[GS] Ram or Tower?

[montalaar]

very early war - no walls.
if after that forced to go war, then choice depends what kind of walls enemy cities have.

 

[Sostratus]

In principle, I'd rather use Towers. @Sostratus can probably check the maths (on the smart v motivated quadrant chart, sadly I'm in the stupid and lazy corner, while he's in the smart and building 8 city aqueduct canal Hanzas corner), but Towers let you keep Walls which is highly desirable.
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The breakdown is pretty simple- for ancient walls, the only case where they overlap, rams let you break a wall for 100 damage and a city for 300 total; towers let you take the city for 200.
The only real reason to use a ram when you have a tower is if you want a wall down- like I mentioned, a common case of this is for example sacking an encampment wall or something shooting at you if you are not prepared to actually take the whole tile. (Whether due to counterattack, loyalty, want to extract more filthy lucre from pillaging, etc.)
Towers are just outstanding and imo almost too good at what they do.

If we get some DLC or an Expansion that fills in some unit gaps, or plays around with balance a bit, then all this stuff will go out of the winder. Medieval Siege, and Siege would be my go to. Medievel Melee, and I'd be onboard the good ship Siege Tower for sure (...oh God, please not Longswordsmen. Seriously. They never existed outside of Dungeons and Dragons...).

I feel like there really should be a medieval melee trooper, because I hate investing big iron into my swords only to have to pivot to knights because they can’t stand up to xbows or knights or cities in the medieval.
I’m not an Uber historical pedant, so I don’t really care what they are called, but I think armored dudes carrying pole axes and maces would make for some neat models. Like so:

Spoiler These lads will mess you peasants up :

See how they hold them? Really differentiates from how pikes carry weapons. Perfect baseline units for samurai, berserkers, khevsureti. Military tactics, 45 strength, 20 iron, 160-180 production. Yes. Call them Halberdiers or something.

 

[acluewithout]

@Sostratus I'm all for Medieval Melee. I literally just don't want them to Longswordsmen, because that is just not a thing that really ever existed. I can suspend disbelief only so much (I mean, immortal god like rulers and governors, teleporting mountain passages, and giant mecha, I'm totally okay with; medieval dues with platemail and swords, no sir, that I won't tolerate).

I like the idea of Halberdiers. Literally just because I like the name "Halberdiers".

Also, I know these points are all very well rehearsed, but I do think the whole Melee v Anti-Cav relationship would just work better if Melee didn't get a blunt +10 CS v Anti-Cav. Even without that, pound for pound Melee are just better because of their promotions - extra movement, extra attack, defence v ranged. It's immediately apparent how much better they are once you start trying to take cities with Anti-Cav. Anyway. Topic for another day.

 

[Mahi]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Aren't towers an upgrade from rams? I guess if you build rams you also use them as towers if you are still at war at the time you can upgrade them.
Usually I try to avoid rams and towers. It depends a bit on the situation. Usually they are a result of an AI declaring early surprise war on me, where when I need to do the counter attack I may not have enough archers to effectively bring down wall defenses. If the AI has built walls I usually wait for crossbows.
I never build towers. Only way I end up with towers is if I have upgraded them from rams.

Honestly rams/towers are usually only good with poor defended cities. It can be quite expensive if the enemy has a few archers or horsemen nearby. It's easier to defend archers and keeping them alive while you bring down the walls.

 

[AlannaT]

I'm not sure I understand the question. Aren't towers an upgrade from rams? I guess if you build rams you also use them as towers if you are still at war at the time you can upgrade them.

Towers and Rams work differently.
Ram: "When adjacent to a city, attacking melee units do full damage to the city's walls."
Tower: "When adjacent to a city, attacking units ignore Walls and immediately assault the city."

Thus it's not the same as with for example crossbowmen and archers where both do the same thing but xbows do it better. There are distinct advantages to both rams and towers and that's why the question makes sense.

 

[TomeTraveler]

Answered ram. I'm not sure I even have experience with siege towers, I rarely seem to be at war in an era where they'd be useful and if I am it's likely that I've already built a ram and it's functioning well enough. A ram is cheap and if I'm considering an early war I'll often build one preventively if I suspect my enemy may start putting them up mid-siege, but many a game I've passed without building either.

 

[tedhebert]

I used to be rams 100% and towers 0%... then they changed the rules and timing of uselessness, and I now find myself building towers more often than rams ! probably because I'm a slow starter and will rarely go on the offensive in the early walls period... anyways, I'm sure I'm not representative of the average CivFan player

 

[steveg700]

Good thread topic. Mostly avoid early rush tactics, but sometimes you just know one of your fool neighbors ain't gonna come correct.

You get rams right away, but you don't need'em right away. Walls don't start being an issue for a while, and sieges only require blitz tactics if the enemy has other cities that can keep cranking out units.

I'd go with the tower just to bypass the walls, but that means I'm not bothering with catapults.

 

[AvianBritish]

Errrr.... aren't towers broken right now? They don't even work?

I've given up on towers in all my games since the last patch as they don't appear to do anything; or amy I doing something wrong?

 

[MrRadar]

Errrr.... aren't towers broken right now? They don't even work?

I've given up on towers in all my games since the last patch as they don't appear to do anything; or amy I doing something wrong?

They let you ignore walls and attack the city directly. That’s what I see in your screenshot. You don’t seem to get -85% penalty for attacking a city with walls.

 

[AsH2]

Errrr.... aren't towers broken right now? They don't even work?

I've given up on towers in all my games since the last patch as they don't appear to do anything; or amy I doing something wrong?

It's been working for me (though it's not letting me keep a slightly damaged ancient wall).
Could it be the river - no bridge - breaking for you?

 

[iammaxhailme]

neither, I spam more crossbows and catapults

 

[AvianBritish]

They let you ignore walls and attack the city directly. That’s what I see in your screenshot. You don’t seem to get -85% penalty for attacking a city with walls.

It's been working for me (though it's not letting me keep a slightly damaged ancient wall).
Could it be the river - no bridge - breaking for you?

When I tested this without the seige tower my Impi Corps do exactly the same ammount of damage to the walls and health of the city. And taking them across to the otherside of the river so I'm not crossing it when attacking makes no difference. I tried to use Seige Towers in 3-4 games and every time they seem to do diddly-squat. So until the next patch I'm not going to waste the production or gold on them.

(however, I've never had the chance to build rams; I seem to either only be at war before walls or after I get the seige tower so I can't say if that's happening for me for the rams too.)

 

[tedhebert]

When I tested this without the seige tower my Impi Corps do exactly the same amount of damage to the walls and health of the city. And taking them across to the otherside of the river so I'm not crossing it when attacking makes no difference. I tried to use Seige Towers in 3-4 games and every time they seem to do diddly-squat. So until the next patch I'm not going to waste the production or gold on them.

(however, I've never had the chance to build rams; I seem to either only be at war before walls or after I get the siege tower so I can't say if that's happening for me for the rams too.)

Just to be sure... Are you sure they don't have renaissance walls or have researched urban defenses (STEEL) ? If they did, tower become ineffective

 

[AvianBritish]

Just to be sure... Are you sure they don't have renaissance walls or have researched urban defenses (STEEL) ? If they did, tower become ineffective

They definitely only had ancient walls and don't have Steel.