In the editor, all the original Civs have fully functional Traction Trebuchets. How about putting them to good use?
Counterweight Trebuchets move to the Imperial Age (as they were in the beginning) and the Traction ones appear in the Castle Age. This is also more historically correct! Counterweight Trebs see a fair share of use and recently have been appreciated as the main ranged siege unit, for the range and low gold cost. Though Bombards now outrange Cannon Emplacements so they may have a resurgence.
Since Trac Trebs are weaker, this indirectly buffs Keeps in the Castle Age. Keeps are kind of meh nowadays, at least in the Castle Age they should be effective (it wasn’t called Castle age without reason!). If you compare this to AoE2, you’d still have an outranging option that you wouldn’t have there, in addition to Rams.
(Also, the Japanese have them so it’s officially no more a Mongol unique unit! Though the Mongols may get a consolatory unique tech to make up for that!) - this is incorrect.
Seems like a win-win idea, isn’t it? 
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I would first like to mention that Japanese do not have Traction Trebuchets. The UI says they do, but this might be an artifact from creating a baseline new civilization in-engine, as it seems to have be part of the base units.
I also do not agree with this suggestion. For one, Traction Trebuchets aren’t weaker. While it is true that they deal 24,93 DPS whereas the Counterweight Trebuchet deals 32,8 (no Geometry tech on either). That 24% loss in damage is made up by the cost being 28% cheaper, making it 4% more efficient.
The lower cost of 400 rather than 550 also means you can access them 150 resources earlier, and also means it is less punishing when it is destroyed–If they can even get to them, because they also have a few slippery traits such as faster packing time and faster movement speed that pair well with Mongol gameplay. Of course, all of this comes at a cost of lower range, but that just means this is a more aggressive Trebuchet than the Counterweight one, and has to be used as such.
I don’t personally think we should aim to strip unique features or units from units anymore than we already have. The addition of Variant civilizations, as well as Mercenary units has watered down a lot of the uniqueness belonging to existing civilizations. Traction Trebuchets belonging to the Mongols is a small, but nice thing to make them feel slightly different. It makes them dangerous in a way that other civilizations aren’t; that a small handful of infantry can pose a threat to Keeps. And I think that belonging to the Mongols is kind of the point.
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Oh no! That’s right! My bad.
About actual numbers, those can be easily tweaked, although the Trac Treb doesn’t have to be a straight up bad Counter Treb. As they are Counterweight are more pop efficient.
Mongola could have a Civ bonus to keep their Trac Trebs on the fast and aggressive side, their uniqueness doesn’t have to be a strictly unique unit, more so when said unit was actually extremely spread. This is the same issue Horse Archers have. You can take with one hand and give with the other, doesn’t have to be a plain loss in uniqueness.
if we are going for historical accuracy shouldn’t the mangonel have a traction trebuchet design or be renamed to onager?
Well, yes… But not that much 
This is not just about renaming, this has gameplay effects. And then, a better name is a minor thing compared to a more correct timeframe.
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