Trebs and Cats

[ybrevo]

Having only played the Vanilla version for a while, recently I got my hands on BtS, and I am now playing my first marathon game in this brand new world

I have a question about siege weapons: Since I´ve never had the honor of smashing cities with a Trebuchet before, I would like to know the basic difference between this and the good old Catapult. Which to use when - and what upgrades to choose if you make a mixed stack of them.

I hope to hear from some of you before I start knocking on Toku´s front door...

ybrevo

[Ming]

Cats have a base attack rate of 5 and can attack city walls at 8% per turn. Tribs have a base attack rate of 4, but are plus 100% against city attacks. Their base rate of taking down city walls is 16% per turn. Early in the game, Cats are more than good enough to kill those archers and melee units in cities. Once longbowman appear, tribs are a neccesity unless you want to lose tons of cats.

In the field, when attacking SOD's, cats are better than tribs. When attacking cities, Tribs are better.

As far as promotions go, it depends what you want to use them for.
For tribs, I usually give them city raider, since that is my prime use for them. With cats, I mix the prmomotions... giving some city raider, some barrage to do more collaterial damage, or other promotions to make them more valuable against SOD's NOT in cities.

I usually keep a mix of both tribs and cats around to answer my offensive and defensive needs.
But I do like to beeline to cannons, since there is no early counter for them, and they have a large window of effectiveness

[rah]

And as time passes, I rely more on tribs since it's only 80 to upgrade them to cannons.
Cats are too expensive to upgrade.

[rah]

And remember that in BTS seige can't kill units like they do in vanilla.
But the AI still thinks they can so it leads to some hilarity.

[wodan11]

And as time passes, I rely more on tribs since it's only 80 to upgrade them to cannons.
Cats are too expensive to upgrade.

But the flip side of that is that trebs cost a lot more to make in the first place. Quantity has a quality all its own.

[slnz]

A thing to keep in mind is that Catapults do more collateral damage, even when attacking cities. Collateral depends only on the base strength without modifiers, barrage promos, and defender drill promos. Meaning that a 0.1/5 strength Cata does more collateral than a 4/4 strength Treb. Of course the former does absolutely nothing against the top defender.

That said, when Trebs are available Cats will never survive an attack so I usually end up going 100% Trebs if I have Engineering (the double bombard rate alone is very much worth it).

[rah]

But the flip side of that is that trebs cost a lot more to make in the first place. Quantity has a quality all its own.

Dat True. But attack some longbowmen in a city with 10 cats. Not much will happen.
Attack with 5 cannons, and warriors can usually finish them off.
And you WW will not be affected as much.

[wodan11]

Dat True. But attack some longbowmen in a city with 10 cats. Not much will happen.
Attack with 5 cannons, and warriors can usually finish them off.
And you WW will not be affected as much.

Cannons rule, regardless of what anybody thinks of cats or trebs.

[rah]

Yep, it's nice to have some extra bucks lying around when steel is finished being researched.
Any experienced treb that has survived just got better.

[rah]

Yep, it's nice to have some extra bucks lying around when steel is finished being researched.
Any experienced treb that has survived just got better.

[OzzyKP]

I don't have the game here in front of me (at work) but I believe that all later siege engines do less damage to city walls than trebs. So it can be wise to keep some trebs around even in the age of cannons (and artillery too?).

[Ming]

Tribs damage city walls at 16% per turn, and so does artillery. You are correct that Cannons do less... 12% per turn.

[wodan11]

Except... that's a problem only to people who send their cannons out in penny packets.

In other words, that's a problem, how? 20 cannons is 20 cannons. 12% means I only need 8 (instead of 6) to reduce to 0% which means I "only" have 12 (instead of 14) to do collateral.

[Ming]

When I first get steel, I may send only a few on the first wave, knowing other cannons will be joining the front soon. It really depends on how many tribs were available, and how much money I had for the instant upgrade.
Steel is one of those techs that almost always signals a new wave of combat on "somebody"

[slnz]

I don't have the game here in front of me (at work) but I believe that all later siege engines do less damage to city walls than trebs. So it can be wise to keep some trebs around even in the age of cannons (and artillery too?).

Gunpowder-based siege isn't affected by Walls or Castles. Trebs only do 4% to Castles while Cannons do triple that. I don't remember offhand if obsoleting Castles (Economics) and Walls (Rifling) obsoletes the bonus against pre-gunpowder siege units, my gut says no. So Trebs will pretty much remain utterly useless after Steel.