Hey i thought that it would be a good idea. How about a new civ for Civ4 can have a new UU. One that replaces artillery. This new artillery would be able to defend itself with dual machine guns mounted on it's sides. It would not be able to attack but it would have a defense rating of 6. This would allow you to march your artillery in to the heat of battle with a new degree of safty for them or not need to provide them with an escort or stop waiting till your ememy is out of units to take the artillery to your ememys citys (I always do this.) Also currenty artillery is thought of as an anti-city defense and anti attacker weapon. This would help you also use it as an anti-battlefield defender weapon too.

Please rate this Idea out of 10 and comment :D .

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You're generally stacking Artillery with normal units anyway (the one exception is when you feel really sorry for the other guy and want to give him some free weapons before flattening him). If you're using fast moving units, like Cavalry, the loss of arty support is the tradeoff you accept. Besides, self-defending artillery won't help here either: It's still just as slow. Besides, if you get to late Industrial/Modern, which sounds like about where you're placing this UU, artillery is obsolete thanks to Bombers. Sure, you don't have to worry about them being shot down, and this makes them nice for taking cities you've already beseiged, but Bombers will be your main artillery. Beside, as I said before, you should be defending your artillery anyway. There's no reason I can think of for wanting to shell a place where you have no units.