Why Bomberd does't do much damage

[Sarxis]

Bombing/bombard works great. I don't always look to take down unit health at first with my bombing runs and artillery poundings, but I love seeing messages like, "Our artillery has destroyed the barracks in Rome."

Now THAT is worth it!

[player1]

Summary:
Fighters should intercept bomber (BUG probably)
Ship should be sinked by air bombers (or MAYBE exclusevly with Fighters?)
Units should not be heled after bombard (or use that SEIGE option I stated), since bombers main role is to soften enemy defenses, by injuring (not killing) land units, not destruction of all buildings and killinig of all popultaion BEFORE that.

---GOOD IDEA---
Or maybe if your units are in the range of enemy artillery, ship, or operatiolnal rage of air units, they should not be healed (or optionally, should heal 1hp, if they have barracks)
---GOOD IDEA---

Note: while buildings & pop have defense of 4 agains bombard, other land units have too just to much high defense

Example: infantry in metropolis: 25 (all fortified)
tank in metropolis: 20
mech. inf. in metropolis: 45

I think that city bonus should not be included when bombing with air units.
(Artillery units have high bombing range so this won't hurt them)

P.S. I'm not sure is this system right (is city bonus used maybe only agains land attcking units?, or how city walls protects against bombardment?)

[Grumbold]

Unit healing is fine IMO. Bombard and assault or bombard to destroy the barracks. Don't expect it to do the job alone.

I can see the arguement in favour of bombardment sinking ships but again you have to consider the scale of the game. We're not building in a 1:1 basis so is it reasonable to assume that an air attack could destroy a whole fleet? To my knowledge there has been one recorded incident of a tank formation having every single vehicle destroyed by air attack (but crew surviving), none for infantry and none for naval battles. If a carrier unit represents just the carrier then it should be sinkable, but if it represents a carrier group then needing the last hp to be removed by naval attack is quite reasonable.

Massive bombardment has become a very popular means of modern engagement because it reduces the risk of friendly casualties and looks clinical, clean and scientific. You never capture any ground until the footsoldiers go in and rout out the survivors though. The only thing Civ lacks is a means of having enemy forts or cities surrender. The scale is too macro to properly model six month sieges, sapping, assaults etc differently to straight battles for ground.

[TheDarkside]

Here's what I think would make some good improvment:

I. Remove barracks incredible healing bonus, barracks do NOT improve healing at all under any circumstances. It just dosent make sense. The only other healing bonus will be units in a city, regardless of improvments- but they heal at twice normal rate- not fully healed in one turn.

II. Allow HOSPITALS to heal units fully in one turn, previous a barracks feature.

III. Aerial bombardment must be allowed to destroy naval units

-OR-

IV. Add a new feature to naval units... When naval units sustain 50% or more damage, they are checked at the end of every turn if they sink. The more damage it has taken, the more likely it is to sink at the end of the turn.

sound good or totally off?

[Haphazard]

I agree that bombarding units should only soften them up, and it should be a lot harder to bombard units in cities to submission. As for Darksides proposals:

I, II This combination would just leave the status quo. The healing of units by barracks represents recruiting reinforcement, so you could make a case for lowering the experience of the unit, but this is too complicated to easily put in.

III Agreed. Very important.

IV Hmm. Not convinced. How about ship units can only repair in ports?

[player1]

How quicky heal units in seige?
In reality, very slow.

My opinion is that any units in bombardement range should not be healed, or healed 1hp in cities with barracks (because of lack or supplies)
Still, units SHOULD NOT be destroyed solely by bombing (exept ships).

If you break the siege (remove those atrilley units or remove air threat), units should heal is they are now (quickly), since supplies have arrived.

[gfrazieror]

I agree that bombardment is handled well in the game. I also think that you should be able to destroy naval units by bombardment. I've noticed that you can't heal naval units anywhere but in port...this can be deceptive, because in the age of sail naval refits could be conducted away from naval bases.

I've found that on land, using artillery to harrass attackers is a good strategy. Artillery is not as effective as an offensive weapons, which, given how well it performed in those decisive (sic) battles of 1914-1918, is a pretty accurate historically.

[SlightlyMadman]

Easier to destroy barracks

I really like the bombardment system, I think it's very balanced. I do, however, agree that it's sometimes totally ineffective. I usually find myself just hammering at them until the barracks goes, and then for 2-3 more turns to weaken their units.

Instead of compicated "siege healing" rules, or revamping barracks (which are pretty balanced, IMO), why not make it more likely for the barracks to be destroyed? Especially with bombers, important military installations would of course be targeted, and be far more likely to go down than something like a cathedral (although that will happen, too, eventually). Or maybe the bombers could specifically be ordered to destroy an improvement? That might make them too powerful, I don't know.

It's a good system as it is, but a little tweak like this makes sense, and allows for fewer civilian deaths (those always make me feel so bad).