Artillery & Blitz

I will do the test I had in mind... for one, I don't believe anyone has ever tested weather or not the AI changes/keeps the strategy, and if no conclusive test with actually results showing AI has not done so, means that it is mostly assumed. It is impossible playing a normal game to tell if AI does this or not, and even with Debug on, it is close to impossible. Certain conditions would have to be set up to allow all different units to be tracked, and then each and every one of those units would have to have their behavior watched... and over a period of time, see if their behavior changes or not.

Tom

At the very east, each and every unit should have its own name.

And set with a specific strategy in the start, with the units having both offense and defense (not artillery).

I believe what was said earlier is true (my assumption), that the AI will change strategy flags in certain circumstances, such as if units are in a city; or if a town is undefended and AI only has an offensive unit nearby; or if a settler needs to be escorted and AI only has offensive unit; etc. I personally think it makes sense if AI only changes strategies (for units with more than 1) in towns, and cannot do so in most circumstances when out in the field.

Hopefully we can find out easy enough.

Tom

I've been playing the epic game lately, and I've seen several settlers accompanied by Archers and Horsemen.

Just an idea here, which could force the AI to actually heavily defend it's cities... in a unique way.

Here's the idea:
1) AI cannot build defenders (cannot build units with defense strategy).
2) Defense units are set as Artillery, with the Artillery flag.
- these Artillery units cannot actually bombard, they have 0 RoF.
3) On Civilizations tab, each is set to build often Artillery; and build never Defense units.
4) Defense flagged units would be autoproduced by buildings pretty often (so there would be no massive shortage).

This would, provide AI with many defensive units that it would keep in it's cities. It would be much tougher to take cities when there are more than 3 units there. With enough of these, AI will then bring them out also on occasion. Their defense does not need to be as high as the autoproduced 'defense strategy' units.

AI will use offense units for defense if it needs to. Early in an epic game, unit values are usually low anyways, so it doesn't effect too much.

With 0 RoF, they may defensive bombard, but it never hits, so it's not something that would change that aspect of the game.

There are probably downsides, but all in all, it could be an interesting way to go... and would make taking cities much more difficult for all. Testing would have to be done to see how it works, but it could be an interesting way of solving a couple problems: underdefended AI cities, and this makes use of AI not using normal artillery pieces.

Tom

In my own experimenting, if there are no units assigned to Defend, the AI will, with certain caveats, simply use the unit with the highest DF for defense.

Caveats:

1. There is a range boundary: I found that the AI will build many more 2-9-1s than 1-10-1s.

2. The AI always seems to build its cheapest defender first in an empty city.


Best,

Oz

Takhisis said:

Hmmmm... how could we implement such a lovely thing as a battering ram? It'd be tricky, but with this and Charm, it might work.

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I must ask if you ever tested this. I would love to have the battering ram AND the Siege Tower to concentrate only on braking those Walls with charm.
Naturally Heavy Long Range artillery like early Siege Cannons (Turks against Constantinople) and modern days bombers like B-17, B-29, B-52s vs city defensive charm barriers.

As there are always links to that thread:

About one year later, what are now your conclusions about the artillery tactics flag and the blitz flag?

When reading the posts here, I don´t see a real use for arty in game with the blitz flag, as there would be a need for arty in risky positions and not when located many fields behind the front (please remember, that in most Civ 3 games one tile is mostly much more than the firing range of nearly all guns and cannons that were in use in history).

Civinator said:

As there are always links to that thread:

About one year later, what are now your conclusions about the artillery tactics flag and the blitz flag?

When reading the posts here, I don´t see a real use for arty in game with the blitz flag, as there would be a need for arty in risky positions and not when located many fields behind the front (please remember, that in most Civ 3 games one tile is mostly much more than the firing range of nearly all guns and cannons that were in use in history).

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As always, the AI uses artillery much like it does workers; that is if there is a threat nearby it will remove the artillery unit in question from the battlefield. However, if said artillery unit is given, primarily, blitz, and secondary other factors that have already been discussed, then the AI will move into position, fire, and retreat. This is a significant change in game-play.

My experiences are quite satisfying, the AI uses Arty well enough to be a threat, moves them around and attacks land and sea units.

Thank you both for your answers.

So how would you set a unit (especially in movement) with the artillery tactics flag on a WW 2 European map with a 8 tiles range between Berlin and Warszaw that the AI does use it with satisfying results as a gun or as an motorized assault gun (Sturmgeschütz MV 2 or higher)?

Most WW2 era SPAA and AT guns in my mod are designed for direct fire (1 range), AT = BombStr > DEF of a medium tank, ROF 3 or higher, Lethal Land, 2 MOV, ZOC, low Defense. Tank hunters have Stealth attack on all vehicles. Blitz can be granted or not on these, it's not that important unless the unit has 0 AT.
My medium guns and rocket launchers usually have range 2, 1-2 movement, Blitz, 0 AT, sometimes Lethal Sea (Arty) or Lethal Land (Rockets). Really heavy guns (Berlin Buster etc) have a range of 3.

Ares de Borg said:

Most WW2 era SPAA and AT guns in my mod are designed for direct fire (1 range), AT = BombStr > DEF of a medium tank, ROF 3 or higher, Lethal Land, 2 MOV, ZOC, low Defense. Tank hunters have Stealth attack on all vehicles. Blitz can be granted or not on these, it's not that important unless the unit has 0 AT.
My medium guns and rocket launchers usually have range 2, 1-2 movement, Blitz, 0 AT, sometimes Lethal Sea (Arty) or Lethal Land (Rockets). Really heavy guns (Berlin Buster etc) have a range of 3.

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So Ares, you are also using stealth attack (and this means no bombardement attack) for tank hunters. And the AI is really using 2MV, Blitz artillery in a satisfying offensive way?

In that case I have to do some tests this weekend.

Yes, tank hunters have the same stats for AT and Bombard. Sometimes they will shoot from a distance, sometimes move in to take out a certain vehicle from a stack. The Americans usually build a lot of M10s and use them, and I didn't even give them the Blitz ablity.

Does the AI still only use limited numbers of the Blitz, 2MV artillery pieces? AI actively uses very little normal artillery, although it does use some. Keeps the rest in a city. If the AI only uses every 1 out of 10 2MV-Blitz, then we are still in somewhat of the same problem, although the AI may use that 1 out of 10 unit better.

Instead of giving a particular unit 3 AI flags at once, you could always make 3 exact copies of any unit and merely give each its own AI flag and name variant: Result: The same unit, i.e. an artillery, named artillery, assault artillery and defence artillery, each behaving according to their name, respectively.

tom2050 said:

Does the AI still only use limited numbers of the Blitz, 2MV artillery pieces? AI actively uses very little normal artillery, although it does use some. Keeps the rest in a city. If the AI only uses every 1 out of 10 2MV-Blitz, then we are still in somewhat of the same problem, although the AI may use that 1 out of 10 unit better.

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Yes, this is the problem, why I thought there is no real AI use for units with the artillery tactics in game.

Oh, I forgot something: If you have Arty with 0 AT, make them dirt cheap.

W.i.n.t.e.r said:

Instead of giving a particular unit 3 AI flags at once, you could always make 3 exact copies of any unit and merely give each its own AI flag and name variant: Result: The same unit, i.e. an artillery, named artillery, assault artillery and defence artillery, each behaving according to their name, respectively.

Click to expand...

Except that the AI will never build, and rarely use even if gifted, any of these units. AI values units on a per-unit, individual, single case-by-case analysis; this is well documented. Therefore giving one unit several abilities is far more effective than creating several separate units.

I must put in this Q...

Have you guys artillery set as Offensive and Artillery (only works in Stephs editor I think) plus this blitz so that the AI really uses them in great offensive moves.

Then how about using Defensive and Artillery ? Perhaps this is actually how the AI uses artillery that has not "fiddle" with.

Ares do "your" mod AI really make these different artillery units. I´m still troubled with the AI nearly always building the strongest it has for the specific purpose.
Any medium or short range artillery will not be built as long as a heavier and more useful artillery can be built. The same with the basic fighter - bomber situation. I´m struggling getting that fighter/bomber or divebomber (like Stukas) on the AI like to do list.
So far I´m hoping adding blitz and 2MP (and then actually that Stuka can attack twice) but lesser bombard to fighterbombers P-47, Stukas than ex. Lancasters.

Have not thought on ROF issue on this, not sure how it will play out on both artillery and bombers.

Versatility in both tanks,artillery and aircrafts in WW2 onwards makes the AI confused and it takes a lot of fiddling to have it build almost the perfect combinations and use them.

I would like to add the discoveries of Charm in this. My hope was Charmbombers for those strategic bombers and having perhaps the heavy artillery follow the old siege cannons and battering rams. Buildings with charms of course so that the AI needs to build these Charm destroyers.