I found that petards are the units that are the least addressed in the design of upgrades and the civilization bonus.
They are very situation units in the meta, mostly are used to break walls for a surprise ambush ; or to damage rams under a castle in an emergency ; or during close-up castle fights.
Suicidal units like flaming camels are even introduced recently in addition to the already mighty tatoh ship.
As a siege unit, it excels at taking down buildings but sucks at dealing with other units. It is understandable to some extent since it is supposed to be good at what it is good at, but what stopped us from making it just a little bit versatile ? Giving some kind of buff to them so that they can at least have some more use despite being situational. Looking at other sieges, they all serve multiple common purposes or at least are very strong in a common way.
Rams are excellant versus buildings and they can tank archer fires.
Onager lines are quite good versus buildings and they kill mass units.
Scorps are very scary when massed. In late game or in death match they are used a lot.
Bombard cannons are better vs buildings but worse killing mass units compared to onager line. They can snipe trebs thus are important in a treb war.
Trebs are the go-to unit versus buildings and snipe units especially sieges. For some civs they can also kill units quite well (Japanese and Britons come to mind)
So petards become the most situational one-trick siege. Buffing a dimension towards fighting against units is not overpowered at all. It would be interesting to let petard be a more important part of the real battle. When it comes to making it better, we know that petard is available in castle age but almost gets no upgrades later, which is very uncommon of a castle age unit (only petard and siege tower)
Everyone loves SO badaboom and demolishing ship connections are typical of water battle. The petard instinctively creates potential for area of effect damage, but its damage output is too small (25 attack can’t even kill a villager) and so is the area of effect.
see if we added some new upgrades to petards as well. For example :
chemistry : also double the explosion damage area of petards and unlock the saboteur upgrade.
gun powder processing (200f 200w) : allow petards to be trained in siege workshops
saboteur (800f 500g) : upgrade petards to saboteurs.
where saboteurs are twice as effective vs buildings, move as fast as dark age villagers, have 50 attack, 0/0 armor with explosion area as big as that of a siege onager shot. (maybe too strong?)
I think it can fit into the design of some civ’s bonuses. The one coming to my mind are the Japanese with their brave samurai-spirit unscared of death, can receive a civ bonus
Leave Petards alone please. They don’t need any changes. We already have fast petards as Flaming Camels. I don’t want the game to turn into Petard of Empires 2.
Petards break down buildings fairly well already. Leave it at that. If they were tanky, it would ruin the game.
Well, we don’t see siege onager and demolish ship breaking the game at all. They make the game exciting.
Having a choice for improving a bad unit doesn’t ruin the game.
There are more OP units already existing in the game and no one complains about it. Leitis trading well vs everything even vs halbs ; mangudai killing every treb you make ; a group of 40 rattan archers having no counter. I don’t see giving some civ the option to have better petards ruin the game worse than examples above.
Because it’s cartoonish and silly. Leave petards alone. No changes. Siege Onagers cost tons to make. Demolish Ship on water map, most players don’t play water.
War Elephant nearly kill everything. They just cost a lot. Only seen in maps like black forest/michi.
Petard busts exist on closed maps as a surprise strat that can be very dangerous. Two petards can blow out a gate and make a big opening on arena that’s much harder to contain than any comparable push.
Further, Petards have extremely high bonus damage against Siege, which makes them a very useful niche defender against Rams in the Castle age. Two or three petards garrisoned in a Castle makes it pretty much ram-proof. The Petard has a window and in that window it’s a seriously dangerous unit. Anyone who’s dealt with a Petard bust on Arena will tell you as much.
Yeah so basically they are only good against walls and rams.
They are not even good against buildings in general.
To take down a barracks you need 4 of them, that’s 260f 80g right there, way too expensive, not to mention that it is for one-time-use only.
I think it’s unfair that a sneaked villager can easily build barracks, stables or archery ranges at your base but you can’t take them out quickly when wanted with petards for a reasonable cost.
Well. They have +60 vs siege weapon on top of 25 basic attack, which can deal just enough damage to take down a ram in 2 shots.
However with their insanely small blast radius of 0.5 tile, they can only damage one ram at a time without careful micromanagement. Meaning you’ll still need at least 6 of them to defend a ram push in castle age. That’s 390f 120g right there. Isn’t it more preferable to make a mangonel instead?
I think for a cost of 65f 20g, they should be better than they do currently.
it’s an emergency valve. It’s not supposed to be efficient. It’s supposed to be a superior trade to losing a castle.
Also, if all you’ve got are Petards you have nothing else to micromanage, you should have no problem maximizing their damage. Esp since they travel 0.0 times to get to the target.
A surprise gate bust is no joke and underrating or ignoring it is unwise.
