I’m curious how confident players are in their knowledge of siege units, specifically the ram, mangonel, and scorpion lines.
Keep in mind knowledge is different from execution or preference. To use an analogy, monks are obviously very strong. But putting in the effort to learn how to micro monks, position them correctly, use them alongside an army, etc. is kind of a pain. Despite this many players can probably still confidently identify when monks would be, for a player who has put in a reasonable amount of practice with monks, sufficient to gain an advantage. Symmetrically one can also confidently identify when monks would be insufficient to gain an advantage, i.e. where there is little point in making them.
In the same way these questions are simply asking how confident one is in identifying situations where siege use is sufficient to gain an advantage for a player who has put in a reasonable amount of practice. This is not the same as asking whether siege use is the best option, merely whether it can be worthwhile in an absolute sense. Advantages include map control, trading effectively, countering an opponent’s momentum, complementing power spikes (e.g. Hoang), etc.
For the confidence scale 1 is the lowest confidence, 10 is the highest. Keep in mind there is a difference between saying “I am confident that X has no good uses” and “I am unsure whether X has good uses”. The former indicates that for any given situation one is confident there is a low probability that X is useful. The latter indicates that for any given situation one is unsure of the probability that X is useful. These might lead to the same in game behavior of not using X, but they imply opposite answers for the survey (10 and 1 respectively).
Anyway here are the questions:
Ram Line
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the battering ram are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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0voters
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the capped ram are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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0voters
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the siege ram are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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Mangonel Line
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the mangonel are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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0voters
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the onager are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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0voters
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the siege onager are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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Scorpion Line
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the scorpion are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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0voters
On a confidence scale of 1-10, how confident are you in identifying situations where compositions using the heavy scorpion are (in)sufficient to gain an advantage?
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Other
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Stone walls or strong defenses are necessary to prevent raids while using slow units (such as siege units).
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither agree or disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
0voters
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: On open maps, the cost of stone walls makes siege difficult to use.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neither agree or disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
0voters
I’m asking these questions since a lot of users balance suggestions and comments seem to only make sense if siege is discounted or ignored. This isn’t to say siege shouldn’t be discounted or ignored but there is a difference between discounting something because one isn’t sure how it should be used and discounting it because it’s bad.
Im not sure what you mean. Its supposed to be subjective because confidence is subjective.
E.g. Assume you had literally never seen, used, or thought about battering ram use, but had seen, used, anayzed, and experimented with siege rams. Its very likely that your confidence in identifying scenarios where battering rams would be advantageous is lower than your confidence in identifying scenarios for siege rams.
So you might put down an 8 for siege ram confidence and a 3 for battering ram confidence. You probably wouldnt need to put down a 1 for battering ram because you can extrapolate at least a little bit. This isnt to say you think battering rams are worse, its just a claim that in some sense you have a better “feel” for one unit over another.
would that really make a difference though? are more people going to fill it in? you’re getting a more vague answer regardless though… an adult will know that a 7 is more confident than a 6, and they can choose for themselves roughly where they lie.
i wasnt surprised the confidence levels were lower here, i thought H scorp would be even lower though, purely because its generally seen as such a poor unit/expensive upgrade
i think this is an interesting one, since it can be interpreted different ways. for example it could be interpreted that siege is universally difficult to use due to mechanical skill (especially mango line) and planning (like monks) regardless of the map. having an open map just makes it more risky/costly to even try.
But most measures of confidence exist on a spectrum. So I didnt want to pigeonhole people. It was just to get an idea if people have a better “feel” for different siege units.
The end goal is just to get an idea of whether on average theres a difference in how confident people are in assessing what a unit can do.
This could be because people are confident in their extrapolation abilities.
I kinda filled the ratings with 2, 5 and 9 only, not really sure how others feel out
Regarding the topic,
Ram lines are pretty obvious to me, you either use it to destroy buildings and absorb arrows or not
Mangonels are used for its AOE affect imo, the siege bonus is a plus. Not sure how to use onagers well, since the upgrades (O+SO) are insanely expensive
Scrops… lightweight mangonels that are harder to dodge? Never had a chance to use heavy scrops.
Bombard cannons are missing and I think it’s a critical part of siege as well
I’m guessing he picked the ones he did due to the impact on army play. BBC snipe other siege mainly in army to army discussions.
So I’m guessing he didn’t add them since they wouldn’t have as much of an impact in balance discussions compared to say using scorps as Slavs to counter CA civs?
I think it’s still a good one to bring up since at what point do we choose to use rams in order to help Vs other civs. I think a lot of people will struggle to see whether it’s better to get more rams or use another more straight forward option(eg skirms or even thinking mangos will be better even if they need more skill to use)
Basically this but in retrospect it should have been included because BBC’s main role is anti-siege and it would have been good to make sure people are confident in BBC use. E.g. if people had low confidence in BBC, it would pretty much have to cause at least some loss in confidence for the other siege units.
My prior is people have pretty high confidence in identifying situations where BBC are advantageous (at least when the question is phrased like it is here). But it would have been useful to check things like “Confidence in BBC effectiveness vs mass rams” and things like that.