Artillery & siege units

Hi lads.

Why was the Artillery/siege units sistem changed? I think it´s worst, now. Artillery units can now attack like the rest of military units. And they can´t bomb, unless the target is a city. That is not realistic at all. Cannons never go to the battle like horsemen or soldiers. They are placed on top of hills and used to bomb things & people: aproaching enemy foes, nearby roads, camps, farms or factories, or naval units within range (ask the british fellows in Gibraltar, just to point an example). Changing the way artillery works has spoiled in a great measure the art of warfare in Civ 4 to me. I don´t have time to write more, or I´ll be late for work.
What do you guys think about this?

I think the artillery system in CivIII was deeply broken, and that the CivIV system is a big step in the right direction.

When I first got the game, I agreed with everything you posted. However collateral damage is awesome, making the siege unit the best in the game by far, 4 suicide seige units will smash 99% of stacks and city stacks iin their relevant era, allowing your normal units to follow up and eliminate with easy odds and XP.

You could also say it's the worst, due to that little word "suicide". Perhaps catapults could be considered a bit suicidal, but certainly not modern artillery, and usually not even industrial cannon. It's use in CivIV is completely unrealistic. Ingame, the artillery unit moves to attack by itself, which in RL terms means the artillery advances WAY ahead of the army to attack, and gets so close to the enemy that it's left undefended by the army it just left!

That's so wrong.

Artillery is used from far away. It's as far from a "suicide" unit as you can get! Even though the tiles in this game represent many miles and it's perfectly reasonable to assume that an artillery unit and an enemy unit can fight on the same tile (represented by having to move the artillery into an enemy), it's NOT reasonable to assume that that artillery will most likely be destroyed in the process, and it's not reasonable to assume that the artillery will be so far ahead of the army that it's left undefended. That's just not how artillery works.

If anything, it should be suicide for a defender to kill an enemy artillery unit, not the other way around! Another unit in the artillery's stack should be the defender when artillery attacks. Artillery should have a guaranteed first strike (maybe called "artillery strike"), after which another unit in it's stack appears to defend against the defender's counterattack. This idea is right off the top of my head so it's just a brainstorm, nothing thought out.

To have artillery advance on it's own, attack, and defend on it's own is unrealistic when it's part of a stack.

1.) It is a game. Historical realism needs to take a back seat to game play. The gameplay is FAR superior to CIV 3 artillery which effectively took all risk out of warfare.

2.) If you cannot get over point one try looking at it another way. The loss of catapults during seiges represents the use of catapult ammunition. When one "dies" that really means it has used up its ammunition and building new ones is just building more ammuntion. It is a cheesy explanation but if you really need some validation beyond "it makes for a better game" this is the best excuse I can come up with.

I guess I just prefer CivIII's artillery use. Even though it needed changes I still prefer it over CivIV's because I don't agree with those changes . And that goes for naval bombardment too. The whole "zone of control" thing is gone; bombardment of adjacent squares is gone, naval units able to bombard and destroy tile improvements is gone...to me, those are all essential abilities.

I love collateral damage. But I don't love the "suicide siege units" syndrome we need to use to take advantage of it. You can't inflict collateral damage without putting your artillery at great risk.

There just needs to be a more advanced and more complicated system to prevent this "suicide siege" syndrome and keep it balanced. I wouldn't mind a system where bombardment ala CivIII caused collateral damage, but if the target square contained enemy siege units, they'd have to engage each other first before any bombardment could take place (this is just off the top of my head). Only those siege units would engage, simulating a long-range bombardment of each other. Once the target square lost all long-range units (which is what siege units are), then traditional bombardment could commence. Aircraft would also deter enemy bombardments by "intercepting" any artillery moving into position before it had a chance to fire, since artillery never just stay where they are and fire. They always have to position themselves and calculate trajectories etc. Artillery and siege units are also excellent when used as defense; a well placed catapult (or better yet, a trebuchet) can be devastating vs an advancing medieval army. A modern army marching through an area covered by enemy artillery is in danger. And you really need your own siege units to remove these threats.

You get the idea. Something more than what we have now.

Another idea off the top of my head: Siege can already bombard adjacent squares in the form of reducing city defenses. So they already have the range. What if they can also target units or improvements this way, but with reduced accuracy and effectiveness? And "suiciding" them like currently increases their accuracy and effectiveness but leaves them extremely vulnerable due to moving closer to their target and farther away from their supporting army? (IE the stack they're a part of). I'm not a big fan of the idea that a siege unit would travel without escort and be left so vulnerable but at least it's better than what we have right now.

Realisticly , there is no army of artillery. artillery are support units. Heart of Iron has artillery realisticly put on the strategic level (attachment to units )which makes it more complex but the HOI2 AI doesn't play by the same rules as the human player does.
Artillery themselves are tactical units not strategic units. So if you have trouble with Civ4 artillery unit then see them as infantry with artillery support instead of a big pile of artillery.

Strategicly, all pieces are nothing but peices of wood on a map/board.

I remember that artillery was working in Civ II as it is working in Civ IV minus collateral damages. I remember that "obusier" were very powerfull in Civ II, especially against cities.

1st point - it is a game
2nd point - it is not an accurate historical strategy game
3rd point - enjoy it as it is or play total war
4th point - collateral damage idea is excellent for game balance

an early complaint from many people when the game first came out.
Game play wise it is definately superior, and less boring- someone wrote - think of it as the ammo running out (when ya collide ur siege unit into a foe)
However, viewed from a stand backish perspective - the old bombarding system makes much more sense - i agree- one does indeed bombard with a cannon.
I think their solution worked well except for the graphic end of it- i mean sometimes a cannon or artillary ect. will attack and withdraw- causing some or no damage. Maybe they should have had it like that with all the siege vs other battles or at least have it so artillary can't take a city.

shivute said:

1st point - it is a game
2nd point - it is not an accurate historical strategy game
3rd point - enjoy it as it is or play total war
4th point - collateral damage idea is excellent for game balance

Click to expand...

Its sad that Civ4 is made for these guys. Enjoy it and dont forget to send a thank letter to Firaxis Games.

Colossian said:

Its sad that Civ4 is made for these guys. Enjoy it and dont forget to send a thank letter to Firaxis Games.

Click to expand...

Of course Civ4 is made for these kind of guys since it out sells any hardcore war game like HOI or Combat mission II,etc. Paper/scissors/rock kind of combat isn't just successful with TBS like Civ but RTS as well.

Hmmm... I think artillery should be suport units. It should give a siege or bombardment bonus to the units in it's stack that are attacking - or a defensive bonus to the units that are defending the tile. On capture, they would be destroyed automatically.

Yes, artillery is extremely unrealistic, and also yes, I don't mind at all because I see it being used by AI in a more balanced way than the civ3 artillery (the AI really didn't have a clue about what to do with them). Overall I like the change, but I would want just one more thing: the ability to bombard naval units that are next to the city, by both cannons and artillery. The way it is now, the one that puts the ships next to enemy shore has an advantage; this is not only unrealistic, but also bad gameplay.

About the problem of Artillery like other people said their use is totally unrealistic but also more functional than iv3 system were artillery was overpowered.What i find a bit wrong in terms of ameply is that whn bombers become available there is really no use for artillery units for some reasons.
-Bombers can bombard improvements while artillery not
-bombers have a longer range than artillery
-they can bombard and often don't risk to be suicide units.
So what in my opinion should be changed is that artillery should be able to bombard improvements or it will become really obsolete when planes becomes available.An expansion pack with MLRS as ultimate artillery unit with ability to destroy improvements could be a good idea to prevent artillery from becoming obsolete in modern times.

jpboia said:

Hmmm... I think artillery should be suport units. It should give a siege or bombardment bonus to the units in it's stack that are attacking - or a defensive bonus to the units that are defending the tile. On capture, they would be destroyed automatically.

Click to expand...

I think that is the best idea I've read to deal with the inherent problems to modeling artillery. Make it so that artillery is not a unit that can attack or defend, ala Civ III. All they can contribute is an attack/defensive bonus for your units, and bombardment of a city(defenses and buildings), and terrain improvements. The bonus could be something like +1-2 first strikes, +5% strength (this would be the baseline for catepults, cannons and artillery would have even higher bonuses). However, this bonus would not be cumulative, only one unit per artillery piece would get this bonus. So, if you had 12 infantry and 12 artillery, all 12 infantry get the bonus, and if you had 12 infantry and 6 artillery, only 6 infantry get the bonus on that turn.

1st point - it is a game
2nd point - it is not an accurate historical strategy game
3rd point - enjoy it as it is or play total war
4th point - collateral damage idea is excellent for game balance

Click to expand...

I LOVE Total War! They're some of my favorite games and RTW is easily one of the best games I own. So yes I look for historical accuracy and get upset when a game that gets everything else right can't get the simple things right. I have to play CivIV when I want to build an empire from the ground up, and RTW when I want to engage in exciting tactical battles.

In civ2 the catapult, cannon, artillery and the howizter was just normal units, that fought the same way as cavelry, spearmen, modern armour, etc did.

If civ3 didn't have their seige unit system, would people be complaining about it? I personally don't have a problem with it because it reminds me of the civ2 style. Granted civ3 was more realistic, but I didn't play civ3 for long so it didn't hold.

Watiggi

troytheface said:

an early complaint from many people when the game first came out.
Game play wise it is definately superior, and less boring- someone wrote - think of it as the ammo running out (when ya collide ur siege unit into a foe)

Click to expand...

That might have been me.

Apart from the game balance issues, what annoyed me with the CivIII system was that once you'd built an artillery piece, it would continue to spew death and destruction till the rest of the game without requiring any further economic or industrial input from you (unless you were running Democracy or had way too big an army), whereas in reality artillery needs a constant supply of ammo and spare parts. Combat units needed to be continually replaced, which roughly represents the need to continually supply real-world troops with ammo, food, fuel, etc, but the artillery piece just went on and on and on.

CivIV rectifies this by forcing you to continually replace your artillery pieces, putting them at the same standard as infantry and cavalry units.

If you wanted realism at the individual unit level, combat units should only very rarely be destroyed outright, but need shields to regain their strength after an engagement. Artillery should need shields to replenish their ammo. I strongly suspect, however, that the added micromanagement wouldn't be appreciated by most players.