Thoughts on Radar Artillery

[King of Rasslin]

A lot of people think that it should have a movement of 2, instead of 1. They say that modern artillery should be mobile because that is realistic.

I say that giving the radar artillery a range of 3 (1 movement plus 2 range attack) would make it an even weapon with modern armor. It seems that artillery is only good in the pre tank era, but becomes useless after that.

Radar artillery comes so late in the game, it should have more power. But some people say that this defeats its purpose as a siege weapon, used for long term assaults. This is probably why Firaxis wanted it to have only 1 movement. But as of now, its usefulness is only for people that don't have the uranium needed to make nukes.

The cannon is actually a good bombard unit! When swordsmen have a real upgrade path, I bet people will appreciate it more. Catapults however, are very worthless except for defence. Artillery is the unit to have when infantry come around, but it becomes very useless later on.

In fact, artillery should be useful on the defence. However, modern armor (and even tanks!) have too much defence! You should just counter attack with more tanks, instead of using artillery. Compare the cannon's bombard of 8 to a musketman's defence of 4, but then an artillery's bombard of 12 with a modern armor's 16 defence!?

Later units have ridiculous amounts of defence! The transition to cavalry to tanks has nearly a 3x defence bonus. Then defence is doubled when tanks become modern armor!

Artillery needs to be heavily strengthened (especially the catapult and radar artillery) and some units need a serious reduction in defence. Tanks should have 6 defence (so cavalry still has a chance against them) and modern armor should have 12, even with artillery's bombard strength.

With PtW coming, it would be very nice is someone from Firaxis would take suggestions seriously, because game balance will become more of an issue in multiplayer.

[Tuberski]

They could take even more of the tedium out of the game if they made artillery an integrated part of the city defenses. They can do it with the coastal fortress, why not artillery. This would also decrease a lot of bombard tedium.

[XOR]

Giving a radar artillery a movement of 2 means you can move your artillery into firing range, fire, garrison it inside a city (when railroads are available, and by robotics, they ARE), that's too exploitable, RA is fine as it is. If you think they are weak then just build ;arger numbers of them. But they are very strong on defense already.

Catapults and cannons are good, you just have to build them by the dozen. Specially catapults are very effective at defending your masses of swordsmen (or immortals!) against those silly mounted units (you'll have some difficulty against Mounted Warriors though).

[jshelr]

I deeply resent this unprovoked attacked on my beloved stack of arty!! Useless??? Give me a stack of 50+ arty and I'll walk through any civ. Plan to do so tonight, in fact, using panzers for the kill. The argument that they are too slow is just wrong. They ride the opponent civ's railroad system just fine if you plan well. The keys are that you have to have lots of arty and be willing to sacrifice tanks and infantry to get them if necessary, and you have to have the patience to use them to keep offensive losses down to a minimum. They are incredibly powerful, and the radar upgrade is even more so later on.

Forget the one-turn blitz before MA and concentrate on low-risk offensive capability. For those of us who can't routinely dominate the map before the modern age, arty are the tool of choice to finally get the job done.

[SpencerH]

I've still never got a game to the point where I can build RA and I hate playing on after I've won (or occasionally lost).

[Corvusnex]

What is this 'Radar Artillery' you speak of?

I have had only one game go on long enough for me to develop 'Modern Armor', and that's because I slowed down my production/research to get the war weariness under control. I have also never seen the Aegis Cruiser or any Stealth-based aircraft. I can't imagine playing a game all the way out to the end of the Modern era; that's just painful.

Here's a solution to your Radar Artillery dilema: beat down your opponents during the Ancient and Industrial eras, so you won't have to put up with tedious Modern era combat.

[jshelr]

The last two folks posting would have a great time if they found the Babylon and On tread and played the game posted there. It starts out with you way behind as you head for the modern era and you have to 1) catch up on tech and 2) build and use all the modern weapons to win. Some people did win. It's a very close race and a very exciting game.

[Dida]

I don't build any bombard unit in my game. All my Artillery are those that I captured from my enemies. They are completely useless and tedius to manage. How much work you have to do to tell 20 cannons to blast at the enemy city? And how enraging is it to see that 2/3 of your effords fails to do any harm to the enemy?
I simply build calvaries, inf, tank and if possible, MAs. Lots and lots of them. like an army of 500 MAs. I can walk through anyone on the planet with that. No stupid artilleries, no bombers needed. Just some BBs to back up your transport if needed. Once you are landed on their continent, they are dead.

[vmxa1]

Something to be said about that tactic, I use to do that way. OTOH, if you turn off all but conquest on a huge map you will get to use all modern weapons. In that case RA can be helpfull. A dozen or so can be used with some MA/MechINf to defend all of your cities from landings, while the army is out spanking the AI.

I should have added they are useful to keep the naval bombardments in check. I do not always have enough ships in all of the coastal areas to prevent a ship from running in an trying to bust up my improvements. I hit them with arties and they have to go away for awhile. I may or may not hunt them down at that time.

[King of Rasslin]

If you love artillery now, wait until multiplayer. Bashing a stupid AI with artillery is easy. I would rather have a bunch of tanks instead, when they are available.

And modern armor (available earlier than radar artillery!) has an effective range of 3. Radar artillery should be just as good as modern armor when attacking, since it is available at the same era.

I would rather make dozens of tanks or swordsmen than artillery. Artillery is only good in the pre tank era, and this should be different. Radar artillery should be just as effective as modern armor, range wise. 2 movement would be good.

[vmxa1]

Again not a bad idea, but one thing a RA (use any cannon type) can be used for, that a tank/ma can not. It gets to hit without a retaliation. That means I can bust the unit down to 1 HP and take no loses. If I hit with a tank type I could win or lose. How do you like attacking that unit with your tank after it has only one HP?

[XOR]

I use them for well defended cities, sometimes I get by cities that are defended by 6 MI with some MA and fighters inside, then I bring my 20-pack of artilleries, bombard the **** out of them (if I failed to much I I do it the next turn too) and then continue with my panzer blitz. I also use them on ships that try to bombard my coasts and sometimes to make some evil pillage over a large area.

But where artillery is truely priceless is at defense, when some sucker comes with MA and attacks your cities he still get's the tip-off before engaging in combat with your units that have a defensive bonus and full HP.

[Blue Moose]

I prefer bombers to artillery...true, you can't have them with a stack of units to defend them if they are attacked...but I wouldn't get than anyhow since I am moving to fast. Fast, quick assaults and holdings of a city usually bring the enemy close to you, then your bombers can hit them all down to one hitpoint, then your offensive units take them out, and depending on how many you have, nab another city or so as well. Bombers are also more useful for attacking cities, since they have a long enough range to hit and do well. Fighters come in handy for their scouting missions....win-win-win for flying units. I've hardly ever had any invasion problems either...since I am heavily attacking the enemy as I am moving more and more support up to the front lines, and then making sure my defensive at the lines are good. So I never use anything but captured artillery...and that's only good to defend a recently captured city. Most the time you can't get your artillery there anyhow, your artillery is move 1, but often there's a territory gap in later eras, when the culture of the other civ isolates the city you just took...just makes it a waste of resources to play it otherwise. Playing it more slowly just gives them more time to build more units that you'll have to take out. Ugh! Use Bombers, they are better. Just have large quantities.

-Moose

[jshelr]

"If you love artillery now, wait until multiplayer. Bashing a stupid AI with artillery is easy."

This is correct. That's why I love arty -- it works great in the single-player game context. Much better than watching your MA bounce off size 21 cities defended by MI or your tanks wilt before a size 21 city defended by infantry. If you have overwhelming forces, forget arty and just blitz. But that's like saying a pro football team doesn't need to pass in order to beat the local high school squad. Who cares? If you are in an interesting game where the outcome is in doubt, arty is for you.

I'm thinking that when your oppontent is a human and you are trying to attack on his road or rail system against well-defended citites, you are not going to get far without bombardment to protect your advancing stack and bombardment to be the can opener to make cities takable. Humans are not going to keep four defensive units spread evenly across each of thier cities while you mass a stack outside one of them. It's going to be concentrated force against concentrated force, and it's going to be tough to get an offensive edge. Nor will you find surprise blitzing of well defended cities that have arty inside an easy chore. Work out the math for a size 21 city with 8 arty and 5 MI. How many MA do you need when they often start off the fight down one hit point? You had better come ready for a real dogfight, and you better bring your MA enclosed in some Army envelopes.

As for planes versus arty, the arty can move and fire in one turn. Lots of times, that makes them the weapon of choice. Planes are fine for places where arty can't get. The game is much different from modern reality in that respect, with arty much more powerful in the game and planes much more powerful in reality.

I agree that arty are at their absolute best as a defensive tool when you have rails. Only massive AI stacks have a chance of surviving if you have enough arty to attack them on crossing your borders.

[vmxa1]

I am not sure about the reality part. In city siege you can not use planes much as you could hit your own troops, so arties do work better here, in real life. Planes work better for areas not reachable by artillery, as you said.