Ranged attacks

A few questions about ranged attacks.

1)Archer "bombard": it is a ranged attack, and does a certain % of damage to the target with a chance to miss (depending on the "accuracy" of the attacker). Why is it that gunpowder units don't have this? Maybe not arquebusiers, but from muskets and definitely rifles onwards firearms have much longer range than bows.
Is it moddable in the xml?

2)Why does artillery inflict only collateral damage during ranged bombardment?
IMHO artillery made more sense in Civ3: capturable when alone (like workers), cannot attack directly, but has powerful ranged attacks.
So to the artillery units we have now, I'd like to remove the ability to attack directly (that's a "can only defend" tag, right?), and give them a ranged attack, like archers, with different damage and accuracy of course, and collateral damage.

Noyyau said:

So to the artillery units we have now, I'd like to remove the ability to attack directly (that's a "can only defend" tag, right?), and give them a ranged attack, like archers, with different damage and accuracy of course, and collateral damage.

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That is a really nice idea. The siege units should have a ridiculous strengh (1 or 2) but a bonus so they have the actual strengh when using bombard and a low strengh when defending or attacking. Theses are siege units, not defensive or offensive units.

I guess it was done this way because AI didn't know how to use it or because it was overpowered. Frankly I never use archer bombardment option because I find it out of reality: I mean,no archer could shot its arrow over such long distance represented by 2 tiles. Artillery on the other side could be able to.

Seems to me that this comes back to that CivIV weirdness where you suicide your siege engines at the start of an assault on a city. I too think the CivIII way made more sense (soften defenders from a safe distance, then attack with other units). But if 45° is correct and it's because the AI is too stupid... what hope is there?

I don't really use ranged bombardment because it seems to do almost no damage at all, even when they don't miss their targets.

While I do agree that ranged attacks for archery units are a bit of a stretch (pun intended), the AI does use them! Especially when I'm sieging a city and it's full of archery units.

I think that, if it's implemented in the same way for artillery units, they'd be quite useful (especially for the AI which tends to have lots of them inside cities when it goes all-out defense).
There is also the "opportunity fire" option which sorta does the same thing, but only when the unit has been stationary and a target of opportunity stops on an adiacent tile, can't really use it offensively.

Actually, it would make sense (to me at least) to remove archer bombard from archers and give it to siege units! (the catapult-treb-bombard etc line, not the rams obviously)

SO, my actual question is this: how do I remove the "archer bombard" from archers and give it to another unit? Is is moddable in the xml? Or is it python/dll arcane magic?

45°38'N-13°47'E;13045601 said:

(...)Frankly I never use archer bombardment option because I find it out of reality: I mean,no archer could shot its arrow over such long distance represented by 2 tiles.(...)

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Is it possible to limit archer bombardment to "from hills/peaks/cities" and "not from plain" and "not into city"? I think that would make sense.

I only have Archer Bombardment enabled when playing C2C since prior to the advent of catapaults and other siege weapons, it's literally impossible to take cities. A horde of archers spamming AC to soften defenders isn't much of a replacement, but it works.

I'm not sure if Ranged Bombardment enables archer ranged attacks too, but I usually have that on in AND so my Frigates can 'pillage' coastal improvements

Rezca said:

I'm not sure if Ranged Bombardment enables archer ranged attacks too, but I usually have that on in AND so my Frigates can 'pillage' coastal improvements

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But AFAIK the AI doesn't know how to use RB so it's a cheat for human players against AI.

nionios said:

But AFAIK the AI doesn't know how to use RB so it's a cheat for human players against AI.

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*EDIT* Aah I think I misread your response. I thought you were talking about archer's bombardment, not frigates and other warships.
I see archers using their bombardment all the time in C2C, but never see ships use it in either mod.

In my games, AI uses all the time Archer Bombardment, especially when I'm sieging a city and it's full of archery units, as Noyyau says. Not always use the option, but I think the option should not be removed. On more than one occasion I had to withdraw my troops to heal because of the AI archers defending a city, because after a couple of rounds of arrows, my troops have been less chance of attack. This seems very realistic.

As Soogron says:

[QUOTE = Sogroon; 13046557] Is it possible to limit archer bombardment to "from hills / peaks / cities" and "not from plain" and "not into city"? I think That would make sense. [/ QUOTE]

This was perhaps acceptable, but would be a shame that the option disappeared. In fact, I would follow playing without problems if the option disappear , but I have a couple of friends that have started to play AND recently, and they do not like that their archers could not have Archer Bombardment.

Moreover, that sound logical to give archers a way to attack without making contact. I mean, an archer on a wall can shoot a knight without receiving damage back, isn't it ?

nionios said:

But AFAIK the AI doesn't know how to use RB so it's a cheat for human players against AI.

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What do you mean by "doesn't know how to use it"? I never bring units near enemy cities with archers until the actual assault, otherwise they'll keep getting pincushioned by the garrison. That's actually a pretty good use case for defensive archers. I'm 100% in agreement with what Maska_zgz posted.

Most of the time it feels like I don't know how to use it, because the damage inflicted is minimal. Doesn't feel like it belongs in a moving offense; looks more suited for a defending unit that doesn't need to move, because if you don't keep doing it each round the enemy will just heal up.

Kryanni said:

What do you mean by "doesn't know how to use it"? I never bring units near enemy cities with archers until the actual assault, otherwise they'll keep getting pincushioned by the garrison. That's actually a pretty good use case for defensive archers. I'm 100% in agreement with what Maska_zgz posted.

Most of the time it feels like I don't know how to use it, because the damage inflicted is minimal. Doesn't feel like it belongs in a moving offense; looks more suited for a defending unit that doesn't need to move, because if you don't keep doing it each round the enemy will just heal up.

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If he's referring to ranged bombarding as a whole - not just archers - then I think the "Doesn't know how to use it" extends to the warships being able to 'pillage' improvements like farms and factories that are on coastal tiles, which I've never seen the AI do. Sure, they'll blockade my cities and open fire on them to reduce the defenses, but they won't take out that source of Iron/coal that's within range while I could if that were my ship.

Rezca said:

If he's referring to ranged bombarding as a whole - not just archers - then I think the "Doesn't know how to use it" extends to the warships being able to 'pillage' improvements like farms and factories that are on coastal tiles, which I've never seen the AI do. Sure, they'll blockade my cities and open fire on them to reduce the defenses, but they won't take out that source of Iron/coal that's within range while I could if that were my ship.

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Exactly this.I am referring to AI warships that never bombard improvements.