Using artillery

[Lucian_Penyan]

Ok, I have a question.
How does everyone use artillery? Do you just use it to bombard city defenses? In my experience, whenever I attack with them, in order to do collateral damage, they die every time. Are artillery units one shot wonders? Has anyone found a consistant way to have your artillery units survive? I know they have a chance to withdraw, but that never seems to happen with me.

[Hayden]

With my catapults i tend to use them as one hit wonders. If you have maybe 6 of them to soften up an opponent and then perhaps have 6 macemen to go along with them i find that works well. You wouldnt want to use them on there own, because they simply dont last. Need to use there collateral damage benefits for them to be any use. One thing that you probably need to be careful of, is while you are using them as one hit wonders, you are also giving the opposition upgrade pts for there units so you would want to use them in blitzkrieg style attack.

[Blake]

Bombard the defenses down, is my main use...

Now, I believe for Promotions:
If you want your artillery to have a chance of surviving, use "City Attack", if you are using them as throw-away, use "Barrage".

Now, I believe a large benefit of artillery is nothing has a *defense* bonus against them. For example a Maceman with strength 8 will get utterly destroyed by a crossbowman with strength 6, because of the +50% bonus. On the other hand the catapult always has a "fair fight" and a couple of city attack promos put them on an equal footing with Longbows and such, giving them an excellent change of winning or retreating.

[Nacht]

I use them mostly for bombardment of course. I use them to cause collateral damage if the odds are to low for my regular units to attack. Never seen a much promoted attillery unit BTW, I always give them city attack and accuracy when built.

[favedave]

They are good for lowering the city defenses in bombardment (if the city is inland and you can't hit it with ships).


If a city has many defenders, then use the catapults/cannons/artillery to attack the city (after defenses have been reduced to zero).

Your artilery wil die most of the time, but they will do far more damage to many defenders than they were worth to build, so they definitely pay for themselves.

Don't forget, they have a chance to withdraw when they are getting creamed, so you won't lose them every time.

But when you're up against a big enemy stack, artilllery is definitely disposable. Keep cranking them out and sending them to the front.

[Footie Mad]

Artillery units are an absolute must for invasion campaigns, if you play your cards right you will often only to keep a steady stream of bombarding units produced since they are the only ones to die when taking cities.

[baboon]

I attack for coll. damage and then they die. And I build new ones. Pretty cheap and devastating.

[Quillan]

If the city is well fortified, I bombard over several turns until the defense bonus is gone. Then I attack with a couple of artillery pieces to damage all the defending units. After that, I wipe them out with the troops. Usually I spend my promotions for artillery on first strike. They already do collateral damage.

[Aileron]

Originally posted by Footie Mad
since they are the only ones to die when taking cities.

So are you using the catapults, etc. to bombard AND attack? Just wondering how you're taking cities without losing other units as well.

[Nacht]

Originally posted by Aileron
So are you using the catapults, etc. to bombard AND attack?

He does it exactly like I do, taking a city in civ4 takes more than one turn...

Originally posted by Aileron
Just wondering how you're taking cities without losing other units as well.

Because he uses his catapults to deal collaterol damage?

[Cabbagemeister]

Yeah, against an equal-tech opponent, cats are throwaway units. But the way it works is that once you build your army up to invade, you can set all your cities to only build replacement cats, because using your cats means that the rest of your units survive.

Is it worse to lose all your catapults in kamikaze attacks (Civ4 combat), or lose half of your normal units attacking cities (Civ3 combat)? I think that cats are cheaper to replace...

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by Nacht

He does it exactly like I do, taking a city in civ4 takes more than one turn...


Because he uses his catapults to deal collaterol damage?

When using artillery units for city attack, which upgrades should you choose first, e.g., collateral damage, city attack, first strike, ... And second promotion, etc. ... Is it usually best after reducing defenses to 0%, to attack with artillery for collateral damage, risking them instead of more valuable cavalry, etc.?

[Francis Xavier]

Cannons are pretty devastating in their era of warfare. I'm finishing up a game right now as China in which I destroyed one Civ while at war with two Civ's (they were allies so all the fighting was in the destroyed civs territory) at the same time. My typical army composition ended up something like 8 cannons and 4-5 Musketmen/Knights. One bombard on a turn from 4 of the cannons typically levelled city defenses, then the rest of the Artillery lead the charge into the city itself.

They also are excellent counter measures to enemy counter attacks. The allied civ had plenty of stacks of doom that had initial victories at conquered towns that had say, one or so defender on them, but got totally slaughtered by the attrition/collateral damage of the cannon counter attack.

In earlier campaigns I used Catapults + Cho Ko Nu to destroy another civ, the Japanese before they could get their UU out into the field. In that instance I'd have about 4-5 Catapults, 4 Cho Ko Nu, 2 Maceman/Axeman, 2 Horse Archers ish per army, and had the catapults destroy the city defenses while the Cho Ko Nu did most of the collateral damage.

Siege weapons are probably the best overall units in the game for land-based armies, as opposed to Civ3 were they were totally useless. An attack against an enemies forces condensed in a stack, whether they are defending or attacking with a couple siege weapons significantly weakens their power, especially if they're mired in your territory and can't heal easily.

[Aileron]

Originally posted by Nacht

He does it exactly like I do, taking a city in civ4 takes more than one turn...


Because he uses his catapults to deal collaterol damage?

Um yeah, thanks Natch, I know it takes more than one turn. I was just posing Lucian's original question to Footie, which was "Do you just use it to bombard city defenses?", or does Footie bombard and then attack (and the catapults are so successful at attacking that he takes cities with just them and no other supporting troops).

[Footie Mad]

Of course I take the time to bombard defenses to 0%, it gives you better odds without risking anything!

Only in the rarest of cases where there is some extraordinary cause do I attack a city with a bonus percentage above one figure. The thing is, if you don't kill all the units in the city at the same time then they heal quickly and are upgraded, it also gives the enemy to reinforce via his roads. So sacrificing a three of four artillery is a great investment.