New Beta Version - August 19th (8/19)

[azum4roll]

Why do these barbarian horde events always trigger in multiple CS at around the same time?

Spoiler :

EDIT: Like... really?

Spoiler :

Phoenicia's worst nightmare!

 

[notaspambot]

Yeah I only really build cannons to try and level them up for later better units. They really don't hit cities hard enough to be worth the effort most of the time. They have a pretty narrow window where siege units are good.

Really? I've found that apart from a few narrow windows pre-castles (e.g. comp bow rush), you pretty much need siege units, especially against anything castles and up, all the way until GDRs. It's also the point where the AI really starts throwing production at you during wars so stuff like attacking with melee units just don't become viable anymore for the most part.

It's also difficult to hit level 5 on units by field guns in time if you start training them from cannons, and range 3 field guns are amazing.

Not to say that you want to replace all ranged units with siege units or anything. But the player has the sense to clear out an area, place multiple siege units nearby, and use them to take the city. Whereas the AI sieges I've witnessed tends to be a hodgepodge of ranged, skirmishers, melee, with a couple of siege units somewhere, but very clearly not being made good use of.

EDIT: That's not say that I think the AI is necessarily doing a bad job. It still has to deal with the constant influx of units that the other AI is throwing out, and it does consistently keep dealing damage to the city, meaning that it does go down eventually. Just not as fast or well as a player would.

 

[stii]

Really? I've found that apart from a few narrow windows pre-castles (e.g. comp bow rush), you pretty much need siege units, especially against anything castles and up, all the way until GDRs. It's also the point where the AI really starts throwing production at you during wars so stuff like attacking with melee units just don't become viable anymore for the most part.

It's also difficult to hit level 5 on units by field guns in time if you start training them from cannons, and range 3 field guns are amazing.

Not to say that you want to replace all ranged units with siege units or anything. But the player has the sense to clear out an area, place multiple siege units nearby, and use them to take the city. Whereas the AI sieges I've witnessed tends to be a hodgepodge of ranged, skirmishers, melee, with a couple of siege units somewhere, but very clearly not being made good use of.

EDIT: That's not say that I think the AI is necessarily doing a bad job. It still has to deal with the constant influx of units that the other AI is throwing out, and it does consistently keep dealing damage to the city, meaning that it does go down eventually. Just not as fast or well as a player would.

I build a few cannons but there are often very limit spots where you can set them up safely. They lose a turn moving into place and often get targeted by cities so you have to pull them back. With all the wasted time they only do slightly more damage then xbow/musket would have, so they are a luxury mostly built to level up and upgrade to save production. Muskets can handle castles pretty easily and that is the easiest time to attack the AI as they are generally at their weakest then. This also means cannons are half a tech behind.

I'd generally attack with something like,
20-25 archer
4-6 melee
2-4 siege
2-4 horse
0-4 skirmisher

AS evidence the the group play games however lots of people do things pretty differently and have a lot more melee units and I'm sure other things too.


The mostly seem to struggle with movement as evidenced by the AI with movement bonuses doing the best at war. Songhai and Sweden are much more able to take cities probably due to this.

 

[Jdoug312]

generally attack with something like,
20-25 archer
4-6 melee
2-4 siege
2-4 horse
0-4 skirmisher

Damn, Xerxes!

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

I build a few cannons but there are often very limit spots where you can set them up safely. They lose a turn moving into place and often get targeted by cities so you have to pull them back. With all the wasted time they only do slightly more damage then xbow/musket would have, so they are a luxury mostly built to level up and upgrade to save production. Muskets can handle castles pretty easily and that is the easiest time to attack the AI as they are generally at their weakest then. This also means cannons are half a tech behind.

I'd generally attack with something like,
20-25 archer
4-6 melee
2-4 siege
2-4 horse
0-4 skirmisher

AS evidence the the group play games however lots of people do things pretty differently and have a lot more melee units and I'm sure other things too.


The mostly seem to struggle with movement as evidenced by the AI with movement bonuses doing the best at war. Songhai and Sweden are much more able to take cities probably due to this.

Licorne are so good too with their move after attack

Only 4-6 melee? Do you frontline with your archers? You must get casualties then?

 

[Bruhmoment]

Licorne are so good too with their move after attack

Only 4-6 melee? Do you frontline with your archers? You must get casualties then?

What the hell is that build order?
Anyways - I usually overbuild siege units, but that's mostly in the Medieval era where warfare becomes most prominent.
Resource free siege units - check
Powerful (enough) hitters - check
I usually always wipe out a civ in this period
I build like 10-20 melee units (depending on unit supply, era and resources)
0-10 ranged units (can't really see the use of them, maybe i'll have to turn up the difficulty)
0 skirmisher units (pdans tweaks nerf their damage into the ground, unless I'm playing with France which you can exploit this)
Mounted units are always good with Authority (especially Knights), so 5-17 for mounted melee
and 5-15 siege units

 

[ridjack]

Random, very small thing that annoys me anyway: the tooltip and Civilopedia text for the two "Great Generals" promotions that generate GGs faster is nonsense and somewhat misleading.

Spoiler :

That text implies that GG spawning is chance-based, which it isn't.

 

[Recursive]

Random, very small thing that annoys me anyway: the tooltip and Civilopedia text for the two "Great Generals" promotions that generate GGs faster is nonsense and somewhat misleading.

Spoiler :

That text implies that GG spawning is chance-based, which it isn't.

Now that you've pointed it out, I'm annoyed by it too. Will fix.

 

[stii]

Licorne are so good too with their move after attack

Only 4-6 melee? Do you frontline with your archers? You must get casualties then?

Generally the idea is to slow push in a doubled up line of archers. Whenever they get damaged you pull back the damaged one and use all the others to kill everything. The melee units just buffer and slow down faster AI units. The Ai has a huge number of units on the high levels so you really need to grind through a lot of units. There is only so much space so you really want all your units able to attack each turn, and melee can't really do that without risking getting killed.

Archer units also scale much better their 4th level up provides a huge boost in power while it is less exciting for non ranged units. Similarly siege get a big power boost but it is hard constantly shoot with them.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Generally the idea is to slow push in a doubled up line of archers. Whenever they get damaged you pull back the damaged one and use all the others to kill everything. The melee units just buffer and slow down faster AI units. The Ai has a huge number of units on the high levels so you really need to grind through a lot of units. There is only so much space so you really want all your units able to attack each turn, and melee can't really do that without risking getting killed.

Archer units also scale much better their 4th level up provides a huge boost in power while it is less exciting for non ranged units. Similarly siege get a big power boost but it is hard constantly shoot with them.

But if you have 2-4 siege units, what happens if they kill a siege unit with a ranged unit and a city attack, what are you supposed to do about it?

 

[ridjack]

But if you have 2-4 siege units, what happens if they kill a siege unit with a ranged unit and a city attack, what are you supposed to do about it?

Siege units shouldn't be moving into position until the area is safe. They also shouldn't be dying in two hits; if they are, it's probably time to rethink your plans.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Siege units shouldn't be moving into position until the area is safe. They also shouldn't be dying in two hits; if they are, it's probably time to rethink your plans.

The A.I sometimes actually get into their senses and range attack your siege units, what do you mean?
If you play on the higher difficulties - it will never really be safe

 

[ridjack]

The A.I sometimes actually get into their senses and range attack your siege units, what do you mean?
If you play on the higher difficulties - it will never really be safe

I mean that if all it takes is one city attack and one ranged attack to kill your siege unit, then that siege unit shouldn't be there. You need to wait for an upgrade, bring in one with both levels of cover, or change tactics to bring enough siege units to have multiple in range at the same time and be able to cycle them out to heal.

"Safe" in this content means that siege units should not, generally, be moving into positions where they're getting hit more than those two times. There's no such thing as hard and fast rules, of course, but this should usually be true.

 

[ridjack]

@Recursive While I've got your ear with small grammatical annoyances, there are a few lines of dialogue that use "singular" language even when mentioning civs that have a plural name; e.g.; "The Huns is nothing but trouble." Anything we can do about this?

 

[Stalker0]

I mean that if all it takes it one city attack and one ranged attack to kill your siege unit, then that siege unit shouldn't be there. You need to wait for an upgrade, bring in one with both levels of cover, or change tactics to bring enough siege units to have multiple in range at the same time and be able to cycle them out to heal.

"Safe" in this content means that siege units should not, generally, be moving into positions where they're getting hit more than those two times. There's no such thing as hard and fast rules, of course, but this should usually be true.

I agree, siege units are more durable than that of your tech is reasonable.

 

[Bruhmoment]

I mean that if all it takes it one city attack and one ranged attack to kill your siege unit, then that siege unit shouldn't be there. You need to wait for an upgrade, bring in one with both levels of cover, or change tactics to bring enough siege units to have multiple in range at the same time and be able to cycle them out to heal.

"Safe" in this content means that siege units should not, generally, be moving into positions where they're getting hit more than those two times. There's no such thing as hard and fast rules, of course, but this should usually be true.

Good points, but if a civ is snowballing, you either to have to get a tech advantage quick enough, or attack with slightly worse siege units. The big advantage is here is that previous era units are much cheaper than the advanced ones, giving you the "production" advantage.
I'd generally be safe and atleast make 4 MINIMUM (if I know I'll win a war) siege units. I'd make like 10 if I'm not sure about it

 

[Stalker0]

Good points, but if a civ is snowballing, you either to have to get a tech advantage quick enough, or attack with slightly worse siege units. The big advantage is here is that previous era units are much cheaper than the advanced ones, giving you the "production" advantage.
I'd generally be safe and atleast make 4 MINIMUM (if I know I'll win a war) siege units. I'd make like 10 if I'm not sure about it

I never have that many siege units until maybe artillery when I’m using them for more general attacks and splash damage. 3 cannon on a city is more than enough to grind it down pretty quick, and maybe (maybe) 3 more to swap out as the originals get damaged.

 

[ridjack]

I never have that many siege units until maybe artillery when I’m using them for more general attacks and splash damage. 3 cannon on a city is more than enough to grind it down pretty quick, and maybe (maybe) 3 more to swap out as the originals get damaged.

I'll have more than this if my empire is heavily coastal and/or I suspect I'm likely to be attacked by sea, since siege units don't have a naval attack penalty.

Siege units are also my preferred garrison unit, although I don't have a strong reason for this other than it makes me less likely to find an excuse to move them out of the city.

 

[stii]

But if you have 2-4 siege units, what happens if they kill a siege unit with a ranged unit and a city attack, what are you supposed to do about it?

Just shoot the city with ten muskets. they do 50%-75% of the damage so once you lose a turn for moving up the cannon cannons don't do that much more damage. If you have a full arc around a city it doesn't take that long to kill it with archer units and if you don't have full control you won't be able to bring many siege units in safely. So they don't get many shots off before having to pull back to heal but having more doesn't change much. You might shave 1-2 turns off taking a city but that is the easy part.

If you are winning easily then sure you can pummel down a city with lots of siege units but when things are harder archer units fill more roles and can still take a city.

 

[Emperorman1]

I'd say the key is to get 3-4 siege units, and nurture them until they got range. Then you park it on a hill and get free shots at cities, while archer/melee kill the opposing units.