Catapults, Cannon & Artillery

[Mr. Lucky]

Originally posted by Willem
Well of course people are going to use it, you'd be a fool not to. Why handicap yourself just because the AI doesn't know how to use the units to their fullest potential?

Most chess programs have an option to preset board positions and play out the game from there. If I choose not to start every game by removing my opponents rooks and playing normally otherwise, am I a fool? No, I'm simply refraining from exploiting an obviously exploitable feature of the game, and having fun by playing it the way it was designed. The key is that it's more fun to play chess the way it was designed without using exploits.

Using "siege units" the way they were designed to be used in Civ3 was fun and effective. It was not broken, exploitable yes, but not broken. The current "siege unit" system is unexploitable but completely not fun. Unlike almost every other unit in the game; which behave more or less like their real world historical counterparts; "siege units" do not. Nor do they behave like any historical unit, save the kamikaze or sundry other suicide units. It completely removes the "immersion" factor, that the player is doing anything other then adjusting values in a spreadsheet.

I'm glad you agree that an "artillery duel" style system would likely work. I hope so, and would love to see someone take a stab at implementing it.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Mr. Lucky
Using "siege units" the way they were designed to be used in Civ3 was fun and effective. It was not broken, exploitable yes, but not broken.

Using large stacks of siege units in Civ 3 wasn't an exploit, but a design decision. Everything involving military tactics in the game revolved around having large stacks of units. Why should the siege units be any different? If they weren't designed to be used that way, there would have been limits as to how many could be in a stack. The main problem was that the AI wasn't programmed well enough to be able to use them the same way.

[Mr. Lucky]

Well, we’ll have to disagree on the desirability of the old Civ3 system.

My last point will be that simply because something is possible to do is not proof that it was specifically designed to be done that way. There is such a thing as unintended consequences, especially in computer gaming. The term ‘exploit’ is a common one in the gaming world and many gamer groups of all type of games have had ‘house rules’ banning one form of exploit or another. Someone who would say “if I wasn’t supposed to play this way, why is it possible?” is simply not allowed to play in that forum.

Now single player is a different beast of course and one can play anyway one wishes. But it's important to establish that exploits exist and that not using them is not a mistake, but a valid choice.

Again, I’m glad you agree that an “artillery duel” style system might be fun. It sounds like you think the current CIV is good enough, but if enough people think experimenting with another way would be worthwhile, maybe someone with enough skills to actually mod it will come forward.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Mr. Lucky
Again, I’m glad you agree that an “artillery duel” style system might be fun. It sounds like you think the current CIV is good enough, but if enough people think experimenting with another way would be worthwhile, maybe someone with enough skills to actually mod it will come forward.

Well with the SDK out now, I'm sure someone will. Although I prefer the current system, that's not to say there isn't room for improvement. I do like the idea of artillery duels though, I thought it worked quite well in SMAC. It seems a bit too easy right now reducing cultural defences in a city. If my catapults had to duke it out with a city's catapults first, it might make it a bit more interesting.

[fed1943]

I like the way artillery works in civ4.
But I also think artillery duel would be a very good idea.
So artillery would be,not only for attack, but also to defense.
Best regards,

[Mr. Lucky]

Glad for your optimism guys. Since like the current system a little less then you do, I'm probably hoping a little more for it to be modified.

The fact that there is any support for an alternative is encouraging though.

[Saldrin]

I hate, with a passion, how artillery works in Civ 4. The Civ 3 system was far from perfect, but at least it was functional and added excitement to the game.

I would take the Civ 3 artillery (and navy bombardment) over the Civ 4 boredom any day. For a strategy game, neutering artillery in such a way as it presently is cuts out 50% of the military strategy...

The artillery "duel" sounds great, and it was an idea I posted to a while ago. It sounded easy to do, just copy/paste some intercept coding from the planes... But once I opened up the sdk, I immediately knew otherwise.

I too will wait for someone with better Kung Fu than I to fix the system