Poll: bombardment

[Keeper of Hell]

Later bombardment units (re: stealth bombers) are almost completely useless unless you beef them up. Although I generally agree that it's realistic to have an artillery barrage do an underwhelming amount of damage to cites and garrisons, modern day bombers can do an incredible amount of damage because they can pinpoint strikes so accurately. The fact that stealth bombers are weaker than many ground-based artillery units makes absolutely no sense.

[Tattila the Hun]

"A house is a house. When you hit it with 88mm HE shell, it becomes a fortress."

I only build navy because everybody else builds navy and bombs me to smithereens if I don't do the same first.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
"A house is a house. When you hit it with 88mm HE shell, it becomes a fortress."

For those who do not know, Tattila was referring to:
A city that has been heavily bombarded is EASIER to defend. Any people not killed have all the more places to hide themselves in the rubble. The streets are all gone, so anyone not intimately familiar with the area gets lost quickly because maps are useless (unless you have GPS ).

[ruby_maser]

Its unfortunate that the AI doesn't understand/utilize navies as they are in real life. I would like to see a Civ3 naval battle like Jutland.

Anyway, I utilize navies for escorting, armadas, as well as bombardment, but I actually begin to bombard when artillery comes around.

Against the AI, I usually just keep a large stack of Artillery. After railroads, the stack just travels where the action is.

[Theseus]

Ooooh yeah... arty makes my day.

Theseus (discoverer of continuous-bombard... click, click, click)

[Kingof the Apes]

I don't use cannon as much as artillery, which I use a lot. And I never use catapults.

[Stuie]

From Catapults on up.

Shower them with bananas (until we run out, anyway: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...od_banana_dc_1)

[nbarclay]

Let me add a caveat to my "No, never" vote, since although it's closer than any other choice, it's not quite 100% accurate. I'm perfectly willing to use captured bombard units if I can get them to a useful location, and I'll occasionally build a few bombard units of my own (more likely for coastal defense than for anything else). But by and large, in the vast majority of my games, I do my fighting with fast-movers. Also, I like to capture cities as intact as possible. Bombardment units don't fit either of those aspects of my approach well.

Nathan

[bobbo008]

I don't even consider building until at least i have artillery. then, if i do, i'll make at least 15 in a stack and have them well-defended.

[Thrawn05]

Before the Lethal Bombard patch, what I did was remove Bombardment values from the artillary units and made like regular units. The Bombard strength becomes Attack strength and range becomes Defense strength. The AI actualy used these units as well, and it was lots of fun.

Of course now I have SOME of the units with lethal bombardment, mostly the more advanced units.


I don't bother with airplanes at all, I don't like them. I liked the old system. But that's just me.

[latka]

I am curious to know how nbarclay defeats heavily defended cites when behind in advances. In my most recent game, I sent 11 legioneers against 2 pikemen and one spearman. I lost everything. The city did not have walls and was on plains. I did not hardly do any damage to any of the three units. I would have at least thought that 4 legioneers, two elite and two vetern would elminate one regular spearman that was fortified. All I did was make regular units into elite units and got my b*tt kicked

What do you do when you don't have truely superior units, but do have numbers. I finally took the city when I got knights. It took me two attacks with five knights and seven catapults.

At the same time, I lost a city with one fortified elite pikeman to a regular archer. Arrrg!

[CerberusIV]

There are a lot of statements about how useless catapults are and it is true that they don't do as much damage as later artillery units. However they can take a HP off a couple of defenders and make all the difference. In my current game I just took a size 7 city defended by three fortified regular pikemen. A stack of 5 catapults took one HP off two pikemen and I attacked with knights and med inf. I took the city without casualties but the first (undamaged) pikeman fought off a knight and took 2 HP off the second knight. The two damaged pikemen went down without any trouble. For the cost of building them catapults can make a difference and avert expensive losses IMHO.

[latka]

I need more sleep. Substitute Legioneer with Swordsman. I have played way too many civ games. Sorry.

[TacticalGrace]

Originally posted by latka

What do you do when you don't have truely superior units, but do have numbers. I finally took the city when I got knights. It took me two attacks with five knights and seven catapults.

At the same time, I lost a city with one fortified elite pikeman to a regular archer. Arrrg!

When you attacked with the swordsmen you were somewhat unlucky. When you were attacked by the archer you were again somewhat unlucky. What it does go to show is that there is quite a lot of deviation in the results of combat in civ3. This is intended to allow the player who is behind to have a chance to catch up. As you have seen it IS possible for an elite pikeman to be defeated by a regular archer. Therefore build on this and try to get things to go your way. Instead of one archer you need to use 3 horsemen for every defender. Remember that a defeated horseman will often retreat meaning that (a) you are left with a unit to use another day (b) the defender doesn't get an upgrade.

Using bombard units is an alternative way of doing this. Get a few bombard units and keep bombarding. If the bombard isn't as successful as you had hoped then don't proceed with the assault. If you have a lucky round of bombarding then that is the time to go in with your assault troops.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by latka
I am curious to know how nbarclay defeats heavily defended cites when behind in advances. In my most recent game, I sent 11 legioneers against 2 pikemen and one spearman. I lost everything. The city did not have walls and was on plains. I did not hardly do any damage to any of the three units. I would have at least thought that 4 legioneers, two elite and two vetern would elminate one regular spearman that was fortified. All I did was make regular units into elite units and got my b*tt kicked

What do you do when you don't have truely superior units, but do have numbers. I finally took the city when I got knights. It took me two attacks with five knights and seven catapults.

At the same time, I lost a city with one fortified elite pikeman to a regular archer. Arrrg!

Were your legionaires veterans? If not, that could go a long way toward explaining the problem, but even then it sounds like a run of pretty bad luck. (The only non-vet units I deliberately build are normally my first handful of scouting warriors and warriors a city with one food surplus builds while waiting for the food for a worker, although I do occasionally forget to build a barracks before putting a city on building a unit.)

There are two main reasons I don't have any more use for artillery than I do. First, I'm good at the research/builder aspect of the game, so it's almost unheard of for me to be permanently stuck in a situation where I can't get unit superiority. And second, I pick the timing on my wars carefully - for example, if I'm going to need to attack to get more room, I try to make sure I attack before technology reaches the point where my opponent will have pikes. Between those two factors, my skills with "legions against pikemen" type fighting haven't evolved all that far.

I definitely recognize the value of artillery when (for example) taking on infantry before tanks are available. I've even used that type of strategy once or twice when I had a special reason for doing so. But my normal solution is to wait until I have tanks or, more likely still, modern armor upgraded from tanks, and then I can stomp to my heart's content with minimal difficulty.

(I know a lot of players love the thrill of a tough, hard-fought war, but the real fun for me is the economic contest. Quick, easy wars are my prize for doing well in that economic contest.)

Nathan