they were a weird addition.. in 26 years not a single civ has a bonus/unique technology for them, which proves how worthless they are.
to make it worse, it’s a keg filled with gunpowder but aztecs and mayas have acces to them. like ??? !!! ??? !!!
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Petards are really useful for destroying castles, not to mention not locked behind Imperial age up, so I’d really want to know what you’d suggest as a replacement.
Half of the civs in the game didn’t have gunpowder, idk why you’re singling Aztecs and Mayas
And Huns and Japanese wouldn’t have used Trebuchets, but I don’t see you suggesting their removal from those civs.
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No way, keep them
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they are not useful. their purpose is anti-building, but that doesn’t mean they are efficient in performing that task. don’t forget that you always have to send more than is needed to tear down the castle because two or three will die to castle fire. what’s up with that? so useles… rams are “not locked behind Imperial age up” either and they are not made of paper like petards are.
sorry what???
fair point, but consider that they had woodwork, ropes and wheels for goodnes sake. they could have had trebuchets if they had wanted to. native american civs didn’t have potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal.
something that doesn’t suck.
Waitting for predator animal will attack sheep when it pass they.
This is not relevent to this topic and no such animals ingame are anti fun.
i think he’s drunk or high
“Something that doesn’t suck” isn’t really a suggestion
Besides, they’re not even the most poorly distributed unit in the game
- Cataphracts shouldn’t be unique to Byzantines, and neither should Composite Bowmen fot Armenians
- Fire ships should be unique to Byzantines (and as far as I can tell, so should Dromons)
- Gbetos and Woad Raiders don’t belong in the middle ages (Gbetos aren’t even Malian, and the throwing knives they use in the game are unrelated to both Malians and to the people that used Gbetos)
- Mayas didn’t really use bows, they preferred javelins
- Portuguese didn’t use Organ Guns
- Eagle Warriors should be unique to Aztecs and Champis should be unique to Incas
- Huskarl is a Danish term, not Goth
- Native American civs also shouldn’t have trebs
- Catapults as represented in the game weren’t a thing anymore (and Mangonels, which should have looked like trebs, postdate Onagers, not the other way around)
** None of the siege in the game even fits NA civs - And Slingers should be available to a lot more civs
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the main problem with petards is the philosophy behind them. I think they wanted to add a second anti-building siege weapon in castle age but not give them range, because ranged siege is the tenet of imperial. the result is a weak, suicidal and slow unit. a better suggestion is a sapper unit, faster and that doesn’t explode on contact, but without the hp and pierce armor of the ram.
that wasn’t really my point.
They aren’t worthless, they are used extensively in Arena and Rage Forest pro play to break in super fast and destroy the enemy’s eco, and so many games have been won this way. Adding buffs or bonuses to them could make them too oppressive.
Joke, it it balance game, and still funny with it. And never say something like logic in aoe 2
right… you have to be a pro to use petards effectively without them being a bane in your economy because the resources invested in them are lost forever. no thanks. wasteful, worthless, weird unit.
You invest in those resources to immediately break in your opponents eco without you alerting them or giving them time to react, which is something a ram or mangonel can’t do. And it’s worth it if you take the game, especially in a tourney where there is money to be won. It’s that simple. You really can’t wrap your head around it?
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there were no tournaments in year 2000, so the developers created a unit that would come in handy two decades later. some foresight…
Petards are also extremely useful in campaigns, especially time sensitive ones. They didn’t need future sight to do that.
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I’m pretty sure there were I mean back then this game was hot all over the world. They just didn’t cover it the same way because there was no Twitch or YT back then. Go watch pro games yourself, it’s really fun and you really get to understand the meta and how different units in the game are effectively used. 
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i did it a couple of times and couldn’t make much of it. also i hate the word “meta”.
meh.. in the time it takes to gather 650 stone, build the castle, and create a group of petards, you can just build siege workshops and create a couple of rams/mangonels.
The castle itself is imposing and if it’s at the enemy’s walls a few petard means you can just carve your way in and what are they gonna do to your castle except hope they can get enough rams or fast imp treb you or something
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you’re describing a succesful castle drop in arena, not why petards are redeemable.