Artillery Charge - Does it make sense?

[Bhruic]

What I find particularily annoying is that on defense, the catapult is almost always the last unit to defend. So you get attacked by a big stack, and it waits until the last attack to do collateral damage? That doesn't make much sense.

Unfortunately, I can't really think of a better system that isn't open to pretty obvious exploitation by the player.

Bh

[Tiberius]

To all those saying that the civ4 style is better than the civ3 style, because of balance issues, I have a question:

How is it more balanced, when you have a given strategy that everyone can follow and it guarantees success? So in Civ3 you took 20 arties, bombard the city to oblivion and then take it. Now you build 5 arties to take the city walls (even easier than before), you charge the city with 5 other kamikaze arties (which makes no sense whatsoever) and then take the city easily because all defenders are damaged. It is the same thing! It is just as unbalanced, it the same concept, there is only a difference in shields. Sure, you sacrifice now some cats in the attack but you need fewer of them because they do collateral damage.

So, I agree with those who are saying that this could have been done in a better way. Not sure how, but I don't like this new approach. Having cats and arties "bomb" made more sense. I remember that reading the first civ4 reviews, this was one of the new things I didn't like.

This gives me an idea: How about if cats could bomb like in civ3, and cause collateral damage, but they could get special promotions such as "+25% collateral damage against siege weapons" ? City defenders could use this promotion to weaken attackers. A damaged cat should be unable them to attack the city walls (or with less efficiency anyway). Same promotions should be possible for other units, such as cavalries. Flanking for example, could give also special bonuses against siege weapons. You could attack a stack of doom with calaries, and they would have a chance to attack an arty instead of a pikeman, or fight with a pikeman but while retreating cause collateral damage to the cats! Doesn't this make more sense than a kamikaze catapult?

I'm sure that there are better solutions available within the current game design, which make more sense and are more balanced than the current one!

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Bhruic
What I find particularily annoying is that on defense, the catapult is almost always the last unit to defend. So you get attacked by a big stack, and it waits until the last attack to do collateral damage? That doesn't make much sense.

Exactly, where has the "auto-bombard on defense" feature gone? That was a feature that made sense and was really helpful against SoDs. Not that I've seen too many AI SoDs, but this is not a reason to dumb down cats.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by polypheus
I totally agree with meel. While I can understand the balance issue, I also feel that it could have been done in a much better way. For example, the collateral damage could be limited and capped. Another possibility is to have artillery that auto-counterattacked on defense.

IMHO a very good idea.
Artillery should (aside from the present "Bombard City Defenses" also be able to bombard the defenders and, if any defending Artillery is within the city, an Artillery duel would follow in which the two Artillery units battle it out until only one of them remains standing (with the other stacked units on both sides taking some collateral damage, but not being able to help their artillery unit during the duel )

It would also be a greater incentive to have some Artillery units stacked within the city.

[Sir Og]

It is indeed strange that bomber's collateral damage is capped but cats can kill units. Cat's should be less effective against infantry and the collateral dammage should take effect only if you attack big stacks (over 3 units for example). This way cats would be good versus SoD but not as overpowering on offence as it seems now.

[grandviceroy]

The whole artillery charge thing makes no sense...then again, neither does the whole combat system.

Call to Power 2 had it right -- armies with front line troops, supporting artillery and archers and flanking cavalry....and when you outnumbered someone, the numbers told.

Civ 3 and 4 have that fighting down a narrow alley thing going....every battle is thermopylae. one good unit can stand in the pass and you can have 20, and go at him 20 times and every fight is mano a mano....

the only advantage to numbers is that eventually you may wear him down.

also, there is no sense to the match up. if you send a unit to attack, the computer picks the best unit to fight that particular kind of unit to defend. even if they had an archer unit that mauled your last attacker, if you then chose a unit that is good against archers they will put up a different unit, and the one that fights best against your attacker.

. again, this is because even when you launch the entire stack against them, the computer decides who fights.

silly, ahistorical and nonsensical.

Numbers are a big part of war. Quality does tell, but even quality gets swamped, surrounded, stretched too thin, outflanked and, well, just overborne and overwhelmed.

whether you do an odds game (2:1, 3:1 etc) or a pure 'more numbers, more chances to hit' game (like the axis and allies system where a lot of poor units have a lot of poor chances to hit, vs a few good units with a few good chances to hit) or any of so many other ways to settle a battle, this fighting down a narrow alley one at a time, with no acknowledgement to the numbers system is really silly.

that units get promotions and special abilities is wonderful, and adds a real boost to personalizing the game....and you do not need this one on one fight to take advantage of it.

for example, if you are fighting in hills and some units have a hill bonus, they get that factored in....but you factor in the entire army.....and every unit involved could take some hits....or the melee guys take the most since they are in the front, followed by the archery gunpowder taking a little less and finally the support units (ie artillery) taking the least...and when the melee guys are gone the archery/gunpowder guys take more of the brunt of the losses, and when they go the artillery is left on it own.

lots of ways they could have done combat, and every one of them, in my opinion, would have been better.

the combat system, though in many ways far better than civ 3, still has a long way to go.