CIV shouldn't have Siege Units

[Arrian]

Can you imagine the Bismark taking 20% damage from the guns of a destroyer?

A similiar German light battleship (Graff's Bay or somesuch?) was badly damaged and forced to surrender by several Brit destroyers acting together...

edit: at least I thought so, but I'm having trouble verifying that. a moment...

-Arrian

[Brutus66]

You're dreaming the dream of the wargamer. I have it too, all the time.
Let's face it, the combat system is pretty silly. Just as an example, say you have a stack of five riflemen and the enemy has one. You can't attack using the superiority of your force, though, you have to go piece-meal, attacking with one unit at a time. That's a chivalrous way to fight but not very realistic.

I have a dream....
A dream where troop units are no longer abstract but defined as battalions, divisions...
A dream where forts aren't almost totally useless...
Where airmobile and paratroops are represented...
Where artillery units aren't used as kamikaze during sieges...

I could go on but I'll spare you.

[Arrian]

The Admiral Graf Spree.

The Battle of the River Plate (December 13, 1939) was a naval battle in World War II. The German pocket battleship (heavy cruiser) Admiral Graf Spee had been commerce raiding since the start of the war in September. It was found and engaged off the estuary of the River Plate in South America by three smaller Royal Navy (RN) cruisers: HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and the HMS Achilles, which was part of the RN's New Zealand Division.

In the ensuing battle, Exeter was severely damaged and forced to retire, while all other ships received moderate damage. Ajax and Achilles then shadowed the Graf Spee which entered the neutral Uruguayan capital Montevideo. After a tense period, the captain of the Graf Spee, Hans Langsdorff scuttled his ship rather than face the overwhelmingly superior British force that he believed had assembled.

Granted, the full article notes that the damage to the Graf Spree was largely superficial in nature, whereas the damage to the Allied cruisers was substantial (particularly to Exeter).

-Arrian

[Brutus66]

Now, in Civ, the Spee would have gotten a bonus for being in a coastal area and about impossible for the remaining two already-damaged Brit cruisers to beat, esp. if they had to attack one at a time.
Oh wait, cruisers don't exist in Civ

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Arrian
The Admiral Graf Spree.



Granted, the full article notes that the damage to the Graf Spree was largely superficial in nature, whereas the damage to the Allied cruisers was substantial (particularly to Exeter).

-Arrian

Hiei is probably a better example than Graf Spee.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Brutus66
The battleship doesn't often lose, but it does suffer a disproportionate amount of damage. Can you imagine the Bismark taking 20% damage from the guns of a destroyer?

Torpedoes. The Bismarck was ultimately sunk by torpedoes, although they were fired from a cruiser. The last phase of the Battle of Jutland turned on the reluctance of Admiral Jellicoe to risk a night torpedo attack by German destroyers. So destroyers were considered a real threat in numbers, or against a lone, unescorted capital ship.

Some examples of heavy ships being sunk by torpedoes:
Savo Island
Java Sea

[Brutus66]

That article is also a good example of the obsolescence of battleships is the age of airplanes.
In Civ, they don't become obsolete because planes can't sink ships.

Originally posted by Dis
yeah by the time you get to battleships, the range of the guns is too great. And most modern cities do not have guns strewn all about town. .

Thats because modern cities don't face the threat of bombardment by battleships.
During the 1940's, emphasis was shifted from coastal artillery to anti-aircraft.

[Brutus66]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
So destroyers were considered a real threat in numbers, or against a lone, unescorted capital ship.

I don't argue that.
But in the game, a single destroyer unit attacking a single battleship will inflict an unrealistic amount of damage. This is only acceptable if you subscribe to the idea that the destroyer unit represents a group rather than a single ship, which has been the combat system's most irritating loophole since the Civ series began.

[zeace]

Originally posted by Brutus66
... which has been the combat system's most irritating loophole since the Civ series began.

Whoa there....

Let's not start throwing around terms like "the combat system's most irritating loophole" lightly. There's an innumerable number of irritating parts to the combat system.

If you were to start a discussion about which is _The_Most_Annoying_Part_of_Civ_Combat_ I'm sure you'd find an enormous number of opinions and very little consensus. You'd probably need to start a thread to allow people to nominate annoyances, and then each annoyance would have to collect a minimum number of backers. The irritants with support would then enter the "Great Annoyance Vote" thread where Apolytonites would be able to express their frustration with the combat engine. You'll probably still find it hard to declare a winner outright and would have to have a runoff election between the most of the most annoying loopholes.

Only then will it not be total hyperbole and presumption to call something _The_Most_Annoying_Part_of_Civ_Combat_

[Brutus66]

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Brutus66
That article is also a good example of the obsolescence of battleships is the age of airplanes.
In Civ, they don't become obsolete because planes can't sink ships.

You're preaching to the choir on that one.

Although, perhaps each fighter plane represents one plane...


I still feel that coastal fortresses/counter-bombardment of ships should become obsolete once Battleships are on the board. You couldn't build a coastal fortress strong enough to hold out against a post-1920s battleship's guns, and by the 1940s, gunnery control techniques had improved to the point where a stationary target was pretty much a dead duck.

edit: typo

[Dis]

hehe, we moved from arty to naval warfare. sorry for the threadjack, but no reason we can't discuss both.

I think it's acceptable for a battleship to take 20% damage from a destroyer. I have no complaints about that. I think it's unrealistic to expect the battleship to come out unscathed. It's when a battleship takes 80% damage or in some cases loses outright is when I become pissed off. And I swear it's impossible to win a 1 on 1 naval battle with equal powered ships. I proved it again last game. time and time again my destroyers lost to other destroyers, or frigates lost to other frigates. Only when I had 2 first strike promotions could I win (and then only on defense).

planes do inflict damage on my ships, which is nice. But they can't sink them. . In a way that's nice- as I'd be irritated with that. In the case of the bismark, planes were used to spot the ship, and I believe a torpedo from a plane damaged the rudder enabling destroyers and cruisers to track the ship and finish it off. Granted, the pacific was another matter entirely, where planes just decimated ships. I'd be happy if planes could inflict up to 95% damage. What's the limit now? 50%? I'm not entirely sure.

The biggest problem with the game is modern naval warfare is not implemented. It's all ww2 era stuff up until 2050. Civ2's best feature was the AEGIS cruiser. One is badly needed in this game. Something must replace battleships. Battleships need to go obsolete at some point. AEGIS was cool because it could defend against planes decently and cruise missile attacks. And we do need cruise missiles in the game. They were annoying, but represented an important aspect of modern warfare.

In fact, cruise missiles should be replacing artillery for modern bombardment puposes. In that case, it's accpetable for the unit to be destroyed when attacking cities. . missiles could be used to soften up city defenses or inflict collateral damage on units in the city. They could also be used against ships (maybe X2 damage on battleships). Ships like aircraft carriers better be escorted with AEGIS cruisers to protect them (obviously units that need to be added in the next expansion). Yes I know we still use howitzers in the U.S. army (and marines too), but we don't ever seem to use them much. Though I suppose they would still have a purpose in the open battlefield. But recent wars have been so quick and mobile (and city orientated), that there is no use for such an innacurate weapon as a howitzer. We need pinpoint missile strikes. Perhaps if we ever fought a war again with real "front lines", we'd use howizters.

[Brutus66]

Originally posted by Dis
Perhaps if we ever fought a war again with real "front lines", we'd use howizters.

Originally posted by Alexander01
historically, most battles took place in the field, not in city sieges.
What could encourage more "field battles?"

Excellent points.
Maybe I'm playing the wrong game, but I would love nothing more than to see massed armies meet in the field during the medieval period, and later in the industrial age have divisions facing each other over front lines.
Playing a game of Civ, at least if you are a warmonger, mostly consists of one city siege after another.
I am hoping that Soren Johnson and the rest will take a break before designing Civ 5 and maybe play a few games of Rome Total War, Hearts of Iron, and Europa Universalis. They may come away with a few ideas.

[DrSpike]

Yeah, Civ5 - RTS style.

[Jaybe]

Don't give me no RTS! Especially when you have multiple fronts to deal with in real time mode.