Strap me to a catapult and fire away!! How does this thing work anyway?

[Sperricles]

The mechanics of Catapults are not well understood. I have scoured apolyton and civfanatics for insight....and unfortunately it has been minimal. What I do know comes mostly from the civ editor and experience. Here follows each concept with the stats for the catapult as well.

When bombing a city you have a chance of hitting units, hitting buildings, or killing citizens.

Bombard Strength 4
( this is your attack)

Bombard Range 1
( this is how far you can reach)
( 0 means it only bombards in defense like Baylon's Bowman)

Movement 1
(This number determines how many units you can attack in 1 turn)

Rate of Fire 1
( this is how many projectiles you will fire when you dedicate a movmement point to attacking a unit. )
( For example if you have 1 movement and rate of fire of 3 and you attack a stack of 3 warriors, all 3 projectiles will hit the same warrior in the stack.)

Bombard Fx Yes
(This means the unit will do its attack animation when it bombards)

Lethal Land Bombardment NO
( just like it sounds, used for the Hwach'a so that land units can be killed)

Lethal Land Bombardment NO
( just like it sounds, used for the Hwach'a so that naval units can be killed)

Collateral Damage No
(This means that after hitting a unit, damage may also be caused to buildings or terrain.)
(what the odds of collateral damage are is UNCLEAR to me)

City Walls
(Walls provide a bombard defense of 8. What this number means is UNCLEAR to me.)
(It is also UNCLEAR if the +50% defense bonus is applied to units in the combat calculation when being bombarded)

Maybe 8 is used for defense strength when a catapult is determined to be attacking the wall itself instead of a unit or citizen.
Maybe 8 is used for defense strength when a catapult is determined to be attacking any improvement.
Maybe 8 is a bonus that is added to units in that city so that a warrior that defends with 1, now defends with 9
Maybe the 8 is what the catapult must beat before it even gets a chance to attack a building, unit, or citizen.
Maybe 8 is something completely different.

Terrain
(It is UNCLEAR if terrain defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

Forts and Barricades.
(It is UNCLEAR if the defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

Fortifying
(It is UNCLEAR if the defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

The Great Wall
(It is UNCLEAR if the defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)


The number of UNCLEAR issues is very troubling. Knowing which is true greatly alters the value of a catapult. If any of you have information that will shed light on the mechanics of catapults, I would really appreciate it.

[alexman]

Re: Strap me to a catapult and fire away!! How does this thing work anyway?

Originally posted by Sperricles
Movement 1
(This number determines how many units you can attack in 1 turn)

Only if the unit also has blitz.

Collateral Damage No
(This means that after hitting a unit, damage may also be caused to buildings or terrain.)
(what the odds of collateral damage are is UNCLEAR to me)

As far as I know, this doesn't work for bombard units, but it was going to be changed in a patch so that it does.

City Walls
(Walls provide a bombard defense of 8. What this number means is UNCLEAR to me.)
(It is also UNCLEAR if the +50% defense bonus is applied to units in the combat calculation when being bombarded)

It means that your bombard unit needs to defeat the walls before it can hurt anything else. A Catapult has a 33% chance of success (4/(4+8)) for example. Therefore, the 50% defense bonus cannot apply to ground unit bobardment, but it applies to Naval bombardment.

Terrain
(It is UNCLEAR if terrain defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

They do apply.

Forts and Barricades.
(It is UNCLEAR if the defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

They do apply.

Fortifying
(It is UNCLEAR if the defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

Broken record.

The Great Wall
(It is UNCLEAR if the defensive bonuses apply to a unit when it is being bombarded)

See the answer for Walls. The problem here is that since Walls have to be destroyed before anything else, and a city can't have its 'virtual' walls destroyed if it has the Great Wall, bombardment destroys another improvement instead. It's a bug.

[ducki]

FYI, Lethal Land Bombard is in there twice, the second looks like it was meant to be Lethal Sea Bombard.

[Catt]

Re: Strap me to a catapult and fire away!! How does this thing work anyway?

Originally posted by Sperricles
When bombing a city you have a chance of hitting units, hitting buildings, or killing citizens.

This was changed in C3C for land- and naval-based bombard units. When attacking a city, land bombard units will now target units and only units until every last unit is redlined to 1 HP (or destroyed if lethal bombard is enabled). Only when all units are redlined will bombards target city improvements or population.

Air bombard employs the older Civ III model of randomly selecting targets among units, improvements, and population.

Perhaps Firaxis will change bombard back to the original model in an upcoming patch

Catt

[Thoth]

Re: Re: Strap me to a catapult and fire away!! How does this thing work anyway?

The Great Wall

Originally posted by alexman

See the answer for Walls. The problem here is that since Walls have to be destroyed before anything else, and a city can't have its 'virtual' walls destroyed if it has the Great Wall, bombardment destroys another improvement instead. It's a bug.

I thought this had been fixed in the 1.15 patch? The situation hasn't come up in any of my games since the patch, but I thought I'd read on Poly that this issue had been dealt with.