Siege rework

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

With the latest expansion and popularity of Armored Elephants in Castle Age, do you not wonder why Battering Rams are not seen in Castle Age? They are expensive garbage before the Siege upgrade imo. Even in campaigns in which you are locked in Castle Age, you are given Capped Ram.

This post aims make Rams more appealing in the Castle Age (Siege Rams are great in Imp).

Just to compare, what is about to follow, you can visit this comparison table - Armored Elephant (Age of Empires II) | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom

Suggestions:

  1. Battering Ram removed entirely (except for the Cumans, who retain their civ bonus, so it becomes a unique precursor to them).

  2. Capped Ram moved to Castle Age, and have their Ram armor reduced to 0.

  3. Siege Ram upgrade made cheaper accordingly, maybe to 650F.

  4. Armored Elephants given 0.75 blast radius (to match the Capped Rams 1).

The Armored Elephant change is just to match the power levels of the equivalent unit. The Capped Ram can be further nerfed with garrison capacity.

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2

just give blast damage instead?

3

Siege is perfectly fine just leave it alone. There is no need to overhaul the game.

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4

Aside gurjaras, i dont see armored elephant that much on castle age from the other india civ.

5

The Battering Rams have worse HP and speed than the Armored Elephant. Without stable techs, the Capped Ram and Armored Elephant have the same HP, worse speed but better dps.

Will that make Capped Rams much better than AE? Not exactly. The lower dps is maintained in the Imperial Age when you compare Siege Ram and Siege Elephant. The Siege Ram also catches up with speed and has +20 HP. The Siege Elephant can only match HP with Bloodlines (which thankfully most civs have), and can again outpace it with Husbandry.

During this entire comparison, factors not helping in combat against buildings (like armor upgrades or armor classes) are ignored obviously.

6

That’s not something to be proud of actually. I feel it is a race to the bottom.

However, coming back at it again. I have definitely seen Armored Elephants as Dravidians and Hindustanis in Castle Age (Bengalis are great too) on Survivalist’s stream. In case you haven’t noticed it, Armored Elephant line is 20% faster than Battering and Capped Rams (and same as Siege Rams) which increases to 32% with Husbandry. They have +25 HP compared to Battering Rams (and same as Capped Rams) which increases to +45 with Bloodlines. These are not minor differences - they actually make the Armored Elephant more viable in the mid-game even if it has the same dps and more cost (food is more difficult to collect than wood) than the Battering Ram line.