Stupid question about catapults and artillery.

[Dinner]

I know and love how these ranged units can bombard cities reducing both the bonus city defenders get as well as inflicting collateral damage on stacked forces. You just push the little button with the red cross hairs and then click on the city you want to bombard. My question is can I also bombard enemy units which are not in a city. Say I have a stack of modern arty outside of a city and the enemy has a stack of units also outside a city... How do I go about bombarding that stack and inflicting collateral damage? I have looked and I honestly don't see a button for that but maybe there is a hot key or something.

[slnz]

You can only bombard city defenses (the % you see on the map). Bombarding never does any kind of unit damage. Attacking (often suiciding) with siege units makes all the actual (direct & collateral) damage, and that you can do equally fine outside a city than in a city.

[Dinner]

But I can't use my artillery to bombard an enemy stack of doom prior to attacking it or allowing it to attack me in a defensive position?

[Theben]

You don't "bombard" it, you just attack it. Unless you have a tech lead you'll probably lose a couple also, but as long as you have other attack units it'll be fine.

[Blaupanzer]

The collateral damage is the tradeoff for the siege unit's vulnerability. You just attack and hope it retreats before it dies. The little red cross hairs are to reduce the city defenses prior to any actual attack.

[Ming]

Siege units are built to die. They serve their purpose. When I'm at war, there is always a constant stream of seige units working their way to the front to replace the ones I'm lossing. The good news is, if they do their job, you lose less of your front line attack units.