Promotions for suicide artillery?

[Indon]

My favored stack-breaking tactic involves using a couple artillery (catapult/cannon) units to suicide in, deal collateral damage, and then move in with my main force.

So my question is, what promotions are better for this tactic? I've been using heavy Drill promotions to get in extra chances to strike before dying to my no doubt superior opponents, but would Barrage promotions be better, or perhaps even simple combat-related promotions?

Mind that I don't care if the artillery survives (though it's a pleasant surprise if I win a 3% chance battle with one), I just want to maximize collateral damage.

[absimiliard]

If you want to maximize collateral damage I'd go barrage myself. Seems obvious to me, so I'll shut up and listen from here on in.

-abs

[SandMonkey]

i agree with absimiliard, with barrage I and possibly II you can dish out some serious collateral damage, especially if you don't care whether or not the unit survives. The only thing you would need to consider is the fact that you might not damage the unit you directly attack. This can be a problem when there's a super unit defending an entire stack and it survives unscathed, meaning your "main force" still has to battle a full strength (and very powerful) defender.

[Blake]

Barrage for general purpose in the open use.

City Raider for against cities - City Raider is almost always better against cities since it deals more damage to the unit on top.

In the open against small stacks you might resort to Combat promotions, maybe Shock if it's pure-melee. However you shouldn't use siege in this role except the Korean UU.

Drill is useless.

[darrelljs]

Someone did a study showing that CR promotions resulted in more collatoral damage when attack cities, however I can't seem to find the link nor do I recall if it was independently verified.

Darrell

[Diadem]

Well Barrage increases your collatoral damage (doh). But promotions like City Raider (assuming you are attacking a city) increases your direct damage. Which also increases collatoral damage, but has the advance of also hurting the toughest defender more.

I assume that the Barrage promotion gives more extra collatoral damage than the City Raider promotion. At least I hope it does, otherwise it'd be quite useless.

But I guess it depends on circumstances. Against a city with 1 City Garrison III longbow and several archers, you probably want city raider to hurt that single very tough defender a lot. But against a city with 10 equal longbows, you probably want Barrage.


In the open CR obviously doesn't work. Barrage seems most useful then. But why should you not use siege in the open Blake? If you have an enemy stack of 30 units approaching your capital, you are pretty much doomed unless you have a good amount of siege units as well.

[Blake]

In the open against SMALL stacks.
Against large stacks bash em into a pulp with siege .

[Quick]

First off... It was my understanding that First Strike was defensive. It allowed the defender the chance to strike before the actual engagement started. Only the other side can take damage. I found this in my notes from when Civ4 first came out. But now I have been unable to find any thing in the rules to back this up. As far as I can tell, Drill is useless for sacrifice units.

Second, I use Barrage for sacrifice siege units to dish out more collateral damage.

Third, I look at the defending stack before attacking to choose the best order to use my own units. If there is a strong defender, I work to eliminate or weaken it. This may involve a sacrifice attack unit. If I can weaken the defender, it gives my siege unit a better chance to do more damage and survive the attack.

Fourth, I would not use City Raider on a low ranking siege unit. The purpose of a siege unit is to bombard defenses, which is safe for the siege unit, and barrage to weaken stacks. The purpose of giving a siege unit direct attack promotions is to help the unit survive delivering the barrage. Siege units are very poor direct attack units when compared with other available units.

Fifth, use siege units to finish up weakened units to gain experience if you intend for them to survive to gain greater promotions. A highly promoted siege unit can be valuable in dishing out more collateral damage later on. If a sacrifice siege unit survives a few sacrifice uses, then it is a good candidate to develop into a stronger unit.

Sixth, in some situations your siege units may be nearly as strong as the defender. If this is common in a game, then a direct attack promotion may give better results by lasting a little longer. But I don’t trust this type of a situation to last long, so I still use Barrage promotions for sacrifice siege units.

Seventh, I don’t waste siege units against small stacks except in desperation.

[Thedrin]

First off... It was my understanding that First Strike was defensive. It allowed the defender the chance to strike before the actual engagement started. Only the other side can take damage. I found this in my notes from when Civ4 first came out. But now I have been unable to find any thing in the rules to back this up. As far as I can tell, Drill is useless for sacrifice units.

It allows the unit with the most number of first strikes - either the attacker or the defender - the chance to strike before the actual engagement.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by Diadem
Well Barrage increases your collatoral damage (doh). But promotions like City Raider (assuming you are attacking a city) increases your direct damage. Which also increases collatoral damage, but has the advance of also hurting the toughest defender more.

Hmm, the last time I looked, CR had no impact at all on collateral damage - the only thing it achieved was an increased probability that the unit would survive the combat.

Is there evidence that this has changed?

[binTravkin]

Hmm, the last time I looked, CR had no impact at all on collateral damage - the only thing it achieved was an increased probability that the unit would survive the combat.

Think behind what's written.
If it says that your unit will last longer in combat, doesn't that mean it will make more shots?

[Quick]

Originally posted by Thedrin


It allows the unit with the most number of first strikes - either the attacker or the defender - the chance to strike before the actual engagement.

Thank you Thedrin, where can I find this documented in further detail?

[DrSpike]

Hmm, there were a bucketload of threads on release, but haven't seen anything for a while. The Civ site that cannot be mentioned is better for that sort of thing anyway.

[joncnunn]

Myself, my top priority for any seige unit is the promotion that increases bombardment of city's defenses by 10%. (My first priority is to negate the city's defenses so my melee units City Raider promotions become more worthwhile)

After that one, if I'm against a large stack of defenders in cities I want to increase colaterial damage. Against a small stack of defenders in city I want city raider. What NOT to do is give the same unit level 1 in both; one art type unit with level 2 City Raider and another art type unit with level 2 extra col bombard perform much better than 2 art type units with level 1 of each.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Originally posted by binTravkin

Think behind what's written.
If it says that your unit will last longer in combat, doesn't that mean it will make more shots?

Which will impact the amount of punishment you can dish out at the top defender, but does not imply that additional collateral punishment also occurs.

I'm working from memory, rather than looking at the combat code; but I have a strong impression that collateral damage is calculated and distrubed before (and therefore completely independently of) the actual combat.

Edit: CvUnit.cpp, line 842

As for the strategic question, when I have many promotable disposapults at hand, I'll give the first a CR I promotion to get an accurate picture of the odds. Then I give barrage promotions and suicide until I like the success chances for the city raider.