It can take only 3-5 to take down a fortified wall gate (a Byz one might take a little bit more).

It takes about 10 petards to take down a fully upgraded castle (with both Masonry and Hoardings and Arcg the one with 7000 hps). In the post-imp situation, something like this DOMINATES!!! But I dismiss it because even a Hun 2hs or Persian LongSword is better than it. You get something that can DO DAMAGE, and is CHEAP. I think petards should rank among the top siege weapons up there with Srams and Trebs but to many people they think it's a waste of resources but for only Well, I do like petards but only in custom/campaign scenarios where I can't go to Imperial (and thus get trebs), but I would use a lot as the American civs (Aztec and Mayans) since they lack SO much. Therefore in Petard Wars it is best to micro each petard to take on a single enemy petard, and try to lure your enemy into attacking a single petard with two or more of theirs. A side would only lose if 2 petards attacked one enemy, giving the other side a numerical advantage. Once again there were sometimes as many as 5 or 6 petards left on either side, but the average was a draw.

Results: Average 0 petards left on either side. This was an average, sometimes there was 1 or 2 left on either side, but after about 50 repeats it seemed neither side had any advantage. Therefore I decided to test Briton petards against Frank petards, because I don't know how to change the players' civs in the editor. The following civs have a bonus for petards: I decided to do a test to see which civ has the best siege.

Age of empires 2 petard