.

Mages are at Sorcery, not Elementalism. Until you research Sorcery, you can't upgrade your adept.

Some civs have bonuses that lie in non-magic tech lines (Calabim Vampires can get Body and Death 2, Bannor unique civic at Fanaticism, Malakim Wordspell at Priesthood, heck, even Amurite Firebows), making Magic line less useful to them in comparison.

 

[Senethro]

You're missing the point that they're both less good in different ways than a Ritualist with Ring of Flames.

 

[kumquatelvis]

I myself find that by far the biggest drawback to catapults is their speed. They cannot gain movement promotions, and they cannot be hasted. I simply don't build them, because taking twice as many (or more) turns to reach the enemy city is just not tenable. I have three proposals for correcting this.

• Option 1: Give catapults the raiders promotion. This sounds powerful at first, but keep in mind that they cannot go above a speed of one. With this catapults can keep up with a fast army as long as they are rolling along a road, but are still quite slow if they have to travel overland.
• Option 2: Allow one of the late games techs like machinery to grant catapults an increase in movement. There might be some benefits to catapults over mages in the early years, but by the end game high XP adepts are east to spawn, and researching up to sorcery is trivial. This boost would help give siege engine builders a competitive advantage.
• Option 3: Add low level spell that acts as haste, but for vehicles instead of the living. Perhaps an enchantment spell called Animate Object or a nature spell called Living Wood. This is my least favorite option because it would require that you still pursue at least some level of magic.

 

[Lone Wolf]

You're missing the point that they're both less good in different ways than a Ritualist with Ring of Flames.

Well, sometimes you're roleplaying/wish the benefits of another religion...

Option 2: Allow one of the late games techs like machinery to grant catapults an increase in movement. There might be some benefits to catapults over mages in the early years, but by the end game high XP adepts are east to spawn, and researching up to sorcery is trivial.

That's my favourite suggestion out of three.

 

[Tlalynet]

I second that option two would be pretty cool.

But Lone Wolf's main point, that catapults are available way earlier than mages, is the biggest reason to build them. You can have a war machine of catapults and axemen taking down an AI civ long before you could research sorcery. Cats are also ready to go and do collateral damage as soon as they are built, adepts need time to mature. If your under attack now you would need catapults and building adepts would be a bad idea even if you had sorcery.

If you use them as soon as you can get them their speed doesn't mater, you can get construction before HBR so the mobility promo won't be available to your axeman anyway. Everyone gets speed one (unless your a raiders civ)

 

[Gwythur]

There's a third option that isn't even being considered here: Pact of the Nilhorn. Those giants can bombard, are decent strength attackers in their own right, can gain a host of promotions (including mobility), and start with hidden nationality. I frequently forgo catapults entirely in favor of the stooges, and I almost always have at least one level 15+ stooge remaining in the endgame.

 

[Ekolite]

I'm actually quite a fan of catapults. However, they do have their place and that is in the early game. I tend to most oftenly play the clan of embers, so Masonry is one of my top priorities. I quite often do a late early-game rush with a few cats and a huge stack of warriors. In many games I don't even research knowledge of the ether, so cats are a strong option.

That being said, in the late game they tend to phase out in favour of mages if I bother with them, and if not then Cultists/Ritualists or something else. I think giving them maybe an extra movement and strength at machinary would be good, and give people a reason to ever get that tech.

 

[mcwill123]

Catapults aren't quite as bad if you are campaigning and have a couple squads of 4 or 5 cats. One bunch can always be moving while the other is healing.

 

[DaveGold]

The big pro about catapults is that you don't need mana nodes, elementalism, and sorcery. They don't need another pro. You did however skip over the living mages sometimes being at a disadvantage to the not living catapults, which can happen.

Catapults have their place. I don't think there's much wrong with them. There's no reason they should be as good as siege tools a tech tier above them. Mages sidestepping city defences are a bit like tanks going round the Maginot line. Cannons probably do need an upgrade as they should be fit for purpose in a high powered end game. Perhaps cannons should get a city defence bonus or city attack promotions.

 

[aimlessgun]

I myself find that by far the biggest drawback to catapults is their speed.

Definitely hate that too, the inability to make use of haste just makes me say "screw it, I'm leaving them behind".

 

[kumquatelvis]

Cannons probably do need an upgrade as they should be fit for purpose in a high powered end game. Perhaps cannons should get a city defence bonus or city attack promotions.

I think this complaint thread is in regards to all of the siege weapons. For example, option 2 suggests machinery. By the time someone has machinery they will no longer be using base game catapults, but rather cannons or trebuchets or the like. But all of them suffer from the same problems, so it's just easier to use one term to refer to the group.

 

[Tlalynet]

Tribs are just cats for the dwarves arnt thy? Improved, but same prerequisits.

 

[Emptiness]

Option 1: Give catapults the raiders promotion. This sounds powerful at first, but keep in mind that they cannot go above a speed of one. With this catapults can keep up with a fast army as long as they are rolling along a road, but are still quite slow if they have to travel overland.

I like the sound of this suggestion. A first strike chance is in keeping with a ranged unit, and extra movement on enemy roads makes sense for a wheeled siege engine. There's not much potential for abuse because Catapults can't have more than 1 movement point and because they are virtually worthless without other units sent as escorts (and so non-Commando units with mobility can keep up with them, but Commando units with mobility are limited by the speed of the Catapult). The one possible problem would be in giving non-Raider civs access to a pillager with Commando, but personally I've never cared for the fact that Catapults can pillage and so would suggest removing that ability to sidestep that problem.

 

[Inkling]

Mages are at Sorcery, not Elementalism. Until you research Sorcery, you can't upgrade your adept.

Some civs have bonuses that lie in non-magic tech lines (Calabim Vampires can get Body and Death 2, Bannor unique civic at Fanaticism, Malakim Wordspell at Priesthood, heck, even Amurite Firebows), making Magic line less useful to them in comparison.

see, i knew i missed something big. sorcery is another 3000 research. thats a pretty big one, and if you are already near construction as Ekolite said, i can see it, still, underpowered. I mean that early, only creative civs have defensive bonuses(and capitals), so mostly you are just suiciding those catapults to weaken defenders, skelespam from an adept seems about as effective given other factors, for example.

I myself find that by far the biggest drawback to catapults is their speed. They cannot gain movement promotions, and they cannot be hasted. I simply don't build them, because taking twice as many (or more) turns to reach the enemy city is just not tenable. I have three proposals for correcting this.

• Option 1: Give catapults the raiders promotion. This sounds powerful at first, but keep in mind that they cannot go above a speed of one. With this catapults can keep up with a fast army as long as they are rolling along a road, but are still quite slow if they have to travel overland.
• Option 2: Allow one of the late games techs like machinery to grant catapults an increase in movement. There might be some benefits to catapults over mages in the early years, but by the end game high XP adepts are east to spawn, and researching up to sorcery is trivial. This boost would help give siege engine builders a competitive advantage.
• Option 3: Add low level spell that acts as haste, but for vehicles instead of the living. Perhaps an enchantment spell called Animate Object or a nature spell called Living Wood. This is my least favorite option because it would require that you still pursue at least some level of magic.

very nice. I hope these are given some consideration.

 

[Morkonan]

i admit i don't think of every strategy, situation, but with two exceptions, i am at a complete loss as to why i would build a catapult over an adept, those two expections being you can't build mages(khazad) or the amurites have hit you with their world spell, so i thought i'd compare them in the hopes i can either prove my point, or someone can show me where my logic has gone wrong....

A catapult is a catapult. An adept is an adept.

Forgive me for being that basic but, my reasoning is, after all, pretty basic in origin.

It's all about timing.

A catapult is primarily designed to go around bashing down city walls or suiciding itself against a stack of troops. It's available right out of the box and ready to go as soon as you build it. An adept runs around and builds mana nodes and studies everyday so he can eventually learn how to cast a fireball, amongst other things like growing up to eventually eat an entire city one day by himself.

The Mage can do a number of different things very well. They are, of course, more versatile than a catapult. Given the same birthday, two hundred years later the Adept will be an Archmage, Lord of All He Surveys while the little catapult will be a quaint child's toy. Mages can empower troops, cause devastation, build nodes, crush armor and summon lots of nasties who enjoy doing all those things. Catapults go forward, backward, left, right and knock down walls.... Not much of a comparison.

But, when you absolutely must have that early rush in order to take advantage of the moment, you can't sit and wait around for Adepts to finish school or maybe even collect enough of them to do the job in one round. That's when the catapult shines. Nobody ever laughed at a stack of troops with a few catapults within the first few rounds of a game.

 

[Morkonan]

On patching a hard upgrade to catapults -

I don't think upgrading catapults or giving them any further later game uses is warranted. They're fine.

Should we patch warriors to make them more useful later in the game? Why? There are already other, late-game, units that outmode catapults. Why add yet another late-game siege unit? Does it afford a good gameplay experience? I don't see one mentioned. All it does is beef up the catapult unit for reasons unknown. (Granted, IIRC, some civs do have problems in that area but, they also have means to overcome them.)

There are a variety of units that outclass the catapult later in game and intentionally so. Cannons, Mages, Ships, Arquibusiers, some specialty units, all are present to upgrade siege-crafting in the later game.

Now, take gunpowder out of the game and then maybe there'd be a reason to have a serious look at catapults for an upgrade. Even then, I'd rather see more "flavor" added to the game in that instance by a new unit, like a trebuchet, rather than a catapult promotion.

We don't have catapults today in our military arsenal for a reason - We figured out better ways to throw large destructive objects.

 

[Inkling]

On patching a hard upgrade to catapults -

I don't think upgrading catapults or giving them any further later game uses is warranted. They're fine.

Should we patch warriors to make them more useful later in the game? Why? There are already other, late-game, units that outmode catapults. Why add yet another late-game siege unit? Does it afford a good gameplay experience? I don't see one mentioned. All it does is beef up the catapult unit for reasons unknown. (Granted, IIRC, some civs do have problems in that area but, they also have means to overcome them.)

There are a variety of units that outclass the catapult later in game and intentionally so. Cannons, Mages, Ships, Arquibusiers, some specialty units, all are present to upgrade siege-crafting in the later game.

Now, take gunpowder out of the game and then maybe there'd be a reason to have a serious look at catapults for an upgrade. Even then, I'd rather see more "flavor" added to the game in that instance by a new unit, like a trebuchet, rather than a catapult promotion.

We don't have catapults today in our military arsenal for a reason - We figured out better ways to throw large destructive objects.

You seem to be missing my point. Let me try to explain more clearly

A warrior is a melee unit that fills the role effectively for its tier, when the time comes i upgrade it to a swordsman/axeman/whatever. which is a unit that fills its role equally well for that tier. and so on. We don't need to patch warriors, because the warrior line is always useful and effective at its role.

The only reason a catapult is of any value at all is because that early in the game you don't have any real other options. The minute an alternative presents itself, the catapult becomes outclassed. you can upgrade it to a cannon, but everything which renders the catapult ineffective, still affects the cannon. the other options are simply far more versatile and effecient. And you can't upgrade the catapult for a good long time.

As it stands, catapults, and the investment to get them, is a dead end in my oppinion, even conceding really early game usefullness, its still an investment for a limited, quickly diminishing return, where as anything else i might invest in, melee, mounted, arcane, will continue to do a role and do it well enough to justify the unit and its building requirements.

with really any of the improvements mentioned by Kumquatelvis, the unit-lines cost benefit 'begins' to level out, usefullness gets extended. suddenly its not a unit i build solely because i want an early game rush and have no other alternatives, but something i can consider employing because it does its job well. Suddenly i have cause to consider upgrading them to cannons instead of scraping what few i might have built because they are a worthless drain on my economy.


I guess a better set of questions would be who builds catapults for something other than an early game rush(offense or defense). who continues to employ them, that is actively building more instead of just wheeling around the ones you already built, after this rush period. who actually builds, or upgrades to, cannons. and why? in other words, who pursues them in lieu of the alternatives so that i can understand the value and role they have, which i clearly don't see now(other than the early rush)

 

[Ekolite]

What I did in my version of the game was add an ''Industry'' civic at construction, which kind of indirectly benefits catapults by making their tech a little more appealing to prioritise. If I'm doing an early rush, I will quite often rush to Construction instead of Bronze Working, and use my catapults to weaken the enemy enough that my stone-age warriors can deal with them with minimal losses. If I'm not doing an early rush I use catapults and bronze axemen.

 

[kumquatelvis]

On patching a hard upgrade to catapults -

I don't think upgrading catapults or giving them any further later game uses is warranted. They're fine.

Should we patch warriors to make them more useful later in the game? Why? There are already other, late-game, units that outmode catapults. Why add yet another late-game siege unit? Does it afford a good gameplay experience? I don't see one mentioned. All it does is beef up the catapult unit for reasons unknown. (Granted, IIRC, some civs do have problems in that area but, they also have means to overcome them.)

There are a variety of units that outclass the catapult later in game and intentionally so. Cannons, Mages, Ships, Arquibusiers, some specialty units, all are present to upgrade siege-crafting in the later game.

Now, take gunpowder out of the game and then maybe there'd be a reason to have a serious look at catapults for an upgrade. Even then, I'd rather see more "flavor" added to the game in that instance by a new unit, like a trebuchet, rather than a catapult promotion.

We don't have catapults today in our military arsenal for a reason - We figured out better ways to throw large destructive objects.

Pretend that everywhere you see the word catapult you instead read cannon. Does the argument make any more sense now? Why would I ever build a cannon instead of a mage?