Collateral damage advanced

[2metraninja]

Hey guys,

I was wondering something and couldnt find definitive answer:

When the game makes collateral damage check, I read that eligible units are those over 50 hpts and dont defend the current turn. Which leaves me with the impression that it may happen that immune to collateral damage unit can "win" the check and be targeted for collateral damage, which she will not receive of course, as she is immune to collateral, but can save others from being hit by collateral doing this.

Is that "lost" collateral damage the reason why I could not make enough collateral damage to infantries mixed heavy with MGs and artillery even when attacking with something like 40 artillery stack of 80 units 2/3 of which are immune to collateral?

My idea about this is that it may worth to mix a lot of old siege units (trebs and catapults) along with your modern stack to avoid some collateral damage. They will of course not defend, but if you have stack of 30 modern units and 20 of them are immune to collateral damage MGs and Artillery and only 10 out of them are infantries, if you put say 30 catapults left from old wars together with them, 5/6 of the collateral damage from enemies bombarding will be lost in immune units. Is that right?

 

[r_rolo1]

Yup, but it is definitely not cost effective hammerwise.

 

[OneLeggedRhino]

Drill 4 gunpowder is a better way to handle siege. But interesting about how the collateral can still target immune units, I didn't know that. Thanks!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

When the game makes collateral damage check, I read that eligible units are those over 50 hpts and dont defend the current turn.

I have never done so but I suspect that, in some situations, you might flank the siege units first, so that they're not "eligible" anymore.

 

[civvver]

Don't stack your units so big and feign the ai's stacks into the open then rip them apart with flanking cavalry.

 

[2metraninja]

Word comes about the beginning of the modern times, when flanking is no longer available. I tried something and actually attacking a stack of 30 infantries, 20 MGs and 30 artillery (only 33% not immune to collateral damage units) with 20 cannons, it shows that only 41 times enemy units are actually hit by collateral damage instead of the supposed (20cannons*6collateral hits each) 120 collateral hits (~35%).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, it will work but as Rolo pointed out it isn't efficient to build siege for the specific purpose of absorbing collateral.

This works for all old units you don't care about, however. A junk unit can still absorb collateral (who cares if it is immune?) so if you expect to get hit by lots of siege and want to survive defensively instead of using your own siege first (often a bad call, but sometimes it's viable) then extra units can definitely help.

BTW modern siege can be flanked, but only by gunships. Of course bombers/nukes/etc can have something to say also .

 

[r_rolo1]

^^Yup, the real nemesis of siege units in the post-artilery ages are the bombers, that also deliver collateral damage to siege units. That is why the warfare post flight is almost devoid of siege units ( that and the advent of tanks , gunships and paratroopers, that put a lot more of speed in the warfare than even mounted units could possibly think on )

Anyway, and to go on topic, other thing to consider is that no siege unit in the stock game makes collateral damage in more than 8 units ( and most of them do in lot less. catapults IIRC are capped at 4 ). To be honest I don't know what the devs were smoking when they thinked on this, since it only makes bigger stacks more appealing ( OTOH a unlimited number of units suffering collateral damage would also be ******** ... ) ...

 

[2metraninja]

Hmm.. newer knew siege are not immune to collateral done by bombers.

Anyway, in the given time frame I just found that the aforementioned combo is really strong and almost nothing can be done to dislodge. Loses are 1:1 hammer-wise no matter you have the luxury to hit with collateral first. And the idea of mixing in catapults/trebs are that I do have them anyway as part of defensive stack which had his idea even in the times of rifles, which happened that I did not needed to use, but then it become obsolete and I had no money to upgrade. Not that I built them specially with the idea of using them this way.

And catapults will be way better as a soak-up units instead of axes for example, as when hit by 40 artillery, axes will stop being eligible targets (>50%health) in just few volleys, while catapults will soak up till the last.

BTW, this is real scenario from a pitboss I play in right now and I got attacked by 2 of my neighbors who made nasty combined stack and are advancing in my territory