Collateral damage

[Strategist83]

I'm curious as to whether outdated collateral damage units - say, a catapult in the industrial age - can actually deal any damage, or if an updated siege weapon with a higher strength score is needed. Can a catapult deal any considerable collateral damage to mechanized infantry, for example?

[Smellycowsquid]

Never thought about that one I would guess so, but I am not sure.

[LordShiva]

Try it out and report back here.

[Jaybe]

Where would you draw the line? The judgement involved would be nitpicking in the extreme, and even a greater draw to criticism & complaints! To even consider it at length would be a total waste of gamedesigner time.

"Should" cannons be useful against infantry? If so because infantry aren't "armored", then how about cats vs. knights (since knights are "armored")?

With tech progression as flexible as it is, how would you define "outdated"?

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Where would you draw the line? The judgement involved would be nitpicking in the extreme, and even a greater draw to criticism & complaints! To even consider it at length would be a total waste of gamedesigner time.

"Should" cannons be useful against infantry? If so because infantry aren't "armored", then how about cats vs. knights (since knights are "armored")?

With tech progression as flexible as it is, how would you define "outdated"?

The OP's question doesn't seem to involve criticism and is quite factual - does an outdated unit inflict collateral damage. I'd never considered the possibility that it didn't, but if someone has doubts, it's worth testing and reporting.

How would you define outdated? A unit that you can't build anymore or which can be upgraded to another unit seems like a good working definition.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Strategist83]

All I want to know is whether a strength 5 catapult does any considerable damage to strength 14 riflemen, or if I should skip siege units altogether until the cannon comes around.

I'm quite surprised to see no experts are around to answer the question. It's really quite essential!

[Locutus]

As was pointed out, try it out yourself. Load the World Builder, place some Siege Engines and Riflemen, attack the Rifelemen with the Siege Engines and see what happens...

[Ijuin]

Well, it depends on whether or not later units have more hit points by default than earlier units. I would think that collateral damage would get calculated from the usual combat damage odds--in other words, a collateral damage unit is basically getting a certain number of First Strikes against a number of units in the stack but does not engage them in normal combat.

[Yosho]

I actually used catapults against riflemen rather extensivly in my last game, and they work just fine. It's funny, becuase they do no or almost no damage to the unit they're actually attacking, but a fair amount of damage to everything else in the stack.

[Strategist83]

Regardless, one will still need catapults to take down enemy city defenses, until cannons come around, that is. So, catapults are still needed in the industrial age. Ugh...

[Harrier UK]

As Yosho stated they will do some collateral damage. But possibly not damage the main defender. They are still usefull, I always send them mid/late game with my other seige units to : (because of their lower strength) either to bombard city defenses or to attack and weaken already bombardment weakened units.

You may as well send them as suicide units and get some small benefit instead of keeping them and having to pay for their upkeep.