Early siege warfare

[Kakafika]

How do I take care of Earthen Walls?

A neighbor declared war on my civ, so my people put aside their peaceful, shamanistic ways, and for the first time have taken up arms in order to destroy the Danish civilization! Upon reaching the closest Danish city, they found a large mound of dirt surrounding the city... they have no clue how to overcome this obstacle! It seems the only unit that can attack is a captured battering ram, but it only has a 14% chance of success. Should they focus on studying this new device, learning the secrets of the wheel in order to produce an army of them?

How can they lower the defenses so that all units can attack? An army of mammoth riders is expected to be produced soon...

 

[Harrier]

You could try researching the tech that gives you "Killer Rabbits", can not remember which one it was.

 

[Kakafika]

Uhhh... Ok so there are Bear Knights... so 'Killer Rabbits' are likely enough that I will have to check the Civpedia...

 

[JosEPh_II]

You will need to have a lot of units to attack the city. You said you have an army of Elephant riders coming soon. Be prepared to sacrifice most upon the wall. The walls defensive strength is tied to the Best Defender in the city. So you will have to whittle that best defender down before the wall def value starts to come down.

Now If you can capture some more battering rams sacrifice them upon the wall, that 14% is probably/maybe better than what your Mammoth riders will get at the start. Once the wall is down to 60% then all units can start attacking. (This is a feature that I personally do not like that was put in 2+years ago but my arguments to go back to the previous system has failed to get the job done. Too much tied into this one now.)

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

"Killer Rabbits" are not in the mod. There are in the folders though as they are "cute and cuddly" and destroy a small army of knights with a single swipe of their paw.

 

[Kakafika]

Thanks for the advice, Joseph! It's so different than vanilla, I thought maybe I was doing something wrong... I just discovered the wheel, so I'll put my people to work churning out battering rams! Once I have a good army of those, I'll hopefully have mammoth riders to back them up!

 

[Kakafika]

The battering ram strategy isn't all that effective... though perhaps it is intended that human players have a hard time wiping out their rivals before the Classical era.

What about stealth units: Are they able to break down defenses from within? Infiltrating and then opening the gate, or another 'Trojan Horse' strategy... If not, is this something that has been considered? It seems this could add an interesting facet to city protection and conquests, especially early on.

 

[JosEPh_II]

The battering ram strategy isn't all that effective... though perhaps it is intended that human players have a hard time wiping out their rivals before the Classical era.

That is the argument used. Cut down on early game steam roll.

What about stealth units: Are they able to break down defenses from within? Infiltrating and then opening the gate, or another 'Trojan Horse' strategy... If not, is this something that has been considered? It seems this could add an interesting facet to city protection and conquests, especially early on.

Not sure what the author of this had in mind for Stealth vs City Taking.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Spies can already do that but I would like to make it possible for rogues to achieve some goals to reduce city defenses. It's just a whole additional modification to do it.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

Honestly, I've found Rams effective enough now that they can take the Enhanced Movement statuses and no longer take a thousand years to reach the target city. Granted, I tend to treat them as one-shot expendable sacrifices, and simply throw a handful of them promoted with Breakdown Chance at the city. The first few may only knock off a few % each, but defensive values aren't that high in that era anyway, so it isn't difficult to reduce it to the conventional invasion threshold.

The need to replace Rams after each siege does serve nicely to prevent you from taking multiple cities in quick succession though.

Something else worth noting is that Arsonists are capable of bombarding city defenses from afar. I believe they're the earliest unit capable of doing so, and their high base strength and combat type make them fairly effective combatants as well.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Yes the Arsonist buff was my attempt to mitigate the early game siege problem. Since they have a Hard Limit you can not spam them like the AI Was doing with rams.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Honestly, I've found Rams effective enough now that they can take the Enhanced Movement statuses and no longer take a thousand years to reach the target city. Granted, I tend to treat them as one-shot expendable sacrifices, and simply throw a handful of them promoted with Breakdown Chance at the city. The first few may only knock off a few % each, but defensive values aren't that high in that era anyway, so it isn't difficult to reduce it to the conventional invasion threshold.

The need to replace Rams after each siege does serve nicely to prevent you from taking multiple cities in quick succession though.

That's exactly the balance I was seeking. To simply require that although you could build enough to take a city, after the city was taken you'd really have to take a minute to rebuild that first portion of the front line and economically adapt to having taken the city before proceeding.

This was how it WAS working for a while when perfectly balanced but it's been a while since I've played and I know tweaks have been made since then.

This goal was simply to make smaller victories larger ones the earlier in the game it is so as to keep steamrolls from being so quickly obtained. When you've only got 6 cities, one more is a big add-on. Also too if you make it tougher to take cities, you give the defender a better shot at recovering and counterattacking effectively before the march of doom can continue, making a war a true struggle which it really should be to be enjoyed to the fullest.

Something else worth noting is that Arsonists are capable of bombarding city defenses from afar. I believe they're the earliest unit capable of doing so, and their high base strength and combat type make them fairly effective combatants as well.

Yes the Arsonist buff was my attempt to mitigate the early game siege problem. Since they have a Hard Limit you can not spam them like the AI Was doing with rams.

How much were they buffed on this and do the succeeding units in the upgrade path get an equal bump or are arsonists now lopsidedly higher than they should be by numeric progression on this factor?

 

[Kakafika]

I actually just got access to arsonists, it does look like they will make things more interesting

 

[JosEPh_II]

<snip>
How much were they buffed on this and do the succeeding units in the upgrade path get an equal bump or are arsonists now lopsidedly higher than they should be by numeric progression on this factor?

This was not a recent thing T-brd. Don't panic ok? Your progression chart hasn't fallen over on it's face. Players Still can not steam roll with them early game.

Besides you already have this info, it was done Months ago when I reduced the Ram Line overall strengths. I Only upped the Hard Limit from 5 to 10. It's Str is Still at 8.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

This was not a recent thing T-brd. Don't panic ok? Your progression chart hasn't fallen over on it's face. Players Still can not steam roll with them early game.

Besides you already have this info, it was done Months ago when I reduced the Ram Line overall strengths. I Only upped the Hard Limit from 5 to 10. It's Str is Still at 8.

JosEPh

It's not something I'm in a panic about and I know it happened a while back but its been since last version that I've had a decent playtest so i know there's lots that has changed since I've taken stock of it.

One thing that's very very important to me about the Arsonist is that it is equally balanced whether playing on Unlimited National Units or not. I've long felt 8 was far too strong for them based on when they come into play. If their bombard ability is strengthened but then it's required that the unit limit keeps rams relevant despite them, then that would be an issue for Unlimited National Units.

Anyhow, we'll see how it goes when we playtest next. Someday.

 

[Kakafika]

I am playing with limited national units, and they do seem balanced to me. If you find they are unbalanced with the unlimited option, it's because they are also excellent in combat outside of cities... I had a lot of trouble dealing with enemy arsonists until I promoted an army of anti-throwing combatants. Any nerf to strength should be balanced with a buff to city attack, imo.

Note: I'm using release version, not SVN.

 

[Sparth]

I've long felt 8 was far too strong for them based on when they come into play.

Yep they are too strong. Now they can easily destroy each combat unit even from late Bronze Era. Its unrealistic. Better - I dont remember from history any arsonist units be used in field combat. Arsonism was used in siege but mostly by normal soldiers/warriors. Nothing special except flaming arrows and flaming jars shots by catapults.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

As field combat units, they really are too strong for their era. Being categorized as Throwing (rather than the "standard" Melee/Archer/Mounted triad) means they lack a lot of weaknesses and must be specifically countered through specially promoted units. Now that I really think about it, most of my losses in their era come from running into an Arsonist on a forested hill or similar.

I'd second Kakafika's suggestion, lower base strength with a high city attack bonus and bonus vs Rams. Come to think of it, would it be possible to give them the Rams' "damage defenses on attack" ability along with their bombardment? That is, they would have both the ability to bombard defenses at low risk but low damage, or attack directly at higher risk but higher damage.

 

[Nevets_]

If you want to have a national limit offensive unit be balanced whether you are playing with the unlimited national units option or not, then you need a national limit defensive unit to counter it. That way the option affects both evenly.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Well I disagree with T-brd, Sparth and Tripped's assessment of Arsonist as they stand now in the Mod's current state. And I Do Play test games All the Time. Can the rest say the same, test All the time?

That is Why I upped their Hard Limit months ago. They have been str 8 for a long time before I did anything to this Siege scenario that T-brd wants and I disagree over. The Ram line is Now imho better than it was when They were OP and the AI spammed the Whole game with them. You Want to go back to that?!! How quickly we forget.

Reduce the ridiculously high City defense in the early game and then you can move Arsonists back to Classical where they originally came from. I didn't put them where they come into play in the tech tree as it stands now.

Same as what happened to Bronze and Iron axe when they got nerfed to 5. Now at str 7 ( which I did do) they are relevant again. Before they were Junk units in a timeframe when they should've been The Melee unit. Mace is still borked, but it's better now than it was. And the jump from bronze/iron axe to hvy axe from str 5 to 13, now That was ridiculously out of porportion.

While Tripped's ideas are not really new, they are a Player new to this particular subforum voicing what they think is right. Perhaps ffrom previous play with this mod or another mod or even vanilla BtS. We've seen that time and again. And I'm not saying it's wrong because it does get us looking at stuff like this from time to time. But for the team to say Oh Yeah that's what it should be without due consideration is rather short sighted.

I would not have changed Any values if I had not felt and tested that there was a glaring need for it. But then again I'm the junior member of the team. At the same time though, some of those on the team fail to remember I've been here and active since Before this Mod was called Caveman2Cosmos. I ain't talkin' thru my hat when I say something is unbalanced and poorly implemented. Nor that the mod has to wait for a proposed, long time down the road, upcoming sometime, project to be adjusted for current conditions.

We have other things that need done much sooner than this particular rabbit trail.

And that is how I see it.

JosEPh