Can't find info on Range Attacks (how to..?)

I can't find out how to use the ranged attack feature of my units. I see the white markers around them, indicating the plots I could fire upon (i guess). But I don't know how to make them attack. I tried reading about it in the pedia and I tried finding it in the BUG menue. It doesn't show any icon in the units orders list and neither shift nor alt nor ctrl seem to change the mouse pointer to indicate that might do the trick.

So my question is two fold:

a) How do I use the ranged attacks?

b) Do I have a bug here, or is it really that hard to find?

50 people viewed this question and noone knew the answer?

BSPollux said:

50 people viewed this question and noone knew the answer?

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I will give it a try.

a) How do I use the ranged attacks?

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If I have for example a catapult next to an enemy unit I can select the 1st "target" icon in the unit actions list. This converts my mouse pointer to something different (a white target possibly). Then when I click on the enemy unit something happens, usually a message "Your catapult missed its target", sometimes "Your cataput attacked {UNIT X} (X%). Your catapult damaged X with colateral damage". It will have also used up its movement points.

b) Do I have a bug here, or is it really that hard to find?

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You need to have the right unit selected (catapults work for me) and you need to have the option selected (I think it is at the start of the game not the BUG options but could very easily be wrong). If you are sure about these and you still cannot make it work I would suggest posting the game here with more details about what you are trying.

There are two different ranged attack options. One is Ranged Bombardment and the other is Archer Bombard. Both can be turned on or off in the BUG menu (Ctrl-Alt-O) under the RevDCM tab.

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Ranged Bombardment allows a Siege unit that can deal collateral damage (Ballista and up, not Rams) to deal collateral damage to a stack without damaging itself or damaging the lead unit. It uses the same icon as Bombard. I am almost certain that trying to use Ranged Bombardment on a city whose defenses have not yet been reduced to 0% will act as Bombard first and reduce the defenses, although it seems to act strangely with units selected in a stack.

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Archer Bombard can be used to attack enemy units without risking the unit, but there is a good chance it can miss and it requires several bombardments to kill a unit. Archer Bombard is allowed by an XML flag. There is no promotion that can grant it. Archer units, Siege units, Grenadier and Modern Grenadier, some late-game Mecha units, and a lot of later naval units have this capacity. Most Gunpowder units do NOT have this ability. This is deliberate.

If you have an eligible unit, the blue Archer Bombard icon will appear. Click that and you should get a yellow rounded square around a unit that can be bombarded. Then click to attempt bombardment.

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If it hits, it will say Your X has attacked an enemy Y (Z% damage) . The display is slightly bugged; it actually displays the damage taken BEFORE the bombardment. However, the unit really is damaged. After bombarding with an Archer that listed 0% damage, the Lion actually took 45%.

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I would first check your BUG options to see if your buttons are checked. If that doesn't work, we will have to dig deeper.

Thank you, that was it. The option was unchecked and the bombard icon didn't show. I had to activate archer bombard. I already had balistas and even they didnt show the ranged icon. But everything does afterwards.

Thanks again

A lot of things that aren't part of regular BTS are controlled through the BUG menu. There are a few things that can only be changed at game start (like No Nukes) and so you have to know which is which. I think there is a way to hack a saved game to change an at-start option, but I do not know how to do that.

Vokarya said:

A lot of things that aren't part of regular BTS are controlled through the BUG menu. There are a few things that can only be changed at game start (like No Nukes) and so you have to know which is which. I think there is a way to hack a saved game to change an at-start option, but I do not know how to do that.

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Go to Python console (you need cheatcode=chipotle in .ini file). The console can be opened by pressing "~" iirc?

Write the following command to the console to list at-start options:

for i in range(gc.getNumGameOptionInfos()) : print str("%i %s %s" %(i,(gc.getGame().isOption(i) and "T") or ".", gc.gatGameOptionInfo(i).getText())))

And then write

CyGlobalContext().getGame().setOption(XX, False)

Where XX is the option number.


The instructions should be somewhere in this post too.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=344525

Is there a way to tweak the accuracy of archer bombardment? Because I find the hit-miss ratio I'm experiencing (1 successful attack for every 10 attempts on grass) a little too abysmal. I get that the inaccuracy is there so as players won't just spam archer SODs in the early game but sheesh.

War Druid said:

Is there a way to tweak the accuracy of archer bombardment? Because I find the hit-miss ratio I'm experiencing (1 successful attack for every 10 attempts on grass) a little too abysmal. I get that the inaccuracy is there so as players won't just spam archer SODs in the early game but sheesh.

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You would have to edit each unit's <iDCMBombAccuracy> in CIV4UnitInfos.xml. The only way to do it globally would be to edit CvUnit.cpp, and I have no clue on the details. I can just barely read source files, I can't edit them. I don't see anywhere else that a modifier for bombardment would be applied.

Well, at least it's something. Thanks for the tip.