Bombardment issue

[Gen]

I'm interested in what kind of bombardment do you prefer, assuming all three are available (late industrial, early modern times and you have all needed resources).
Do you think higher firepower of artillery makes somewhat up for bombers range, speed and rate of fire? I personally can't stop making bombers once Flight is discovered and suddenly my arty stacks begin to play marginal role, only in defense. I don't build them anymore.
As for navy, I don't use ships bombard against enemy ships much, rather for shore bombardment and invasion landings support. These battleship guns are really useful, but compare unfavourably with aircraft based bombers.
I allowed all options available for all that think there is place for many kinds of bombardment, but please, don't check two of them if they are not equally useful for you. And, of course, we are not talking about nukes
So, which ones are your favourites?

[BCLG100]

air i normally buil loads of bombers and they can bombard from further away

[Ancient Grudge]

i dont really bomard much. but when i do i prefer to use bombers/stealth bombers as they have a long range which is gd for destroying there infastructure

[Colonel Kraken]

I definitely prefer air bombardment, if for nothing else than that it just looks cool.

[billindenver]

Artillery comes so much earlier than flight, I tend to have at least 30 of them laying around, so I rarely build bombers. I do remember using them extensively in one game, but that was the only one I remember.

[sabo]

I use all of them, think about how usefull bombardment is. You can shoot at someone and they can't shoot back

I dno't like to do naval bombardment too much though. It seems that I fail a heck of alot more times with Navy they I do with anything else. Is that because ships have a low rate of fire?

[WildFire]

I make so many artillery that i usually have more than cavalry. Right know, since my saltpeter disappeared i am only making infantry and artillery. Of course in one turn i'll get tanks ahead of everyone else

[PersianImmortal]

I'm kinda fed up with this bombing thing.. it almost always fails but the moment AI gets a hold of mine in my terriroty every turn they are able to successfully destroy improvements

[Gen]

Well, 13 votes already and it seems I predicted results well, as I was trying to order them from most to least used At least this order came into my mind when I analyzed my gameplay.
Still nobody said that bombardment is useless... yes, as sabo10 mentioned, the whole beauty is that enemy can't damage attacking unit (except for bombers of course, but I rarely see AI fighters...)
I forgot, however, one thing that artillery can do that bombers can not: they provide excellent barrage of fire in defense!

[The Last Conformist]

I voted for land-based, since that's what tend to use in the largest quantity even after Bombers come around. This's a'course partly since I tend to have a pile by then, and the coming of Tanks means that bombardment is less critical, meaning I don't usually have to build much new bombardment capacity at that stage.

Arty can move on RRs and fire in the same turn, which's a huge advantage if you're fighting a defensive war in a theatre that can't be covered with bombers based in a single city.

Offensively, they both share the problem of keeping up with rapid armored breakthroughs. If Bombers could rebase and bomb during the same turn, or had greater range, they'd reign supreme in this instance, but, well, they don't. I tend to prefer the Arty's higher bombardment value.

As for naval bombardment, well, the main reason I build Battleships is to establish naval dominance, but once that's achieved I invariably end up with a lot of ships bombarding enemy coasts. Reducing size 25 cities to size 1-4 piles of rubble certainly hurts AI war production, and makes eventual conquest easier, but still, this's not the main purpose of my fleets.

[RobOz]

I noticed I was the only who didn't realyl care much for bombardment.

First of all, naval bombardment is crap.

Secondly, I prefer to pillage than bombard. It's a good way to put obsolete units to use. Just have them follow in after your main offensive and start tearing up the infrastructure. When you pillage you are garaunteed a success and you don't have to worry about the unit being captured and used against you. It's also better power graph wise to have your obsolete units killed rather than disbanded... Something to do with average years of military service dropping, I assume.

Third, well, I guess I can't think of a third, but threes always seem to round things out. So... uhmm... uh... leave me alone.

[The Last Conformist]

Prefer pillage to bombard? For cutting AI communications and resource access, well, I don't agree but get your point. For weakening enemy units and degrading enemy cities, pillaging isn't an option.

[RobOz]

Yeah, it doesn't replace the tactic of bombardment directly on the city, but I have found that my bombardment fails as often as it succeeds. Add in the time for production of the unit, the maintenance of the unit, and the possiblity the AI can capture it and it just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I am not big on blowing up the buildings of a city I plan on taking over. I do a lot of infrastucture destroying, but only cuz I usually play as Egyptians in a Democracy. You throw Replaceable Parts in there and I got some quick workers.

[Free Enterprise]

What he means is pillaging can be used to make the city *much* easier to take by destroying the population and hence the large defense bonsues.

[RobOz]

Yes, yes. Thank you.

[Corkmaster]

Agree with RobOz

Maybe i'm missing something but any bombardment seems too random in its effectiveness. At least tanks etc rarely fail to inflict any damage at all.
They destroy buidings which is of no interest to me if you are taking a city anyway.
The artillery needs constant protection and is too slow.
When I have built bombers or fighters they always seem to be one step behind were I need them.
In CivII veteran stealth fighters were my favourite unit, like flying tanks; never build any planes now. If i'm being bombed I build tanks or modern armour, take their base city and watch those expensive bombers crumple, nice. I cannot even be bothered to keep captured artillery just burn it to build something I find useful.
Do build Battleships but for the purpose of dominating seaways not primarily for bombardment.
Never played a game which went far enough for the advanced artillery units to come into play. What are they called?
Bombardment was an interesting idea; much requested on the forums during CivIII development if I remember right; just does not seem to have been implemented very effectivelly. As I say above maybe I'm missing something but basically I think these bombard units are too pot luck and too boring to bother with.

[PriestOfDiscord]

I like the rockets I launch to be armed with nuclear warheads.
Barring that, air power really makes the day in a modern war. I can't imagine not having a powerful air arm.

[Bobela XII]

Does anyone use cruise missiles? I do extensively. They are the only unit to have lethal bombardment besides nukes. Get a stack of twenty of em' and defend them with about four or five defensive units and you got a nice attacking force. Death from a distance.

[JMac]

i like using cruise missiles in the modern ages but thats because iv've modded them to make precision strikes

[Syiss]

I prefer not to destroy the infrastructure of a city or the improvements around it, because then i have to put all that **** back in. Unless its late in the game where i just put in a temple to close all the borders and then set it on wealth, but by then i have so many more tanks than i know what to do with that artillery are uselss and just slow me down.