Manouverabilty

I had an idea to how artillery can be destroyed without having to defeat the defending unit. The concept is based on the introduction of manouverability.

First a small change in the use of artillery:
Instead of artillery going headon to do the collateral damage, it will do as when bombing (stand back and do the damage). But if the opposite player has an artillery unit it will fire back, trying to destroy the bombing artillery. This will also be applied for the current bombing.
The problem this led to is the oversiced use of artillery. Its here the manouverability comes in.

A units amount of manouverability would probably be equal to the movement factor. If a unit attacks an other group of units it will calculate if it has a chance to outmanouver the enemy defencive line and attack the weaker point of the group. The larger the weak spot is, the easier it is to hit the weakspot. Example:
One spearman with low manouverabilty defending ten catapults will easily be outmanouverd by a horseman or even an infanry unit. If the attacking unit tried to attack the catapult but got caught by the defensive unit, the defensive unit will lose some or all of its manouverability (for the round). Then it will be easy for a second unit to outmanouver the defensive unit in order to attack the catapults.

An other use of the manouverability, wich will make the group more cooperating, is to let units with first strike abilities, for example archers, shoot first and then letting a stronger defensive unit use its manouverability to go in front of the archer in order to take the damage of the charging unit. The defender can then be outmanouvered, letting the charging unit attack the archer who started the combat.

(Hope it wasnt to much bad English/spelling )

This idea seems to go against the whole turn based nature of Civ, i.e. you have one unit reacting to another unit's movement in the same turn; not waiting until its own turn. So I don't particularly like this idea. I don't have BtS, but I understand that flanking can destroy siege units in much the same way but within the turn based structure of the game? Wouldn't it be better to simply extend that rather than add a new feature?

How the attacker would choose what unit to attack, let's say he want to destroy the spearman instead of the catapult, or how he say he want the catapult destroyed. I guess I didn't get it.

Camikaze: Wasn't it you that thought of attaching artillery to regular units instead of having them on their own?

Whoever it was, it's a good idea...

Argetnyx said:

Camikaze: Wasn't it you that thought of attaching artillery to regular units instead of having them on their own?

Whoever it was, it's a good idea...

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Actually that's a terrible idea. That would make current Flanking completely obsolete and make artillery have no weaknesses if it can be attached to say Mechanized Infantry.

In the real world artillery are independent units, which require security provided by air and ground assets.

In the real world artillery are independent units, which require security provided by air and ground assets.

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But they have never conducted an attack on their own. They are not independent, but attached to a combat unit. They are an asset of the land units, not the other way around.

When a unit goes into battle with an other unit, it will be calculated which unit the attacking unit got the best chance to reach, and destroy.

p.s: I cant remember a flanking system in BtS.

Argetnyx said:

Camikaze: Wasn't it you that thought of attaching artillery to regular units instead of having them on their own?

Whoever it was, it's a good idea...

Click to expand...

Yes, it was me.

trickofthehand said:

Actually that's a terrible idea. That would make current Flanking completely obsolete and make artillery have no weaknesses if it can be attached to say Mechanized Infantry.

In the real world artillery are independent units, which require security provided by air and ground assets.

Click to expand...

How would it make Flanking obsolete? Who says that you couldn't still use Flanking on siege? And one of the whole points of attaching them is that they require security. By making it compulsory for them to be attached, you make it compulsory for them to have protection.

trickofthehand said:

In the real world artillery are independent units, which require security provided by air and ground assets.

Click to expand...

In the real world, even infantry is some form of artillery. Most of what they do is find better positions to shoot the enemy. Melee combat (the commonest type in Civ) is no longer the norm.

I agree with Lord OST that artillery should do damage in the same way as aircraft and not be a suicide unit. And latter artillary unit, cannon onwards, should have a "counter battery" promotion that would make it able to shoot back in the sameway as SAM infantry etc.

Also this should apply against shipping carrying out bombardments.

This would not effect the turn based nature of the game and would be more realistic.

rather than 'post to unit' what about 'post to stack'?
and then the artillery (depending on which era) would have so many barrages per turn, perhaps 2 for catapult, 3 for cannon 5 for artillery or something.
and then at least its not a fight to the death, at the end of the day any unit should be able to beat an artillery, even a warrior, no barrage can kill everything except perhaps a nuclear one so that by all rights should leave men left to walk up and smash up the siege weapons if they are stupid enough to attack alone
rob

SUGGESTION: You could have "ammunition".

• Ranged defenders fight with their bombard value as long as they have ammunition (defined in the unit stats in the editor), then they switch to their defense values.
• Ranged attackers strike with their bombard value as long as they have ammunition (defined in the unit stats in the editor), then they switch to their normal "melee" attack values.

So, in both cases, you could set artillery to have X bombard damage and 0 defense and attacks {0.(X).0/1}, so, after they run out of shells, they're toast. If you survive the barrages long enough to get hand-to-hand, you win. So, artillery is a powerful attacker and defender, but need escort, as it would be easily captured/destroyed.
Yet archers, slingers, javelineers, crossbowmen, etc. would shoot you then draw a dagger or something.

Maybe it's too tactical for some, but it's a thought.

Artillery units are capable of self defence even in they have can not carry out effective offensive
actions - swords, axes, heavy machine gun on self propelled artillery.

Give them self defence of 1 or 2

actually muinitions is something similar to supplies that i and some others are talking about on this thread 'Dealing with SOD's, supply, and generally reducing everyone's reliance on war' and i think we need some more input as it seems to me everyone is basically unhappy with the SOD situation

back to this, yes good idea but again artillery is used as a barrage, not as an exclusive attacking unit. it was often a tactic to walk behind the artillery barrage whilst it was underway (or after) but it was genrally accepted as a waste to send the big guns to the front without support.

i still cant see why it would be too difficult to implement a barrage option, if not a 'attach to stack/brigade', and i also think the artillery (in the later game) should choose their target after all artillery dont fire blindly.

and yes great idea about 1/2 point defense but would this mean differences for all units? it could start another big issue for what seems a sensible problem or do i misunderstand?
rob

Silurian said:

Artillery units are capable of self defence even in they have can not carry out effective offensive
actions - swords, axes, heavy machine gun on self propelled artillery.

Give them self defence of 1 or 2

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That could be possible. It would require two different animations, attack-mêlée and attack-ranged. But, IMHO, it'd be totally worth it.