how helpful is siege engineer plus 1 range?

[Divine Porcupine!]

this is especially in regards to countering mass archers. assume i have troops in front of my onagers to protect them.

most cav-archers max out at 7 range & all other archers (except brits) max out at 8 range. an onager also has 8 range without siege engineer. with that in mind siege engineer feels like a nice to have in this situation more than anything else. and siege engineer really only helps crush buildings faster. thoughts?

[Dinomar]

https://youtu.be/0JcN4xItjUY

[Shade-O]

A whole lot.
Being able to fire first in siege fights is crucial to dictate fights in your favor since you're the one who gets to decide when to fight or else your opponnent just sits there receiving barrage after barrage and if your micro is good you can kite non-SE siege weapons.

Against archers it only evens the odd, they're already a natural counter the various archery-range units but the opponnent has a chance to dodge. If so you will have to use ground attack and make predictions. 1 good mangonel shot can wipe an entire group and being able to fire wwith better range prevents the archers from being to shoot and run.

So should you get SE? Definitly although it might have less priority if your opponnent doesn't micro his/her archers.

[TerminallyGrill]

siege engineers is one of the most important techs in the game
it's key to winning trebuchet fights and forcing your opponent to repack and waste time moving their trebs