Caveman 2 Cosmos (ideas/discussions thread)

[Czacki]

On topic of religions, I actually think it's good that you can benefit from the extravagant wonders (such as palace of Potala - the best thing that can happen to a commerce-based town), it gives religions extra meaning, now you WANT religions, as many as you can so you can get your hands on those wonders, it adds extra challenge to the game. This is after all a single player mod (even if MP is possible), and it super-balance shouldn't be an issue, that's what regular Civ 4 is for.

Things that I'd LOVE to be tweaked (I'd love to help, too, but I never edited any XMLs short of changing Carthage color to purple):

- Great Commanders. I love them, but they are quite OP. The withdraw bonus, It's great and all, but with the MASSIVE bonus to withdraw chance, some units get 100% easily. IMHO 100% (or 95%) should be reserved for warlord-led elite troops ONLY. If you turn on "withdraw on defense", things get particularly ugly with immortal army! I know this option is fun, but for the sake of exploit-hunting, can we get rid of it? Or make it not possible to select together with great commanders? Immortal armies aren't fun, they just trample everything.
- Great Warlords. Every time he retreats (with dynamic EXP on), he gets with leadership 12 EXP. With the abundance of the new promotions, and all religious-based promotions possible without mutual exclusion, this leads to WAY more powerful warlords than in previous games. While I absolutely LOVE it (since there was little use for warlords earlier on battlefield, usual spammed units were much better), I'm afraid the "retreat" shouldn't be counted as epic victory. I think the dynamic exp system needs some work, tbh, the regular practice is to bombard the defenders with siege until they are half dead, with dynamic exp your "clean up" battles after siege attacks will most likely net you little to none exp (cause the odds are most likely to be in 99% range), making all those promotions useless cause units never get them!
I propose following changes:
minimal exp to be gained = 1 point, to prevent superslow gain
victory with odds below 75% = 2 points
victory with odds below 50% = 3 points
victory with odds below 25% = 4 points
victory with odds below 10% = 6 points
Retreating counts as victory, but exp growth is halved

How about that?

Also, global cap on retreat chance, I suggest 95%, 100% is just too cheesy.

Also, I once took the entire world with 100% withdraw single great warlord leading a cavalry unit (aided by a great medic). It wasn't funny, I mean I love great warlords but the two things combined (100% withdraw and 12xp per retreat) made him a monster that alone beat up massive civs.

- Future units are atm a mess, they don't have roles like units from previous eras, they are often "a bit of everything", perhaps assault mechs will be the new artillery and dreadnaughts the new tanks (or vice versa) ? One group with collateral damage and 1st attacks, but lower strength, other with massive strength but without collateral. Also, I still don't get why there isn't a single line of upgrades for tanks. Plasma armor is definitively weaker than later dreadnaught units but can't upgrade, either move it to tracked category as ultimate tracked unit (makes sense if categories are re-balanced and units get more of rock-paper-scissors balancing) or make it upgrade to thermobaric armor and higher.
- While I'm not the one taht should do criticizing because I can barely draw a line in ms paint, I think some units need visual tweakup, Orbital Fighters/Bombers barely differ from each other, they are a brown flying bulb, compared to beautiful models of Dreadnaught units or the jetfighter model or dropship they look ugly
- Ships, they need some twinking: Modern battleship should upgrade to missile cruiser (which is how things went anyway), there should also be more difference between destroyers, cruisers and b-ships: for instance, subs or airplanes should get a +100% bonus against battleship, while destroyers should get a +50% bonus against air units and submarines, this way some diversity is created.
- Fusion ships. I don't like the fact that there are three, looking similar, only differing in strength. Leading to simply spamming fusion battleships, as the strongest (not to mention that fusion battleship is actually weaker than future tanks which makes no sense, it's a massive ship armed with probably a ton of cannons or lazors or whatever...). I would say: scrap fusion battleship (obselete hull even by modern standards) and either fusion destroyer/cruiser (as they overlap with each other). We really don't need three ships doing the same thing. To compensate, we could get plasma destroyers (like in call to power) and maybe in space era some ultimate ship that would rival nanite cloud in strength (after all it's a WARSHIP... it's bigger than whatever on land and most likely much stronger). Not sure if you have people that can make good looking unit models, ofc.
- World Wonders, a LOT gets obsolete, much more than in vanilla game where only the old ones would get obsolete fast. How about reducing the obsolesce amount? Stuff like "Einstein's Lab" for instance is a good candidate for not becoming obsolete. Since it's a SP game, there's not much fun when you get your wonders offline every few techs, just kills the joy of building them...
- National wonders. There's a TON of them... does the 2 per city limit still apply? If yes, I really think it should be wise to shift it to 3, maybe even 4, because there's so much National stuff to build you'd have to have like 30 cities to have all of them... :O (and some of us LOVE to have a lot of things in their city ^^). So, how about upping the limit?

And, how's the food/gold growth balance going? I remember that in RoM:AnD it was really overdone since you had a million , and in every city and could expand at the slider set to 100% science to like double or triple the empire you'd have in vanilla CIV... maybe higher maintenance costs for cities or something like that if nothing was done here?

- Will there be new units in the "top" tier? I recall C2C actually added an future era beyond those added by RoM:AnD, well at least I get that impression by looking at the extended tech tree. I'd love to see phantoms from Call to Power as ultimate fighters, and maybe even stuff like Star Cruisers as ultimate bombers. Or those ridiculous "swarm" units of CTP with their sick strength and paradrop ability as ultimate infantry?

Cheers!

 

[strategyonly]

@Joseph; See pic 1, AI is now building JC's, here is an example of a unit building 2.

@HX: I got the Babylon Embassy, but i cant build the Bowman, I have wheat in area, also stone so i meet the requirements, but they are not even listed in the unbuildable units area? pic 2/3

 

[Koshling]

Um, can you take a screenshot. Mine says it gives +1 gold, +1 culture, +1 Happiness and +1% Gold with Dye. No food shown.

I figured this out. It's a bug in the max compat save fomat. It doesn't correctly translate the building ids in the city building-bonus tables. What this means in practise is that if you have something in a city that gives an additional bonus to a building class (in this case an extra food, but I'm no sure what building it was originally being given to), and then change assets so that the building id changes, the bonus is incorrectly given to whatever building NOW has that old id (seamstress hut in my case).

Not much I can do about this for current save games, since the info is lost, but I'll fix it going forward - expect a fix to be pushed to SVN later today. For anyone (like me) with this bug in their save game just live with it - basically it means that a food bonus has transferred from one building class to another in existing cities - slightly distorting, but not game-killing.

 

[Isabelxxx]

Here are my experiences with the mod up to date. It's incredible in general but there are some aspects which need adjustments: one finds a considerable number of exploits, illogical behaviors or strange things at some point. Here is what I have found, hope it helps.:

In Deity level (I suppose these maximizes some things I report).Version 13.0

1. Invisible units (rogues, assassins, etc.) are affected by all the Castle improvements if they move next to cities. That means those units are damaged every turn with the appropriate improvement, zone control limits their movement, etc. It's just understandable how the city defenses can attack the invisible unit while this can still enter in the city without restrictions; for god's sake, it's an invisible unit, you can not attack it without seeing it.
Also, in general, problems with invisible units are present. Castle improvements is just an example... warlords, rogues, thiefs, assasins, etc. can not attack cities if you have open borders with a Civ, etc.

2. City Defenses can make the city virtually invulnerable. At some point (medieval era - renaissance) cities with walls, high walls, castle and castle gate can not be conquered.
The bonuses against bombardment are just so high that siege weapons can not reduce the citiy defense; again, city defense will not be reduced with anything from those eras.
With Castle gatehouse the city can not be attacked while conserving +25% defense so it makes the city invulnerable.
The enemy just abandon the city (only a worker inside) with 220 % defense while I stand with my +40 units stacks during 40 turns trying to just reduce it a 1%... and obviously, even having a force 40 times bigger I can not enter in the city.
Spies can be used to destroy the Castle gatehouse but have in mind that: 1) renaissance era, espionage is still primitive, no enough points produced. 2) spies can be used in one city but no in ALL the cities. 3) Percentage of success is ridiculous considering the resources you spend to just try to attack the city. 4) Even destroying the Castle gate you still have in your front a city with 220% bonus defense. If there are units there it will be hard... 5) The Castle gate will be built by the AI in 1 or 2 turns. That makes 4) stupid... You have to send an uber-force to try to enter in the city in those supposed available 1-3 turns.


After using +10 siege units, city 1:



After using +10 siege units, city 2:



The spy can destroy the Castle but no the castle gate (?) Does the castle gate requires more points than the castle itself?





3) Neanderthals in the classic era? Neanderthals in the Renaissance era? I do like the concept and how it's implemented but that... I just feel that barbarians have been replaced by animals and Neanderthals. Be aware, deity level, so more and more Neanderthals are expected but it's understandable. I choose Barbarian world, aggressive barbarian, etc. but at some point you just understand that there are no barbarians. Only Neanderthals.
I think it would be preferable to see how the neanderthals dissapear (soon) and the presence of barbarians grows while the times goes by. Check their appearance in high difficulty levels, convert them to barbarians now and then at the start of some era, just kill them .... the idea is not to replace barbarians but to create diversity. Neanderthals are just Neanderthals, barbarians can found civs, grow, build improved units, ....

These neanderthals have been fortified there since the beginning of the world...


... enough time for their evolution or decease...


4) Great generals, Commanders, Trade Caravans, Treasures, ... (all those miscellaneous great units): the AI just doesn't know what to do with them. In general generals are attached to units but sometimes are just accumulated in cities or strange places. Great Commanders are in general nonexistent in the AI side, many times waiting in the capital. Trade Caravans and treasures are often accumulated in the cities without doing nothing. I do accumulate sometimes these units for a purpose, they just wait to loose the city and the units by the attacks of other civ.

5) AI spams ships and place them in the coasts. Massive naval forces without any use. They don't attack, don't move, don't... nothing. Like this:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10666836&postcount=3100

Imagine this in 40 tiles more...





6) Venetian arsenal has a "None" text line in the bonuses it gives.



So far this is all. I'm on the start of the Renaissance era yet.


EDIT: uploaded pics and savegame.

 

[Hydromancerx]

@HX: I got the Babylon Embassy, but i cant build the Bowman, I have wheat in area, also stone so i meet the requirements, but they are not even listed in the unbuildable units area? pic 2/3

No offense but isn't that your error then? If you can build the building then I did my part. Your part was to make the Bowman required by the building I made. Do you need to make all of the ex-UUs as separate units that do not replace another unit?

 

[Isabelxxx]

Uploaded the pics and the savegame. Please revise the city defenses problem because it really makes my game unplayable. I can not do anything to conquer the cities.


Also I would want to discuss how the mod is being developing. It has been noted that the game lacks some "equilibre" at some points.
There are lot of interesting things added in the religions, technologies, units, buildings, generals, etc. but -in my experience- I do feel sometimes the sensation of challenge has been lost: uber soldiers with 100% retreat possibility, infinite stacks of siege weapons or ships everywhere, no possibility to siege cities, civs too powerful and others too weak.
I don't say "it's easy", no... sometimes that. Others... the opposite. Just that one feels all has been said too soon.

The start is too decisive; I would have thought that most civs will be aprox. equal when entering the classic era. Obviously some more powerful, others with many lacks.
Error. You can easily see that one civ will be the the winner just at that point. The rest is nothing compared to it.
The minory less powerful is more pronunciated in this mod than in ROM or AND. Too much pronunciated. It's ridiculous fighting against 2-3 "one city" civs in the Renaissance when you have arcabusiers.
What I'm trying to say is that due to the complexity of the mod small errors on the adjustments provokes great effects in the rest of the game. This remember something added to the popular "scientific" culture in the last years...
The feel that you are fighting with tanks and the enemy with bows is more pronunciated with this mod.
You could fix it adding more civs and therefore more possibilities to see other advanced civ but... it requires more space, bigger maps. I do believe that a very-enormous map with 40 civs and the required space to allow 10 of them to grow up to serious limits would show the best of the mod. In the sizes we can manage only 1 civ really "pass" the initial chaos and becomes something important, the rest just "survive". Some better than others but all tends to be at biggest civ's feet.

ROM, AND and plain CIV tend to show that in the last eras; you have played and enjoyed the game at that point.
C2C shows that -and maximized- in the middle eras; the problem is that in fact it's the start of the "real game". You want more but...

What is the challenge of being Rome or the enemy of Rome for the eternity?

I would define it as "stability". AND and ROM were "stables" in that terms, obviosuly they are not so impressive as this mod, you have not all these possibilities but they have "stability". I feel this needs some tweaks and changes to not have the sensation that something will explode in strange ways.

I would say that the priority at this moment (apart from bugs) should not be the addition of new things but the adjustment of all the existing things in the mod. Just an opinion.

Thank you this fantastic mod.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

3) Neanderthals in the classic era? Neanderthals in the Renaissance era? I do like the concept and how it's implemented but that... I just feel that barbarians have been replaced by animals and Neanderthals. Be aware, deity level, so more and more Neanderthals are expected but it's understandable. I choose Barbarian world, aggressive barbarian, etc. but at some point you just understand that there are no barbarians. Only Neanderthals.
I think it would be preferable to see how the neanderthals dissapear (soon) and the presence of barbarians grows while the times goes by. Check their appearance in high difficulty levels, convert them to barbarians now and then at the start of some era, just kill them .... the idea is not to replace barbarians but to create diversity. Neanderthals are just Neanderthals, barbarians can found civs, grow, build improved units, ....

These neanderthals have been fortified there since the beginning of the world...

Neanderthals only spawn in the Prehistoric era. I have not written anything to remove them after that era assumed that the player(s) would do that. With them hanging around nothing else will spawn. It my just be that the options you say you selected have filled up the number of places for barbarians and you aren't killing them off fast enough.

I do not have any skill to change the AI of the Neanderthals but I will look into them disappearing from the map from somewhere in the Ancient era.

One problem with that is that you can build Neanderthal units if you have the Neanderthal Embassy. Since those units don't upgrade perhaps I should make them disappear to.

6) Venetian arsenal has a "None" text line in the bonuses it gives.

Yes me again. I keep meaning to get back and find where that NONE is coming from. I just get side tracked.

Also I would want to discuss how the mod is being developing. It has been noted that the game lacks some "equilibre" at some points.

....

The start is too decisive; I would have thought that most civs will be aprox. equal when entering the classic era. Obviously some more powerful, others with many lacks.
Error. You can easily see that one civ will be the the winner just at that point. The rest is nothing compared to it...

Yes, I agree, I think I can almost tell if I am going to win before I place my first city. In CivV, when I figured that out, I threw the game away. Recent improvements to the AI have changed that a bit. Those changes are due out in v14 this weekend.

 

[Isabelxxx]

Neanderthals only spawn in the Prehistoric era. I have not written anything to remove them after that era assumed that the player(s) would do that. With them hanging around nothing else will spawn. It my just be that the options you say you selected have filled up the number of places for barbarians and you aren't killing them off fast enough.

I do not have any skill to change the AI of the Neanderthals but I will look into them disappearing from the map from somewhere in the Ancient era.

One problem with that is that you can build Neanderthal units if you have the Neanderthal Embassy. Since those units don't upgrade perhaps I should make them disappear to.
.

I supposed it. The problem is that the AI -because those places were next to cities conquered- is not totally able to manage that number of units. At least on my difficulty level. They tend to form groups and accumulate; in some places they are just confined due to the expansion of cultural limits.
Slow mode games tend to maximize the problem. Ancient Era starts after many turns in those modes. Even only allowing them to spawn in prehistoric era the number of those units is really high.

A possibility (not sure if it can be done) could be the conversion of those units in barbarians. They just become a barbarian civ at some point or simply die. Give them a 50% chance for ex. to become a barbarian soldier or die progressively after the classic era. That solves the problem dynamically and your neanderthal units can still survive until they become obsoletes.

Also even your own neanderthal units could become barbarians... some type of neanderthal revolution.

Being a barbarian unit you can give that civ an unique unit, an upgrade of the neanderthal. That would convert those monkeys in monkeys with weapons.



Anyway my main problem in this game is the siege problem. No one can conquer a city there.

 

[Hydromancerx]

2. City Defenses can make the city virtually invulnerable. At some point (medieval era - renaissance) cities with walls, high walls, castle and castle gate can not be conquered.
The bonuses against bombardment are just so high that siege weapons can not reduce the citiy defense; again, city defense will not be reduced with anything from those eras.
With Castle gatehouse the city can not be attacked while conserving +25% defense so it makes the city invulnerable.
The enemy just abandon the city (only a worker inside) with 220 % defense while I stand with my +40 units stacks during 40 turns trying to just reduce it a 1%... and obviously, even having a force 40 times bigger I can not enter in the city.
Spies can be used to destroy the Castle gatehouse but have in mind that: 1) renaissance era, espionage is still primitive, no enough points produced. 2) spies can be used in one city but no in ALL the cities. 3) Percentage of success is ridiculous considering the resources you spend to just try to attack the city. 4) Even destroying the Castle gate you still have in your front a city with 220% bonus defense. If there are units there it will be hard... 5) The Castle gate will be built by the AI in 1 or 2 turns. That makes 4) stupid... You have to send an uber-force to try to enter in the city in those supposed available 1-3 turns.

Have you tried using the Arsonist unit on castles?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Isabelxxx wroteI do believe that a very-enormous map with 40 civs and the required space to allow 10 of them to grow up to serious limits would show the best of the mod. In the sizes we can manage only 1 civ really "pass" the initial chaos and becomes something important, the rest just "survive". Some better than others but all tends to be at biggest civ's feet.

I have found that playing a giant map with 7-9 AI on a several type maps (I prefer archipelago and then custom continents and Lakes (high sea level) ) that you will have some serious competition until late medieval to early ren. eras when one of the bigger empires and generally a neighbor declares war on you. By the time you have conquered it's empire none of the rest alone can take you.

But there is a secondary problem with protracted wars that can become quite serious and that is War Weariness. By the time you hit Industrial era any war you wage must be over in 10 turns or less or WW increases so quickly that it becomes impossible to continue building war units with less than 40%+ culture setting(doesn't matter if you build every other turn a culture/happy producing building/wonder). Espionage at that era needs minimum of 10% to keep you from being stole blind. So your research % is 40-45% dependent upon keeping your commerce and trade going to provide a decent gold per turn to buy and upgrade units. So if you are waging a war that requires you to travel for 3-4 turns to reach your enemies shores you better capture that city quick or the "redfaces: will grind your empire to a halt asap. And all this is Without REV turned on. I can only imagine how bad it would be if REV was On. And that's probably why so many ppl report 2-3 city Empires while my opponents have 12-20+ cities when I have 20 cities.

@SO JC looks good early, now need to see if they hold up to Medicine and Tourism Tech for their added bonuses.

Seriously though War Weariness is Rough to handle and this may be a good thing with some small tweaking.

JosEPh

 

[strategyonly]

No offense but isn't that your error then? If you can build the building then I did my part. Your part was to make the Bowman required by the building I made. Do you need to make all of the ex-UUs as separate units that do not replace another unit?

I wonder if your right:

<PrereqBuilding>BUILDING_BABYLONIAN_EMBASSY</PrereqBuilding>
			<PrereqTech>TECH_ARCHERY</PrereqTech>

Maybe we are going to have to name the UnitClassInfo, same as the Unit? But i still cant figure out why it didn't work cause it does specifically say Babylonian Embassy

 

[Hydromancerx]

One problem with that is that you can build Neanderthal units if you have the Neanderthal Embassy. Since those units don't upgrade perhaps I should make them disappear to.

I would not be against them upgrading into some other unit. I mean Neanderthals look enough like humans that it would be ok for them to assimilate into more advanced units. Maybe have them upgrade into Axemen or something.

 

[Hydromancerx]

I wonder if your right:

<PrereqBuilding>BUILDING_BABYLONIAN_EMBASSY</PrereqBuilding>
			<PrereqTech>TECH_ARCHERY</PrereqTech>

Maybe we are going to have to name the UnitClassInfo, same as the Unit? But i still cant figure out why it didn't work cause it does specifically say Babylonian Embassy

The building requirements should not effect the unit requirements. I am just thinking that you need to have each unit as its own separate unit that will not replace any other unit.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Have you tried using the Arsonist unit on castles?

Yes, you Do need to use them Isabelxxx. A group of 6 Arsonist's can bring a castles defenses down rather nicely.

Thanks Hydro for reminding me.

JosEPh

 

[Koshling]

I would not be against them upgrading into some other unit. I mean Neanderthals look enough like humans that it would be ok for them to assimilate into more advanced units. Maybe have them upgrade into Axemen or something.

I disagree. The Neanderthal units obtained through the embassy is a big plus for the player that has it. That is balanced by the inability to upgrade. If you allow them to grade it will bcome too much of an advantage to the cov with the embassy. I think that aspect is fine as it is.

 

[Koshling]

I supposed it. The problem is that the AI -because those places were next to cities conquered- is not totally able to manage that number of units. At least on my difficulty level. They tend to form groups and accumulate; in some places they are just confined due to the expansion of cultural limits.
Slow mode games tend to maximize the problem. Ancient Era starts after many turns in those modes. Even only allowing them to spawn in prehistoric era the number of those units is really high.

A possibility (not sure if it can be done) could be the conversion of those units in barbarians. They just become a barbarian civ at some point or simply die. Give them a 50% chance for ex. to become a barbarian soldier or die progressively after the classic era. That solves the problem dynamically and your neanderthal units can still survive until they become obsoletes.

Also even your own neanderthal units could become barbarians... some type of neanderthal revolution.

Being a barbarian unit you can give that civ an unique unit, an upgrade of the neanderthal. That would convert those monkeys in monkeys with weapons.



Anyway my main problem in this game is the siege problem. No one can conquer a city there.

Turning neanderthals I to barbarians won't make any substantive difference - they both use the same barbarian ai anyway, so all that would change would be graphics and upgrade paths, which didn't really seem to be the aspects of Neanderthals that you were worried about

 

[Isabelxxx]

Have you tried using the Arsonist unit on castles?

It's a joke?

Arsonist: bombard rate 16%
Siege tower: bombard rate 13%
Ballista: bombard rate 5%
Trebuchet: bombard rate 16%
...

I have not used the arsonist but in theory it is as effective as the trebuchet. I do have used all except the arsonist.

The question is why no siege weapon reduce the city defense, no which unit to use in order to optimize the damage.

If you are seriously saying that the arsonist will reduce the city defense despite having the same bombard rate than the trebuchet I think there is something really wrong here... it would be understandable that the arsonist would be able to damage the walls of a castle but no a trebuchet or a ram.

Just a thought: siege weapons should mean siege weapons.

 

[Isabelxxx]

Turning neanderthals I to barbarians won't make any substantive difference - they both use the same barbarian ai anyway, so all that would change would be graphics and upgrade paths, which didn't really seem to be the aspects of Neanderthals that you were worried about

Barbarians trespass your cultural limits. Neanderthals don't do it. At least that's my experience.

I thought that changing that would made them more active.

 

[Koshling]

Yes, I agree, I think I can almost tell if I am going to win before I place my first city. In CivV, when I figured that out, I threw the game away. Recent improvements to the AI have changed that a bit. Those changes are due out in v14 this weekend.

It's much improved economically (even beelining my research intelligently, I was fully 100 turns behind the lead ai in getting sedentary lifestyle in my current game), but its still pretty horrible in combat. I've started tweaking the attack ai a bit (nothing pushed to SVN yet though) but really there is masses that needs to be done. As a starting point my initial tweaks address the issue with the ai deciding it has an adequate attack stack and declaring war as it moves it into your territory, and then finding (when it actually gains visibility of it's target city) that it doesn't. Previously it would plough on regardless and just kind of camp embarrassedly outside the city until you shooed it away. Now it will evaluate slightly differently. So far:

• If it realizes it's stack is inadequate before crossing your border and starting a war it will hold back and generate more force first
• It will evaluate the defenses of the city it is targeting by considering all the units visible to it in the vicinity of the city, not just the ones actually in the city (which is all it considers right now). This is pretty important because you can really game the ai at the moment, by not stationing much in the city near it's border, but having large defensive stacks just outside that can move in and mop up when the ai falls for the trap

Soon:

• Ai will maintain a record of the defensive forces it last saw near each city and use that as an estimate of the defensive value when it doesn't have direct visibility
• Ai will actively use stealth units to keep it's visibility refreshed on potential targets reasonably frequently

Those changes should help a bit, but it's still going to be pretty dumb compared to any human player.

 

[Hydromancerx]

It's a joke?

Arsonist: bombard rate 16%
Siege tower: bombard rate 13%
Ballista: bombard rate 5%
Trebuchet: bombard rate 16%
...

I have not used the arsonist but in theory it is as effective as the trebuchet. I do have used all except the arsonist.

The question is why no siege weapon reduce the city defense, no which unit to use in order to optimize the damage.

If you are seriously saying that the arsonist will reduce the city defense despite having the same bombard rate than the trebuchet I think there is something really wrong here... it would be understandable that the arsonist would be able to damage the walls of a castle but no a trebuchet or a ram.

Just a thought: siege weapons should mean siege weapons.

The siege weapons could probably use a boost and he arsonist a reduction, but the thing that makes the arsonist unique compared to the siege units is that its under the gunpowder unit category. Its like having an ancient gernader.