Siege Fire Mechanics

Its appears from Greg's preview that siege works as follows:

Setup to Fire: 1 turn
Fire: 1 turn (end-of-turn normally)

There is a high-level promotion that allows them to fire twice (with sufficient movement remaining).

Greg had moved his trebuchet the previous turn and then tried to fire the next turn and was only able to get off one shot since the other movement point was consumed in setting up the siege engine (he didn't catch this).

Also, that trebuchet appeared to take out a rifleman in two shots right after it was promoted - hence it is now Greg's favorite promotion

I hope it will be hard to obtain the "fire twice per turn" bonus or otherwise artillery could become overpowered.

Yeah, I was just thinking that - 1upt, plus the ability to kill a unit in one turn... how do you counter that?

(edit, to be clear - I mean I'm concerned if a single ranged attacker can kill a defending unit with no repercussions in one turn...)

hardcore_gamer said:

I hope it will be hard to obtain the "fire twice per turn" bonus or otherwise artillery could become overpowered.

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well we know that the trebuchet got some 150 experience points which was, in greg's words more than he ever saw, so unless you have a bunch of chokepoints it will be very rare to have such a powerful siege unit.

It requires 3 same-chain promotions before it becomes available.

http://well-of-souls.com/civ/civ5_promotions.html

jeffreyac said:

Yeah, I was just thinking that - 1upt, plus the ability to kill a unit in one turn... how do you counter that?

(edit, to be clear - I mean I'm concerned if a single ranged attacker can kill a defending unit with no repercussions in one turn...)

Click to expand...

counter-battery fire or hit them with cavalry, tanks, or paratroopers.

Dude, someone has to make a Western Front mod for Civ V. D-Day would make perfect sense. First land your paratroopers to protect the flanks of amphibious forces and take out the enemy's artillery. Didn't make a whole lot of sense in Civ IV, but it does now. Then land your forces and reach paris.

Polobo said:

It requires 3 same-chain promotions before it becomes available.

http://well-of-souls.com/civ/civ5_promotions.html

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That's a load!

And Chukonus would get 4 attacks?!

Through a choke-point there really isn't any counter; you need numbers so that some survive and get through or at least make room for your mounted units.

Suez in that situation can be pretty much impregenable. You'd have to either cross the Med or the Red Sea or just forget Africa all together until you can get a technology advantage (like artillery with 3 range).

hmmmm.... OK, I'm in!

I what I'm really saying is I hope for a good mix of tactical and strategic gameplay. One of the things I've admired about Civ is the strategic feel, and while I welcome the addition of tactical/theater considerations, I hope that a) the AI is up to the task, and b) it doesn't detract from the strategic feel.

(Of course, this also kinda reveals my bias in that civ should be a strategic level game; I recognize opinions may vary among the community!)

(edit: posted late, was meant to be in response to the post introducing the idea of couter-battery or flanking units as counters.... That's what I get for posting while watching MNF - I'm not quick enough! )

MisterBarca said:

That's a load!

And Chukonus would get 4 attacks?!

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Only if you could get them 4 movement points. As they seem to only have 2 movement points they can only ever fire twice in a turn and taking that promotion would be wasted.

MisterBarca said:

That's a load!

And Chukonus would get 4 attacks?!

Click to expand...

No, they start with that promotion, they won't be able to get it again unless everyone is able to get a "extra fire level 2" promotion which probably isn't the case.

the logistics promotions requires 3 in arrucary or collateral.

hardcore_gamer said:

I hope it will be hard to obtain the "fire twice per turn" bonus or otherwise artillery could become overpowered.

Click to expand...

Artillery were doing range 3 in that demo too...hitting Greg's troops from outside of his line of sight. Brutal.

He said his treb had over 150xp. I think a unit created in a barracks starts with 15? (dunno if that applies to siege). You can see units getting like 2-5xp per battle or so. So, yeah, I'd imagine it could take a while to get a unit that high in level. He was fighting at that bottleneck for a long time!

Some of his samurai were starting with 30xp (which allowd 2 promotions).

Dunno how it works but it'd seem like ranged/siege should get less xp per battle. Being able to fire from safety and the bigger likelihood for firing every run in drawn out battles could easily lead to them leveling up much faster than other types of units. A lot of units might be locked up and not fighting at all, waiting for opportunities, as ranged fires overhead every turn.

barracks and armoury give 15 each.