Rams can't attack cities!?

[Flower]

Hi, what are rams use for? I builded some of them and to my surprise they cannot attack cities so what is their purpose? Excuse my ignorance...

Best regards,
Flower

 

[lamaros]

They allow melee units to attack walls at full strength, rather than at 15%. You stack them on a support unit.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

Sheep shouldn't be attacking anything...

 

[toptech]

Plus they're only good when the city has walls, otherwise they don't do anything.

 

[Promethian]

To fully explain. Battering Ram is a support unit. Supports can occupy the same hex as a military unit and provide a bonus to military units within their hex and adjacent hexes. Here is a list of some support units and what they provide.

Battering Ram: Allows non-bombard units to deal full damage to city walls
Observation Balloon: Gives +1 range to bombard class units and only bombard class.
Medic: Increases the health recovered per turn of nearby units and heals them even in turns they have already acted.
Anti-air: Protects against air attacks within one tile. I dont know what this means exactly. Never seen an AA activate. I do know air units can attack without retaliation without air defenses in place. I suspect this allows your units to do retaliation damage to air units.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

You forgot Siege Tower (Not sure what that does, but it does say something about "automatic damage" in the civilopedia entry).

 

[Lucius_]

For the battering ram, you only need 1. As long as it is adjacent to a city center, all units adjacent ignore walls.

 

[Promethian]

You forgot Siege Tower (Not sure what that does, but it does say something about "automatic damage" in the civilopedia entry).

Probably because I have never even gotten one. I know they do something with attacking cities but I generally already have rams or go for catapults.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Siege towers allow attackers to attack the city, not its defences. Use cats for walls and siege tower for warriors/spears/pikes.

Again, only useful if there are walls.

 

[Martinus]

To expand (and summarise) you can take a city with walls in four ways:

- you can try to storm it with just melee units - but they will deal only 15% of their normal attack damage
- you can destroy walls with catapults and ranged units
- you can destroy walls with melee units by having a battering ram as support
- you can let the melee units ignore the walls and just attack the city proper by having a siege tower as support

 

[joncnunn]

Presumably you can also build 1 Battery Ram + 1 Siege Tower as well to have your melee units combine the effects of both.

 

[paz_paz]

You can also park 2 mech infs with 2 medics in front of an AI city and fortify them and go afk. It's ridiculous.
You can also build 7 observation ballons and have one artillery with +7 range and six with with +4.

 

[Promethian]

You can also park 2 mech infs with 2 medics in front of an AI city and fortify them and go afk. It's ridiculous.
You can also build 7 observation ballons and have one artillery with +7 range and six with with +4.

The Medic and Balloon are so freaking good. I suggest you consider promoted units pairing with supports.

Anti-Cavalry have a promotion at level 2 (so rather easy to get) that gives them double power when paired with a support unit. You think 2 mech inf with medics are deadly, try AT squads.
Light Cavalry get a promotion that lets support units linked to them get the movement allowance of the Light Cav. Light Cav can drag a medic around tearing up enemy territory with another promotion that gives them 1 move cost pillage. You can devastate an enemy's economy with Light Cavs like this.

 

[paz_paz]

Light cavs with medic? Sounds great. Do they heal after pillaging/moving?

 

[Promethian]

Light cavs with medic? Sounds great. Do they heal after pillaging/moving?

Yes, that is the point of sending a Medic with them. They are going to eat some bombardments from cities along the way. The Medic mitigates this so they don't have to spend as many moves on tearing up farms for healing.