I hate my Catapults!!

Rasputin · December 1, 2001, 11:03

In civ 2 i always found a use for most units , especially I loved using catapults whilst i awaited a better tech for a stronger unit. But in civ 3 with no abilty ti atttack just bombard, i find them compleyely useless. Anyone else find this, or is their a right way and a wrong way to use bombardment. I find half the time they seem to miss and the rest of the time they make little damage...

Tilemacho · December 1, 2001, 11:09

Just right.....
they are useless....

Cookie Monster · December 1, 2001, 11:35

Hi,

I saw your comments on how useless catapults are and thought I'd share some of my experiences with them.

While catapults are not as deadly as the more advanced artillery they do have their uses. I usually stack 1 or 2 catapults with some strong offensive units and one or two strong defensive units. (2 swordmen, 3 horsemen, 2 pikemen or spearmen) What I do is park this stack next to an AI city and bombard the city for one or two turns with the catapults. Usually no improvements get destroyed but that's not my goal. What ends up happening is the AI defenders get one or two hitpoints taken away giving my attackers a slight advantage. The city usually falls within 1 or 2 turns. The key is to precede any attack with a catapult bombardment.

Yes it takes a long time to bring the catapults and their escorts to the front but the results are worth it in my opinion. Give it a try and see what happens. One of the other uses for catapults is to fortify them in your cities to add to the defense. They attack the first enemy attacker before they engage your defenders in combat. Until the discovery of metalurgy catapults are all you got for an artillery force.

smellymummy · December 1, 2001, 12:38

use of catapults:

build them early and fortify them in all of your cities. Build many.

Agree, it takes too long to bring them all to the front line, but I'm sure you can squeeze a few in at the enemy town if you want. I don't do it though.

The good part is when it's time to upgrade. Catapults to cannons, not all that great. But shortly after you can do cannons to artillery, and artillery with it's extended range is a fantastic and powerful unit.

so build the catapults as part of your defense initially, for the ultimate goal to become strong supporting offensive units.

gamecommander · December 1, 2001, 14:23

Though the catapults in Civ III are not as effective as in previous games, they are much more historically. In Civ 2, you could take a city easily with catapults alone, but in the real world, this was not at all possible. If a catapult tried to enter and control a hostile city, it would be torn apart in no time. The system of bombardment is much more accurate.

codemast01 · December 1, 2001, 15:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Rasputin
I find half the time they seem to miss and the rest of the time they make little damage...

I also noticed this. The accuracy on my AEGIS cruiser is terrible. One time I was shoting at an undefended square to destory an improvement. My bombardment failed for 10 straight turns. Wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

Ralf · December 1, 2001, 16:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Rasputin
I find half the time they seem to miss and the rest of the time they make little damage...

And this is why I advocate some missed shoots percentage-probability inputs in the game-editor, both then it comes to anything bombardment-unit related, and also to so called "free shoots" from land-based fortresses and coustal ones. Firaxis, if you read this: Just let us players decide for ourself how we want to tweak it, please.

jdd2007 · December 1, 2001, 16:53

i agree with commander on that. anyway, i find that they are balanced just fine. they arent too powerful or too weak. enough of them can be pretty strong if they are defended well, just like in the ancient and middle ages...

Smash · December 1, 2001, 18:16

in civ2 each unit represented a division and the support personnel.A trireme wasn't 1 boat,but a small fleet with crew.Same for cats.So it was not just some wood taking a city.Besides,if you attack with just cats...well you are toast.They will never get a chance to fight.At least not in a mp game.

The bombard thing is kinda neat.But it has made cats into useless piles of wood.Might as well have left them out for something else.

ColdWizard · December 2, 2001, 02:59

cats and other land bombard units have a small use in that they will get free shots at an attacker if you use them for defense (assumption based on AI getting free shots on my modern armor). this may weaken an attacker and prevent the loss of cities. for attacking they are useless as they are slow, easily captured and can't kill anything.

i don't build them, as i'm usually the one doing the attacking

Bubba_B · December 2, 2001, 03:29

The only effective way to use cats in a offensive operation is in large masses with a combined force. They are cheap and quick to build and if used in large stacks (4-5) offer a good punch. Patience is the key, a cat is a siege weapon and a siege in the old days could take a while. As was stated before they are historically accurate as portrayed in Civ 3.

My typical "Army" consists of 4-5 siege, 3-4 defensive, 3-4 offensive.

My 2 cents

Moraelin · December 2, 2001, 08:50

Historically accurate catapults would be ok, if the rest of the game was anywhere near historically accurate.

I know of no army, ancient or otherwise, which had whole armies made only of catapults. They were usually an integral part of a legion.

The point is: if the game let me just group units whenever I darn please, they would be OK. But I either have to go through stupid loops just to get one freakin' leader, or I have to move them one by one by hand. And as soon as they attack anything, some units will advance, some will stay put, so they're without escort again for a turn.

And no, historically you didn't need some super world-renowned leader, just to group your horsemen, swordsmen and catapults in one big group and send them together that-a-way. You could just name your son or cousin a general, and noone would dare argue that being of royal blood isn't qualification enough to lead an army. Sure, if he was royally incompetent, he'd lose the battle, but for just grouping units he'd do just fine.

So the second point is: If Firaxis wanted to make legendary leaders, they should have worked like in SSI's later Panzer General games. I.e., they should give some bonuses to the army they're commanding, and each leader would have some different bonuses. E.g., one might be good at scouting (+1 sight radius), one could be a natural born pathfinder (+1 movement), one could be a master of defense (+1 defense when attacked), and so on.

THAT would have been some actually useful leader implementation.

laurentius · December 2, 2001, 10:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Moraelin

So the second point is: If Firaxis wanted to make legendary leaders, they should have worked like in SSI's later Panzer General games. I.e., they should give some bonuses to the army they're commanding, and each leader would have some different bonuses. E.g., one might be good at scouting (+1 sight radius), one could be a natural born pathfinder (+1 movement), one could be a master of defense (+1 defense when attacked), and so on.

THAT would have been some actually useful leader implementation.

That's an exellent point Moraelin! Remember how leaders in MoO2 had again different combatbonuses just like in Panzer General. E.g. one had defense bonus(+1 defence), one had scouting, one incresed weapons firepower and so on. That kind of leaders are really worth something. Besides military leaders there was also civilian leders operating in cities(actually solar systems in MoO2). These would have been able to increase science, farming or production in all cities(planets) of the solar system. I liked that. You also had to pay their salaries.