I learned something that some people might not know...

If you group your artillery with your other troops and attack, the do collateral damage without letting the enemy kill your troops...artillery will attack FIRST, thne your troops will move in for the kill. It lets you do collateral damage without getting your stuff killed.


Also, I have a question. If you attack with archers AND melee units, will the archers attack first to do some damage, then move back to let the melee units fight? As in do all ranged units do damage BEFORE a fight starts?

I've noticed the same - in stack attack artillery always retreated successully. But I only tried it several times so it could be just luck. Can anyone else confirm or prove it wrong.
However sometimes it would not offer to attack with art/cats if you stack them with other units. I haven't figured out the pattern yet.

Hmm...I'll have to check that out...

Are you just "grouping" them, or are you checking the "stack attack" in the Options?

this isn't a tip (if true... i always singly select my units); it's a bug.

this isn't a tip (if true... i always singly select my units); it's a bug.

why do you think it's a bug? It's an improvement over the last game's model.

why do you think it's a bug? It's an improvement over the last game's model.

Because you do free damage to all units without taking any damage yourself? And because it arbitrarily makes an ENORMOUS difference whether you clik on a single cannon from the stack, or click the entire stack to attack at once?

Because you do free damage to all units without taking any damage yourself? And because it arbitrarily makes an ENORMOUS difference whether you clik on a single cannon from the stack, or click the entire stack to attack at once?

I'm still not following this. My C3 memory is pretty thin, but didn't you use to be able to attack the units in the cities without taking damage from artillery and cannons and stuff like that? This is suitiably similar to make me think it's by design.

I didn't have the option on and I just had a couple occasions when artillery did die attacking. So previous was just luck.

Dorkus:

Artillery is meant to deal out damage without taking any damage itself. Remember Arty is a long range weapon that is only vulnerable if overrun or through counter battery fire.

I think what really points to this as a bug (rather than feature) is the fact that behaviour is so different between single unit and stack action. Also, what would be the use of the upgrades that increase retreat chance?

I shall probably use it anyway, I am getting beaten pretty well. I wonder what the chinesse archer behavoiur is?

I just tested this with the world builder and grouping has nothing to do with the outcome of the fight. Same goes for the "Stack Attack" option.

Whenever you group multiple units and attack the game will automatically choose the unit with the highest win probability and let it attack first.

The same probably goes for the archer/melee thingy described by the OP.

Civ 3 Arty = Long range/no risk but no kill
Civ 4 Arty = Strong attack/collatoral damage/RISK/city defense bombardment

Let's clarify what the OP is saying. His claim is that, by grouping and group attacking, one can do collateral damage to all units without suffering harm oneself. (It could be that he is claiming that they simply withdraw without suffering damage; his post is unclear)

I tested this, and it is not the case. I have no idea what the OP is talking about, but if one:

1. Selects a group including artillery and other units.
2. Attacks a city as a group

then, typically, siege weapons hit first and do some collateral damage in the process of their fight with the enemy's best defensive unit. But they do NOT have a 100% withdrawal rate, and they do NOT get a free shot.

In short, the OP is either factually wrong, or has modded his game somehow.

For what it's worth, I find it mind boggling that some people here could see this, if true, as a feature rather than bug. No one would buy anything but siege equipment if you could do massive damage to full stacks without taking any damage yourself. A number of other features in the game (as previous poster stated, the withdrawal trait and promotion) would be made completely irrelevant.

Thankfully, it seems the OP is wrong.

Dorkus I would have to disagree with you on this one. Firstly the OP was implying that they withdraw without loss of the unit not without any damage.

If you tried the tactic of all siege units on me i would devastate you with a counterattack of units specialized in warfare against siege units. Siege units are weaker than comparable units of their era anyway. I wish stack attacking did give some bonus to withdrawal chance because it would add a bit of realism and promote mixed stacks of units. I would not want it to be 100% however.

Why thankfully? This is an unrealistic element of gameplay. Whether or not the arty should be able to attack a whole stack in a city is debatable, but you should have to make suicide runs with a long range attack weapon. This is not realistic in any situation or maybe I missed the history lesson where Napolean started his attacks with cannon charges and mopped up with infantry and then brought in the cav to carry the bodies out.

Simmer down buddy.

This is not realistic in any situation or maybe I missed the history lesson where Napolean started his attacks with cannon charges

And I missed the part in the history lesson where Washington was founded in 4000 BC and Ghandi launched a spaceship to alpha centauri in 1968 :rolleyes:

And I missed the part in the history lesson where Washington was founded in 4000 BC and Ghandi launched a spaceship to alpha centauri in 1968 :rolleyes:

for someone with 1100 posts I would hope you would have figured out that's the whole nature of the game.

The AI has done this several times to me. Sometimes I would see the bombardment animation when an enemy attacked my city with a knight or something. I figured it was either some bonus they had gotten or simply a graphical bug. I wasn't able to see if it did any actual collateral damage as I was always immediately attacked by another catapult. I guess I could check the combat logs...

Dorkus I would have to disagree with you on this one. Firstly the OP was implying that they withdraw without loss of the unit not without any damage.

If you tried the tactic of all siege units on me i would devastate you with a counterattack of units specialized in warfare against siege units. Siege units are weaker than comparable units of their era anyway. I wish stack attacking did give some bonus to withdrawal chance because it would add a bit of realism and promote mixed stacks of units. I would not want it to be 100% however.

First, I did not say that the OP implied otherwise. I said the OP's post was unclear.

Second, you read too literally. Of course you would still build settlers, workers, and defensive units (withdrawal only assists attack, after all). The point is that there would be a massive massive imbalance. You would never use any non-siege unit for an attack. And even for defensive purposes, you would only need spearman (to cover the 2 tile move attack) and siege (which would be fine for defense via preemptive attack against one tile move units).

for someone with 1100 posts I would hope you would have figured out that's the whole nature of the game.

You completely missed his point...

You completely missed his point...

Did I? The whole nature of the game is fantasy brought out of reality. A grand what-if while making certain decisions as open ended and ordered as possible. Using his example if India hadn't got o\/\/ned by GB maybe they would had a better control on world trade/economy in the middle years. This something you can play out with the constraints.

How realistic are suicide cannon charges I ask you? In what way is this from reality AT ALL?!? The C3 model was much better in alot of ways than what this represents. I like the "bombard stacks lose points in all" for non city units. The way they carried it to city bombardment stinks. Cannons/arty should have one option, bombard. That's it. Knock down city %, then start picking off internal units or population.

I agree that a suicide cannon charge vs. cities shouldn't knock points off the whole city stack, and if it does the power should be marginalized somewhat.

I like how the new artillary works, it´s much more realistic and balanced. Civ combat is an abstraction and I bet quite a few catapults and cannons have been destroyed in warfare.

Catapults (mangonels) were extremely innacurate and good for little short of lowering morale, destroying enemy siege equipment or damaging city walls. Burning pitch was occasionally used to attack infantry, but to little actual effect (short of the morale of seeing soldiers die a flaming death before even engaging in combat).

They were mostly destroyed by other siege equipment, or left on the field in order to pull back.

In Civ4, I agree with those who wish catapults would only remove the enemy's defensive bonuses (I also wouldn't mind it bringing the bonus to a negative as a sort of 'morale' effect).

Cannon's were used for much the same purpose, but the use of grapeshot would allow them to act as an excellent anti-personnel weapon. However, the shorter range of grapeshot meant the cannoneers were easily shot down in the process (so civ4's model is a little more accurate here).

Modern artillery just gets messy trying to implement it "realistically" in a game like this. But the same goes for bombers. You don't use either to try and bring down an army, you use them to strike tactical positions such as supplies or ammunition, to soften up defenses, or push an enemy out into the open. However, artillery would *never* take damage from...say, a rifleman. Only other artillery or bombers would be able to kill artillery before it had time to pack up and get far behind friendly lines.

To note: I have seen stacks of enemies attack me with cannons attacking, then withdrawing, and then musketmen rushing forward while the cannons withdrew, in one fluid animation. I will, as someone did earlier, test this with the worldbuilder whenever I get the chance, or just load a savegame at some point.

However, there could be more truth to this than it first seems. As seen on the front page, a nuclear strike does more damage when it is a stack of nukes... and an artillery strike likewise with the bombards as a stack.

It appears artillery have a far more versatile role in Civ IV than Civ III... possibly the designers wishing that people would use them more often. I am not surprised, since I do not actually ever remember using artillery often in Civ III and getting along quite well.

The situation I think he describes is thus:
A stacked bunch of units, in a mixed group, may attack with cannons first, withdrawing and with other units rushing up in the same animation. I have seen this animation before, though I wasn't sure if the cannons took damage.

However, even with stacks I've usually seen units attack one by one. Except when playing in quick mode, but that's a different story.

I will have to test this. But first... sleep.