Siege weapon promotions

[Brael]

Could someone explain the benefits/drawbacks to various seige weapon promotions. I see alot of people refer to city attack promoted siege units but it seems to me like this is a waste so I'm wondering what I'm missing. To me it seems like the collateral damage promotion is the most valuable, or if your production resources are really limited - withdrawls (flanking I think it is?). My thinking behind this is siege weapons have 2 purposes, the first being to remove a cities defenses and the second being to take out stacks of units as is common in cities. With the main objective of these units being to do as much damage as possible wouldn't additional collateral damage give you more effective damage per unit than city attack?

[Blake]

City Raider will result in more damage to the toughest unit in the stack.
Collatoral Damage will result in more damage to the units other than the toughest.

That's all you really need to know. As a rule of thumb use Collatoral until the city-rader promoted siege weapons actually have a good chance of winning (say 35%+).

Note that Catapults have no (defensive) counters, unlike Swordmen (axemen) and Horsemen (spearmen), making them pretty good at city siege despite their lower strength. Cannons simply rock, a Raider3 cannon will destroy anything in the era. Artillery can be good too if you get them quickly enoungh.

[Arrian]

I guess I do it wrong, then. I use mostly City Raider cats, and hit with them first.

I love cannons. City Raider II/III cannons are great. I typically ignore Artillery.

-Arrian

[MasterDave]

I almost always choose city raider for artillery, mainly because artillery are hitting cities 90% of the time, and because making the odds better in your initial battle increases the chances that your siege engine will survive to fight another day. If a siege weapon lives long enough to reach level five, then I will start adding collateral damage bonuses, or combat I.

If it was possible to add flanking/withdraw chance improvements to siege weapons, I would do that, but that does not seem to be an available promotion for them.

[Solver]

Barrage for Catapults. Even with City Raider or City Raider II, cats aren't too likely to win vs. a well-fortified city defender. So use Barrage to inflict as much damage as you can on the other units.

City Raider for Cannons. Cannons have a good attack, and with City Raider II they stand a very good chance of actually taking out defenders in contemporary cities.

[gus_smedstad]

There are situations where seige weapons are your best city attackers, City Raider is the best promotion, and collateral damage is just a nice side effect.

If you don't have iron, Catapults are better attackers than anything else available until Macemen. A Catapult with City Raider II is stronger than a Horse Archer with Combat II, and it doesn't have to worry about Spearmen.

If you aren't facing Riflemen yet, Cannons are better city attackers than either Grenadiers or Riflemen, though Cavalry is about on par until Cannons get City Raider III. Once the enemy gets Rifles, Grenadiers are better attackers than either one.

Most of the time, Artillery doesn't make sense because you can get Assembly line just as quickly, which gives you Infantry and factories. Once you have Assembly line, it's almost as fast to get Tanks as Artillery. Tanks can take Collateral Damage if you want it and City Raider, and they're so much stronger than Artillery that you might as well build Cannons if you want to knock down city walls.

Theoretically, you could get Artillery much earlier than Infantry. Avoiding the Nationalism line would save you some time, particularly if you have the Pyramids for Representation. Of course everyone needs to research Democracy sooner or later, or you're hosed by unhappiness over Emancipation.

I've never done it that way, though. Among other things, getting Scientific Method early kills the Great Library and the research bonuses from Monastaries. I've become quite fond of Monastaries recently for larger cities. You need a lot of research (at least 20 base) to make them worthwhile, but they're really cheap.

- Gus

[Arrian]

Most of the time, Artillery doesn't make sense because you can get Assembly line just as quickly, which gives you Infantry and factories. Once you have Assembly line, it's almost as fast to get Tanks as Artillery. Tanks can take Collateral Damage if you want it and City Raider, and they're so much stronger than Artillery that you might as well build Cannons if you want to knock down city walls.

That's generally what I do. Cannons, Infantry & Tanks

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

I'd take City Raider on all the siege units (even the cats), and here's why:

Catapults are a support unit. They come pretty late in the ancient age, and by the time I get them, I've already been conquering with axes, horse archers, and swords (ie., I already have CR 2 & 3 units, who don't really NEED catapult help), so I don't build many anyways (3-4 in most cases), BUT...the ones I build, I'll be upgrading to cannons later, so what I like to do is haul them along with my slow movers and cherry pick their fights to get them up to CR 2's....then, when I upgrade them to cannons later.....

-=Vel=-

[Shr3dZ]

I find catapults are more 'throw away units', they come in late and never really have a good chance at winning against dug-in defenders (unless you pick and choose good battles only) - so i generally pick baragge as the promotion of choice except in certian circumstances. If perhaps a couple survive and make it to a higher level I start giving them CR in hopes that they never die...

[axisworks]

I've found artillery to be pretty useless against just about any unit or unit in a city (outside destoying city defenses, which they excel at).

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by Shr3dZ
I find catapults are more 'throw away units', they come in late and never really have a good chance at winning against dug-in defenders

If I'm up against longbows, I just never attack with the Catapults. I build just enough to knock down +100% defense in one turn, and then stop. Unless I encounter City Defender II's (rare) or a hilltop city, I take so few casualties with my Swordsmen or Macemen that throwing away catapults doesn't seem worthwhile.

- Gus

[Arrian]

Besides, most of the time I find that I care most about beating up on that "best defender." That garrison II longbow is a bastard, but once I'm past him, my Raider I/II macemen can take care of the rest.

-Arrian

[Yosho]

Originally posted by gus_smedstad

Theoretically, you could get Artillery much earlier than Infantry. Avoiding the Nationalism line would save you some time, particularly if you have the Pyramids for Representation. Of course everyone needs to research Democracy sooner or later, or you're hosed by unhappiness over Emancipation.

I've never done it that way, though. Among other things, getting Scientific Method early kills the Great Library and the research bonuses from Monastaries. I've become quite fond of Monastaries recently for larger cities. You need a lot of research (at least 20 base) to make them worthwhile, but they're really cheap.

- Gus

I just lost to an AI who was using this method...I had infantry and he didn't yet, but his stacks of artilary and cavelry just crushed me anyway. 3-4 infantry defending a city don't do you much good once he's reduced them all to 4 HP each...

[Shr3dZ]

Originally posted by gus_smedstad


If I'm up against longbows, I just never attack with the Catapults. I build just enough to knock down +100% defense in one turn, and then stop. Unless I encounter City Defender II's (rare) or a hilltop city, I take so few casualties with my Swordsmen or Macemen that throwing away catapults doesn't seem worthwhile.

- Gus

Well it depends if your best unit can get thru his best defender, if its gonna take a sacraficial axemen/swordsmen to weaken him, then why not use a sacraficial catapult? At least that way you hurt a lot of units all at the same time.

Still, I wouldnt mind trying it your way, its not like I enjoy throwing away units, but catapults seem easy/quick to build - plus, if I dont have a city with a barracks that I want to be building a military unit, Ill make him create a catapult, even with 0XP they do a lot of dmg to a whole bunch of units at once (only once).

I usually do check the odds when attacking my best at his best, and usually theyre not good, so I send in my weakest catapults to soften up the defenders~

[UnOrthOdOx]

I guess it's no real surprise that I do things a little different.

I actually prefer the combat line of upgrades for all my artillery units. I find it certainly seems to bring my chances up a % or 2 when compaired to the City Raider line.

So, I typically have a couple designed to tear down defenses, a bunch with combat line, and then my units.

[popejubal]

I tend to build two different sets of catapults and cannons and use them for differentiated roles.

My first set generally gets City Attack + Accuracy. Getting that defense bonus down in culture protected cities is important.

You need either City Attack or Barrage to get to Accuracy and I'd rather have City Attack for the increased chance of a single unit kill (and therefore a surviving Siege unit) because my focus with these units is to take down a city's defense bonus and only attack with the siege units if an appropriate attack of opportunity presents itself _AFTER_ the city's defense rating has been knocked down. Again, these siege units only actually attack a city if I'm desperate or if some easy kill appears and I don't feel like using up the movement point of another unit on the kill. I want these workhorse units to survive.


A second set of Siege units is set up with as much Barrage as I can stuff in it. I'll only use one of these per city (two if there are a ton and a half of units in the city) but the idea for these 1-2 units is that I increase the survivability of my army as a whole by reducing the health of my opponents army slightly. These units are not expected to survive and I count 1-2 siege units per conquored city as a cheap price to pay to ensure the survival of my remaining units. I use these in a similar way to how I used Cruise Missiles in Civ3. Having full health city defenders in the city is well worth the expense of a catapult/cannon or two.

I rarely build Barrage Artillary because I'd rather have the Tank's movement rate with the Barrage if I'm going to have something in a role like that.

[Yosho]

If you're sacrifice attacking catapults into much more powerful units, then flanking isn't bad. There's nothing better then going in, hurting the whole stack of units, and then retreating. I'm not sure if it's better then barrage, though...

[uberfish]

I generally give my cats barrage, and sacrifice them to let my swords or maces get the city raider promotions and XP. If they survive, they get accuracy, which makes them useful for bombardment duty long after they'd otherwise be obsolete.

Cannons go straight city raider, unless I'm on the defensive when I'll build one or two barrage ones to soften up big enemy stacks.

And I prefer to build bombers instead of artillery since artillery doesn't keep up with tanks, and give almost all my tanks barrage. City defence reduction before my air force comes online gets done by the old cannons (or catapults!!) with an infantry escort.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Yosho
If you're sacrifice attacking catapults into much more powerful units, then flanking isn't bad. There's nothing better then going in, hurting the whole stack of units, and then retreating. I'm not sure if it's better then barrage, though...

I do not think that flanking is an option for siege weapons, unless there is some prereq for it (such as combat 1)

[Yosho]

Originally posted by MasterDave


I do not think that flanking is an option for siege weapons, unless there is some prereq for it (such as combat 1)

Huh. The manual says you're right. Ok, never mind then.

[kittenOFchaos]

Collateral damage everytime unless I'm in a pickle and catapults are the best unit I can build (2 civ choke at MP for instance).

Artillery has two purposes to my mind:

1. Remove that defensive bonus.

2. Soften up defenders to allow my other units to clear up.

So, I want plenty of artillery, the main job is to suicide attack the defenders to a managable level and make good the losses by losing few other units in the attack and killing the rest of the defenders cheaply.

[Crossfire]

Yeah, I am pretty much of the same mind as kittenOFchaos. I am surprised at how many different approaches there are to the use of cats.

And thanks for the tip on skipping arty and just getting tanks instead. I like that idea a lot.

[Mace]

I do exactly what kittenOFchaos says, above. And for the reasons posted too.

There are some interesting ideas in this thread though. I'll have to try the City Raider II cannon. That sounds wicked. By that time, I usually use Combat II Cav's to provide punch...CR2 cannon might be as effective.

[Velociryx]

I too, am finding this thread fascinating, because for me, Arty are indespensible (same ballpark as Infantry, but with the devastating collateral damage....I can't live without 'em....especially given that they're natural to get to if you're wanting to jumpstart the space race (arty --> rocketry). Nice.

-=Vel=-

[Martin the Dane]

One thing I miss in the game is bombarders and real artilery.

I was sorely disapointed when I discovered that my catapults and canons could not bombard units, only walls.

Modern artilery is an area denial weapond, not a city smacher, ok it's ok for that as well, but its far easier to survive an artilery strike in a city than in the open. And you will most likely never see the gun fiering the shells, so unless you have som artilery of you own you are not likely to be able to hit back. On the other hand a few footsoldiers can fairly easily take out artilery if they get close. But that's irl and from this thread it seems there are uses for those units after all.

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I too, am finding this thread fascinating, because for me, Arty are indespensible (same ballpark as Infantry, but with the devastating collateral damage....I can't live without 'em....especially given that they're natural to get to if you're wanting to jumpstart the space race (arty --> rocketry).

Artillery really isn't in the same ballpark as Infantry. You can reach Infantry much sooner than Artillery, and Assembly Line gives +75% production to your high-production cities, and you get things like Corporation and Economics (for +2 trade routes) and Representation along the way. In contrast, Artillery gives you nothing economic, and the waypoints are technologies that do nothing themselves like Scientific Method and Physics.

I just experimented with a game (on Monarch) where I started beelining for Artillery once I got Liberalism. It was odd, because everything insists on defending before letting artillery defend, even Macemen, even though the Artillery is much stronger than anything in your stack. If you have Artillery before Infantry, it makes more sense to leave everything else behind.

If you've researched Assembly Line and you haven't researched Artillery, researching Artillery isn't attractive because you can get Tanks almost as fast. Every time I've gone that route AFTER getting infantry, I've only had time to build a couple of Artillery before getting tanks.

As for "jump starting" the Space Race, why bother? The main bottleneck for the Space Race is usually researching the expensive end techs like Fusion and Genetics, not building the Apollo Program or building the cheap parts that Rocketry unlocks.

- Gus

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
Collateral damage everytime unless I'm in a pickle and catapults are the best unit I can build (2 civ choke at MP for instance).

Artillery has two purposes to my mind:

1. Remove that defensive bonus.

2. Soften up defenders to allow my other units to clear up.

So, I want plenty of artillery, the main job is to suicide attack the defenders to a managable level and make good the losses by losing few other units in the attack and killing the rest of the defenders cheaply.

This is what I do also. Cats are pretty much throw away units. Take down city defenses, and weaken the stack to make easy work for the axemen, swordsmen, spears.

So I usually go for collateral (barrage) upgrades on the cats, figuring that they're not likely to survive, but can do an awful lot of collateral damage, and the 25% withdrawal is nice.

I generally give Cannons collateral damage upgrade too for the same reasons. Riflemen and grenadiers are usually my city attackers, while cats or cannons soften up the cities.

[unamablebuiler]

Also bring a few longbows or archersor GPunits with gurellia +medic promotions, a couple of of meele units with woodsman promo so that if there is a forrest or hill next to the city you can fortify and have somewhere protected for your stack to acccumulate. when i have enough mass to overwhelm the defenders and the walls are gone i use cats/cannon/arty with city raider and barrage promos to hurt defenders maximally. City Raider increases the dammage on the unit you attack, bombard gets them to half strength sooner. Also bring enough other units to finish the job.
Use cavalry or horse archers and knights to attack and weaken hopefully kill reinforcments.
this should do a very good job at claiming the city as yours

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by Shaka II
I generally give Cannons collateral damage upgrade too for the same reasons. Riflemen and grenadiers are usually my city attackers, while cats or cannons soften up the cities.

But the thing is, Cannons are better at city attacking than Riflemen unless the rifles are upgraded Swordsmen or Macemen, simply because they can take the City Raider promotion. Whether Grenadiers are better depends on whether the defenders are Riflemen, since that +50% bonus is a big deal.

- Gus

[Brael]

Slightly off topic but does the Grenadier bonus get applied towards Redcoats since they're a replacement for Riflemen or not? Besides that, in most cases you're correct a City Raider 3 cannon beats anything else in the era except potentially Grenadiers, for an agressive civ however they start with Combat 1 which makes a difference, using Combat for Riflemen and City Raider for Cannons:
Non Agessive:
0 promotions - Cannon 12 Rifleman 14
1 promotions - Cannon 14.4 Rifleman 15.4
2 promotions - Cannon 17.4 Rifleman 16.8
3 promotions - Cannon 21 Rifleman 18.2
Agressive
0 promotions - Cannon 12 Rifleman 15.4
1 promotions - Cannon 14.4 Rifleman 16.8
2 promotions - Cannon 17.4 Rifleman 18.2
3 promotions - Cannon 21 Rifleman 19.6

As you can see, if you're Agressive unless your units start out with 3 available promotions a Rifleman makes a better attacker, and if you're Non Agressive you need 2 available promotions.