Civ 4 Combat Factors

[LDiCesare]

1)Is artillery fundamentally different from Range and Aim? Could you argue that an artillery unit is simply a unit with a big range and damage, but not enough aim to do damage to a specific target?

Yes. The initial reason why you had catapults and ballistas, and later cannons, was to take out enemy walls. So the first goal of artillery was to shoot at fortifications. Modern times, it may be a bit different, but even in WWI, artillery was aimed at trenches (fortifications) to help the later assault by infantry.

2)How is intelligence different from Knowledge of Opponents tactics?

Intelligence means you know more or less the plans, but mostly the situation of enemy troops, where they are, what their supplies are, how their morale is.
Knowledge of tactics means you know that the English ships of the line will come in a line and attack the French/Spain fleet in the usual way. Suddenly, you realise they come perpendicularly, which was thought a suicidal maneuver, and lose half your fleet because of the wind. Trafalgar. Another example is to know how Spanish use horses. Sure, intelligence showed you they had horses, but they couldn't make any difference in a fight as they jsut allow the Spaniards to deal blow from higher. What do you mean 'charge', 'flank'?

3)What do you mean by at a tactical level? How is this different from the units mobility as a whole?

Mobility on strategic and tactical scale are different.
For instance, consider Hastings:
Harold came to Hastings with mounted soldiers (big strategic mobility) and then they dismounted to fight(low tactical mobility) while William wame on foot (low strategic) and then his knights fought on horse (high tactical). This battle shows that Harold had a great strategic move in managing to get to Hastings in time from Stanford Bridge. Well, it was actually silly as he was entering a trap without all his army, but the logistics were very impressive. Still mobility on the field was better for William, who could use his cavalry to chase Saxons who had broken the line, and to give orders and make sure his wings held (though you could say this is leadership).
Another example is Hannibal's elephants. In Zamua, the elephants had about 0 mobility. Once SCipio had tricked them into charging empty space, they were effectively useless for the rest of the battle. Now this might be modelled not only by mobility but also something else (morale?) but it could get very complex pretty fast.

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by LDiCesare


Yes. The initial reason why you had catapults and ballistas, and later cannons, was to take out enemy walls. So the first goal of artillery was to shoot at fortifications. Modern times, it may be a bit different, but even in WWI, artillery was aimed at trenches (fortifications) to help the later assault by infantry.

Gotcha

Intelligence means you know more or less the plans, but mostly the situation of enemy troops, where they are, what their supplies are, how their morale is.
Knowledge of tactics means you know that the English ships of the line will come in a line and attack the French/Spain fleet in the usual way. Suddenly, you realise they come perpendicularly, which was thought a suicidal maneuver, and lose half your fleet because of the wind. Trafalgar. Another example is to know how Spanish use horses. Sure, intelligence showed you they had horses, but they couldn't make any difference in a fight as they jsut allow the Spaniards to deal blow from higher. What do you mean 'charge', 'flank'?

Gotcha

Mobility on strategic and tactical scale are different.
For instance, consider Hastings:
Harold came to Hastings with mounted soldiers (big strategic mobility) and then they dismounted to fight(low tactical mobility) while William wame on foot (low strategic) and then his knights fought on horse (high tactical). This battle shows that Harold had a great strategic move in managing to get to Hastings in time from Stanford Bridge. Well, it was actually silly as he was entering a trap without all his army, but the logistics were very impressive. Still mobility on the field was better for William, who could use his cavalry to chase Saxons who had broken the line, and to give orders and make sure his wings held (though you could say this is leadership).
Another example is Hannibal's elephants. In Zamua, the elephants had about 0 mobility. Once SCipio had tricked them into charging empty space, they were effectively useless for the rest of the battle. Now this might be modelled not only by mobility but also something else (morale?) but it could get very complex pretty fast.

I'm still iffy on this one. What you're calling "Tactical Mobility" sounds like speed to me, and what you're calling "Strategic Mobility" sounds like a supply/logistics issue. Because Harold didn't have the sense to use the horses mobility during battle doesn't mean it wasn't available to him. It sounds more like his forces suffered a penalty for having a low leadership score?

[Kuciwalker]

You're sort of right on that score. "Strategic mobility" refers to how quickly you can cover large distances, whereas "tacticial mobility" refers to how, well, "mobile" you are in combat. Generally a high value in one category gives a high value in another, but not always.

[LDiCesare]

Because Harold didn't have the sense to use the horses mobility during battle doesn't mean it wasn't available to him.

No. Being trained to ride and being trained to fight on horseback are two very different things. For instance, you can ride perfectly well wihtout stirrups. With them, however, you can use lances in a very deadly and efficient manner, which you could not without. Harold's men were not trained to fight on horseback, thus they could not do so. Several armies used mounted infantry, who used horses or mules to travel and dismounted to fight, thereby lowering their mobility (except in rough terrain where horses are useless).

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by LDiCesare

No. Being trained to ride and being trained to fight on horseback are two very different things. For instance, you can ride perfectly well wihtout stirrups. With them, however, you can use lances in a very deadly and efficient manner, which you could not without. Harold's men were not trained to fight on horseback, thus they could not do so. Several armies used mounted infantry, who used horses or mules to travel and dismounted to fight, thereby lowering their mobility (except in rough terrain where horses are useless).

Which brings me back to the original point I made which was that "Strategic Mobility" isn't really a seperate issue, so much as an aspect of supply/support logistics. In Civ terms, Harold's men where foot soldiers. The Horses were a separate supply unit that confered a movement bonus on the foot soldiers. When they got into battle, if was still a foot soldier versus cavalry battle.

I'll throw it on the list anyways, but I'm not convinced that its fundamentally different than supply.