The New Stack of Death

[BARBEERIAN]

Wrong. You get NO terrain bonus when you attack, only when you defend. So an attack from a forest+hills will have the same strength as if it was on a flat, non-forest tile.

I know that, i'm talking about how you have to attack with your cats (instead of bombard). In that case since the enemy is defending, they will get defensive bonuses.

 

[Innawerkz]

It might also be an idea to let walls and fortresses reduce collateral damage rather than giving defensive bonuses?

That's a pretty good idea.

I'll second that. Makes them quite effective in the open and encourages walls to be built on your border cities more often. As is, I rarely build walls/castles. Maybe even increase collateral damage in unwalled cities making it a mistake to have 'forgotten' this key defensive build.

Religion & scouting would be a bit more beneficial on offense when they reveal unwalled cities.

This is why you should cut all forests directly next to your cities if you can. It makes counterattacks easier.

This is a key defense maneuver - at least for border towns. It would also be nice if you received a benefit when attacking on YOUR roadways. If the enemy is standing on your road, you should be able to intercept them with a reduction to the 'defense' bonus gained from hills or trees by a small amount of 5 - 15%. No bonus on flat land.

Commando would eliminate this bonus - which would be nice to get at Combat 3, instead of 4.

 

[JoeM]

I don't understand - it works both ways. MY stacks of death get attacked by catapults when I get outside the AIs city, clobbering them before they send in the cavalry. If the AI hasn't built any catapults, then hard luck.

 

[gdgrimm]

I'll second that. Makes them quite effective in the open and encourages walls to be built on your border cities more often. As is, I rarely build walls/castles. Maybe even increase collateral damage in unwalled cities making it a mistake to have 'forgotten' this key defensive build.

Warlords has done a couple of things to help reduce the 'collateral' damage impact.

Spain's UB (Citadel) reduces collateral damage by 50%.

And the Drill promotion series also reduces collateral damage on that unit. That works very nicely for Protective civs.

 

[Innawerkz]

Still doesn't encourage me to build walls. Perhaps they should simply offer the intial defence bonus, but even once bombared provide a minimum of 10% defense. Castles offering slightly more, of course.

ANYTHING to encourage border towns to be 'built' like border towns.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

I think there are solutions. Things like walls and castles, units that get a 50% bonus against siege units. Plus there has to be a game mechanic so that a city isnt impenetrable and a SoD just doesnt march all over the place.

The only siege unit I find overpowering is the Trebuchet, simply because the era it arrives in it just dominates, while still being effective till infantry.

 

[ZB2]

maybe instead of that "20 units absorb collateral damage better" how about collateral damage is restricted to 5-6 units? castles should reduce collateral damage, walls would be too early and far too effective for decent gameplay,

 

[Phyr_Negator]

In MP you can win solely by amassing catas. For example i managed to win with catas ONLY vs agressive opponent who had longbows, I just had better production and massed catas. When he decided to attack in small stacks (longbow, spear, axeman) - it died anyway vs cata.
There is a deadlosck- catas are expendable at sieges, and they are veeery cheap. Make it expensive and you can't stop SOD, leave it like now and here we go - small superweapon.
The only reasonable solution here to me is limitation per square - like you can't fit 1kk army in 1 km^2 AND make catas more expensive. That'll solve at least some problems with SOD and catas.
Now Drill promo and colateral absorbtion looks pale - you need something like drill 4 to endure collateral normally and that render that unit significantly weaker - drill isn't that good compared to other - wich will take whole lot od damage..well, at least you'll move stack with 6 overdrilled units, that, in theory will absorb a lot of coldam...but to do so you'll have to BUILD that whole lot of units AND promote them.

 

[ZB2]

there should never be a limit to amount of units in a single tile. if that is suggested we will go back to civ 3 and how you cant move units to a tile occupied by an ally. and what if 20 ally units are in a tile just milling about, and you have to get passed? that unit tile cap wont let you move.

what if we capped seige weapons like armies where capped in civ3? like only 1 catapult for 1 city in your empire.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

Then it'll empathise large empires rather than small ones, wich can be small but powerful. Better then set amount of catas allowed wich increase with tech discovery, like +N catas allowed after discovery of engi.

 

[ZB2]

how about reduce the collateral damage %. and that maximum of damage that can be caused from collateral damge set to 50%, some units can still defend a city at that health, though it needs City Defender III for that

 

[Endovior]

In MP you can win solely by amassing catas. For example i managed to win with catas ONLY vs agressive opponent who had longbows, I just had better production and massed catas. When he decided to attack in small stacks (longbow, spear, axeman) - it died anyway vs cata.
There is a deadlosck- catas are expendable at sieges, and they are veeery cheap. Make it expensive and you can't stop SOD, leave it like now and here we go - small superweapon.
The only reasonable solution here to me is limitation per square - like you can't fit 1kk army in 1 km^2 AND make catas more expensive. That'll solve at least some problems with SOD and catas.
Now Drill promo and colateral absorbtion looks pale - you need something like drill 4 to endure collateral normally and that render that unit significantly weaker - drill isn't that good compared to other - wich will take whole lot od damage..well, at least you'll move stack with 6 overdrilled units, that, in theory will absorb a lot of coldam...but to do so you'll have to BUILD that whole lot of units AND promote them.

Catapalts aren't THAT strong... and if you make the mistake of mass-building them, then you deserve it when you face Horse Archers who will murder you... not only do they get a bonus against your catapalts, but they also IGNORE FIRST STRIKE.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

yea, hope horse archers will ignore spears too...

 

[Innawerkz]

In MP you can win solely by amassing catas. For example i managed to win with catas ONLY vs agressive opponent who had longbows, I just had better production and massed catas. When he decided to attack in small stacks (longbow, spear, axeman) - it died anyway vs cata.

True story.

 

[cabert]

well, to effectively bring down a large amount of cats, you need...cats
And then you can send anti-siege troops (horse archers face weakened spears quite good).

 

[Phyr_Negator]

the point is that to defeat catamass you need some number of horse archers...wich will die vs catamass too - even if first horse archer will take less damage others will be crippled. Trust me - I've tried it in the first place as experiment to counter catamass.

 

[cabert]

well, after a few cats on your side, almost any unit can defeat a cat.
You don't exactly need HA for this, since catapults don't benefit from terrain defense.
A few can kill the less wounded, but it's not a big deal.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

That works only if you gater all your catas in one square. It is completely different when facing three+ 5-cata stacks wich can rend almost every army and force you to divide your forces.