What's the best promotion for siege weapons?

[AbsoluteZero]

City Raider I II II?

Or

Collateral Damage I II III?

I usually pick Coll. Damage and extra bombardment ( if I don't have -16% a turn ) for taking down the walls quicker. My thinking is less time for the enemy to reinforce where I am about to attack and also the col damage will weaken the troops more, letting me mop up. The cat's die anyway and I am not sure city raider would change that much.

 

[DaveMcW]

City Raider is better if you have a city to raid.

 

[SillyGoat]

City raider is better for taking cities. Your first few cats are going to die, but city raider ups the odds of them damaging the top defender(s) so that your follow up cats have a better chance of surviving.

In the field, go with barrage.

 

[henrebotha]

I go with CR1 on all my siege. If I get an extra promo from GGs or whatever, I make it Bombard. Siege just doesn't level up in BtS the way it used to in Vanilla. Giving them all CR and Bombard means they're all very capable at assaulting cities. If I have enough time to build up a huge army, though, I'll use specialised CR1/Bombard siege for bombardment and CR2 ones for attacking.

 

[drlake]

I usually produce most of my siege with 5exp+ due to settled GGs, and promote them as I need it. I'll do CR1/Bombard with some to get defenses down faster, and CR2 with the rest to boost the assault.

For "defensive" siege (those I use to wear down attacking SoDs) I'm still experimenting between Barrage and Drill. The extra first strikes seem to increase the chance that the siege will survive the battle by quite a bit, and I'm not sure the extra collateral damage is worth the higher casualties.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

City Raider is better if you have a city to raid.

If you are in the field and the #'s are large, then barrage wins.

If you are defending in a city and have already inflicted sufficient collateral...

 

[Mutineer]

Generally correct advice, with only one exception.

If you attacking city protected with LB's and want to damage top defender you migth want to consider drill promotions, especially for trebs. Trebs already have 100% bonus, adding additional 45 from 2 city riders promotions would not do mach.
On other hand drill 2 will remove LB's first strike ability, give your unit more rounds to do damage.

Other case is when your siege is greatly underclass, attacking rifles with cats or trebuchets.

Same idea, increase of amount of rounds increase chance to damage top defender.

 

[JammerUno]

^if I'm not mistaken, the 100%CR actually favours CR promos since the relative advantage grows larger.

edit: because of the difference between CR and C

 

[TheMeInTeam]

CR helps damage top defender longbows, because longbows typically have very large defensive bonuses - that 45% is needed because the stock 100% might only wipe out the longbow's 100%+ defenses (CG, hills, inherent 25% on longbows, fortify, etc).

IIRC CR has higher expected damage on the top defender in almost every situation where the defender is in a city, although drill is more consistent to do SOME damage...however that some might be that much :/.

 

[Framesticker]

General advice - don't go to war when you have to deal with fortified Longbowmen with your Trebs. ^^

 

[SillyGoat]

Nyet. If you have the hammers, and are willing to take the casualties, trebs can help take down riflemen. Longbows? Bring it.

 

[mrdoe]

Nonserious: Amphibious (just use WorldBuilder)
Serious suggestion: CRIII > BarrageIII. City raider is always better, because though the first siege weapon may not survive even with city raider, the following ones will be attacking injured troops, and with CRIII probably will survive.

 

[stopstopp]

General advice - don't go to war when you have to deal with fortified Longbowmen with your Trebs. ^^

How many trebs are there? Enough to destroy a castle in a turn?

 

[Ramanag]

(Can you even do it with Worldbuilder? I didn't think it would take)

IM(ns)HO:
CR>Barrage>>>>>Bombard

City Raider will cost you more units in the beginning, but my SoDs are typically about 60-70% siege from the get go, dropping to around 30% by the end of a long war. If you're taking bombard to drop city defenses faster, you don't have enough siege. It is rare that I am ever bombarding for more than two turns (not including as it rebuilds, if you spend multiple turns attacking)

I'm not sure where drill would fall on the scale, but I hesitate to put drill on siege thanks to the first strike defenses it'll cause. Oddly enough, the only siege I ever put drill on is the one I NEVER want defending, my super medic.

 

[Framesticker]

Nyet. If you have the hammers, and are willing to take the casualties, trebs can help take down riflemen. Longbows? Bring it.

Don't take me too seriously... I hate fighting in Medival simply due to how strong defensive LBs can get. I usually just wait around for Rifles/Cannon. Sometimes, though, it's essential.
I dunno about using Trebs to take out Rifles, though. Seems to me the time invested in getting all those Trebs together would be much better used boosting your science and trading up to steel so you can get Cannon.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How many trebs are there? Enough to destroy a castle in a turn?

Having been doing a lot of medieval lately, I'd say no (you need 25 of them if they don't have chichen itza, and still can't attack that turn).

The trick here is answering the question: is there any way I can burn turns bombarding without having the AI 1) put insufferably large amounts of troops that put the trebs at low odds or 2) flank me to hell?

If you prevent each of those things, 2-3 turns of bombardment are fine. For example, non-PRO AI without horse will have longbows defend initially around 75% odds for the trebs, and it gets better from there. Hills put you under 50%, but only for 1-2 trebs. Even 8-9 longbows are easily mauled by trebs if on flatland, and I've done that without losing any trebs though I'd say on average it's 1, maybe 2.

Tricking the AI into blowing it's stack on a hill city with 12-13 longbows then retaliating is pretty funny, especially since those high CG longbows make excellent garrison once you capture cities and are OK at protecting your stack as you move through hills/forests.

You can get a similarly favorable situation if you can block iron. That takes away knights, xbow, and pikes, so a few xbows/pikes in tandem makes it virtually impossible for them to assail your stack, and nothing has great odds defending vs that, allowing you to kill large #'s relatively efficiently (5:1 ish).

If you can keep them away from rifles or grenadiers and block iron OR horse, medieval war can work quite nicely.

 

[ahcos]

General advice - don't go to war when you have to deal with fortified Longbowmen with your Trebs. ^^

that's all the advice you need. it might sound stupid 'cause you're seeking advice for a certain problem, but it's more clever to just avoid this problem by not going to war at a time when war is simply unpleasant. tech to steel, field muskets/maces with cannons and you won't have this problem. for bringing down all the city's defense with trebs vs. castles you'll need such huge amounts of siege that it simply won't pay out on higher levels. and even on lower levels you'll be better off using cannons 'cause it'll need alot less time/effort. either go to war pre-castles with catapults or with cannons, avoid anything beside that and you're fine. cannons even own in the field, even without according promotions, something trebs struggle with...

 

[lucifero]

if you're not attacking a city, isn't catapult better anyway? (and cheaper) dunno if i'm missing something, but generally i upgrade cats with extra collateral or drill, and trebs with city raider instead. unless absolutely necessary, i dont use cats for attacking cities, and i dont use trebs for attacking outside of cities.

 

[SillyGoat]

Don't take me too seriously... I hate fighting in Medival simply due to how strong defensive LBs can get. I usually just wait around for Rifles/Cannon. Sometimes, though, it's essential.
I dunno about using Trebs to take out Rifles, though. Seems to me the time invested in getting all those Trebs together would be much better used boosting your science and trading up to steel so you can get Cannon.

The problem with Medieval fighting isn't the longbows, its the damn castles. There is a window between an AI getting LBs and it getting castles where it is sometimes possible to wage war with cats/maces.

Using Trebs to take down Rifles isn't something I normally want to do, but it is an option to be considered, especially if waiting for cannons means your enemy will get Cavalry before your can get your cannons into the field.

If I'm planning on waging a cannon war, I'll build trebs ahead of time and upgrade them once Steel comes in. This has the advantage not just of speed, but it gives me the option to fight an offensive war before Steel if necessary.

(ps: you can't whip Research or Wealth, but you can whip cats/trebs. )

 

[SillyGoat]

if you're not attacking a city, isn't catapult better anyway? (and cheaper) dunno if i'm missing something, but generally i upgrade cats with extra collateral or drill, and trebs with city raider instead. unless absolutely necessary, i dont use cats for attacking cities, and i dont use trebs for attacking outside of cities.

Cats are better than trebs in the field due to their higher base strength, however cats are available long before trebs and can be used with swords/elephants/ect to take down an opponent in the late Classical.