Siege units and death

[Bleahdom]

I don't know if anyone would agree with me, but the change to siege weapons in BTS that stop them from killing any units is rather unbalancing, especially for large stacks.
I find myself often surging ahead of the AI in Monarch and sometimes Emperor on tech, just to find it impossible to fight against a civ with more land (more and ) because they have insanely large stacks of weaker units that I can't kill with my numbers (think 40 infantry against 200+ cavalry), using siege weapons won't help, since the large majority of units that you can't finish off due to a lack of units will have healed the next round and possibly gained some exp. This severely limits the ability of civs with little land from biding their time before war, lack of and not having enough cities for whipping/drafting makes it unviable to be peaceful for a long period of time.

 

[skallben]

This is because you "surge ahead on tech". You focus on teching, if you would spread your focus you'd have a larger army. Allthough, if you manage to get up Factories with Coal Plants you will make rat-food out of those Cavalries.

 

[Stylesrj]

3 step program to winning against a large stack after collateral damage is done and stuff...

1. Adopt Nationalism.
(Conscript Infantry)

2. ???

3. Victory!

 

[DigitalBoy]

I think they over-nerfed the siege weapons, not because they can't kill on attack, but because they also removed their normal retreat chance. Now the only time siege weapons retreat is when they "kill" (i.e. deal maximum damage to) their targets, which they were never really good at in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I think the change was needed, as there weren't enough reasons not to spam siege weapons like crazy for city siege, but suicidal catapaults has taken on new meaning when the retreat odds are 4% from dealing maximum damage instead of ~25% from inherent retreat ability.

 

[skallben]

Digitalboy:
Yeah I agree, the weakness given to siegeweapons was needed but the wrong approach. Currently it is diffcult to get experienced siege units and it is pretty unrealistic that you can just swarm a city in one turn without taking any damage from fortified siege units when you engage the city. The Flanking mechanics is wonderful though.