CIV shouldn't have Siege Units

[Alexander I]

Maybe a combined arms attempt? Put different troop types into an "army" unit to fight against enemy armies in pitched battles. It would have to function differently than Civ3's armies did.

[Brutus66]

RTW only had an RTS component to resolve the combat. I'm not advocating that.
The turn-based strategic map did have a way of getting you to fight massive battles in interesting places besides the usual city sieges. And afterwards, the spot would be marked on the map with crossed swords like a historical map- this touch gave it a little flavor.

Originally posted by Alexander01
Maybe a combined arms attempt? Put different troop types into an "army" unit to fight against enemy armies in pitched battles. It would have to function differently than Civ3's armies did.

Exactly my thinking- armies that you can build and take apart. No more cumbersome stacking.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Brutus66

Exactly my thinking- armies that you can build and take apart. No more cumbersome stacking.

And it really is oh, so cumbersome sometimes...
I hate keeping my huge numbers organized, and the computer? Sometimes I think the AI's stacks will crash my computer.

[Strudo]

I regards to naval combat I think people don't consider how damage effects a ship. Remember, the percent isn't damage, it's strength. A car sized hole in the hull of a battleship (one lucky shell from a destroyer) might only represent 1 or 2 percent of the vessal damaged, but would reduce it's ability to make war to a considerably larger degree.

In regards to the siege problem, I liked the Civ3 bombardment method. I have never been one to figure out any exploits, so I'm not familiar with the stack of siege problem being discussed. If I understand what I'm reading, a solution to that might be to give siege units a much larger damage against other siege units when bombarding. That would allow a few siege units to take out a stack of many, and would represent the siege units inability to "dodge" the incomming rounds.

[Oldphart]

Originally posted by Strudo
I regards to naval combat I think people don't consider how damage effects a ship. Remember, the percent isn't damage, it's strength. A car sized hole in the hull of a battleship (one lucky shell from a destroyer) might only represent 1 or 2 percent of the vessal damaged, but would reduce it's ability to make war to a considerably larger degree.
...

A destroyer shell will hardly put a dent in battleship armour. It will damage antennas, superstructure or secondary weapons. A torpedo, on the other hand, will make a nasty hole which needs to be repaired sooner rather than later..

In modern sea warfare, a missile fired from a MTB, helicopter, or mobile shore launcher, can sink a destroyer or severely damage a battleship.

[onodera]

May I unhijack the thread back to artillery, please?
I'm an artillery officer and I disagree that catapults and field guns are the same unit type.

Catapults and trebuchets are for besieging cites. You can't expect a war machine that fires huge rocks one rock per hour to hit a unit of swordsmen. And to hit the whole army/stack is unthinkable.

Cannons are quite different. Yes, they still can be used as siege units, but they can attack troops now as well. But only if they have some infantry or cavalry to protect them.

Modern artillery is even more efficient (what killed the most soldiers in both world wars?) at turning regular units into paste. It can still be used to destroy castles except no one builds them anymore.

I quite like the SMAC system of artillery fire and I'd be elated to see it modified and used in CivIV or V.

1. Siege units.
Siege units can bombard cities and improvements (adjacent cell indirect attack). City defenders receive collateral damage and the culture defense (which I understand as patriotic citizenry assiting the defenders) goes down (you get tired of waiting for a stray boulder to land on your roof).
Siege units can't attack directly.
When attacked, siege units usually lose.

2. Artillery units.
Artillery can do everything siege units can do, and a lot more things.
They can bombard enemy stacks (fat cross indirect attack). Stacks receive collateral damage. If there's an artillery unit in the stack an artillery duel is started.
They still cannot attack directly alone or defend alone efficiently.

There was a nice mod somewhere that made whole stacks attack each other. I quite liked it. In a whole-stack system artillery used in direct attacks could provide covering fire for attackers and grind the attackers into paste for defenders.

I don't know how this can be implemented in the current system, though. Perhaps having some active artillery units in the same cell as the attacking/defending unit could provide first strike/defense bonuses?

Of course, this is a simplified system. Modern guns and howitzers are nothing like Renaissanse cannons (who shouldn't be able to use the fat cross bombardment) at all. But Civ is not about complex warfare.

Oh, and more artillery should be added in BtS for the modern period. Self-propelled howitzers, mortarmen, MLRS's, anti-tank guns... Sorry, got carried away a bit.

[Xorbon]

Onodera: What do mean by "fat cross indirect attack"? Are you referring to the bombardment range? Or the area that is affected by collateral damage?

Also, how do you take the comments by some of the other posters who think that artillery is obsolete, having been replaced by rockets, jet planes, and helicopters? I feel compelled to disagree, but my knowledge of the armed forces is too limited to make a decent argument.

By the way, I think that mod you referred to was made by Dale. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds very interesting.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Xorbon
Onodera: What do mean by "fat cross indirect attack"?

It's when Pavarotti gets angry during the finale of Nessun Dorma and accidentally knocks you off of your chair with some high powered spittle.

[onodera]

Originally posted by Xorbon
Onodera: What do mean by "fat cross indirect attack"? Are you referring to the bombardment range? Or the area that is affected by collateral damage?

The range, of course.

Originally posted by Xorbon
Also, how do you take the comments by some of the other posters who think that artillery is obsolete, having been replaced by rockets, jet planes, and helicopters? I feel compelled to disagree, but my knowledge of the armed forces is too limited to make a decent argument.

Look at Iraq. They started with jet bombers and cruise missiles, but they have to use Paladins and mortars now.
You can't call for a plane to bomb an enemy you encounter in five minutes. Artillery is more readily available. Even your batallion commander can have access to some.
Cruise missiles are for large targets like military installations: airfields, bunkers. Maybe large groups of armored combat vehicles. They are expensive.
MLRSs can be used to turn a small grove into a farmfield in two seconds, but they run out of rockets quick. But remove these rockets from the rails and launch them one by one, and you get a nasty harrassing weapon that keeps your enemy out of their beds.
Helicopters are a decent anti-tank weapon, but any barbarian with an RPG can take them down.
Sadly (well, fortunately ) there hasn't been a major conflict between two nations with lots of modern weaponry lately. But in every small-to-medium-scale conflict it is still used extensively.

Originally posted by Xorbon
By the way, I think that mod you referred to was made by Dale. I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds very interesting.

Yeah, Dale was the name. I should go check it out for any updates.

[Oldphart]

Actually, pre-gunpowder siege units were usually built on site by engineers. You just did not pull a trebuchet around, and some of the most important siege equipment was towers, rams and mines. Siege units should be replaced by engineers, and be separate from artillery units.

If rock-hurling equipment has zero movement, it will not harm game balance that they can bombard adjacent cities or stacks for collateral damage only (they do not have much chance of hitting a specific non-stationary target).

[Jaybe]

An attempt at introducing counter-battery fire in Warlords:
Give defensive bonuses to bombardment (non-machine gun) siege units vs. contemporary-and-older siege. The aim is to make attacking siege units attack defending siege units first, because the defending siege is the strongest defender in the stack. Also, siege units (including machine guns) are NOT immune to collateral damage (UnitCombatCollateralImmunes).

My first rendition is 50% defense (UnitClassDefenseMod) bonus, except trebs have 100% bonus vs. cats & trebs because of trebs' inflated city-attack strength. Pondering as I write this, I suspect I'll have to perhaps double these bonuses.

Today I made the value changes (UnitInfos.xml in CustomAssets) but have not yet experimented with it. Conundrums include defending within a city accompanied by entrenched defenders or on open terrain, simulating hitting siege still limbered, etc.

Best, of course, would be to have an OPTION to attack opposing siege units not more advanced, but I am limited to messing with the xml files.

Comments??

[eluciv]

No other game has the depth that Civ4 does. So many ways to play, so many means to any of multiple ends.

To complain about the lack of war "realism" or to compare its "inadequacies" to one-trick ponies that are basically only and all about war is missing the point. Military wins are only 40% of the ways to win - and one could argue that conquest is the only "pure" military win, so that's more like 20% of the possible "ends". (losing aside)

Granted, it's near impossible to win the higher difficulties without a little scrappin' (much less without seige weapons), but I see so much criticism of the war part of the game and it's kind of lame, honestly. The developers devote more attention to this facet of the game than any other - which I guess I could complain about, since I can see how it would tend to raise the expectations regarding this aspect of the game (Warlords, Conquests) - hopefully BtS is connotation enough that they will finally focus more on the other "major" aspects of the game. Then maybe folks can get over the fact that it's not "just a war game."

But then, a great game like Civ4....it's understandable for folks to start to want it all.

[Sirotnikov]

Wow.

this is a great thread guys.

Seriously.

Its a great read, and I hope the designers at firaxis are reading

[meriadoc]

Re: CIV shouldn't have Siege Units

Definitely, Civ4's implementation of artillery could be better. Admittedly, Civ3's implementation wasn't all that realistic, and could easily be exploited too easily. On the other hand, Civ4's implementation makes artillery almost, but not quite, worthless. I mean, if the only way that I can use it to attack units that aren't in a city is to sacrifice the artillery to gain "collateral damage", then that defeats the whole purpose of having a stand-off weapon in the first place.

Unfortunately, as bad as this problem is, I haven't got a decent solution. I'd say that a return to Civ3 method of using artillery might work, except that Firaxis obviously felt that it was too easy for the human to exploit it.

One of the better solutions, I felt, is based on Mr. Lucky's initial idea: artillery units should be replaced by artillery promotions. That way your infantry could be supported by artillery in a semi-realistic way that is much harder to exploit.

However, all of that being said, the thing that I miss the most is the AEGIS Cruiser unit from Civ2 and Civ3. My modern naval groups always have to be escorted by a carrier just so that it can carry a fighter that is set to intercept enemy fighters. The AEGIS cruiser was a much better unit for these situations, as it could provide me with both anti-air and anti-sea defenses in one unit. Plus, being a cruiser, it was strong enough to deploy on its own without needing a battleship in escort.

Oh well, those are my thoughts.

[Jaybe]

meriadoc, my siege-unit interpretation is that you aren't losing units to cause collateral damage: you are expending effort or (especially in the case of artillery) ammunition. All that ammunition has to be transported to the front in virtually continuous supply-chains.