Bombarding Modifications

[Cyrius]

Hey Everyone, just wanted to throw some ideas out and see how everyone feels about it.

I've taken the liberty of giving bombard land to SOL and ironclads, and I'm thiking about giving it to destroyers. I simply gave the ability to bombard land and didn't give bombard Mountain, since ships couldn't hit things up on cliffs or in mountains anyways. The real problem here is that most ships with cannons could bombard costal cities quite easily. However, armies marching along the coast is a different story. Can we give ships just the ability to bombard cities? Would that be a good idea? I also gave cannons and artillery the ability to bombard ocean.

I've noticed there is a capability for counter-bombardin which isn't really being used. Anyone add this feature to any units? How did it work? I was thinking of giving it to cannons or artillery, but is that wise?

Now on to aircraft. Many people have (legitimately) expressed concern that fighters and interceptors could be destroyed by a few pikemen or musketeers. The fact that artillery, marines, or tanks can destroy them (quire easily) is also somewhat distrubing. So, I would propose that all aircraft be given the ability to bombard. How does everyone feel about this? Also, perhaps we should take the ability to attack land units away from the interceptor (giving it bombard instead). This may make the situation more realistic. Also take land attack ability away from bombers. Again, what does everyone think? I haven't tried this yet, so I don't know how well it would work. Secondly, if we made these changes, would the AI cope? I mean, would it use fighters and bombers to bombard things, and not try to attack things?

Also, what determines the strength of a bombard? I think its the range category. If we give bombard to fighters & interceptors, we should consider modifing the range values of these planes vs. those of bombers, so that bombers are still the primary tool for bombarding ground units.

So, how does everyone feel about this? Opinions/comments/flames/ect. Are welcome and encouraged.

[Pintello]

Hi Cyrius,

I have used the counter bombard command on cannon and artillery before in CTP2. What is does is give the unit with the counter bombard ability to bombard a unit that has bombarded them at the time of the bombard. This works well with cannon and artillery especially. It means that if you are going to bombard a land target that might have cannon, you will have to be prepared to take some losses. This only seems realistic to me. It also means that there is risk for you if you attempt to bombard an enemey city from the ocean or from the land. Just as it should be in my opinion. Especially since this time around the AI seems to know that it should build cannon and artillery to defend its cities.

Timothy Pintello

[Alpha Wolf]

I added bombard to later age fighters since they'd most likely be using missiles. But WW2 fighters used machine guns which is exactly what was being used to shoot them down.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

[Cyrius]

quote: Originally posted by Pintello on 12-31-2000 06:28 PM Hi Cyrius, I have used the counter bombard command on cannon and artillery before in CTP2. What is does is give the unit with the counter bombard ability to bombard a unit that has bombarded them at the time of the bombard. This works well with cannon and artillery especially. It means that if you are going to bombard a land target that might have cannon, you will have to be prepared to take some losses. This only seems realistic to me. It also means that there is risk for you if you attempt to bombard an enemey city from the ocean or from the land. Just as it should be in my opinion. Especially since this time around the AI seems to know that it should build cannon and artillery to defend its cities. Timothy Pintello

It seems to me like counter-bombardment would make bombarding units very dificult to use... wouldn't it? Or would it make them more important? Regardless, why didn't Activision actually use this ability on anything? Or did they?

quote: I added bombard to later age fighters since they'd most likely be using missiles. But WW2 fighters used machine guns which is exactly what was being used to shoot them down.

True, WW2 aircraft did have to get "down and dirty" to strafe infantry to pieces. And they sometimes got shot down doing it. But pretty rarely. However, modern fighters (interceptors) don't ever get that close to ground. But, just like WW2 aircraft and infantry used machine guns, so do modern aircraft and infantry use missles. Sting missles, anyone? But, you descision does seem to be a wise one. Should we take away land attack ability from these aircraft?

Heres a tought: Give WW2 fighters the ability to bomb sea. After all, many fighters in the pacific were torpedo bombers....


[This message has been edited by Cyrius (edited December 31, 2000).]

[Wyrmo]

Ok, some questions and answers...
This is the bomber-stats from the units.txt
I'll leave comments to show what I wanna say with this

UNIT_BOMBER {
Description DESCRIPTION_UNIT_BOMBER
DefaultIcon ICON_UNIT_BOMBER
DefaultSprite SPRITE_BOMBER
Category UNIT_CATEGORY_AERIAL
Attack 30
Defense 30
ZBRangeAttack 60
Firepower 3 //I think this could be raised to make aircraft more effective in non- bombard combat
Armor 2
MaxHP 10
ShieldCost 2250
PowerPoints 3000
ShieldHunger 22
FoodHunger 0
MaxMovePoints 1000
VisionRange 2
EnableAdvance ADVANCE_JET_PROPULSION
ObsoleteAdvance ADVANCE_ADVANCED_COMPOSITES
BombRounds 5 //This is the power of bombardment
BombardRange 1 //range of bombardment
ActiveDefenseRange 0
LossMoveToDmgNone
NoFuelThenCrash
MaxFuel 5000
IgnoreZOC
NoZoc
CantCaptureCity
DeathEffectsHappy
Explodes
SoundSelect1 SOUND_SELECT1_BOMBER
SoundSelect2 SOUND_SELECT2_BOMBER
SoundMove SOUND_MOVE_BOMBER
SoundAcknowledge SOUND_ACKNOWLEDGE_BOMBER
SoundCantMove SOUND_CANTMOVE_BOMBER
SoundAttack SOUND_ATTACK_BOMBER
SoundWork SOUND_WORK_BOMBER
SoundVictory SOUND_VICTORY_BOMBER
SoundDeath SOUND_DEATH_BOMBER

CanAttack: Air
CanAttack: Land
CanAttack: Mountain
CanAttack: Sea
CanAttack: ShallowWater
// Is it some way to make units wich can't attack a
specific kind of unit be unable, or have a hard time defending against that kind of unit as well?

CanBombard: Land
CanBombard: Mountain
CanBombard: Water
CanCarry: SmallAir
CanSee: Standard
MovementType: Air
Size: Medium
VisionClass: Standard

CargoData {
MaxCargo 1
Load SOUND_ID_BOMBER_LOAD
Unload SOUND_ID_BOMBER_UNLOAD
}
}


well, I think the attackland-capability should be kept for aircraft. But they need to be better at defeating foes while doing it.
the ideal use of fighters and such aircraft would be the ability to go in, take out a unit in a stack and then retreat before beeing shot down. This could probably be done by raising the firepower a bunch.
Don't know yet though

[Diodorus Sicilus]

The use and effectiveness of aircraft against ground targets has been argued ever since WWI, and a lot of the argument comes because the air forces' and the ground forces' adherents in the debate all have axes to grind.
Bottom line: aircraft have a heck of a time damaging ground combat units, but have gotten better and better at destroying fixed ground targets. In other words, unlike the game, aircraft in real life have about the same ability to destroy a ground unit from WWII to today because the ground units keep getting better at hiding, shooting back, and generally defending themselves, while buildings, bridges, and railroads are the same fat targets they always were.
In WWII aircraft were shot down a lot by the people they were strafing or tactically bombing. Statistic: the Soviet IL-2 "Stormovik" ground attack aircraft was the most heavily armored aircraft in WWII, and they lost an average of 1 IL-2 for every 32 sorties. Even with "smart bombs" (Guided Weapons) today, the actual damage to ground units caused in Kosovo and Kuwait was much less than the Air Force claimed - unless the ground unit was in the open, running for its life and defenseless.
To properly represent air unit effectiveness, we need to be able to target Improvements and Public Works with increasing effectiveness, combat ground units with about the same effectiveness (Ground defense factor increasing at the same rate as the Air attack factor). The big change since WWII is the increased 'stand off' (Bombardment) range and effectiveness of aircraft, represented by longer-ranged and better guided munitions. This equals increasing Bombardment Factors for all aircraft after the first fighters and bombers. It still takes specialized aircraft like the A-10 Warthog or Attack Helicopter to take out enemy armor and ground units with any degree of success, though.
And speaking of specialized aircraft, attacking naval units at sea is an extremely specialized task: when land-based and trained air units try it they have almost always screwed it up horribly. My favorite historical examples (WWII era) are the German Luftwaffe sinking a British cruiser, which turned out to be a German destroyer (which, in fact, they did sink - oops!), and USAF B-17 heavy bombers which attacked and sank a Japanese Battleship - which was 5000 miles away at the time. They had actually attacked an American submarine and forced it to submerge.
Therefore, aircraft should be severely restricted in their ability to attack units at sea, but ideally we should allow air units flying from an Aircraft Carrier a + value to their attacks against naval units. I'm not certain how this could be coded into the game, but it would represent the better training and equipment of naval air units to attack naval sea foes.

[magma12]

I tried to change the bombard range to 2, nothing happen. Does anyone know how to make the unit bombard 2 title away? I try to make Battleship be able to bombard 2 title in land, which is reflect the modern gun
which has greater range. The Iowa class battleship can fire +40 km.

[skorpion59]

Attacks can only occur between units which are next to each other, even bombarding units.

EDIT:
One possible workaround is via SLIC like they did in the Samurai scenario.

[This message has been edited by skorpion59 (edited January 07, 2001).]

[Maksim-Smelchak]

Wait a minute!

I'm not sure if a unit can bombard two spaces away but I am sure that in the WWII scenario that the pillboxes with units in them can attack two hexes away. I was playing the French and the Germans had just broken through the Maginot line. When they did so, the pillbox reverted to their control (something we would like fortresses to do) and attacked my counterattacking French from two hexes away! It wasn't diagonal, it was two hexes away. I don't know if this could be coded into CTP2 as a bombard function but I'm sure that it could be coded as a counterattack function like the pillboxes. Try looking into the code on the pillboxes to get someidea how to do this.

Cheers,
Max.