Siege Tower vs. Battering Ram vs. Catapult

[Tilen]

Setting aside the Catapults ranged damage dealing capability, what is best to use, when and how? Particularly ST vs. BR.

Please provide good arguments that don't rely on AI exploitation. Assume human opponent.

P.S.: I just got an iPad and playing Civ on it while lying in bed is just the best. Can't even go back to PC. :P

[blkbutterfly]

IMO siege towers are useless apart from if you're the Kongo or Sumeria or Arabia where you have a ton of melee or heavy cavalry that have healing and/or defence against ranged attack....and the city you're attacking has lots of farms to plunder and heal.

[Azunai]

siege towers make melee attackers ignore the walls and directly damage the city proper, battering rams remove the melee damage penalty against walls.

i guess the conclusion would be that rams are better suited if you use a mix of ranged and melee (since your ranged units will have to delete the walls anyway before they can start hitting the city in earnest, so melee units might as well help them) and siege towers are better suited if you use mostly/exclusively melee attackers (no point deleting the walls if you can bypass that layer completely)

catapults are good at killing walls/city HP, but weak at everything else. they are probably the strongest option, but also the most expensive (separate unit rather than essentially a bonus perk for existing combat units). also better in the long run since the other 2 are obsolete in later eras when cities get the modern "urban defenses", while you veteran catapults can be upgraded to bombards/howitzers/rocket artillery

[Synavix]

Catapults are good for coastal type maps now too. Regular ranged units had their effectiveness vs naval units lowered in the R&F patch, and bombard effectiveness against them was increased. A single archer in a city will have a much harder time trying to kill a small naval invasion.

[BatMart]

i don't even bother with siege units...just spam archers/crossbowman and you cna crush any city you want...

[blkbutterfly]

Originally posted by BatMart:

i don't even bother with siege units...just spam archers/crossbowman and you cna crush any city you want...

Interestingly this is a possibility too, cos ranged units have a promotion vs. district defences.

So you siege (or surround) a city with melee and/or cavalry. Use the ranged units to pummel the city.

But as @Synavix said, since R&F catapults have been buffed vs. naval units, which is great IMO.
Now they make good city garrisons on coastal cities and encampments.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by -DI- Blkbutterfly:

Interestingly this is a possibility too, cos ranged units have a promotion vs. district defences.

It's worth noting that though that removes part of the combat strength penalty vs cities, the ranged unit is still affected pretty harshly by walls compared to bombard strength units. Half of the damage goes to the wall, and then the other half goes to the city center, which is reduced by wall%. Unlike bombard strength, where most goes to the wall (whereas melee units have 15% go to the wall and the rest to the city, which is why they do squat when the walls are in good condition)

Also, I don't use STs much so I have a question: do they make you ignore the +2/+4/+6 strength from wall level?

[Salma Hayek]

Ranged units are pretty damn ineffective against cities (except archers vs cities without walls...). Yeah you can spam them and rely on the AI not having any unit, but if we're looking for the proper optimal way to do things siege units are the way to go, they deal way more damage to a city. Melee and range to kill units and actually capture cities are also needed obviously.

[Lemurian1972]

I love using Siege Towers with Genghis. Using a Keshig or rank 4 light cav to haul it around, swarming a city and taking it out in 1-2 turns. They end up being handy long after they're 'obsolete' because they still work on civs that haven't gotten Steel.

[zxcvbob]

Siege towers are good when you are in a joint war with someone and you are both attacking the city, and you want to make sure you capture it. I usually build a couple of rams and one tower, and I mostly just use the rams.

I think siege towers also increase your archers' damage to the city, rams do not.

I seldom use catapults. I really should always build one or two so I can upgrade them to bombards if I only have one source of niter...

[Salma Hayek]

Also it depends on our overall strategy. When going for domination siege units make more sens because you can use them until the end of the game, taking cities without siege units or nukes in the late game is pretty tough if you're not 2 eras and 50 units ahead. Tho for sure with mongols or Scythia it totally makes sens in the early game to go for siege towers-battling rams with infinite numbers of cavalry.

[Elliott]

Does it bother anyone else how easily city defenses can destroy catapults? Sniping them from a city feels cheap when im on either side of the battle. Its not uncommon to have a city half the HP of a catapult in its first attack forcing the attacker to pull it back without it firing even once or lose it next turn unless the walls are destroyed.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Elliott:

Does it bother anyone else how easily city defenses can destroy catapults? Sniping them from a city feels cheap when im on either side of the battle. Its not uncommon to have a city half the HP of a catapult in its first attack forcing the attacker to pull it back without it firing even once or lose it next turn unless the walls are destroyed.

I simply never bother with catapults. I use bombards when I get them, and if I out-tech the opponent. Otherwise it is too much hassle. From then on I am usually pretty close to Observation baloons and artillery so I no longer worry about city attacks.