Siege Units - Design Issues

[Thennorin]

Catapults & trebuchets, etc have massive withdrawal chances! Playing as Khazad recently, I've been tempted to report it as a bug but I see all types of catapults have huge withdrawal chances and they haven't been changed in a patch so I'm assuming it's been like this for a while.

Going with Khazad trebuchets, an 80% withdrawal rate on any freshly built unit is ridiculous. And when it applies to a unit with massive collateral damage it makes a unit far too strong. As it is, the Khazad can run an army of almost entirely this unit for much of the game. Case in point: in my current game I killed Hyborem (combat 5 + more) with just trebuchets and I only lost two of them. Heck, I kill everything with them. 'Cause I can

With only a 20% chance to lose the unit, you can (relatively) safely throw them into fights with 0% odds. This means you don't even have to wait for them to heal between attacks. They cause collateral damage even when they retreat and since they nearly always do, you end up with lots of +100% collateral damage, +20% bombard damage trebuchets. This in turn makes future fights even easier (especially with trebuchet increased collateral damage). Throw in Bambur or some adepts to repair them (even though you don't need to) for extra fun and include heroes in the trebuchet stacks for free xp mopping up survivors.

The final big nail in the coffin is that catapults/trebuchets, etc are so good that you really DON'T want to research cannons since the withdrawal rate drops to 25%. This in turn blocks out arquebusiers (sp?).

Siege units need just one unified role and it must differ from melee. This means making use of the collateral damage feature. If the design team wants siege units to harass via collateral damage but still require support from other units, give catapults a base 40% chance of withdrawal to achieve a better balance between utility and invincibility. Further, give cannons a base 50% withdrawal rate so there's a great reason to upgrade to them.

Also, the Khazad dwarven cannon is actually a big step down from their trebuchet because the collateral damage limit goes down from 70 to 60. Increase the dwarven cannon collateral cap to 85 or 90. I'd also suggest raising the maximum units affected from 7 to 8. This would put the fear back into Khazad late siege

 

[sixs_monkey]

Entirely apart from withdrawal chance, there is an attractive feature to cannon if your opponent believes in walls and other fortifications. Perhaps it isn't as impressive as it once was in light of the great bounciness of 'lesser' artillery. *shrug*

 

[Vehem]

I'm reminded of Colonization with this - "Artillery in the open" used to grant a large defensive penalty.

The rationale - catapults are great for throwing rocks at a stationary enemy (in a city or other defensive position) but as soon as you advance on them, it's very hard for them to get your range and do any meaningful damage. In a defensive siege situation however, catapults are still useful as you can sit behind walls throwing rocks at the enemy attacking the city.

Catapults: 3/1 (+100% City Defense - 3/2 in cities)
Trebuchets: 5/2 (+100% City Defense - 5/4 in cities)

This simulates the "Artillery in the Open" penalty quite closely and means that an unescorted offensive stack of catapults/trebuchets is very vulnerable to cavalry counterattacks (or even a pre-emptive attack by melee units using roads as they approach the city). Also remember that "Withdrawl Chance" only applies when attacking - if the enemy counterattacks effectively, the catapults are going to die.

Cannons on the other hand have famously broken many direct assaults upon them and are quite able to target an approaching enemy at any range (becoming more effective as the enemy closes if canister/grapeshot is used). They would not suffer the same defensive weakness as Catapults and therefore would remain a more attractive option, even without an increased withdrawl.

 

[Thennorin]

Entirely apart from withdrawal chance, there is an attractive feature to cannon if your opponent believes in walls and other fortifications. Perhaps it isn't as impressive as it once was in light of the great bounciness of 'lesser' artillery. *shrug*

Correct. The success of spamming catapults is all about the withdrawal rate combined with widespread collateral damage. Because of this combo, even fights that start out at 0% odds creep up exponentially with each attack while you only lose a unit in 1 in 5 attacks, on average. And even that 20% risk disappears as the collateral damage racks up, the end result of which is a string of guaranteed victories if you're attacking a big stack. That cannons circumvent the 25% defence from walls (and 25% more from castles, iirc) becomes irrelevant as the attack strength and chances don't actually matter!!

@Vehem:
That's a nice idea for catapults, but it's already implemented since they don't get terrain defence bonuses. Caught in the open, they're weak and ineffective since their strength lies in attacking large groups, not single attackers. So yeah, you do need archers/melee for defence in the field but once your artillery reaches the enemy, they're all you need to use for offence & city defence.

If cannons can stand direct assaults by themselves, they'll duplicate the functionality of melee units (a bad thing) and split the role of siege units (since catapults are escorted collateral damagers). It's better to pick one role or the other and have it apply to all siege units, else there will always be some reason not to upgrade to cannons, which is counter-intuitive.

 

[Arwon]

The separation of attack and defence strength affords a good balancing method for siege equipment, but the withdrawal rates are still quite high.

 

[Maniac]

Fireballs and summons are even more powerful than siege weapons. Most people actually say they never use siege units. Oh, and in Rom cannons have been increased to 80% withdrawal chance.

 

[khanjackal]

It's silly that a Catapult would ever risk damage in a city attack situation anyway. Unless you get into an Artillery duel or something, what are people doing to damage it?

High withdrawl chances are a way of re-creating Civ3 ranged attacks. They are powerful in places, no doubt, but they have one great drawback... a single movement point that CANNOT be improved, not with promotions nor spells. This makes them useless unless in a defensive position, or in a ship or the Trojan Horse, which can drop them off right on top of a city.

I think a player, that played against a human, who tried a primarily Siege Unit war would lose bitterly. Even against the AI, it would go so SLOWLY.

 

[Maniac]

It's silly that a Catapult would ever risk damage in a city attack situation anyway. Unless you get into an Artillery duel or something, what are people doing to damage it?

Assassinate them.

 

[khanjackal]

very true, it makes sense that on his turn, an assassin could sneak out and damage a catapult

but how could an assasin strike back when the catapult is attacking HIM from outside the city walls?

 

[monolith94]

It's silly that a Catapult would ever risk damage in a city attack situation anyway. Unless you get into an Artillery duel or something, what are people doing to damage it?

Flaming arrows?

 

[Master_Hugian]

very true, it makes sense that on his turn, an assassin could sneak out and damage a catapult

but how could an assasin strike back when the catapult is attacking HIM from outside the city walls?

catapults have one disadvantage and thats movement so take advantage of it and attack them while they are on the way to your cities, if you have your own cats use them and the roads to attack them to weaken and bring others to finish of.

 

[Thennorin]

Fireballs and summons are even more powerful than siege weapons. Most people actually say they never use siege units. Oh, and in Rom cannons have been increased to 80% withdrawal chance.

Yeah, I had never used siege weapons before for this exact reason. I thought fireballs were great and siege workshops were far too expensive, so why waste the hammers on them? Besides, magic is such a cool thematic addition

So imagine my surprise when I found out catapults can damage 2x as many units via collateral damage (the limit is 3 for fireballs, I think) and upgrade their damage cap, too! Further, iirc you can get them long before mages. Especially when you consider the number of turns an adept has to wait before they get good combat spells or summons. The siege workshops are expensive but the artillery isn't so bad, so you can have a whole bundle of catapults before your enemies get a single mage (unless they rush for magi and cripple themselves elsewhere).

Tier 1 summons are pretty weak (exception: chaos marauder) and fireballs take a while to level up to. Meanwhile, catapults right out of the gate are equal to 2 fireballs and don't disappear on the next turn!

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Hum... I might suggest lowering the cost of the siege workshop and raising the cost of individual catapults.

 

[Thennorin]

Hum... I might suggest lowering the cost of the siege workshop and raising the cost of individual catapults.

That's another option. They could be left as the incredibly powerful units they are now but made very expensive so you really feel it when you lose one. It would work.

However, I'd like to see siege remain a viable alternative to fire magi when bombarding cities. That is, after all, their traditional role and I've always liked to trundle a few siege engines along for city sieges. It won't feel the same if I can only afford to build two or three across an entire empire due to high costs.

It's the high withdrawal chance that makes them too good. Especially Khazad trebuchets... They're copper-wielding, collateral damaging axemen with an 80% withdrawal chance Strength 6 skull catapults at least have "only" a 60% withdrawal rate that doesn't leave them as open to abuse.

 

[felwar]

The entire point of the Khazad trebuchet being that powerful is to make up for their complete lack of mages. Making a stack of trebuchets with a bunch of adepts to repair it is no more powerful than some of the other combinations in the game. They're dwarves... slow with great siege technology.

I do agree that catapults and trebuchets should have their defense lowered though... actually, that city defense bonus combined with it is a really good idea. In the field a faster opponent should be able to easily take them out if they are undefended.

 

[vyapti]

What about moving the Mobility Promotion to Combat II?

That would make siege weapons more compatible with the rest of your army, especially melee investing in City Raider promotions. You would need 10xp to get Mobility and be forced down the combat path. It would also increase the value of Horses.

This wouldn't fix the fireballs better than siege arguement, but siege would definately be a viable alternative if much of your army is slower.

 

[kenken244]

walls shoudl probobly be near immune to bombardment form fire units and units inside of walls shoudl get fire resistance because if a ball of pure fire hit a wall of non flammable stone, the fire would just go out
but fire could stil destroy the cultural defences of the city once the walls are gone

 

[Thennorin]

walls shoudl probobly be near immune to bombardment form fire units and units inside of walls shoudl get fire resistance because if a ball of pure fire hit a wall of non flammable stone, the fire would just go out
but fire could stil destroy the cultural defences of the city once the walls are gone

I'd go one step further and suggest lowering fireball bombardment strength from 10 to 5. Yes, setting a city on fire is a good way to remove defences, but in gameplay terms fireballs overlap far too heavily with siege weapons. This would fix the design flaw where they cause siege weapons to be unnecessary in city sieges (and related to this make fire magic overly desirable). Fireballs should have the maximum units their collateral damage will effect lowered from 6 to 4 (66% of what catapults will affect), too, to further differentiate between these unit types.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

The bombarding effect of siege engines and fireballs is a psychological effect, not a mechanical one. Also no one is shooting directly at a wall with a fireball. It is like shooting arrows at a city. You would think that this is pointless cause arrows wont pierce stone. Never the less archers were very importaint in taking walls or shooting fire arrows over the walls to start fires.

 

[PapaMonkey]

Does anyone build walls (with the exception of walls->castles->Tier4 units)? I find I don't build walls and other defense structures as they get overshadowed by the cultural defensive bonus which does not stack with the structural defensive bonus.