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Post by churchill1 on Jun 4, 2006 13:39:36 GMT -5
The title is pretty self-explanatory. I think the same is almost certainly true of of later siege weapons. each civilisation should be equipped with a mega stack of catapults for attack or defence. i am starting to wonder if may be a stack should be comprised of 2/3 catas and 1/3 other units (almost only to protect the catapults). in ancient cton, u can start building them very early. and they do not become out of date the whole game, so they are well worth it. (if in doubt, build a ctatapult) this collateral damage thing is crazily powerful. as i understand it when the cata is dealing out collateral damage, defensive factors are not taken into account. for a full explanation follow this link: combat explainedi'd be interested to see what other folk think, esp fried
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Post by tamijo on Jun 4, 2006 14:21:38 GMT -5
I think the collateral damage is ok in it self. its what makes attacking city possible, and stacking risky. what should be done was giving the catapult a higher price. y would think twice if they had got an 100% hammer cost update
should i go for a cata now (12 turns ), or build one more XX instead (4 turns) ! ? this would then have to be countered with an 100% defence damage (would need only 50% catapult amount to bring defence down)
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Post by Tony on Jun 4, 2006 16:41:08 GMT -5
I have been saying how silly a stack of catapults is from day 1. In ancient games it basiclly makes up atleast 60% of your army.
Catapults should only be able to bombard, how on earth can it be a unit is totally ridiculous. 5 strength means they can be used as a unit, and what makes things worst is units cannot even get bouns agiasnt them like giving axes meele premotion.
Only elephants have considerable jump in strengh, so elephants are fought with spears and if the elephant comes with another unit, ie a axe, then good old catapults. The bottom line is any unit they comes catapults can handle, ALLLL the way till knights.
In medi start you often have to make catapults to clear explorers, WTF.
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Post by churchill1 on Jun 4, 2006 17:00:04 GMT -5
u can get a siege weapon upgrade for certain units after u've got combat 2 (i think). but even so, i think i'm right in thinking it doesnt count for collateral damage.
even if it did having a few anti-siege weapon units in a stack wouldnt be particularly helpful as the units that are chosen for collateral damage are chosen randomly.
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Post by churchill1 on Jun 4, 2006 17:01:47 GMT -5
and yep tamijo. i 4got to mention that they are too cheap. for such a powerful weapon with such a long shelf life (unbelievably long - cannons is given with an industrial tech), they are far too cheap
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 4, 2006 20:00:18 GMT -5
Well I'm afraid I don't see cats as being over powered, they are the answer to keep people from building "Stacks od Death" which was how C3C was played. If you attack with multiple small stacks in a co-ordianted multi-pronged attack then cats are just 5 strength units. There length of play is a problem, but I think a solution is coming in Warlords to that.
CS
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Post by Necrominousss on Jun 4, 2006 20:31:32 GMT -5
Strength 5 Movement 1 Cost 40 Collateral Damage Withdraw 25% Has almost all promotions available
Definitely a handy unit to have around.
My suggestion for adjustments are: 1. Lower strength to 4 2. Make chariot 25% to vs. catapults 3. Raise horse archer to 50% vs catapults 4. Make swordman 25% vs catapults and make super collateral damage absorbers. One sword will take all the collateral damage of one catapult if its the strongest unit in stack vs. the catapult.
I especially like #4 cause swordman is weak as catapult is strong. I'm not sure how much sense it make historically or the actual physical aspects of it but still think it would be interesting. If you think that makes the sword too strong then it could only absorb half the collateral damage.
I wouldn't suggest doing all of the above. I would suggest #1-3 combine or #4 by itself would even things out.
Now here's were it gets interesting, with all that I would increase the catapults positives in this way. 1. It can bombard cities up to 3 squares away if you can see the city. That means have a line of sight on the city at that moment. If you think that goofy I would settle for being able to bombard from 2 or 3 squares away and one would just have to know were the city is.(seeing it at any point before in the game)
This would help combat the huge advantage of city on a hill cultural defense advantage in the game. Right now there is no way to combat that plus catapults.
I would appreciate feedback on my ideas.
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Post by mrgametheory on Jun 5, 2006 0:05:02 GMT -5
lol, i understand all of your guys pain.
If your going to do anything to cats, make them cost 46 Hammers.
Thats it, dont change anythything else.
Horses destroy them
But raising them to 46 will avoid them being used in stacks of 30
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Post by tommynt on Jun 5, 2006 2:14:31 GMT -5
game design meant em to be a attacking unit but in fact it s a unbelievable strong def unit and CS your small stack aproach dont work at all as cata just have a strengh of 5 what measns they beat everything at least after loosing 1 unit - best combi might be axe elephnt - but 1 cata kill more hen half of elephnts and injures axe - so they die to next 2 catas - u killed 2 units with a loss of 1 unit - definatly worth it - when seeing in shields it s even worse for attacker 63 vs 26 shields
all suggestion how to improve the situation are worthless as there wont be a patch - and in fact makes a clever usage of catas still thhe difference between a good and a weak to medicore player without em it might be imposible to win 1 vs 2
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 5, 2006 11:24:41 GMT -5
There won't be a patch to the base game, but there is Warlord's, and presumably patches to WL's if required. So idea's for fine tuning cataputs are still a valid exercise. I don't think changing the way cats work or vastly changing other units to deal with them is the answer as every change made has to be game balanced over every situation, it'd think that either making them more expensive or lowering them to 4 str would be the simplest appoach.
CS
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 5, 2006 12:08:08 GMT -5
And Tommy the small stack method does work to mitigate the colateral damage mechanism, if you only have 3 units in a stack a cat can't damage 6 units as it would with a SoD. If the one unit it does direct damage too is the issue we can look at solutions to that.
CS
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Post by churchill1 on Jun 5, 2006 12:26:23 GMT -5
negotaiating an attack with stacks of 3 is very tough with a turn timer. and the defender will just eat them up one stack at a time.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Jun 5, 2006 12:38:43 GMT -5
negotaiating an attack with stacks of 3 is very tough with a turn timer. and the defender will just eat them up one stack at a time. Well I would never attack with just one small stack at a time, but I would surround a city with 3-4, 3-5 unit stacks instead of attacking with one stack of 15-20 units, that is precisely what cats were designed to destroy. CS
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Post by Tony on Jun 5, 2006 13:12:38 GMT -5
This is very much asking for trouble IMO, unless you can truly overwhelm the oppenet with units.
The way i see it there are 3 ways to kill somsone decent:
1) Have superiour units, for examlpe cavs are a big jump from anything before them. But this relies on better science.
2) Overwhelming units, this can happen 1 of 2 ways, 1 you have far better MFG or 2 the opponet is not expecting so many units, so is under prepared. This basiclly means you keep thwoing units at him, possiblly in small stacks, and take a hit for a hit knowing he will not be able to keep up.
3) Get on them really early and really screw them up, ideally before they get a resource.
Your idea of 3-4 mini stacks of 4-5 units, lets say for the sake of argument you mini stack consists of an elephant/axeman/crossbow. The first catapult will die to elephant, (or it might retreat), the next one may die to crossbow, the next 3 will all almost definatly make kills.
1-2 catapults for 3 expensive units is a crazy swap(60+60+35=155 for 40/80 hammers), if you keep making such swaps you will almost certianly get counter-attacked.
Any sort of stack, 2 units or 20 units, it is fought with catapults. The only time you dont use catapults to attack is when there is only a single type of unit in which case you use the units counter, ie spearman for horses.
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Post by tommynt on Jun 5, 2006 15:20:33 GMT -5
CS my example showed that the small stack approach just dont work - mainly due to the fact that cata is as strong as a axe for same cost
I tried use variations of the small stack appraoch - there is a lil chance of it working with def bony - but basicly it all depends on having a overwhelming power and units allready in land (wood or woodhill) of opp before attack. best and most times only chance to kill is just pressuring opponent allready before catas available and have catas just to do the finishing move. once opp could clear land and have this 20 cata stack there s like 0 chance
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Post by Elledge on Jun 5, 2006 17:08:48 GMT -5
In my experience, the best way to fight catapults is with a small stack strategy and a quick trigger finger. I will move two, three, or four small 3-5 stacks of strong units in, and bring a larger stack around back where my small crews block it from direct attack. Then watch; wait for him to attack one stack with a catapult or two, and then immediately swap out the worst-damaged units in that stack with healed units from your reinforcements. Your opponent pretty much has three options if you are fast on the movement: he can keep hitting you with cats and losing cats, and building new cats, and losing more cats. Eventually you might run out of healed units and have to pull a retreat, but by that time you should have gotten about 5 or 10 free catapult kills. A few advances like that and you've got a strong advantage in numbers. He can give up and let you pillage the f**k out of him. Or he can try to slam into one of your small stacks with a big stack of catapults and units, in which case he might or might not come out ahead, and you can probably pick off his survivors with the rest of your surrounding stacks. You really have to be focused and fast to pull it off though or your opponent will just beat the nuts out of your units. I was really tired last night, couldn't concentrate enough on the fighting, and f**ked this up myself in a renaissance game. So your mileage may vary. I have a few other related bold strategies I use to eat away at opponent catapults but I would prefer to keep them to myself because they are pretty bad and only work due to surprise EDIT: This is all talking about the post-ancient game, when you can at least build stacks of units like maces and elephants and knights (if not cavs) that are strong against catapults. If catapults alone can wipe out your attackers, then I guess the answer is to keep teching
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Post by tommynt on Jun 6, 2006 3:28:11 GMT -5
elledge once there s a 3 tile boarder there s no way to do something useful with a quickmove - also even with a 2 tile boarder a good opp ll just wait for main stack if he s weak and vurnable also usually u need to bombard city def 1. to have chance to take city what makes a doublemove on city even more pointless - i think i have never seen a doublecatamove trying to take a city which worked out. HA are much more useful for a doublemove - what u need is some fortified units on a high def bonus tile then move catas on bomb and city is gone i have done that several times and it works most times
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Post by tamijo on Jun 6, 2006 9:13:06 GMT -5
How about this
Change the cata to 3 with 100% city attack, making them a city attacker, not a city defender but still dealing out col damage (make same adjustment with canon art. ect.) This would tend to create a frontline, instead of the overpowered city defence, to keep the opponent catas away from y city.
To make a move against "deaht stacks" give defencive units a small collateral damage "archer longbow musketman ect". would also make y bring them to the front. and use some of them as attackers, folowed by the stronger units would also work well against the pure unluck of not getting copper/iron/horse at gamestart.
I think it would make for some interesting decitions when y have to decide if y will attack with y longbow to deal out coll damage, or y should wait, and use it as a defender. If y wait to long the attacker gets in catas and y are done.
Adjustments might be needed to make these units not too powerfull, longbow musket & infantry might need to be adjusted down a bit (5 - 7 - 16) or something
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Post by churchill1 on Jun 6, 2006 9:32:18 GMT -5
Tony makes a really good point here. how frustrating it is to lose ur beatiful expensive units to a couple of cheap catas. elephants are perfect for polishing up here, as they are equal to or beat anything up to pikes.
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Post by Ellestar on Jun 7, 2006 7:22:53 GMT -5
Your idea of 3-4 mini stacks of 4-5 units, lets say for the sake of argument you mini stack consists of an elephant/axeman/crossbow. The first catapult will die to elephant, (or it might retreat), the next one may die to crossbow, the next 3 will all almost definatly make kills. Well, 2 catapults will die to elephant with a 51% chance (no upgrades for both) and they cost more than elephant. So, elephants alone are a good counter to catapults. But in a stack with some more units, and counting a catapult retreat chance there will be about the same production lost on average for both sides as i understand.
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