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alexman
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Hunt Valley, MD
Jan 1970
time: 00:32
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The game mechanics for city bombardment by ground units have changed in C3C. After any walls are destroyed, ground bombard units now target city improvements and population only after all defending units in the city have been reduced to one hit point each. In previous versions of Civ3, ground bombard units had a chance to hit either population, or improvements, or units, so defending units were more protected from the siege, even in a city with no improvements and population of 1. On the other hand, city improvements and population were more vulnerable.
Some argue that the C3C change in game mechanics makes ground bombard units more powerful, but the AI does not use such units in sufficient numbers to be effective. They claim that artillery provides an even more unfair advantage to the human player.
Others argue that the change makes bombardment worthwhile, but not overpowered. Units may be targeted more often, but the fact that barracks are harder to destroy, and cities are harder to reduce to towns, makes up for some of the defending units’ added vulnerability.
What do you think? Does ground bombardment need a change? Does the new bombardment add just the right value to slow-movers, so that a Cavalry or Armor blitz is not always the best approach? Does the change make artillery so powerful that the idea of putting fast ground units at risk seems silly when you can just use your artillery stack to slowly-but-surely conquer the AI with minimum losses? If so, what is the solution for the AU mod?
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Dominae
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The new bombardment rules definitely make Catapults and such more powerful. Before C3C, it was generally agreed that bombardment was too good against the AI. So there's even more of a problem now.
The main culprit is Artillery. With Railroads, they're just too good. An increase in Shield cost and a reduction in Bombard value (or both) is in order.
I'm not really sure about the other ground bombardment units. Perhaps we could do a "Power of Bombardment" course (either officail or semi-official or unofficial, whatever)?
Dominae
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Risa
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Please, DO NOT change the artillery!
With scarcer strategic resources in C3C, it's important to have the ability to wage war in lack of resources, which is more common now. Otherwise, if you don't have horse or saltpeter, you are unlikely to win a war from late middle age to the end of industial era; if you don't have oil, you can do nothing once enemies have infantry.
If artillery as it is now were so unbalancing, I suggest move it to deeper tech (Steel or Atomic Theory or Eletronics), rather than nerfing it.
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Dominae
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Artillery is special because it's the first 2-range ground bombard unit (that's it's defining trait), just like Cavalry is the first standard 3-move ground attacker. Still, it does appear to be a good fix. I'll remain on the fence about this for now.
Any thoughts on how to "balance" Catapults, Trebuchets and Cannons?
Dominae
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MoonWolf
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I'd say they should stay as they are. If you want to conquer a city you don't tell your soldiers "Aim for that bank! We must be sure not to hit the emeny units!"
Maybe it's an exploit but the AI cheats anyway...
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Nor Me
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I'll agree with the consensus but doubt that conquests has any surprises in store on the subjuct.
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lockstep
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Vienna, Austria
Aug 2001
time: 06:32
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quote:
Originally posted by alexman
What do you think? Does ground bombardment need a change? Does the new bombardment add just the right value to slow-movers, so that a Cavalry or Armor blitz is not always the best approach? Does the change make artillery so powerful that the idea of putting fast ground units at risk seems silly when you can just use your artillery stack to slowly-but-surely conquer the AI with minimum losses? If so, what is the solution for the AU mod? |
quote:
My opinion: let's leave ground bombardment units alone for the first version of the AU mod. We don't have enough experience with the game yet to make a good decision. |
Perusing the AU mod v1.17 (PtW) readme, I rediscovered the following:
quote:
Originally posted by alexman
code:
Action: Increased cost of Cannon and Hwach'a by 20, and their ROF by 1
Reason: To balance this unit compared to other ground bombard units.
Comment: Under the standard rules, catapults are always more cost-
effective than cannons. With this change, cannons are more
cost-effective when bombarding a defender of strength 8 and
above. Increased cost and ROF means that you need less units
to do the same amount of damage (less micromanagement).
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Question: Doesn't the reasoning for this Cannon/Hwach'a modification hold good in C3C (the substantial changes in ground bombardment notwithstanding)? Okay, Trebuchets have been inserted between Catapults and Cannons, and the Hwach'a now has lethal bombardment instead of +50% bombard strength, but it seems to me this v1.17 change is still a good one.
Isn't this something that can/should be carried over to the C3C version of the AU mod?
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Risa
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Yes, it seems a good change.
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lockstep
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Vienna, Austria
Aug 2001
time: 06:32
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As I understand it, Cannons/Hwach'as (in PtW as well as in C3C) were/are less cost-effective than either Catapults or Artillery in nearly every case - in other words, an outlier of the artillery-type units. So, in order to change as little as possible, I'd rather leave Catapults and Artillery (and, of course, Radar Artillery) alone and adopt the AU v1.17 solution (cost 60, RoF 2) for Cannons/Hwach'as.
Consequentially, I'd like to see the new Trebuchet (obviously the second outlier) strengthened according to your calculations. And I propose a 50-shield, 2-RoF Trebuchet a) because of the reduced micromanagement b) because a shield cost of 50 is more in line with the cost of other early-medieval units (pikeman 30, medieval infrantry 40, knight 70) than a cost of 25 c) because I'd choose odd shield costs only as a last resort. 
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Dominae
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Why not just make the Cannon cost 35?
I have a feeling that by increasing the ROF of Cannon, they will become very powerful with upgrades. The pure Shield cost of a unit is not always a good balancing factor.
Dominae
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Risa
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As the bombard unit between Range 1, RoF 1 Trebuchet and Range 2, RoF 2 Artillery, I prefer cannon to be 70 (or 60) shields, Range 1, RoF2, rather than 35 shields, Range 1, RoF 1.
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Dominae
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Well, that does not really address the gameplay aspect, does it?
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Dominae
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Around Artillery, Shields are not that difficult to come by; you can have 2-turn Artillery quite easily. The same is not true when Cannon become available; in the mid-Medieval era, Gold and upgrades are still king.
So, I think there will be more problems with a more powerful Cannon that you would want to upgrade to instead of build, than there are currently with Artillery.
Dominae
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nbarclay
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Huntsville, Alabama
Dec 1999
time: 23:32
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I missed this proposal the first time around. As I see it, the most important balance issue is not the balance between various types of bombardment units and each other, but rather the balance between bombardment-based tactics and other tactics. Getting a better balance between different types of units would be nice,. but not at the expense of the big picture.
The question is, is the offensive use of catapults in C3C so powerful compared with other modes of combat that it needs to be toned down, or is it just powerful enough to be interesting and useful in some types of situations? If the former, increasing the cost of catapults could improve the game's balance and make the choice of how to mount an offensive more interesting. But if, at cost 20, the question of whether to build catapults or just conventional attackers is already generally interesting without an obvious generic answer, increasing the cost of catapults by 50% would tend to very seriously undermine that interest.
So the question is, is it clear that at cost 20, catapults are too powerful compared with fighting without them? I haven't kept my ear to the ground enough to know what all people have said about the issue, and I have no experience with it myself, so I'm not in a position to judge the answer. But unless the answer is, "Yes, there is a clear consensus that offensive use of catapults is too powerful," I strongly oppose such a radical increase in cost.
One factor worth noting in regard to bombardment units is that you have to pay to support them (at least past your free unit support levels). Thus, even if a larger number of less powerful units packs more bang for the shield, it is not necessarily a better deal over time. That is especially true in Republic and Feudalism since their support cost is higher than one gold per unit. I'm not saying that that makes anomalies where "more advanced" units provide less bang for the shield a good thing, but it does make such anomalies at least a little less bad.
Nathan
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Risa
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Cannons won't face the same problem as artillery. Artillery can keep up with infantries (main attack force when artillery is available), while cannons can't stay with cavalries (main attack force of cannon's age) without slowing down them.
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03-12-2003 00:35
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