Does anyone actually use Artillery Units?

[Nightlifter]

The one thing I haven't seen much discusion on in here is artillery units, so I'll just get straight to it.

I don't use very many, Although when playing on transcendi the AI seems very successfull in using them as offensive units, where I would only put them on coastal bases to defend from bombardment by cruisers.

I have little success when trying to weaken enemy defense with artillery, unless I have a fleet of AAA Cruisers surrounding the base, so why do the AI's use so many artillery speeders?

I guess artillery is the only part of combat I don't understand, I don't guess there is some formula to determine how much damage a given unit will take or dish out in a given turn is there?

[Senethro]

I find that a single artillery rover or skimship, if there is sufficient sea access, is useful for destroying sensor arrays or forests that benefit the enemy or hinder the movement of your rovers. More than that is less useful.

[Darsnan]

The only areas of my empires that typically need arty are along the coasts, where the AI's will either infiltrate naval combat units and/ or a transport full of combat units. Thus because of this I only employ naval units as arty units, much the way Zhukov used the North Sea Fleet during the seige of Leningrad.
One thing I have tried and enjoyed battling against is giving the Progs the free ability of Nerve Gas. Thus, when they use an arty attack against another arty unit, they get the +50% to their arty attack, making it much more devastating, and putting an arty unit into a city becomes much less of an attractive choice under those circumstances!


D

[Nightlifter]

indeed.

something I thought of trying in my current game is unloading them on to scattered islands to help ward off enemy cruisers, b/c I made landfall on a small island fit for only 4 or 5 bases.

This nearly ruined my game, but I got an early jump on tech (playing Uni) hogged half of planet's secret projects, and did the only thing I could, construct a monster navy. Getting cruisers early combined with morale modfiers from secret projects(MCC + CN + Bio centers ) Made my relatively Small navy invincible early on, untill I had time to expand. I expect to win, of course.

Back to the artillery, has anyone noticed the bug where
you can give your cruisers longer range than 2 squares?

if you click fast enough, before the (/) appears, you can 'long range fire' anywhere. I have destroyed the terraforming enhancements of entire landmasses before, which wasn't necessary in this case, but It only takes a handful of cruisers.

This bug seems to work most of the time, at least for me.

[Flubber]

arty has a number of uses and having a sprinkling of the units can be quite handy. The main use I like them for is wormkilling-- Worms are decimated by arty so a few SAM/Arty units are part of my troop complement whenever I am polluting.

It can be underrated against bases as well. You just have to have reasonable expectations. If attacking a base with an aerocomplex and AA units, taking those units down 20% can be a big deal or if you want to probe a base, the arty barrage will almost always take the probe defender down to half-health making a probe on probe victory more certain.

Arty is way more useful on units in the open in causing significant damage.

I have observed that low weapon arty is often pretty ineffective and it seems that higher reactor arty does lots more damage.

So all in all, I find arty to be useful and always like to have a few units on hand. I do not understand however why the AI would build so much

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Nightlifter


Back to the artillery, has anyone noticed the bug where
you can give your cruisers longer range than 2 squares?

if you click fast enough, before the (/) appears, you can 'long range fire' anywhere. I have destroyed the terraforming enhancements of entire landmasses before, which wasn't necessary in this case, but It only takes a handful of cruisers.

This bug seems to work most of the time, at least for me.

I had not noticed this bug before but will test it out sometime.

But it appears to be an obvious bug/exploit and I would not use it for that reason

[Leon Trotsky]

Being an artillery buff, I tend to create more pieces than I realise I need. Often a lone battery or a ship can take care of sensors or other key improvements. However, having more of them makes stack bombing more feasible.
I also use air superiority artillery (especially ships) to shoot down AI stacks (AI has a serious issue there) and locusts of chiron.

Originally posted by Nightlifter
Back to the artillery, has anyone noticed the bug where
you can give your cruisers longer range than 2 squares?

That is Verboten!

[GeoModder]

/me gets the tar and feathers.

[Nightlifter]

Originally posted by Flubber



I had not noticed this bug before but will test it out sometime.

But it appears to be an obvious bug/exploit and I would not use it for that reason

I don't use it either, it takes way too long to wreak siginificant damage, and one usually has his or her hands full weaking the AAA units defending the coastal bases.

Originally posted by Leon Trotsky
Being an artillery buff, I tend to create more pieces than I realise I need. Often a lone battery or a ship can take care of sensors or other key improvements. However, having more of them makes stack bombing more feasible.
I also use air superiority artillery (especially ships) to shoot down AI stacks (AI has a serious issue there) and locusts of chiron.



That is Verboten!

huh? you mean you can shoot down air units with arty?
Maybe you could explain an AI 'stack'

It would be even better though if missiles could be SAM, that would be more useful and open up for the Uber Strategy. ask me about the Uber strat later

[Kataphraktoi]

long range arty is a bug and ussualy outlawed in PBEM afaik

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Nightlifter






huh? you mean you can shoot down air units with arty?
Maybe you could explain an AI 'stack'

I haven't shot down conventional air units with arty but I have killed stacks of locusts with it. There is a downside though since I don't think you get the pearls. Generally I bombard once and then use a SAM unit to kill them.

I assume an AI stack is a group of units stacked together. Against a human it can be real handy to bombard an interceptor covered stack so your interceptor can eliminate their aircover and allow choppers to ravish the ground troops

[Travelerstein]

I have never found Art to be a overly useful offensive unit. Usually even on a huge game I will build maybe 2 at most. There primary usefulness for me is revealing how many Units they got stacked either in the open or in a city where I dont have infiltration. There fairly useful for softening up worms as well-but hardly enough to warrant building them in any great numbers. One possible reason arty is so weak is I remember quite clearly what it did to gameplay in CIV2. Once you discovered modern Arty, that really was all you needed to win any game, As it was 90% of my army consisted of artillery, with just enought mech inf tanks and so on to occupy the cites.

Artillery in actual fact causes by far the most casualites on the battlefield and short of extensive fortifications, are almost impossible to defend against in any meaningful way. In computer games its hard NOT to make them overpowering. Think PB and convential missles-what are they after all but the end result of a long line of advencements in artillery technology. Very powerful weapons. So its not impossible the devs didnt want another civ2 arty rush where players had 10 tanks 10 rovers and 150 artilley units roaming around pummeling entire factions pretty much at will-tho AC wonderful game mechanices DID include counter-battery fire , offensively they are an mediocre at best. One thing I have wondered about tho, arty fire suppreses units ability to repair and refit, since the AI cheats like a SOAB I use the same technique against there cities-always wondered if the AI suffered the same penalty or does it cheat on that too...

[Flubber]

Arty in civ2 were overpowering-- In SMAX it is much more realistic-- arty causes damage but you need a true ground troop to kill an opposing unit

THat said I think travelerstein understates the power of arty units-- While I won't have dozens of them or anything, they are a valuable if samll part of any good mixed force

[Travelerstein]

>Does not have SMAX

[Nightlifter]

I still wish artys were at least a little more powerful.

did someone mention nerve gas on artys? I never thought of trying to bombard a city at long range with nerve gas. would it work though? doubt it.