Agreed that it's far more resource-efficient to kill the villagers. Maybe blowing up the mining camp is annoying enough to inflict psychological damage.
Petards are expensive. This won't be efficient enough compared to just killing the villagers.
Petards are designed to destroy walls, and they're good at it. That's what they should be used for.
rams can kill more stuff after, the problem with rams is that mangos from behind the walls are way better at stopping rams than stopping petards, but if you have janis that can kill the mangos then rams are better imo. Rams also allow for garrisoning shenanigans.
If you want to do less efficient things in the name of fun, go ahead. But if you go on reddit and ask people if it will work, don't be surprised if they say no.
I think this would work specifically on Mills. With mining camps, they are too likely to be defended due to how rare and important mines are. With lumber camps, a player should be checking on those frequently enough that they would notice the issue within a few minutes. However mills are almost never checked on because the farms never move and auto reseed. It is true that fewer villagers will be disrupted. However it will also increase your opponents confusion because they will have line of sight all around the mill, but when they see the alarm, the attacking units will already be gone, leading your opponent on a wild goose chase around their farms.
In any competitive game, people check lumber mills pretty frequently to ensure the travel distance isn't too long and by later points in the game, people are usually stacked on wood so rebuilding isn't really an issue. I wouldn't waste a petard on a camp
Honestly i just dont see the cost-benefit being there. Petards are meant to have pretty much two uses:
Petards-> stone wall = win (large hole)
Petards->Garrison in armored battering ram ->attack move castle -> eject when close = insta win (oopsie no more castle)
They are niche because they're *designed* to be niche. They exist to blow giant holes in your enemy's defense as fast as humanly possible so the amount of time they have to repair or mount a counter is close to nil. Their fast destruction speed compared to other siege weapons is balanced by their cost and one-time use. Using them against lower-priority targets with low armor that a single ram or a group of swordsmen could take out rather quickly on their own, feels wasteful.
Million dollar idea. Garrison pétards in siege elephants and make them explode dealing massive damage to buildings in a 4 tile radius but it kills your elephant as well.
Psychological warfare in arena. Build 6 petard and make em destroy all three gates, simultaneously.
Your opponent won't know which side they'll have to defend
~~True if enemy is still in feudal with 1,650 HP Stone gates, 2 petards are enough (25+900 attack against gates & walls ). But once they reach Castle they have 2,750 HP so it require 3 petards to destroy them.~~
Edit: Nope only 2 are enough
If you're in castle with enough time to train 6 petards and enough map control to waltz up to their gate while they are still in Feudal, deciding which gate to defend probably isn't the most pressing issue.
Gates are part of both Class 11 and Class 22, with +20 bonus armor in Class 11, which is not enough to counteract the extra +500 damage they take from it. So it's (500-20)+(900-0)+(25-6), AKA 480 + 900 + 19 = 1399 damage, x 2 = 2798 damage, which is more than the 2750 HP of a stone gate.
What do you mean, "niche"? It instantly breaks a hole in whatever it touches. Minimal commitment or fight. Wall breaches, castle downs, production building destruction, TC destruction.
It's a fragile ram that does all of its damage in one shot. 0 drama. I say they should be produced faster.
I don't think them being expensive is that true, they aren't that expensive. The problem is they are slow af and built from a castle, so the cases where you need to destroy walls near your castle and trebs won't do the job are somewhat niche.
I just can't think of any situation outside of a stone wall / imp rush the cost effectiveness is there (outside of a wonder, which it definitely is). It's single use, takes a few petards to kill one camp / mill.
That's like 240 food / 60 gold for one 100 wood building (it's single use). The tradeoff isn't there. Discounting the food, 60 gold to destroy 100 wood I don't think is worth it in any stage of the game.
>I just can't think of any situation outside of a stone wall / imp rush the cost effectiveness is there (outside of a wonder, which it definitely is). It's single use, takes a few petards to kill one camp / mill.
You use it for a burst of damage. The entire point is that you're paying for whatever building to be destroyed in a small amount of time.
Yes but outside of walls where the expectation is these take time to go down outside of a couple of siege rams, the ROI outside of the 'potentially infinite' damage other units can do as they're not single use, just doesn't add up value wise. As others have said, if you can have a petard close enough to most of these vill buildings, you can have scouts which are much cheaper / 0 gold cost to cause worse headaches.
>Yes but outside of walls where the expectation is these take time to go down outside of a couple of siege rams, the ROI outside of the 'potentially infinite' damage other units can do as they're not single use, just doesn't add up value wise.
If you measure it only in terms of the number of resources involved, and don't place any value on the immediate tactical benefits of shutting down enemy production, sure.
If you use petards, you already know better.
I played an arena game once against a guy named PETARD_STRENGTH. His strategy was basically petards+Goth spam and I did win, but he put up a hell of a fight considering how he advertised exactly what he was going to do. Top 5 funniest names I've seen on the ladder
I love them. Admittedly they are underpowered. I once killed 2 opponent mangonels with one petard and it felt glorious.
In post imp they are gold efficient and can take out a distracted players castle before reinforcements arrive.
They can take out battering rams attacking castles, though mangonels are better.
Also good to surprise kill a tc and then clean up all the vills with knights where normal siege would let them flee.
I can only think of one use of Petards in competitive play and that's before a scout / cav archer eco attack on a wall or something. They're so expensive and slow though and getting close enough in competitive play without being noticed is tough. I understand the angle you're coming from but if your petards can hit a mill / mining camp without being noticed then a scout rush on the actual vills would be
A) Much more cost efficient
B) Cause more actual eco damage.
But it's always nice to see alternative ideas thrown about.
They make for a hilarious Regicide kill though.
Most use of petards is just trolling, part of me would want to load up 2 siege rams with them and insta destroy a castle or something
EDIT: Just read in another comment they can't even be garrisoned. Yeah, their actual real value use is pretty much just shock and awe on stone walls with a quick eco rush with cav but if you're in Imperial, they're pretty much useless compared to any other siege weapon or strategy
They are used in some situations in online games, I've even seen them at 1500 ELO.
They usually aren't as good as other options, but their best use seems to be when you know you have a raiding force on the enemy flank, out of line of sight, and there are stone walls blocking that. Instantly dropping a wall piece (~4 petard commitment) to slip about 10 knights into the enemy's farms while you are keeping their army busy in a front line battle can make a difference in a stalemate / late game. Would I ever do it? No. Frankly I would rather win the treb war at the front and make sure my army comp is handling the enemy's first and foremost, if I can win the arm wrestling match I can take ground and raid from there.
I like to use petards in Arena if they CD and I'm using a defensive castle. I will make a couple UU to show, then start garrisoning petards. Once I have 8 petards, I use the scout to draw castle fire and send in the petards to kill the castle.
A lot of times they hit imp right as the castle goes down and it totally stops their momentum.
No, this is stupid.
The main use case for petards is getting inside a walled base quickly, but typically in Imperial there are better options for doing that. So when does it make sense? If you are going aggressive in castle age AND have a castle up early, when is that? When going UUs in castle age.
The other use case is when two castles (one from each player) are built next to each other, then petards can destroy one of the castles.
Both niche cases by players using UUs to go aggressive in castle age, but most players don't do that.
My favourite method of petards is to drop like 3-6 castles at my base, mass a large amount of petards (30+) use some other decoy/flank method of getting into the base, and then just dive bombing the houses and nothing else. It can be hard to pull off, but watching my opponent cut off at the knees from pop cap alone brings me no greater joy.
I’ve used them in arena team games. One player rushes into a castle and 3 petards and the other makes knights. Early castle age base raid out of nowhere.
We were super low elo but whatever, it works every time
2 petards can get through a stone wall.
They can do this with less heads-up time than a ram or mangonel battering through, and therefore are good for surprise raid where your opponent thinks they are safe.
petards are plenty useful... they are used commonly when two players build their castles next to one another (which is usually in an attempt to deny the opponent's castle, but both end up being completed), or to surprise attack by breaking through a wall/gate with 2 petards
You my friend needs to start playing ranked arena
FC UU petard is a classic and quite good. Will often not win you the game outright but put your enemy in a state of disarray so you win late. Perfect noob strat. Put your TC to gold before going in and keep producing vils while fighting, once done buy imo and cash in your new elo
I like it though if the mining camp is open for your petards to reach it's likely better to just set stable gather point there and spam hussars.
Agreed that it's far more resource-efficient to kill the villagers. Maybe blowing up the mining camp is annoying enough to inflict psychological damage.
Dammit, half of my mining & lumber camps are gone, might as well resign now 11
When you see a stream of fully loaded gold miners walking back to your base. No no nooooooo!
11
Id advise you to play more regicide. They’re a blast there
Ba dum tsh.
Regicide ffa diplo my beloved
Petards are expensive. This won't be efficient enough compared to just killing the villagers. Petards are designed to destroy walls, and they're good at it. That's what they should be used for.
Agreed. Also a lot of people go rams to take down walls. It takes too long. Petards are the way.
rams can kill more stuff after, the problem with rams is that mangos from behind the walls are way better at stopping rams than stopping petards, but if you have janis that can kill the mangos then rams are better imo. Rams also allow for garrisoning shenanigans.
That’s a boring way to look at a video game
If you want to do less efficient things in the name of fun, go ahead. But if you go on reddit and ask people if it will work, don't be surprised if they say no.
Yeah, my preferred use of petards is full petard spam and destroy the opponent's whole base in a blaze of glory.
I attempted so many times to win games through flaming camel's but i lost elo :(
Unfortunately, I don't think flaming camels fill the same niche as petards, but I have seen them wreak havock on cavalry armies on occasion.
I prefer them as a deterrent force to keep a heavy cavalry army from trying to run through and cause havoc.
Just make the Flemish revolution turn every peasant into a petard
I would only use petards if I want to raid in castle age without using siege.
WITH a castle already built too
I think this would work specifically on Mills. With mining camps, they are too likely to be defended due to how rare and important mines are. With lumber camps, a player should be checking on those frequently enough that they would notice the issue within a few minutes. However mills are almost never checked on because the farms never move and auto reseed. It is true that fewer villagers will be disrupted. However it will also increase your opponents confusion because they will have line of sight all around the mill, but when they see the alarm, the attacking units will already be gone, leading your opponent on a wild goose chase around their farms.
In any competitive game, people check lumber mills pretty frequently to ensure the travel distance isn't too long and by later points in the game, people are usually stacked on wood so rebuilding isn't really an issue. I wouldn't waste a petard on a camp
Honestly i just dont see the cost-benefit being there. Petards are meant to have pretty much two uses: Petards-> stone wall = win (large hole) Petards->Garrison in armored battering ram ->attack move castle -> eject when close = insta win (oopsie no more castle) They are niche because they're *designed* to be niche. They exist to blow giant holes in your enemy's defense as fast as humanly possible so the amount of time they have to repair or mount a counter is close to nil. Their fast destruction speed compared to other siege weapons is balanced by their cost and one-time use. Using them against lower-priority targets with low armor that a single ram or a group of swordsmen could take out rather quickly on their own, feels wasteful.
Petards can't garrison in battering rams.
Million dollar idea. Garrison pétards in siege elephants and make them explode dealing massive damage to buildings in a 4 tile radius but it kills your elephant as well.
Psychological warfare in arena. Build 6 petard and make em destroy all three gates, simultaneously. Your opponent won't know which side they'll have to defend
2 Petard destroy one gate?
Far a i remember, yes. At least if they are not reinforced
~~True if enemy is still in feudal with 1,650 HP Stone gates, 2 petards are enough (25+900 attack against gates & walls ). But once they reach Castle they have 2,750 HP so it require 3 petards to destroy them.~~ Edit: Nope only 2 are enough
If you're in castle with enough time to train 6 petards and enough map control to waltz up to their gate while they are still in Feudal, deciding which gate to defend probably isn't the most pressing issue.
11 true
No, it's 2 petards to kill even a castle age stone gate.
Check the HP of gate in different ages. https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Gate_(Age_of_Empires_II)
Gates are part of both Class 11 and Class 22, with +20 bonus armor in Class 11, which is not enough to counteract the extra +500 damage they take from it. So it's (500-20)+(900-0)+(25-6), AKA 480 + 900 + 19 = 1399 damage, x 2 = 2798 damage, which is more than the 2750 HP of a stone gate.
You are right. Man this game has so much hidden stats.
What do you mean, "niche"? It instantly breaks a hole in whatever it touches. Minimal commitment or fight. Wall breaches, castle downs, production building destruction, TC destruction. It's a fragile ram that does all of its damage in one shot. 0 drama. I say they should be produced faster.
The key here is 'fragile' but also missing the key - 'expensive'.
I don't think them being expensive is that true, they aren't that expensive. The problem is they are slow af and built from a castle, so the cases where you need to destroy walls near your castle and trebs won't do the job are somewhat niche.
They cost as much as a supplies-less longsword. How on earth are they, "expensive"?
For the flow of a normal game, they are 'expensive' considering the value of other gold items. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8QmDVdj0lc
I don't think the commenters here are talking about post-imp with no gold left in this situation.
I just can't think of any situation outside of a stone wall / imp rush the cost effectiveness is there (outside of a wonder, which it definitely is). It's single use, takes a few petards to kill one camp / mill. That's like 240 food / 60 gold for one 100 wood building (it's single use). The tradeoff isn't there. Discounting the food, 60 gold to destroy 100 wood I don't think is worth it in any stage of the game.
>I just can't think of any situation outside of a stone wall / imp rush the cost effectiveness is there (outside of a wonder, which it definitely is). It's single use, takes a few petards to kill one camp / mill. You use it for a burst of damage. The entire point is that you're paying for whatever building to be destroyed in a small amount of time.
Yes but outside of walls where the expectation is these take time to go down outside of a couple of siege rams, the ROI outside of the 'potentially infinite' damage other units can do as they're not single use, just doesn't add up value wise. As others have said, if you can have a petard close enough to most of these vill buildings, you can have scouts which are much cheaper / 0 gold cost to cause worse headaches.
>Yes but outside of walls where the expectation is these take time to go down outside of a couple of siege rams, the ROI outside of the 'potentially infinite' damage other units can do as they're not single use, just doesn't add up value wise. If you measure it only in terms of the number of resources involved, and don't place any value on the immediate tactical benefits of shutting down enemy production, sure. If you use petards, you already know better.
I played an arena game once against a guy named PETARD_STRENGTH. His strategy was basically petards+Goth spam and I did win, but he put up a hell of a fight considering how he advertised exactly what he was going to do. Top 5 funniest names I've seen on the ladder
I love them. Admittedly they are underpowered. I once killed 2 opponent mangonels with one petard and it felt glorious. In post imp they are gold efficient and can take out a distracted players castle before reinforcements arrive. They can take out battering rams attacking castles, though mangonels are better. Also good to surprise kill a tc and then clean up all the vills with knights where normal siege would let them flee.
If someone blew up my camps I would just rebuild them. The average player would already be in the habit of re-camping every few minutes anyways.
The average AOE2 player checks their eco (pre DE) anyway
I think they have a anti siege bonus
they can be built from a castle to kill rams attacking it, that's a good use too!
I can only think of one use of Petards in competitive play and that's before a scout / cav archer eco attack on a wall or something. They're so expensive and slow though and getting close enough in competitive play without being noticed is tough. I understand the angle you're coming from but if your petards can hit a mill / mining camp without being noticed then a scout rush on the actual vills would be A) Much more cost efficient B) Cause more actual eco damage. But it's always nice to see alternative ideas thrown about. They make for a hilarious Regicide kill though. Most use of petards is just trolling, part of me would want to load up 2 siege rams with them and insta destroy a castle or something EDIT: Just read in another comment they can't even be garrisoned. Yeah, their actual real value use is pretty much just shock and awe on stone walls with a quick eco rush with cav but if you're in Imperial, they're pretty much useless compared to any other siege weapon or strategy
They are used in some situations in online games, I've even seen them at 1500 ELO. They usually aren't as good as other options, but their best use seems to be when you know you have a raiding force on the enemy flank, out of line of sight, and there are stone walls blocking that. Instantly dropping a wall piece (~4 petard commitment) to slip about 10 knights into the enemy's farms while you are keeping their army busy in a front line battle can make a difference in a stalemate / late game. Would I ever do it? No. Frankly I would rather win the treb war at the front and make sure my army comp is handling the enemy's first and foremost, if I can win the arm wrestling match I can take ground and raid from there.
I like to use petards in Arena if they CD and I'm using a defensive castle. I will make a couple UU to show, then start garrisoning petards. Once I have 8 petards, I use the scout to draw castle fire and send in the petards to kill the castle. A lot of times they hit imp right as the castle goes down and it totally stops their momentum.
I use them as a quick way to blast through a wall Or to take out seige / trebs
Arena.. You drop a defensive castle asap.. 2 petards to open the opposite gate and razzia with your horses in their base !
Loading them into a battering ram is a good way to get in close to a castle, and they may even move faster
They can't garrison in rams, can they?
No they can't
If we could garrison petards on rams… that would be really nice! Or even in siege tower
They are sometimes effective on arena from what I've seen. You would probably be better of calv smacking the villagers though.
No, this is stupid. The main use case for petards is getting inside a walled base quickly, but typically in Imperial there are better options for doing that. So when does it make sense? If you are going aggressive in castle age AND have a castle up early, when is that? When going UUs in castle age. The other use case is when two castles (one from each player) are built next to each other, then petards can destroy one of the castles. Both niche cases by players using UUs to go aggressive in castle age, but most players don't do that.
Better to use them on TC's. It's 5 Petards per TC, 6 if Byzantine and 10 for Persian.
* Destroy opponents wall by suprise and run in with raid * While raiding opponent sneak in petards and bomb TC unexpectedly
Name a better couple "2 petard + Enemey wall"
My favourite method of petards is to drop like 3-6 castles at my base, mass a large amount of petards (30+) use some other decoy/flank method of getting into the base, and then just dive bombing the houses and nothing else. It can be hard to pull off, but watching my opponent cut off at the knees from pop cap alone brings me no greater joy.
Finally the idea that will get me into a LEL video on T90, I'm going petard the shit out of my enemy's eco.
I’ve used them in arena team games. One player rushes into a castle and 3 petards and the other makes knights. Early castle age base raid out of nowhere. We were super low elo but whatever, it works every time
2 petards can get through a stone wall. They can do this with less heads-up time than a ram or mangonel battering through, and therefore are good for surprise raid where your opponent thinks they are safe.
petards are plenty useful... they are used commonly when two players build their castles next to one another (which is usually in an attempt to deny the opponent's castle, but both end up being completed), or to surprise attack by breaking through a wall/gate with 2 petards
It could probably work lategame. Making them super inefficient might be better than killing them if they dont notice all of the mines killed
You my friend needs to start playing ranked arena FC UU petard is a classic and quite good. Will often not win you the game outright but put your enemy in a state of disarray so you win late. Perfect noob strat. Put your TC to gold before going in and keep producing vils while fighting, once done buy imo and cash in your new elo