Siege Nerfed? I don't understand.

[kazapp]

I think it's nice more civ's get powerful combinations other than the Romans.

Once the age of Construction is over, so is any advantage for the Koreans.

I say, use those Hwachas + Elephants while you have the chance!

Nerfing siege machinery only makes conquering cities slower and more costly than it already is = more static gameplay = more boredome and less excitement.

Currently sieges and pillage recovery take far too long considering the time span of the game: a siege almost never takes more than a single year, and the countryside would definitely be restored a decade or two later. Let us still be able to just take a city - excessive pillaging leads to a boring game, as the economy of the city is devastated for far too long.

And most importantly: restoring a pillaged landscape requires micromanagement, which is a bad thing.

I think the siege combat is fine as it is. As long as you bring a certain number of siege engines, you will have enough to conquer almost any city.

The only real proof against getting your cities conquered is to meet and defeat the enemy out in the field. If siege units weren't as devastating, you wouldn't be forced to do battle before you lost your cities. Hunkering down inside your cities while the enemy bloodies himself uselessly at your walls is a too good tactic as it is.

 

[Perfxion]

They don't need to be nerfed, they need to be pricier. This way you want that power it takes a BIG chunk of hammers and or money.

 

[Martinus]

Well after Warlords trebuchets are extremely powerful - you can essentially take any city until the advent of Gunpowder with trebuchets alone.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Maybe they can have a unit in each era which would nerf the siege units instead of making sweeping changes to the game engine. This way, if one feels threatened by the opponents siege units, they can build a unit that has +100% vs siege units (making it the unit that will defend almost everytime) and if the siege faces this particular unit, collateral damage is reduced by 50%. whataya think?

 

[Big J Money]

They could give cavalry an extra bonus vs. siege, that would make sense.

=$=

 

[Wodan]

The problem with siege units right now is that they're a single solution to both reduce defenses and to conquer. In other words, you have your cake and you get to eat it too.

The best way to nerf them would be to bring some dynamic balance to the category. Have some siege units capable of reducing defenses (both city and unit fortify &#37, some capable of inflicting collateral damage, and some capable of assaulting (by combat). Units capable of doing more than one of these three things should be few and far between, and never all 3. Currently all siege units do all three of these things. That's broken gameplay.

For examples:

• trebuchet, bombard, etc -- which can bombard and reduce defense %, or can bombard enemy artillery positions
• grapeshot cannon, machine gunner, etc -- which can inflict collateral damage
• battering ram, siege tower, etc -- assaulting / combat

Wodan

 

[kniteowl]

lol. reviving an old thread

Now that we know that Siege units can't kill an enemy on an one on one battle, it makes me wonder how we would use the Korean UU now? I mean the +50% vs Melee is nice but how useful is it on the offensive when you can't kill an enemy?

And with a smarter AI, I know their not gonna go mindlessly sacrifice their wounded units from the previous attack.

 

[Quagga]

I'll do you one better and go back to the original subject: I don't understand.

How can it be that siege units cannot kill an enemy in one-on-one combat? Does that mean that the unit dies or retreats every time? That seems like nonsense. Artillery cannot defeat spear. Crazy.

Unless it is clearly stated somewhere -- and I hope someone will point us to the reference if that is the case -- I do not believe that the siege damage cap relates to direct combat. My thinking is that it relates to maximum collateral damage.

 

[Snoopaloop]

I'll do you one better and go back to the original subject: I don't understand.

How can it be that siege units cannot kill an enemy in one-on-one combat? Does that mean that the unit dies or retreats every time? That seems like nonsense. Artillery cannot defeat spear. Crazy.

Unless it is clearly stated somewhere -- and I hope someone will point us to the reference if that is the case -- I do not believe that the siege damage cap relates to direct combat. My thinking is that it relates to maximum collateral damage.

"Siege Units:

* Limited in the amount of damage they can do when attacking. If a weapon is limited to 85% for instance, it won't take an enemy down to lower than 15% of their total health. You'll notice that the limit is higher for more advanced units, which makes upgrading your siege weapons more important than ever.
* Siege units are now also more vulnerable to units with the Flanking promotion so you'll need to screen them with other forces."

---From Methos' Information Thread

Siege units now have a maximum collateral and direct attack percentage.


For Hwacha's..I am not sure the exact percent a catapult can kill of an enemies health, but I hope the hwacha (as a special unit) retains its ability to kill units entirely. This would make the hwacha a great UU, though it already is strong.

 

[pigswill]

Its a nerf but not insurmountable. It would probably mean that your cats weaken the defenders and weaker units e.g. archers polish them off. If they both get XP then its a potential bonus; e.g. the cats gets CR, the archer gets CG, two promotions for the price of one.

 

[Rusty Edge]

It sounds like an improvement to me. 13 days until I find out.

 

[ShredZ]

Another point is XP, if a Siege Unit can never kill anything its gonna take a long ass time for them to get CR3...

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Another point is XP, if a Siege Unit can never kill anything its gonna take a long ass time for them to get CR3...

I guess will have to see how the rules are implemented. If siege wins as soon as a unit is reduced to less than 80% hp; they will need to score one less hit and will win significantly more battles. This should be included in the battle odds calculator and award the correct experience.

I usually view catapults as disposable so it shouldn't be a real issue. Trebuchets and cannons are nerfed a lot more than disposa-pults if they don't earn the correct experience from battles.

The shifted odds might bring the catapult vs archer odds to closer to 50% rather than 25% which actually promotes early rushes. (Catapults are rather expensive classical era units but cheap medieval units.) The wounded units are going to be axe/phant/mace/grenadier fodder if the new AI doesn't concentrate its units to counter an attacking stack. Cleanup battles just allow you to earn additional promotions on newly built units.

I think AI improvement is the only solution to the collateral damage problem. When the AI builds large stacks of defenders and won't venture from its cities, nerfed siege units will still be the core of every player stack.

 

[largedarryl]

I thought they were adding a promotion to mounted units that caused collatoral damage to siege units. This would mean that attacking a stack with seige engines would hopefully weaken it enough to make the use of seige engines less noticeable.

 

[Florian]

If they changed things so that siege weapons couldn't reduce wall & castle bonuses to zero, they would also have to change the ability that Gunpowder units have of ignoring walls altogether. That makes even less sense. Besides, it's redundant. The only historical rationale for that ability is the fact that cannons and blasting powder enabled besiegers to breach walls they never would have been able to breach before--and that fact is already sufficiently reflected by the strength advantage cannons have over earlier siege machinery.

 

[Quagga]

If the accepted interpretation of the siege nerf is correct, I can see that I may be building a lot fewer siege units in BtS:

• Once all the defenders are knocked down to 15%, remaining siege units in your stack are useless, so why bring/build them?
• Siege units survive more often due to one fewer round of combat. Thus fewer needed to replace.

But what about defense? Siege units are already poor defenders, but will they be limited to max damage on defense? What would that mean? Does somebody withdraw when the attacker gets down to the damage limit? Does this apply to Machine Guns?

On the other hand, I usually don't expect siege units to eliminate defenders (at least not on the first few attacks). I'm darned happy if they do some damage to the top defender and then spread a bit of collateral to the rest. What this nerf means to me is that I will pick Barrage promotion over City Raider every time now, since I'm not going to kill off the top guy anyway.

 

[andrewlt]

I thought siege units were a good counter to archers and longbows before. If you nerf siege engines more, you need to nerf these as well. The problem I see is that anti-personnel siege units and anti-wall siege units are different from each other.

That said, you have to force the defenders to sally and there's really nothing in Civ4 that does that currently.

 

[Wodan]

A distinction needs to be made between early game and mid game. Early game, it doesn't bother me in the slightest if archers pwn cats, and if longbows pwn trebuchets. I honestly believe the game is better if the defender is given an advantage at that point in the game. This allows players to survive despite a disadvantage, whether human or AI.

Seriously, think about it. If the fluke of copper placement allows an opponent to get an early axe rush against you, you're done. What's the fun in that? Allowing a player an early defensive advantage is fair, and improves the game.

Wodan

 

[rabidveggie]

You can stop an axeman rush with a boat load of archers. My invasion forces after construction are like 80% cats and the rest is guards and medics. I have mixed feelings about the nerfs since numerous times i've had no iron or bronze near me and have won with only cats so your start could be even more critical. On the other hand it will force me to find ways around such disadvantages without simply spamming a unit.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

You can stop an axeman rush with a boat load of archers. My invasion forces after construction are like 80% cats and the rest is guards and medics. I have mixed feelings about the nerfs since numerous times i've had no iron or bronze near me and have won with only cats so your start could be even more critical. On the other hand it will force me to find ways around such disadvantages without simply spamming a unit.

Well take your 80% cat army and guards+medics
and use the guards for mopup

an Archer at full health=3
a 25% health Archer fortified in a city with CG 1+2=1.65

almost a 2 fold difference, mop up should be easy (especially if your archer has Cover)

No resources required and Archers are cheap... similar situation with Longbows for clearing out the remnants of a Trebuchet fight.