Stack Bombardment vs. Auto-Bombardment

[meriadoc]

Since the release of Civ 3, one of the features that has been requested was a stacked bombardment feature similar to the one implemented in CTPs 1 & 2. In response to this, Firaxis has implemented the "auto-bombard" feature. For those of you who haven't used it, you set your unit to bombard a certain square every turn and it does so until either the square can't be bombarded or you stop the unit.

The question is, which feature is better? Both features mean that the user has to issue the bombardment order fewer times. But in my opinion the auto-bombard feature has a serious short-coming: time. I generally use prodigious quanitities of artillery, often times several hundred units worth. The auto-bombard feature does mean that, after the first turn, I can just sit back and watch the units perform their action without any input from me. But, even on a P4 1.5GHz computer, it takes almost 10 minutes for the approximately 300 units to complete their bombardments. I'll admit that I probably am the unusual case in having so many units, but I doubt that I am alone.

In my opinion the stacked bombardment would have been a better idea. Telling several bombardment-capable units to all bombard the same square together would, in my opinion, save time and energy. Instead of sitting and watching several units all bombard the same square, one after the other, I could watch one bombardment with a combined outcome (i.e. "4 buildings destroyed, 2 people killed, 5 HPs removed from units").

Any opinions?

[ShredZ]

I think this topic needs more attention then its getting.

I was reading last week about some guy that figured out how to STACK-BOMBARD by holding a button and then clicking on the target the number of times you wanted to bombard, but for the life of me I cant find that thread anymore. I tried to experiment with buttons last night but I couldnt figure it out... if anyone can remember the thread or can just refresh my memory - how do you stack-bombard again? TIA.

Auto-bombard is almost useless.

[Tiberius]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65101&perpage=20

[Tiberius]

...and to answer the question: Yes, what I'd like more to have is stack bombard. Auto-bombard is nice too, but when you have 30, 40 or more artilleries, a stack-bombard feature would be very wellcomed.

[GusSmed]

Actually, I find the auto-bombard to be useless. I don't really understand why anyone would want to use it.

I see the primary use of bombardment to be softening up defenders before attacking, to reduce the losses you take in the assault. Knocking them all down to 1 (preferably) or 2 HP means that you'll generally take little or no losses.

This has the two-fold advantage that you don't need to periodically pause and wait for reinforcements, and increased unit survival means more elites and more Great Leaders.

Multiple-turn bombardment isn't very useful. Units heal most or, if in a town with a barracks, all the damage from the previous turn. The idea is to knock them down and eliminate them in one turn.

If you don't have the force to do it, you shouldn't start the attack. You're better off using your forces defensively, picking off the AI's dribbling attacks with them if you're not quite strong enough.

Sure, you can mess up an enemy city with multiple turn bombards, but why do it? You're better off just taking the city.

Bombardment reaches its peak in the industrial age with Artillery. There's a significant period where Infantry is common yet Tanks are not yet available, when the only way to take a city without hideous losses is to bombard.

During this period, I often have a ton of artillery running around, more than I need to take one city. If for some reason I don't quite take a city, the last thing I want to do is set auto-bombard. Next turn I'll have more than enough to knock down all the defenders, and I don't want to use more if it than I have to. I want to move the remaining, unused pieces to the next attack.

It's during this period that I really want Stack Bombard. I have 10-30 pieces knocking down 3-4 infantry, and it's tedious having to hit "B" / click 15+ times, hoping I'll hit the infantry instead of the town. I want a command that will fire all the artillery in the stack until all the defenders have 1 HP, and then stop. I don't want to waste shots reducing the city instead of the troops.

- Gus

[Random Passerby]

Wouldn't turning attack animations off eliminate the wait of watching 100 artillery bombarding a city?

Anyways, I find that if you have enough artillery to knock a city's worth of defenders down to 1 hp each, the game is for all intents and purposes won. When there's solid half-dozen or so defenders and you don't have such obscene amounts of artillery to spare on forward assault, pounding the city to town-sized rubble first is an important step.

[meriadoc]

You would think that turning off the attack animations would decrease the wait, but it doesn't. I already have the animations off but I still get to watch every single unit auto-bombard something.

Besides which, as GusSmed pointed out, artillery is primarily used by people like us to soften up the defenders of a city before attacking it. Since, due to the healing capabilities of the barrack, that is not something that works well over multiple turns, having the auto-bombard feature doesn't help all that much in these cases. It's the stack-bombard that would really be useful.

[ZargonX]

Well, I've noticed that more often than not, when I start to bombard a city, one of the first things that gets destroyed is the barracks. So, in that instance, it is reasonable to stage a multi-turn bombardment to wear down defenders. Plus, sometimes it's just fun to pound a city into rubble, right?

[ShredZ]

PEOPLE!!!! Are you not paying attention? Even the person the left me the link I was looking for apparently didnt read it either! There is a stack-bombard feature and this is how you do it:

I haven't tried this with anything but Arty yet, but hold down the 'b' button continuously, and concurrently click on your target as many times as you want it hit (up to the number of Arty you have in position).

It works, I just tested it.

No more complaining, this one is solved, bombard at will!

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by ShredZ
No more complaining, this one is solved, bombard at will!

Clicking 15-30 times isn't exactly what I would call "solved".

- Gus

[meriadoc]

I agree. Clicking 15-20 times isn't much better than just indivually bombarding with 15-20 units. I already spend enough time ordering units around in a turn, I want to be able to order my 15-20 (or more) units to bombard something with two clicks: the first to select "stack-bombard" and the second to select where.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by GusSmed


Clicking 15-30 times isn't exactly what I would call "solved".

- Gus

Exactly

[meriadoc]

Bump.

[meriadoc]

You know, for such a "hot topic", this thread is pretty dead.

[Zero]

I too would agree stack bombard would be far more of use than aur=to bombard... Even when artys are set at auto bombard, lets say this turn you want to attack the city and the artys are set to auto bombard the city. Since auto units go dead last, that means you'll have to hit 'w' for all active units until auto unit move takes place, while if u had stack bombard u could have accomplished this simple.