So with the new PUP, how are you supposed to counter Great Bombard + janissaries
It was hard to do already before, and springald with roller shutters was basically the only valid counter. But now it’s gone…
I’m scared.
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Well it seems like that the “safest” way is to shoot it with your own “bombard” type unit.
In fact I bet we may end up seeing this interaction whenever both players can’t reliably reach the enemy “bombard” in another way.
The easiest will be for the culverins civs as they can just get in range, shoot and move back abusing the fact that the great bombard has a long set up time while the culverins don’t have any. However civs who got the basic bombard may struggle, especially if they don’t have extra techs improving it (like rus or chinese).
Keep in mind all ranged damage received by the great bombard has an 85% reduction. A bombard with chemistry deals 62.5 damage, after reduction 9.375. So it would require 23 shots (210/9.375) without siege works, 27 shots with siege works. The culverin deals less damage than that, 50 with chemistry, so pump that up to 28 shots (34 with siege works).
They took siege from a place where it had several counters to just one, amazing. Too bad not every army comp features the horsemen unit.
A really horrible trade, build 20 pop of a unit to counter one unit instead of 9 pop for 3 anti siege springalds/culverins.
Fun fact: it requires 15 shots to blow up a keep with a bombard. So with this change a bombard shooting a great bombard takes roughly two keeps worth of ammunition just to kill it. Cool.
No, siege units deal terrible damage to siege units now. It would take too long and they great bombard will destroy yours first or destroy your army first.
Need better counter.
Keep in mind that siege damage is actually not affected by said damage reduction. Only exception being springald who deals range damage.
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That’s a fair point, I had not considered that.
Yes but how is bombard vs bombard in late game any different from the siege battle we wanted to avoid?
The problem with springald is that their counter was also springald.
If the counter to great bombard is also bombard, we have not solved the issue. But now its worse because bombard also destroy buildings.