Siege units overpowered?

[Ganthan]

So I'm playing BTS on Warlord difficulty as the Ottomans with Random Personalities. Quite unexpectedly, Ghandi declares war on me and moves his stack of a dozen and a half or so assorted axes, spears and swords into my land. I quickly gather up what troops I can, almost the same number of units as his but half consisting of chariots and horse archers from the old barbarian prevention days, bolstered with select few melee I can whip out and five catapults I had sitting around 'just in case' I needed to capture cities in the future.

Next thing I know the Indian invasion army are all lying dead with the loss of only two catapults and maybe one or two other melee.

Seriously, does it seem to anybody else that sending collateral damage units in first to reduce the enemy stack to roughly the consistency of marshmallows to be cleaned up at your leisure just seems a bit overpowered? It's especially worrying since the AI doesn't seem to figure out this method for itself.

 

[SamSniped]

Honestly, Civ4 isn't the best military sim. It is OP, as many players "exploit" i, but unless we at the very least change the whole siege unit mechanics, it'll stay that way. I personally would love to overhaul the whole combat system, but it would take a long time, and I don't have that much coding experience.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Include me in the "it's a mechanic that's in need of reform" group.

I don't think that simply changing the combat values would be satisfactory. There were lots of suggestions flying around before V was released. One of the ideas I liked was attaching seige units to foot and mounted units, kind of like a great general. It would then serve as a sort of first strike according to the strength of the seige unit. If the unit to which it was attached was destroyed, the seige unit could be captured. This would limit seige to half of a stack at most.

One of the Civ three seige features I missed was that when attacking a city, you didn't know if you were going to hit buildings, population, or enemy troops. You ran the risk of destroying something you intended to capture.

 

[Apricottage]

From the second siege comes online with only one small break for Cuirassier/Cavalry attacks right up to the age of Bombers (but don't kid yourself, siege is still good even then), it is the backbone of all military efforts. You do NOT go to war without enough siege in the stack to bombard away city defenses in a turn and then sacrifice a few to do enough collateral to clean up shop. Is this reasonable? No. But it's how the game works. On the bright side, they are incredibly weak in actual combat, and take flanking damage (!!!) from units like Horse Archers and Knights.

EDIT:

If I were to CHANGE siege, I'd have it just be used in bombarding down defenses and allow sufficient bombarding to bring a city's defense below 0% or something. Attacking with siege and having it be destroyed just doesn't make sense.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Well, the OP is playing Warlords, and in BTS they made siege weapons unable to kill units - they'll refuse to land the last blow. Flanking damage is also a BTS innovation.

But yes, even nerfed, siege is still powerful in dealing with large AI stacks.

 

[Mylene]

Probably, that's why i almost never use them and go mounted...

 

[Manco Capac]

Only during the medieval times, sieges are less powerful against stacks OUTSIDE cities. The treb is weaker and the cat is weaker than the typical 8 mace.

 

[Apricottage]

Well, the OP is playing Warlords, and in BTS they made siege weapons unable to kill units - they'll refuse to land the last blow. Flanking damage is also a BTS innovation.

But yes, even nerfed, siege is still powerful in dealing with large AI stacks.

No, he's playing BTS on Warlord difficulty.

 

[Manco Capac]

Can you imagine that siege units in Warlords expansion not only can kill units but cost 40 . Yes, 10 less!!!!

That's outrageous!

I know it has nothing to do with OP question, but someone has to say that aloud.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yeah, got myself confused.

 

[vincentz]

so... I'm considering changing sieges in my mod.
I really liked the "chance of bombarding/destroying buildings/hitting units" but my coding skills are not good enough (requires SDK changes for sure).
But... I was thinking about making them having lots of First Strikes and Withdrawal Rate, BUT very little collateral and unit damage.

That way they
1) would survive except if attacked directly, which would be logical, coz its not excactly front row army unit.
2) wouldn't be overpowered, coz they would do very limited damage on units, which would make sence Imho. (dont shoot sparrows with cannons is a danish saying). Maybe 10% damage
3) wouldn't be a sole stack killer, coz their collateral damage would be small (maybe 1 for catapult/treb, 2 for cannon, 3 for arty and mobile arty)
4) would primarly be used for sieges (bombarding defenses) and weaken enemy army (but not to a point where all units would automatically win when stack was "weakened"
5) they would be AI friendly to use, which I value high.

any thoughts on that?

 

[Kid R]

Siege got nerfed enough in BTS. I don't think they're OP.

I can see an argument for simplifying the mechanics but only so the AI could understand it all better. The AI is poor at using and defending against siege right now.

 

[vincentz]

I still think siegeweapons are OP, coz with them its very easy, without them its impossible.
They make too big an impact (for the player, who is the only one to use them efficiently).

 

[Mylene]

...besides that Curis and Cavs can clear whole maps much quicker, without silly siege slowing them down..

 

[vincentz]

tbh, its many years since i played vanilla, but a cav vs rifle in city with 50% defense+some promos, sounds to me like sure loss.

 

[Apricottage]

Can you imagine that siege units in Warlords expansion not only can kill units but cost 40 . Yes, 10 less!!!!

That's outrageous!

I know it has nothing to do with OP question, but someone has to say that aloud.

I never played in Warlords, but I imagine that military from the Classical Era to the introduction of Cuirs was Cat/Treb stacks with maybe a couple defensive units mixed in. You know, pretty much what we have now but without bothering to account for cleanup.

@above: you're right that Cavalry aren't the greatest because you can expect Rifles to be online, but Cuirs are only going to face Longbowmen, Pikemen, and Musketmen. They're very, VERY potent because of how early they arrive.