Bombardment missing the point

[Lord Merciless]

I usually keep my offensive units vs defensive units vs artilleries in 2:1:1 ratio. It works pretty well. Offensive units tend to take a lots of damages if defenders have NOT been softened by artilleries before.

[Coracle]

Originally posted by Grumbold
In terms of playing the game, I agree. It's boring to have to tote round two dozen artillery units because only six of them are going to achieve anything when they finally get to open fire. . .

The entire bombardment aspect of Civ 3 is not well thought out and is another example of game tedium.

First of all, you need to mod UP to the values of bombardment units to make them effective enough to bother making and using.

We have also asked for STACK BOMBARDMENT, not individual unit bombardment. better automation is also needed. We could use rally points to allow all bombardment units within a certain range to concentrate on.

I suggest also a way to attach a bombardment unit to a foot soldier: where the foot soldier goes the bombardment unit goes. Actually, this is more realistic than what we currently have.

There are many possibilities to make bombardment units more effective, and to limit the tedium in using them. All Firaxis needs is the will to do it.

[Moonsinger]

It doesn't bother me to move 200 artillery units around since they save the life of my other units. Sure, artillery miss-fire alot and often miss its target; however, the result is still alot better than losing your other units. Once an artillery is built, it will last forever until you disband it. Because of artillery, I am able to cut down the lost of my other units; therefore, cut down the size of my force which saves me a lot of money in the long run.

[Ijuin]

Part of the problem is that Bombard units are relatively too weak compared to other units. City defenses compound this problem.

My personal solution is to double the bombard strength of each bombard-capable unit. This makes it feasable to actually inflict some damage with bombard units.

Anyway, to look at the numbers, a bombarding unit (except for an aircraft performing a Precision Strike) has a 50% chance of hitting a unit, a 25% chance of hitting an improvement, and a 25% chance of killing citizens. In a Town, citizens and improvements have a base defense of 16. With Walls, or in a City, this is raised to 24, and with the Great Wall, or in a Metropolis, this is raised to 32. Units, on the other hand, have a base defense equal to their field defense strength, and this is given a 50% bonus with Walls or in a City, and a 100% bonus with the Great Wall or in a Metropolis. Here are some examples (note that this list is LONG--you can skip over it if you like):

Catapult attack (attack 4) vs:
A. Town w/o Walls on Hill (50% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 24): 1 in 7 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Spearman (defense 3.5): Approximately 1 in 2 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Pikeman/Hoplite (defense approx. 5.5): Approximately 2 in 5 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Musketman (defense 7): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
B. City/Town with Walls on Hill (100% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 32): 1 in 9 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Spearman (defense 4.5): 4 in 9 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Pikeman/Hoplite (defense approx. 7): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
4. Fortified Musketman (defense 9): 4 in 13 probability of successful hit
C. Town with Walls and Great Wall on Hill (150% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 40): 1 in 11 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Spearman (defense 5.5): Approximately 2 in 5 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Pikeman/Hoplite (defense approx. 8.5): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
4. Fortified Musketman (defense 11): 4 in 15 probability of successful hit

II. Artillery (attack 12) vs:
A. Town w/o Walls on Hill (50% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 24): 1 in 3 probability of successful hit.
2. Fortified Rifleman (defense 10.5): Approximately 6 in 11 probability of successful hit.
3. Fortified Infantry (defense 17.5): Approximately 3 in 7 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Mech. Inf. (defense 31.5): Approximately 3 in 11 probability of successful hit
B. City/Town with Walls on Hill (100% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 32): 3 in 11 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Rifleman (defense 13.5): Approximately 6 in 13 probability of successful hit.
3. Fortified Infantry (defense 22.5): Approximately 1 in 3 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Mech. Inf. (defense 40.5): Approximately 3 in 13 probability of successful hit
C. Metropolis on Hill (150% total defense bonus)
1. Citizen/Improvement (defense 40): 3 in 13 probability of successful hit
2. Fortified Rifleman (defense 16.5): Approximately 3 in 7 probability of successful hit
3. Fortified Infantry (defense 27.5): Approximately 3 in 10 probability of successful hit
4. Fortified Mech. Inf. (defense 49.5): Approximately 1 in 5 probability of successful hit



As you can see from the list, the chances of getting a successful artillery hit are quite low, only approaching 50% if the attacker has a tech advantage over the defender. This is why I am in favor of doubling all bombard attack strengths. Comments, anyone?

[Grumbold]

I think that doubling the attack strength is going too far. The artillery unit in defence or against unfortified targets is already quite powerful enough. It just gets boring using it against big well defended cities. When playing against the AI and having a tech advantage I normally just forget subtlety and throw modern armor at the walls. Who cares if I lose a couple more tanks if the enemy loses a big city? Replacement tanks will be built again by the following turn.

Against good human opponents it is obviously going to be far more important to get your attacks optimised. If PtW allows you to move a stack of 10 artillery and bombard with it in a single click then that is a big help. Having to haul around a 10 arty 10 defender stack to support the 5 tanks may be boring but its not that far from modern warfare......

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Having to haul around a 10 arty 10 defender stack to support the 5 tanks may be boring but its not that far from modern warfare......

Have you tried the stack movement key "j"? Combining that with the "Wake up all" and "Fortify all" command (patch 1.29f), it's so much easier to move units in stacks nowadays.

[Grumbold]

D'uh yes I'm not a complete rookie. Its just tedious when the same number of mouse clicks could get you so much further with just tanks, as long as you don't mind taking a few casualties. Less tedious than it was before 1.21 but still boring, especially when two stacks merge for a big attack and then have to split again. Your threshold for micromanagement hell is obviously much higher than mine. If I had 150 units in my army, let alone 150 artillery plus other stuff, I would have long since declared myself victorious and started a new game without waiting for the score.

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
If I had 150 units in my army, let alone 150 artillery plus other stuff, I would have long since declared myself victorious and started a new game without waiting for the score.

Can't do that! Not when there are at least three other superpowers left in the world and each of them has over 200 infantries and over 100 cavalries/tanks. Not to mention that they are also ahead in techs too. Technically, they would be able to beat me with the UN victory without much of a problem.

[=DrJambo=]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I think that doubling the attack strength is going too far. The artillery unit in defence or against unfortified targets is already quite powerful enough.

This point is very important. When i first made up my mod i was a firm favourite of increasing the bombard strength and rate of fire of units to compensate their lack of power against cities...

However, after being involved in many defensive wars my increases proved far too much. Basically no AI unit could get near my cities as my artillery levelled them as soon as they got within range. The left-over 1 hp troops could then be mopped up easily (even for a swordsman v infantry).

So, whilst they may not be useful at attacking cities unless used en mass, they are very useful at destroying improvements and weakening troops in the field.

Also bear in mind they are also useful in preventing the AI from gaining promotions and thus possibly a leader as you waste throwing hordes of offensive troops against well-defended troops. By softening them up even just a little (1 or 2 hp) you greatly increase the chance of taking them out without gifting them promotions.

Current stats i settled for are (str,rng,rof):
catapult (5,1,1) +1 str
cannon (10,1,1) +2 str
artillery (16,2,1) +4 str, -1 rof
radar artillery (22,2,1) move 2, +6 str, -1 rof, +1 mov

[=DrJambo=]

Moonsinger, do you play with the native civ3.mod?

Or do you play with modded rules?

Either way, do you find the AI building a ton of paras in preference to tanks if it researches advanced flight?

[Moonsinger]

Originally posted by =DrJambo=
Moonsinger, do you play with the native civ3.mod?

So far, I have always played with the original rules released by Firaxis. I'm using patch 1.29f now; other than applying the various version of the patch by Firaxis, everything is 100% original.

[player1]

Originally posted by =DrJambo=
artillery (16,2,1) +4 str, -1 rof
radar artillery (22,2,1) move 2, +6 str, -1 rof, +1 mov

-1 ROF?

Why have you weakened these units so much?
Their original values were much better.
(not counting double move for R.A, which is good change)

ROF 2 --> ROF 1 means HAVLED efficiency

[=DrJambo=]

player1, bear in mind that although they have had their ROF reduced by 1, they've also had a massive increase in bombard strength.

The reason i did this was 2 fold.

1. When defending in a stack artillery can only ever do 1 hp of damage. When attacking then can do 2 hp damage. This benefits the human player because they will use artillery offensively much more than the AI who predominantly uses them for defence. So this measure evens things out for offence and defence.

2. The potential of 2 hp damage to enemy approaching my cities from a range of 2 squares i found to be overpowerful. A relatively cheap stack of 20 artillery moved around once railroads have been built will effectively halt any attacking force before any combat has begun. Too easy and too unbalancing considering the AI never stacks its artillery.

Therefore these measures take a little of the human player's reliance away from simply having a large mobile defensive stack of artillery.

Maybe i haven't increased the bombard ability of the artillery and radar artillery by enough... only playtesting will tell!?

[=DrJambo=]

i forgot to mention that my radar artillery also have the blitz ability thereby giving them a potential for 2 bombardments per turn.

[Hagbart]

Yeah you're right. I just played a game (Apolyton Expack as the Vikings) and I bombarded a city maybe four turns with a catapult without hitting the city a single time!
Artillery is only good as defence in Civ3.