How do walls really work?

[Dominae]

I sense some bitterness in Nor Me's posts in this thread. Thankfully I'm not the cause.


Dominae

[PLATO]

In reality, it's only the bombard defense that expires when the city reaches size 7. The defense bonus remains until the walls are sold or destroyed, no matter what the size of the city

This is an incredibly useful item. Thanks alexman!

[MrWhereItsAt]

Indeed - another of those undocumented (of course) one-liner pearls of wisdom that should be noted well.

[PLATO]

Re: How do walls really work?

Originally posted by alexman
In reality, it's only the bombard defense that expires when the city reaches size 7. The defense bonus remains until the walls are sold or destroyed, no matter what the size of the city.

I have been taking a watchful eye the last month while playing and I believe that this is correct. Building walls at size 5 or 6 is something I used to avoid. But now it is becoming more SOP.

[alva]

quote:
Originally posted by Catt

Do you think it is a bug?

Yes, it's definitely a bug introduced in PTW. [/q][/q]
I actually like this bud and hope firaxis doesn't change it, you now finally have a reason to build them (although now theu should probably increase somewhat in cost though)
-
Again, thanks for the master to come with things like this

[GarP2]

How is the selection between unit, population, or improvement as bombardment target made by the AI?

Thanks
GarP

[alexman]

It's random. I believe the odds are something like 50% chance of targetting a unit, 25% an improvement, and 25% a citizen.

[GarP2]

Is it also proportional to the number of each? Seems like when I need to kill units, I kill a lot of pop instead.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

The Idiot Speaks

Ok, first of all, I didn't know that a walls effect's remained in effect after a city grew past size 6. D'oh! Secondly, I don't even know what "bombard defense" refers to. Er, well, I know what it refers to, but I don't know how it works.

I'm only recently becoming a saavy enough player to be interested in bombardment. Could someone explain the basics for me, and the rest of us out here in idiot-land?

In the meantime, looks like I'll be building more walls... I've mostly used them for under-size-6 cities on frontiers of late-game conquests, far from "home"...

[alexman]

Everything you ever wanted to know about bombardment

• Bombardment works like normal combat, except that the odds are determined using the bombard strength of the attacking unit, instead of its attack strength. The defender's strength and modifiers are the same in both cases.
• If the attacker wins, the defender gets one HP of damage. If the attacker loses, nothing happens.
• Bombardment consists of as many rounds of combat as the ROF value of the attacking unit. So each bomardment can result in between zero and ROF hit points of damage.
• When you use a ground unit to bombard a city with walls, you have to first destroy the walls (by damaging them as if they were a unit with a defensive strength of 8) before you can harm anything else.
• After the walls are destroyed, each subsequent bombard unit can destroy a unit, improvement, or population in the city. When you target a city, you have a 50% chance of targetting the top unit, a 25% chance of targetting population, and a 25% chance of targetting improvements.
• Population and improvements are treated like a unit with a defensive strength of 16. If during an attack an improvement is targetted but the city has no improvements, it's an automatic miss. Similarly, if population is tagretted but the city is of size 1, it's a also a sure miss.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Wow! Thank you Alexman, that's more information than I had ever heard. I had no idea how that stuff really worked. Where is that information in the Civilopedia?

[Arrian]

Thanks, alexman.

-Arrian

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Leads one to speculate: will the Trebuchet be a 0.0.1/6.1.1 unit, or simply a more expensive cannon?

[GarP2]

Thanks, Alexman. That helps to make bombardment less frustrating (even if not more effective), knowing that something is really going on. So does that mean that when there is no message, something (pop or improvement) was hit but not destroyed, and when it say "bombardment failed" that is one of the automatic miss conditions?

I really dont have a problem with the inefficiency of bombardment, since it is a risk-free attack. Besides that, it's much more effective against an exposed unit, making it a good defensive technique.

How do these rules extend to bombardment of terrain improvements? Same as city improvements?

Thanks,
GarP

[alexman]

As far as I know, when you bombard a city there is never no message at all, unless you actually hit and damage a unit. You either succeed in doing some damage, or you get the "bombardment failed" message. It might have been different before PTW though.

As for terrain improvements, they have a base defense of 16, modified by the defensive value of the terrain.

When you bombard a non-city tile there is no random selection of the target. You first target any unit in the tile. When all units have been reduced to 1 HP you target any railroad, and when the railroad has been destroyed you target the road/mines/irrigation. I think radar towers get targetted after all other improvements have been destroyed, but I can't remember for sure.