Currently, the “Heated Shot” tech doesn’t seem to have any benefit whatsoever for land maps, or for maps where only a few ships are used or where the seas are controlled entirely in other ways (like ships vs. ships).
As a result, this tech is useless for me in about 90% of my games. A paperweight of a tech; wasted UI space, and odd for a University tech to only benefit 5%-10% of my games, if that.
Is it possible to add a benefit that would make it affect land stuff, too? Something like,
- “Towers +125% attack vs. ships
, +50% vs. land units and buildings; Castles +25% attack vs. ships, +15% attack vs. land units and buildings”
… or just a simple, “Towers +125% attack vs. everything; Castles +25% attack vs. everything”
I don’t like that it only benefits “vs. ships”. I rarely use castles and towers vs. ships because they’re way too easy for a group of ships to take out. A costly waste of stone and wood. Ships often have a farther shooting distance or something that helps keep them alive.
In past years, like with AoE2:HD, I think towers and castles were stronger against ships, if I’m not mistaken. But towers and castles have been nerfed so much that I don’t even know if this tech is relevant in 2025 at all, since who uses towers and castles vs. ships (except maybe fishing boats). That said, I’m mainly just hoping for the tech to add land attack bonuses anyways, if possible
3 Likes
+50% vs Units? That’s a crazy buff.
Logically maybe only vs. Siege since they are made of wood too.
3 Likes
Those were just examples, it’s worth discussing, imo. I leave the buff % recommendations to people like you who keep better track of all the stats and know all that.
I think that could be good. Just siege units, and maybe also buildings?
I just don’t like the tech being unused in so many of my games. If I research it, it is often in late game when I have lots of resources, just to mindlessly check it off the list of techs to research as a completionist sort of thing.
2 Likes
Back in the day it only applies to towers, even. It always seemed like a tech more focused on campaign play, because they often put you in situations where towers were defending the coast, and I used to -wish- it affected castles because again they were often used on the coast in the campaigns. Against humans the tech never seemed to make much sense, and yeah could definitely use a rework!
2 Likes
what about attk bonus vs siege? I wouldn’t want to flip the counter, but even +1 vs siege would probably double their dps vs siege.
5 Likes
The problem is that siege ships have too much range, which makes the tech underwhelming. Even an unupgraded Cannon Galleon with Siege Engineers outranges Korean towers, which is unacceptable to me.
I’d reduce the range of the Cannon Galleon line by 1 (or even 2) and slightly improve their performance against ships to compensate.
A fully upgraded Lou Chuan shouldn’t have 14 range either.
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Do you think the tech should maybe increase tower/castle range, too? That might be nice, actually
Or, yeah, maybe a decrease in galleon range could help… but the only down side on that for me is that whenever I do happen to play a water or river map, it is nice to have long galleon ranges to help attack coastal towns and buildings 
Ships are fairly costly, so it’s a nice reward. Too short of range and it might take the fun out of them a bit
tower range isn’t an issue against onagers and rams. Yeah it’s still situational. But against some civs, like mongols, celts, slavs, civs with good siege but also w/o bombard cannon, heated shot with a siege bonus could be useful to give them pause or rely more heavily on their generic trebs.
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Siege rams have anti siege bonus damage armor. This has to be taken into perspective when handing out bonus damage, or otherwise it doesn’t do anything, like the old organ guns or hand canonner anti ram +1 bonus on paper that in fact added +0 damage .
+4 anti siege bonus dmg would mean towers do 2 instead of 1 dmg per shot to rams, sunce rams have - 2 bonus damage armor and the minimum 1 regular dmg isn’t added on top but maxed at the end like this:
So a tower deal
Max(1,max(pierce dmg - armor, 0) + max ( bonus dmg - anti bonus dmg, 0))
I would say heated shot could give +5 anti siege dmg to towers including bbt. This would make towers do 3 dmg per shot to rams instead of 1.
For castles I would would give them only +4 bonus dmg, meaning the dmg against rams is increased by +1 per arrow from 1 to 2.
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For reference, Arrowslits used to increase the damage of Towers by +2 / +4 / +6, but that bonus was too strong and thus halved.
That tech is also the reason why Heated Shot does not need a buff against land units; you have the tech Arrowslites for that. It also gives the Devs to balance Civs by giving them none, one or both of these techs.
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If Heated Shot increased tower or castle range, it would make Korean Towers, Turk Bombard Towers, or Teuton Castles less unique and appealing. These structures are clearly designed to have a +2 range advantage over their generic counterparts.
Only Elite Cannon Galleons with Siege Engineers or Artillery Cannon Galleons were meant to outrange these towers or castles. Reducing the range of Cannon Galleons and Lou Chuans is the only reasonable way to make Heated Shot a viable tech.
Compensating for the range reduction by slightly improving Cannon Galleons’ performance against ships would also make them a more interesting unit.
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The problem is that castles melt everything already, specially ships
When heated shot works, it works well. Castles without heated shot deal significant damage against ships with each volley, but with it will melt any ships that get within range. The tower-line meanwhile goes from minor damage (not nothing, but also not worth much) to being comparable to a castle without heated shot. Not for every game, but it does have some situational uses (especially against opponents who you can trick their navy into range of the towers/castles). Being able to get around it by staying out of range while you destroy the tower/castle with long-range ships does significantly weaken the tech though (even if there is good reason for that - don’t want unbreakable fortified islands)
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Heated shots +25% vs cavalry archers.
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Maybe let it give +3 vs standard buildings to foot/mounted archers. (Adjusting mayan/saracen perks).
I really cant find a need on land it could fill, and I’d rather not make it too important anyway. Imagine having to rethink/balance the civs that dont have acces to it.
that too much buff you are asking for, the bonus damage vs siege units already makes it strong, imo.
Not siege definitely. Or what is the meaning of changing bombard tower melee to pierce attack? Rams should be a way to take down towers.
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Heated Shot benefiting against land units would have a significant impact on balance. I’d prefer to keep its intended benefit, which is against ships.
Decreasing the range of siege ships seems like the only way to make this tech useful.
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ngl this post is kinda like saying gillnets should buff farming as well. Like a water tech only good on water can stay like that, a better discussion could be like how to make it more viable on water maps (if it felt like it needed the buff which i think it doesnt need but having it isnt terrible either).
Its not like uts where on land map they are just missing a ut.
I thought of that type of thing before posting and kindly disagree, but see your point.
The main difference is that this is a tech at the University. You look at University techs several times a game in every game. You actively evaluate its list of techs over and over again: “What should I research now, and what next?”, as you peruse the available options. All its techs should have some benefit for every map you play, imo. It makes natural, intuitive sense to not have a weird one-off tech at the University that only applies to water stuff. If we want non-intuitive UI, AoE4 is where that belongs.
Heated Shot just gets in the way. I often waste time during matches reading the tech’s description just to confirm the civ I chose didn’t add some unique land benefit to the tech that will make it worth my while to research. It’s a fruitless and pointless endeavor every single time; wasting my time that could be better spent elsewhere. Just sitting there being a weird tech that hardly ever gets researched, only applies to water stuff, and never benefits 99.9% of my matches.
We all know to go to Docks for water-exclusive stuff. That’s intuitive.
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