13-08-2002 19:22									#1
	Bombardment missing the point Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

AFter finishing 2 games in 1.29f (as well as earlier icarnations) I have become more and more frustrated with bomardment. It seems like the ability tends to miss A LOT; regardless of the unit. IN one battle i had 4 battleships, 4 destroyers, 5 artillery and 2 bombers bombard a city.. the next effect -- ONE (count 'em) one unit (out of 6) in a size 12 city w/o walls (as if it matters LOL).

I seldom used bombard units in Civ I/II and even in Civ III, but decided to see if they could make a difference. In general my observations are that unless you have MASSIVE amounts of bombard units (about 1/2 to 3/4 of you military) its pretty worthless -- you're better off building offensive units.

However that said.. artillery units are handy on defense though as they can inflict a that initial HP to an attacker.

While teh latter is nice I'd like to see atrillery units be more useful as they were in civ I/II.

LOL frankly the ol' "Artillery bombardment failed" message is getting real annoying.

I'm not going to get into the historical arguments; as it is as much gameplay issue as anything.

Z

	13-08-2002 19:33									#2
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In terms of playing the game, I agree. It's boring to have to tote round two dozen artillery units because only six of them are going to achieve anything when they finally get to open fire. On the other hand when on defence every single one of them is effective and a single artillery piece should not be more effective than it already is when you take the average result.

Its just a pity each one couldn't deal out some visible damage so that you don't get infuriated by the 'failed' messages. If each one did 20 shields damage to a building, for instance, it would still take 8 attempts to destroy the cathedral but all 8 would have been achieving something.

	13-08-2002 19:40									#3
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I don't have any problem with bombardment. Yeah, bombardment miss a lot; however, once you are able to reduce the target city to size 12 or under, it will hit more often. I usually have about 150 arttileries firing and reducing at least three major cities to dirt at every turn. You can it more about it at this link.

	13-08-2002 19:48									#4
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The thing is, all you have to do is build catapults and you have your artillery for the rest of the game.

In my last game, I used bombardment and infantry to completely wipe out a continent full of riflemen-loaded cities. I had maybe 20-30 pieces of artillery and hordes of infantry. After raining artillery down on each city and leaving each defender with 1 HP, I used 3-4 infantry units to capture it. If I had simply attacked with my infantry, I would have suffered MUCH higher casualties.

	13-08-2002 19:54									#5
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Yeah, artillery is great! In fact, I have stopped using artillery at the lower level because victory seems so hollow.

	13-08-2002 19:58									#6
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Oh sure, 150 artillery is going to get the job done, no question, especially if you adopt the settler strategy, but 150 extra cavalry could easily take 3 cities a turn without having to bother with all the faffing around with settlers and workers. I don't think my army has ever had more than 50 offensive units in it. The question is whether you can stand the tedium of firing and missing upteen times every turn.

	13-08-2002 20:34									#7
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If you turn off the animation, firing 150 arttileries won't take much time. Here is the fastest way to do it:

1. Put the mouse pointer on the target that you wish to bombard with one hand. Note: From now on, you just need to click to fire and don't move your mouse off the target!

2. Hit the "B" on your keyboard with your other hand and click the mouse with the hand that holding the mouse to fire.

3. Repeat step 1 and 2.

	13-08-2002 21:23									#8
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I think the above post sillustrate my point. Unless you create OBSCENE amounts of artillery (150+ in examples) its likely to be more efficient (both from capturing vs levelling cities and unit cost) to use regular offensive units like cavalry that move faster. I'd rather have 150 cavalry that could sweep in a conquer a large swath of terr rather than moving 150 artillery/infantry one at a time.

Moreover unless you play on a large/huge map its unlikely you will have an army >200 units TOTAL which makes such huge stacks prohibitatively expensive.

In essence building one catapault/cannon/arty is useless. Ther is no sense build up a small early to mid game army with a few "artilley support" units, but imagine if an army of 5 musketeers with "a few cannon regiments" would most likely be much more effective in a seige than 5 musketeers and a few horsemen.

ALthough mentioned in my thread; but not adressed is the fact that bombers have this same problem.. sending swathes of bombers usually doesnt do that much (and fighters bombing is just useless). I realize that even today aerial bombardment is not an exact science but for bomber (and artillery) to completely miss (no collateral damage) especially against entrenched (fortified units) seems silly.

Z

	13-08-2002 22:08									#9
	Re: Bombardment missing the point Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Zizka LOL frankly the ol' "Artillery bombardment failed" message is getting real annoying.

That will get better with PtW, and the auto-bombard feature that's going to be included. Between that and the stack movement, you'll be able to think of 10 or so Artillery as one unit.

Frankly, since the AI never uses them, I think increasing their effectiveness would make the game totally unbalancing. Already, if I have a stack of Artillery pounding a city, there's not much that can stop me from turning the defense into mincemeat before I attack with my regular troops.

	13-08-2002 22:10									#10
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I usually don't build many bombard units. In fact, most of the ones I end up with are captured catapults that I upgrade. I usually end up with about 15 artillery units. I find artillery is very useful on defense and firing on units out in the open. This is particularly handy in between infantry and tanks.

It's not particularly effective vs. large cities, but usually can knock of a hit point here and there, which helps. But in general I'd rather have more attack units.

-Arrian

	13-08-2002 22:13									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold Oh sure, 150 artillery is going to get the job done, no question, especially if you adopt the settler strategy, but 150 extra cavalry could easily take 3 cities a turn without having to bother with all the faffing around with settlers and workers. I don't think my army has ever had more than 50 offensive units in it. The question is whether you can stand the tedium of firing and missing upteen times every turn.

But how much does 150 Cavalry cost in comparison to the same number of Artillery? Bombard units are pretty much the cheapest in the game, and unless captured out right, they never take any damage, or die. So as someone pointed out, you can start building your Artillery regiment as soon as you have Catapults available. And they're dirt cheap to upgrade.

	13-08-2002 22:20									#12
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Willem,

Well sure you can start building your arty once you have mathematics, but you can start building your Cavalry once you have The Wheel. Plus you can do a lot of damage with that force once you upgrade them to horsemen and again when you make them knights.

Cavalry are what, 80 or 90 shields? Artillery are slightly less (70?). So if you're building from scratch, you will typically find that an artillery unit will take 1 turn less to build in a good city. I'll take the attack unit most of the time.

In terms up upkeep, 150 units, no matter what the units are, cost 150 gold per turn (unless, of course, you are using a system of government which provides free units). Back to the idea of building catapults early on: if I'm going to pay upkeep on units early on, I want them to be able to kill things and take cities. I have neither the shields nor the cash to waste on catapults. I will keep 'em if I capture them, though.

-Arrian

	13-08-2002 22:40									#13
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I quit using it mainly because of the increase in tedious clicking. If they had a better way to manage though I would use em. They are pretty useful.

	13-08-2002 23:29									#14
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In my standard Mod, I've given all bombard units, with the exception of catapults and Frigates, Lethal Bombardment. This, I have found, dramatically increases their usefullness.

	14-08-2002 01:02									#15
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For those of you that don't care much for artillery, you may want to check out this thread. In fact, I can't wait to use artillery against the human player in the multi-player game.

	14-08-2002 03:42									#16
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I usually keep my offensive units vs defensive units vs artilleries in 2:1:1 ratio. It works pretty well. Offensive units tend to take a lots of damages if defenders have NOT been softened by artilleries before.

	14-08-2002 03:49									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold In terms of playing the game, I agree. It's boring to have to tote round two dozen artillery units because only six of them are going to achieve anything when they finally get to open fire. . .

The entire bombardment aspect of Civ 3 is not well thought out and is another example of game tedium.

First of all, you need to mod UP to the values of bombardment units to make them effective enough to bother making and using.

We have also asked for STACK BOMBARDMENT, not individual unit bombardment. better automation is also needed. We could use rally points to allow all bombardment units within a certain range to concentrate on.

I suggest also a way to attach a bombardment unit to a foot soldier: where the foot soldier goes the bombardment unit goes. Actually, this is more realistic than what we currently have.

There are many possibilities to make bombardment units more effective, and to limit the tedium in using them. All Firaxis needs is the will to do it.

	14-08-2002 19:03									#18
	Increase the size of your Attachments

It doesn't bother me to move 200 artillery units around since they save the life of my other units. Sure, artillery miss-fire alot and often miss its target; however, the result is still alot better than losing your other units. Once an artillery is built, it will last forever until you disband it. Because of artillery, I am able to cut down the lost of my other units; therefore, cut down the size of my force which saves me a lot of money in the long run.

	14-08-2002 20:19									#19
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Part of the problem is that Bombard units are relatively too weak compared to other units. City defenses compound this problem.

My personal solution is to double the bombard strength of each bombard-capable unit. This makes it feasable to actually inflict some damage with bombard units.

Anyway, to look at the numbers, a bombarding unit (except for an aircraft performing a Precision Strike) has a 50% chance of hitting a unit, a 25% chance of hitting an improvement, and a 25% chance of killing citizens. In a Town, citizens and improvements have a base defense of 16. With Walls, or in a City, this is raised to 24, and with the Great Wall, or in a Metropolis, this is raised to 32. Units, on the other hand, have a base defense equal to their field defense strength, and this is given a 50% bonus with Walls or in a City, and a 100% bonus with the Great Wall or in a Metropolis. Here are some examples (note that this list is LONG--you can skip over it if you like):

Catapult attack (attack 4) vs:
A. Town w/o Walls on Hill (50% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 24): 1 in 7 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Spearman (defense 3.5): Approximately 1 in 2 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Pikeman/Hoplite (defense approx. 5.5): Approximately 2 in 5 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Musketman (defense 7): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
B. City/Town with Walls on Hill (100% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 32): 1 in 9 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Spearman (defense 4.5): 4 in 9 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Pikeman/Hoplite (defense approx. 7): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
4. Fortified Musketman (defense 9): 4 in 13 probability of successful hit
C. Town with Walls and Great Wall on Hill (150% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 40): 1 in 11 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Spearman (defense 5.5): Approximately 2 in 5 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Pikeman/Hoplite (defense approx. 8.5): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
4. Fortified Musketman (defense 11): 4 in 15 probability of successful hit

II. Artillery (attack 12) vs:
A. Town w/o Walls on Hill (50% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 24): 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
2. Fortified Rifleman (defense 10.5): Approximately 6 in 11 probability of successful hit.
3. Fortified Infantry (defense 17.5): Approximately 3 in 7 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Mech. Inf. (defense 31.5): Approximately 3 in 11 probability of successful hit
B. City/Town with Walls on Hill (100% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 32): 3 in 11 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Rifleman (defense 13.5): Approximately 6 in 13 probability of successful hit.
3. Fortified Infantry (defense 22.5): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Mech. Inf. (defense 40.5): Approximately 3 in 13 probability of successful hit
C. Metropolis on Hill (150% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 40): 3 in 13 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Rifleman (defense 16.5): Approximately 3 in 7 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Infantry (defense 27.5): Approximately 3 in 10 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Mech. Inf. (defense 49.5): Approximately 1 in 5 probability of successful hit



As you can see from the list, the chances of getting a successful artillery hit are quite low, only approaching 50% if the attacker has a tech advantage over the defender. This is why I am in favor of doubling all bombard attack strengths. Comments, anyone?

	14-08-2002 21:03									#20
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I think that doubling the attack strength is going too far. The artillery unit in defence or against unfortified targets is already quite powerful enough. It just gets boring using it against big well defended cities. When playing against the AI and having a tech advantage I normally just forget subtlety and throw modern armor at the walls. Who cares if I lose a couple more tanks if the enemy loses a big city? Replacement tanks will be built again by the following turn.

Against good human opponents it is obviously going to be far more important to get your attacks optimised. If PtW allows you to move a stack of 10 artillery and bombard with it in a single click then that is a big help. Having to haul around a 10 arty 10 defender stack to support the 5 tanks may be boring but its not that far from modern warfare......

	14-08-2002 21:15									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold Having to haul around a 10 arty 10 defender stack to support the 5 tanks may be boring but its not that far from modern warfare......

Have you tried the stack movement key "j"? Combining that with the "Wake up all" and "Fortify all" command (patch 1.29f), it's so much easier to move units in stacks nowadays.

	15-08-2002 15:27									#22
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D'uh yes I'm not a complete rookie. Its just tedious when the same number of mouse clicks could get you so much further with just tanks, as long as you don't mind taking a few casualties. Less tedious than it was before 1.21 but still boring, especially when two stacks merge for a big attack and then have to split again. Your threshold for micromanagement hell is obviously much higher than mine. If I had 150 units in my army, let alone 150 artillery plus other stuff, I would have long since declared myself victorious and started a new game without waiting for the score.

	15-08-2002 18:34									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold If I had 150 units in my army, let alone 150 artillery plus other stuff, I would have long since declared myself victorious and started a new game without waiting for the score.

Can't do that! Not when there are at least three other superpowers left in the world and each of them has over 200 infantries and over 100 cavalries/tanks. Not to mention that they are also ahead in techs too. Technically, they would be able to beat me with the UN victory without much of a problem.

	15-08-2002 18:55									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold I think that doubling the attack strength is going too far. The artillery unit in defence or against unfortified targets is already quite powerful enough.

This point is very important. When i first made up my mod i was a firm favourite of increasing the bombard strength and rate of fire of units to compensate their lack of power against cities...

However, after being involved in many defensive wars my increases proved far too much. Basically no AI unit could get near my cities as my artillery levelled them as soon as they got within range. The left-over 1 hp troops could then be mopped up easily (even for a swordsman v infantry).

So, whilst they may not be useful at attacking cities unless used en mass, they are very useful at destroying improvements and weakening troops in the field.

Also bear in mind they are also useful in preventing the AI from gaining promotions and thus possibly a leader as you waste throwing hordes of offensive troops against well-defended troops. By softening them up even just a little (1 or 2 hp) you greatly increase the chance of taking them out without gifting them promotions.

Current stats i settled for are (str,rng,rof):
catapult (5,1,1) +1 str
cannon (10,1,1) +2 str
artillery (16,2,1) +4 str, -1 rof
radar artillery (22,2,1) move 2, +6 str, -1 rof, +1 mov

	15-08-2002 18:59									#25
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Moonsinger, do you play with the native civ3.mod?

Or do you play with modded rules?

Either way, do you find the AI building a ton of paras in preference to tanks if it researches advanced flight?

	15-08-2002 19:31									#26
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quote: Originally posted by =DrJambo= Moonsinger, do you play with the native civ3.mod?

So far, I have always played with the original rules released by Firaxis. I'm using patch 1.29f now; other than applying the various version of the patch by Firaxis, everything is 100% original.

	15-08-2002 19:37									#27
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quote: Originally posted by =DrJambo= artillery (16,2,1) +4 str, -1 rof radar artillery (22,2,1) move 2, +6 str, -1 rof, +1 mov

-1 ROF?

Why have you weakened these units so much?
Their original values were much better.
(not counting double move for R.A, which is good change)

ROF 2 --> ROF 1 means HAVLED efficiency

	15-08-2002 20:09									#28
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player1, bear in mind that although they have had their ROF reduced by 1, they've also had a massive increase in bombard strength.

The reason i did this was 2 fold.

1. When defending in a stack artillery can only ever do 1 hp of damage. When attacking then can do 2 hp damage. This benefits the human player because they will use artillery offensively much more than the AI who predominantly uses them for defence. So this measure evens things out for offence and defence.

2. The potential of 2 hp damage to enemy approaching my cities from a range of 2 squares i found to be overpowerful. A relatively cheap stack of 20 artillery moved around once railroads have been built will effectively halt any attacking force before any combat has begun. Too easy and too unbalancing considering the AI never stacks its artillery.

Therefore these measures take a little of the human player's reliance away from simply having a large mobile defensive stack of artillery.

Maybe i haven't increased the bombard ability of the artillery and radar artillery by enough... only playtesting will tell!?

	15-08-2002 20:12									#29
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i forgot to mention that my radar artillery also have the blitz ability thereby giving them a potential for 2 bombardments per turn.

	15-08-2002 23:31									#30
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Yeah you're right. I just played a game (Apolyton Expack as the Vikings) and I bombarded a city maybe four turns with a catapult without hitting the city a single time!
Artillery is only good as defence in Civ3.