Up to a certain point, I agree with the idea that siege is overpowered in the current build. If you were to build 12 mangonels they would demolish everything in their path. Something lost in that analysis is the sheer cost to make a composition like that, we’re talking about 7200 resources and 36 population cost. The army supporting it would be anemic, and could be taken down (albeit slowly) by using springalds and culverins. Which is where the springald wars come into play. Not to mention how easy it is to outmaneuver that army composition.
Basically, securing siege dominance in the current meta is a victory condition.
I have to admit though, I am fairly confused about your insistence on defining siege as a support unit. It is one of the four unit classes designed to remove health from opposing units and buildings (infantry, cavalry, siege, navy). I personally feel support class units are things like monks, which have no attack ability and are designed completely around buffing/debuffing other units.
On the methodology of the siege changes, I would prefer to refer directly to the developer overview:
Developer Overview:
“Our goal with the Siege Update is to slow down siege on siege combat by removing the anti-siege role from Springalds and Culverins and increasing time to kill on many siege interactions. With these adjustments, winning the backline siege battle will now mean you have effective tools for pushing on the field. Additionally, adjustments to siege durability have been made across the board to tune unit to siege interactions, specifically ranged units will no longer either one shot or never kill siege weapons and instead will deal more consistent damage to all siege. High level changes directly below, followed by the detailed change list.”
When they made changes to counter-siege, effectively making it anti unit or anti building only, they still maintained the “springald wars” part of the game by shifting that role to ranged units. They did this at the same time as reducing the effectiveness of mangonels, which have the same cost but roughly half the damage potential… and they reduced their projectile speed and removed tracking.
You can already kill a mangonel using archers. They made it much easier to do so by changing their armor to a percentage.
I feel most people celebrating these changes are missing the forest for the trees. Yes, the siege meta has shifted to a point where siege is no longer ‘center stage’. But they neutered its effectiveness, and in all cases where you could build a unit other than siege you would be better off doing so.
It makes an entire unit class obsolete in everything other than attacking stone walls and keeps.
With these adjustments, winning the backline siege battle will now mean you have effective tools for pushing on the field.
This in particular sticks out to me. They do not talk about it as a support unit. It is the thing that you use in mid-late game to significantly augment your army’s combat potential. It is meant to be a dominating unit on the battlefield, a unit that deals a large amount of damage compared to its investment… at the cost of being vulnerable to being overtaken by the opposing army if it is not supported with a buffer. Something that accelerates gameplay, not decelerate it as you claim.
As I said earlier, siege dominance is a victory condition by its design.
If archers deal 2 or more damage to them then that buffer will never matter. We go right back to the “springald meta”… units that deal large amounts of damage from a distance, able to kill the units designed to counter them. You’d be better off spending resources on archers and horsemen to counter an archer/xbow ball.
In my experience in the PUP, it was easier to build 12+ springalds to counter ranged masses. They had more damage output than mangonels, and took longer to take down because of their increased number. (for reference 12 springalds has the same resource value as 5 mangonels) That seemed very counterintuitive to their intended design.
Now, I’m well aware most of the playerbase will still fall victim to a mangonel attack. But coming from other RTSes that demand more attention in army micro it’s extremely easy to dodge the shots in an intense engagement. If you were to use the spread formation command and neglect archer movement micro they take almost no damage from a volley. For the mangonels to have any level of effectiveness you need the crossbars research, which has an age requirement and a prohibitive cost attached.
The micro required is nothing compared to doing marine splits in starcraft 2, which is a base skill required to compete at a median level. I mean, the archer micro in aoe 2 is far more difficult, and that’s something everyone is just expected to manage there. Meanwhile, you are REQUIRED to use ground attack commands to hit moving units with a mangonel.
All a player needs to do in the last build of the PUP is to make a single move order whenever they see the mangonel prepare to fire. Like dude, you just need to remember to count to seven and click twice. The micro to counter mangonels is not difficult at all… but the micro required to use mangonels successfully is so much more.
It’s be a bit hard for me to empathize with the idea that ‘micro is hard’ when I have heard so much from other posters on this forum, yourself included iirc, arguing that aoe 4 has the least micro in the series. It also doesn’t help that I haven’t played below 1200 MMR in years, so I just don’t have games where my opponent doesn’t have micro skills to manage these things. I found it effortless.
Pre patch:
Siege needed to counter siege, more effective than using any other unit.
Post patch:
Archers counter siege, and in turn, archers. Siege useless for everything other than anti structure.
Yes, siege needs a balance pass. However, what we were given in the PUP requires major revisions. It’s shameful to say we need to wait and see… the issues are extremely clear.