Arrow unit attack the Battering Ram

I am of the impression that some commentors are being condescending because they have not actually had to engage in micro with archers. They assume that micro makes the player who does it better, when in reality, Archer micro is situational, and can sharply reduce their damage output. Micro is quite necessary in Feudal play, as well as ealy Castle, but there are many situations where you let them loose. There are specialty units that always require micro to deal with, but that is another matter.

This game came out in 1999. We had one remaster and one remake, they would have changed it if wasn’t uninted

Nope, I’m sayin that if you don’t want your archers targeting rams you have to it yourself. Overkilling is better than attacking rams, so it make sense to micro them.
Rams are there to soak arrow fire, play around them

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So… Would the thread’s OP be satisfied if rams got +10 damage against the archer armie class ? The ram become a valid threat worth targeting for archers…

Or does he want every unit to auto-target the most appropriate opponent units, like pikes priorizing elephants against a pike/elephant composition. So basically auto playing the game: like auto macro / auto micro / auto everything…

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After reading all the vast exaggerations to the original idea, I’ve been convinced to switch my view on this topic. In fact I’ll go a step further (like so many arguments in this thread) and propose that archers should also target all buildings before any units. The new anti-archer meta will be to sneak a couple villagers to the front line and build random tiles of palisade, which can then soak up all AI chosen archer fire. It won’t be a problem because players can simply micro all the archers to focus fire specific units. Imagine what a display of skill that would be. In fact the worse an AI can be, the more it allows the true pro players to shine.

With the big difference that rams are units, not buildings. Archers do not need to be buffed by making one of their counter worse

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Intertesting take on the subject. Especially given that wall are not supposed to be used as a counter (Palisade Wall (Age of Empires II) | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom, contrary to rams that are listed as a counter to archer (Battering Ram (Age of Empires II) | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom.

I think that currently there is only one recent update in DE so that units target units and towers before non attacking buildings. But in general they target whatever unit is closer to them. So villagers would need to make pallissade very close to archers and will die before closing the gao. I think your sarcastic idea (i guess it is) of having archers target buildings before units has no chance to be implemented, because no reason why only archers should behave this way and not every other units. Then it would be way too inconvenient to raid or fight close to enemy base, which will stall games to several more hours.

By the way, do you know that rams take up population while buildings do not ? Which is also a reason why every attacking buildings (except Malays Talassocracy docks) cost stone, such that you cannot build too many to turtle …

But if it is really what you want, fine, you can open a new thread/suggestion on “Walls should be the priority target of military units”, and see how it goes…

It is funny that so many players seem to be either on the side “OMG archers too weak ! Please buff !” or on the side “OMG archers too strong ! Please nerf”… Not you specifically, but so many threads about one of these point of views…

I like archers. I think they are fine, it is more the current arabia encourages small walling, so they are overused because they are so effective against small walls. And then people get salty when they lose and claim a unit is too good. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

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not enough, sheep boar deer all need to spawn inside of TC. villager on auto resource gathering, map explored no need to scout. auto train counter units, auto move, auto dodge onager fires, auto dodge arrow fire with or without ballistic. all you need is 1 mouse move to click, walk towards enemy and they will do the rest for you.

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No way, then the noobs would beat the pros XD. You gotta go the other direction with it. Like all lumberjacks stop working after completing each tree until you tell them to chop the next one. Sheep randomly wander away from TC and must be manually herded back. Scout will frequently get homesick and return to base unless you notice and command it to go back to scouting. Villagers will get tired when constructing buildings and auto garrison into the nearest TC to rest. All of these would make more sense in reality than an entire army of archers firing at a harmless wooden box while enemy units slaughter them. There’s nothing like fighting against the decisions of your own AI to demonstrate player skill. /s

wg´hat about skirms attackin meatshields like light cav?
What about skirms with tech advantage attacking light cav with 3 damage per shot?
What about skirms attacking rams?
What about mayan skirms attacking rams?
What about high damage units like all gunpowder fokus-fring and producing a lot of overkill?
What about Castles or Units autoattacking the first unit in their sight and then sticking with them besides they are just bait?
…

There is a lot of stuff that happens that isn’t “clever” at all.
Imo rams tanking arrowfire is a “feature” just as the other things mentioned. It doesn’t breaks the game, it actually increases the strategic diversity as you then want to add a melee unit or other siege to kill the rams.

And I don’t want units to be more clever than most of their players actually…

Sure, I’ll answer these because IMO there’s not much grey area.

Perfectly fine, that light cav is a threat that they should deal with. To be clear, archers and skirms should attack rams, just should not prioritize them over enemy infantry, cavalry or archers.

Also yes, regardless of upgrades. Not asking for Einstein with a bow, just basic human survival instinct. They should also attack mangonels, scorpions, etc. just like any other unit, but not rams (the armor class including siege towers and trebuchets).

Yes, if there are no other units in range, same behavior as other units, keep things consistent. If you want to focus a ram before other units then focus fire makes sense.

Yep, but only after other enemy units. Consistency. And again, anyone can select 30 skirms and click a ram to focus it sooner, with minimal overkill. Splitting 30 skirms into 10 control groups of 3 to focus down a specific 10 enemy archers while ignoring a ram is not a reasonable option. [/quote]

Not quite sure what you mean, they would behave like any other unit, focusing on enemy units before rams. Focus fire is extra inefficient for gunpowder, so they benefit more from smarter auto attacks and nit being distracted by rams. Again, if anyone wants to focus fire a ram, just double click a hand cannoneer to select all, then click the ram to attack. This is viable micro, splitting them into tiny groups to focus fire individual champions or halberdiers is not.

Not sure I have a strong opinion on this one. Can be a little cheesy as we saw in the longest game recently. Obviously we can’t expect AI to understand what is or is not being used as bait, but maybe choosing the closest target for each shot would be a better answer? Not sure how this relates to the archer/ram topic. Do you mean should castles prioritize enemy units over rams? Probably yes, but at the same time the rams are a valid threat to them. This one is grey area, it could go either way.

It’s definitely a “feature”, and people clearly want to keep it despite it being illogical. Much like palisade scanning, another “feature” that was fiercely defended by many players.

You’ll need to do this anyway, or you’ll start losing buildings quickly.

Anyway, I’ve probably hijacked the thread enough. I just see where OP is coming from, and I’m surprised to see so much opposition to the idea. The main arguments against it seem to be “it’s always been that way” and “changing it is a slippery slope to auto everything”.

I mean if you micro these units they will for many cases fire at single targets and produce insane overkill. If they were “clever” they would fire at different targets and produce way less overkill.

Imo one of the biggest reasons why HCs are so “bad”.

Sorry, but I see no sense in skirms attacking light cav that is placed itentionally there to soak the damage. No. If they were “clever” they would shoot at the (cav) archers behind.

I see, and I agree with you. No easy solution there, but at least not having to manually focus fire everything when in the presence of a ram would help. They would at least pick a few different targets.

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The only “solution” I would see is if each unit would “calculate” a value per hit for each enemy unit in range and attack that unit with the highest output of that calculation. If there are multiple targets with the same value it would chose a random of these.

Melee units would get a walk time correction, so closer units are attacked more often but if they are bad targets the melee unit would chose to walk further, but attack every time an enemy unit is in range to be attacked.

Maybe if they had the hussite wagon bonus, it would make more sense than abusing the target ai

I hope, it will be implement soon.
Ram don’t attack automatically unit and it’s logical, it can’t harm them (1 hp per hit) and it’s not build for it.
Bow man can’t harm ram (1hp per hit) and they are not build for that.

“logic” is a poor advisor in game balance.

Rams not beeing attacked by archers would be an insane buff to archer civs. Berbers and britons come to mind for civs that can’t really lose anymore after such a change (in lategame).

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what a idiot… ram is not shield!!
listen all idiot man! can you avoid the arrow near the building in game?? can you avoid the arrow near the your building?
we cant avoid the arrow next the building. but we can avoid the all arrow near the ram. its idiot.
if you are archer! are you choice the ram? when during enemy archer attack you?? you attack ram forever? can you? can you attack the house or can you attack the barrack during enemy attack you??
ram is stupid small building! ram is not unit! ram is building! building cant eat arrow!! its normal sense!!! building must cant eat arrow!

‘arrow and ram’ is deferent to ‘cav and spear’ ram is stupid building. cav must attack spear! if you have 100 paladin when ememy have 10 spear, paladin must attack spear. this is it!!! if you have 10 cav when enemy have 3spear 5archer! you must kill all 3 spear first!!! if you choice kill 5archer first spear can kill 10 cav!

if you archer! can you attack the ram forever during cav attack you by knife? all archer unit attack ram first. ram need Priority. unit must know Priority.