Don't just view units as hammer costs, but consider what that unit gives you. If a Treb got 2 attacks in (and died on the second attack), it's really only 40 hammers per attack compared to the 50 hammers per attack for a single suicide catapult that dies after 1 attack.
|
Rebalancing Civ4: RtR Mod
|
|
In your hypothetical, if a treb is getting 50% odds, why do you even need siege at all? Just kill the thing with knights or CR maces or something at even better odds.
Plus they have their built in limitation of being terrible in the field. I just think their design is faulty since they're not even that good at what they are supposed to be good at. (February 17th, 2014, 17:19)Krill Wrote: I'm more interested in some numbers from FIN trait from PB13 TBH. Yeah, that's an interesting question, I've counted couple of times during PB13 how much FIN would have given to our civ, but haven't written anything down. My hypothesis is that ORG is strictly stronger than FIN, but FIN gives a stronger economical boost than AGG (I'm taking the time value of commerce into account) and the comparison comes down to how much one values free promotions and barracks boost. How good FIN is obviously depends also strongly on how many grass river tiles players have as they destroy the bonus (and of course on the amount of coast, lux resources and plain grass tiles). Interestingly, I feel that slavery nerf also weakens FIN. In BTS I believe that it's a totally valid option as a FIN to settle some early coastal cities, where you only improve your resource tiles and chop/whip granary+lighthouse. Just growing on and whipping away 2/0/3 tiles works nicely especially when you remember that it allows you to get away with smaller worker force and thus expand faster horizontally. With nerfed slafery this approach becomes less efficient hammer-wise and while in early game you tend to need more hammers than beakers, good play probably means less fishing villages and more production cities than in BTS --> less tiles that benefit from FIN. Same logic applies also to working grass cottages vs. mines although long-term benefits of growing FIN towns can mean that players don't alter their play here that much. As a conclusion, in RBMod I'll pick ORG over FIN, but because Civ is very much a game about economy I still value FIN fairly highly. It's hard to imagine a non-cramped map where you go completely wrong with that trait. Assuming I can't pick ORG and I'm playing a fairly "standard" map I could see myself picking a FIN/something pairing in order to give myself something to work with in the mid/late-game (I won't say no to some extra early commerce either, but would of course prefer being e.g. EXP during the first 50-100 turns).
February 17th, 2014, 18:08
(This post was last modified: February 17th, 2014, 18:09 by Krill.)
 (February 17th, 2014, 17:55)WilliamLP Wrote: In your hypothetical, if a treb is getting 50% odds, why do you even need siege at all? Just kill the thing with knights or CR maces or something at even better odds. If your stack can reach the city without dying...if it can't neither unit really matters. If you can reach the city, then stack composition is now relevant. I don't know anyone who attacks with only the current cutting edge tech, because it's too expensive to build those units (and takes so long, and position, that the tech edge you had isn't enough). Invaders usually have older junk making up a significant proportion of the stack, which is why siege is useful, as it allows that junk to actually get odds and kill units. Ultimately, siege is what allows those units to remain relevant. Same reason beelining cannons is often the easiest way to take someone out later on. (February 17th, 2014, 17:55)WilliamLP Wrote: In your hypothetical, if a treb is getting 50% odds, why do you even need siege at all? Just kill the thing with knights or CR maces or something at even better odds. What krill said. Have you ever used trebs, or just assumed they suck because no one else uses them? For attacking a city directly (or bombarding walls) they are much more effective than cats. They are not used because they are a 4 on defense, so they lack the flexibility cats have. They are specialized at raiding cities and are very good at that (only), just like swords. Imagine turning swords into an axe unit with 6 strength and you can see why an upgrade isn't needed (no one would use axes once they had iron working).
Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you.
(February 17th, 2014, 17:28)WilliamLP Wrote: Cats do more collateral when attacking cities. The mechanic is explained here. "The only potential attacker strength bonus is Barrage." Nothing else modifies the attacker's strength (including HP) for the purposes of calculating collateral. Oh wow. I can kind of see why they did that: they didn't want the defender being wounded to increase the damage it took. But I think this was a mistake. It means the defenders don't benefit from terrain bonuses. (February 17th, 2014, 18:46)SevenSpirits Wrote:(February 17th, 2014, 18:14)Bigger Wrote: They are specialized at raiding cities and are very good at that (only), just like swords. Catapults are a powerful unit too, but cheaper and for more than 1 purpose. (February 17th, 2014, 18:14)Bigger Wrote: What krill said. Have you ever used trebs, or just assumed they suck because no one else uses them? I've only used them in single player. I haven't in MP because I've tested them in WB, they're generally worse than cats unit for unit, they suck in the field, and I noticed that a common claim about them from the best players here was simply wrong. I wouldn't say there's no situation where they're a better build. Maybe attacking a technologically backward opponent when trebs can attack into winning fights, and you want to keep more of them? They bombard more culture too, but in RBMod without the extra castle defense that doesn't seem to be a bottleneck very often. And they're a lot cheaper to upgrade to cannons. Still, for a very expensive tech that is often delayed, they're pretty poor since their weaknesses are very weak and their strength isn't strong. I suspect that Krill is mostly playing Devil's Advocate here and agrees with me in the context of an actual game and basically never builds them. 
|
