Do you use the catapult?

[crystalgatedh]

To me, the catapult seems to do more harm than good. Two boulders thrown back by the giants can unciticen a lot of your people which forces you to watch them even if you know you have sufficient defenses. Also often the catapult only gets to fire once, the attack may be over (or the walls breashed if your defense was insufficient) before a builder drags himself over.

When I tried playing without the catapult, the game got a lot easier. I could concentrate on massing archers and did not have to occasionally rehire 20+ newly unemployed vagabonds. Anyone else who just skips the catapult?

[Milk]

Its better late game, where it basically massacres the flying tentacle monsters.

[Zordah]

It's not too bad with the latest patch as the builders seem to prioritize the catapults a lot more now and stick around them.
I hadn't noticed the giants throw your own boulders back at you. I thought they brought their own. Interesting....

[Catbert7]

Catapults are volatile. Frequently they miss altogether but when they hit they do massive damage. With the new update Builders will stay assigned to Catapults so you don't have to worry about them being unmanned anymore. Actually losing Archers to Boulders would require two hits in very close succession so that should be very very rare (I've played a lot and never seen it) but having them thrown back by the Giants is one risk that balances the massive damage Catapults can do. Right now, Catapults are a bit of a wild card. You can succeed with or without them, perhaps with equal ease.

[crystalgatedh]

If the catapults have been improved, I'll give them a try next time. I get the feeling that it's still the case that with massive amount of archers, you're better of without them. The more enemies there are, the more damage a catapult can do, but the more archers you have, the more damage rocks thrown back can do. So, it stands to reason that if you're ahead of the curve enough, you're better of without catapults. However, catapults are very fun when they work and that counts for something.

[Zordah]

Yeah it is very satisfying when the builders finally get the angle right and the catapult squishes 3-4 incoming enemies :)