Help Please! Siege Tower/Battering Ram/Catapult

[MIS]

I'm seeing different people say different things. Let's say a Non-ranged unit under non-wall circumstances would do ten damage to a city. Now let's assume there is a wall (with the same strength as the city, to make it easier). Reading one article, I understand it's like this:

Scenario: No wall
City:10 damage
Walls: N/A

Scenario: Walls, no support
City: No damage
Walls: 10*0.15 = 1.5 damage

Scenario: Walls, Battering Ram
City: 10 Damage
Walls: No damage

Scenario: Walls, Siege Tower
City: No Damage
Walls: 10 Damage

Scenario: Walls, Siege Tower, Battering Ram
City: 5 Damage
Walls: 5 Damage
(Note that "Square Triangle Mouse" suggests it would be 10 damage to each, for a total of 20 Damage)

Scenario: Catapult, No Support
City: No Damage
Walls: 10 Damage

Scenario: Ranged (e.g. Archer), Battering Ram, Siege Tower
City: No damage
Walls: 10*0.15 = 1.5 damage

Do i have this correct?

Thanks y'all,
MIS

 

[jacksone kain]

Scenario: Walls, Battering Ram
City: 10 Damage
Walls: No damage

Scenario: Walls, Siege Tower
City: No Damage
Walls: 10 Damage

These should be flipped. Battering Ram does full damage to walls. Tower does full damage to city.

 

[PYITE]

I believe that using a ram and tower together doesn't work. Something about them canceling each other's effect.

 

[Victoria]

It's not that simple either. You can get a ram faster and it stacks. Catapults end up as artillery but do not stack so are vulnerable. Steiger towers are faster at taking the entire city as long as it can be taken fast as the city will keep shooting. Their promotions count also as do balloons

 

[KoKid90]

I remember reading that using ram + tower would split the damage between wall and city therefore making this less efficient than using one or the other. catapult are fragile and if the city as wall it will get destroyed so I never use them (it should have more defensive strength IMO).

 

[Victoria]

They cancel each other out so to speak yes. I guess it would be too easy otherwise

 

[Mr. Shadows]

I'm not sure what the formula is but siege towers direct damage to both the walls and the district. Rams are great for keeping an early offensive going once walls are up. At that point in the game a ram works well because you're probably supporting the attack with archers; they both target the walls so the job gets done faster. If you have to wear down a well fortified city with aging units the ram will turn off the cities strike faster. However, siege towers give you the option of taking cities without a lot of ranged units. If you're not in an atrocious grind against the opposing city siege towers are faster. Personally I'm only going to make 1-2 support units and I'd rather take a siege tower into the late game than a battering ram. In any event I'm learning to make it a point to get at least one light cavalry unit up to 4 promotions so they can keep up. It really is nice having these units around, even after bombards. I've never had much success with catapults, but I've never prioritized them either. By the time I build them they're too fragile. The way I've been playing they're nothing but pre-built bombards.

 

[Victoria]

You have to beeline catapults to make it worthwhile

 

[stinkubus]

Cats are great for Rome, since I usually wants baths in Dom games and both are unlocked at Engineering. Eurekas can ensure you get there in good time in almost any game, to boot. You can even skip archers and just conquer with legions and cats which then become muskets and bombards which then become infantry and artillery.

 

[DouLou]

I'm not sure what the formula is but siege towers direct damage to both the walls and the district. Rams are great for keeping an early offensive going once walls are up. At that point in the game a ram works well because you're probably supporting the attack with archers; they both target the walls so the job gets done faster. If you have to wear down a well fortified city with aging units the ram will turn off the cities strike faster. However, siege towers give you the option of taking cities without a lot of ranged units. If you're not in an atrocious grind against the opposing city siege towers are faster. Personally I'm only going to make 1-2 support units and I'd rather take a siege tower into the late game than a battering ram. In any event I'm learning to make it a point to get at least one light cavalry unit up to 4 promotions so they can keep up. It really is nice having these units around, even after bombards. I've never had much success with catapults, but I've never prioritized them either. By the time I build them they're too fragile. The way I've been playing they're nothing but pre-built bombards.

Am I reading this wrong? I thought Battering Rams only supported Melee units, so Archers get no benefit.

 

[KoKid90]

Only melee yes

 

[antimony]

The idea is that with the ram, all units are attacking the wall. But archers still don't do full damage to it.

 

[DouLou]

The idea is that with the ram, all units are attacking the wall. But archers still don't do full damage to it.

Ah ok I get what he was saying now.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

The idea is that with the ram, all units are attacking the wall. But archers still don't do full damage to it.

That was exactly my point; I meant that you are focusing your attacks on the wall, not that the archers get an extra bonus.

 

[Victoria]

Swordsmen with Rams are just so good and with the tortoise promotion they just cope so well against ranged they are hard to stop
I find archers rushes a struggle nowadays on deity unless it is open terrain or you are against a civ that has an agenda that lowers its ability to create units. If I can just get that Iron... get the archers to kill the camps to rush the iron at the same time as getting a settler to make use of it seems a better strat... until you find no iron.

 

[Bobfregman]

It's worth noting that the city does still take some damage even without a tower if there's walls, though it's much less. It does seem to accelerate though as the city and walls get lower. I've noted on several occasions that, if you set up a siege before attacking with units, it's possible to conquer a city without totally destroying it's walls even without a siege tower. I'm not totally sure what the formula is for this.

 

[KoKid90]

In terms of archers damage distribution it makes no difference whether there is a tower Ram or not when the wall are full health most of the damage is absorbed by the wall the lower the health bar is for the wall the more damage the city starts taking as well

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

It's kind of fun but a bit silly to use them with ships later in the game.

 

[Victoria]

I never bother with ramships nor have an issue once battleships are met. They are a bit like bombers the AI just cannot handle them at all well.

 

[stinkubus]

Battering rams and siege towers should definitely obsolete at some point. By the industrial era it should take a military engineer or a spy to sabotage city defenses.