Tell Me Why

This is probably an old question and if I had an ounce of patience I'd go look it up for myself somewhere on the forum but I'd rather just ask.

Why is it that artillery, bombers, etc. cannot actually kill a unit? They only bring it down to critical damage and then you can't attack it anymore!

How does this make sense and why would any self respecting soldier hesitate to deal the killing blow to an enemy unit? I mean, it's combat for crying out loud! Aren't we supposed to kill them?!?!

Can someone shed a little light on this?

Historically bombarding does not usually completely kill off a ground force completely (every last soldier). So your own ground forces must be sent in to mop up the details and last few stragglers (1 HP defenders).

Of course bombarding should be able to sink ships and there has been much debate about this in many other threads. Just use the editor and give bombarding units 'lethal bombard' if that is what you want.

Originally posted by Vinz Clortho
This is probably an old question and if I had an ounce of patience I'd go look it up for myself somewhere on the forum but I'd rather just ask.

Why is it that artillery, bombers, etc. cannot actually kill a unit? They only bring it down to critical damage and then you can't attack it anymore!

How does this make sense and why would any self respecting soldier hesitate to deal the killing blow to an enemy unit? I mean, it's combat for crying out loud! Aren't we supposed to kill them?!?!

Can someone shed a little light on this?

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First of all, a unit on the map represents a group of units, not just an individual soldier etc. And artillery etc. has never been known to completely destroy a regiment/battalion, whatever way you want to think of it as. It's always used to soften up the resistance so the ground troops will have an easier time going in and mopping up.

Think of Operation Desert Storm a few years back. No soldier was deployed until the air forces did their thing and weakened any positions that might pose a serious threat to troops in the field. Same thing in Bosnia.

There are a lot of people who don't like this situation so in order to keep them happy, Firaxis has added a flag in the editor that will allow you to select lethal bombardment for both land and sea. So you can add it if you like.

You can change that in the editor. Select a unit, then abilities in the editor, and use Lethal Land or Sea bombardment.

All right, I'll check it out in the editor.

I guess it makes some sense that bombardment won't "kill" every standing unit, alone or stacked. But as far as I'm concerned any decent arty strike by land or air (or by battleship) would effectively destroy any enemy unit and prevent any further agression. They'd technically be useless... so why can't they be dead.

"Arc-Lights... B-2 strike. Suck the air right out of your lungs man... Charlie never sees it coming" -Apocalypse Now

Yeah sure one or two odd footmen might survive a bomber strike from 40,000 feet altitude , but I'd bet the farm they were 0% combat effective from that day forward.

Originally posted by Vinz Clortho
Yeah sure one or two odd footmen might survive a bomber strike from 40,000 feet altitude , but I'd bet the farm they were 0% combat effective from that day forward.

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Read up on WWII in the Pacific. Time after time, days of naval and air bombardment left more than "one or two odd" Japanese in their bunkers ready to fight. It seems that coconut palm logs are one of the hardest substances known to nature and withstood tons of TNT in pretty good shape.

Even during Desert Storm with all our "precision guided smart weapons", there were plenty of Iraqui troops left in the bunkers when the ground troops moved in. It's just that most of them decided to surrender.

I really think the "no-kill" bombardment system - except when applied to naval units - actually stands up to the "historical accuracy" test.

This is probably an old question and if I had an ounce of patience I'd go look it up for myself somewhere on the forum but I'd rather just ask.

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as said before i still think quite a few troops survive bombing strikes just there weekened what i hate is how they cnat blow up ships.

willbill,

I won't argue that during WWII the Japanese had the advantage of being dug in too deep to dislodge by airstrikes alone. But I'm talking about units marching up towards my cities on the offensive. No way they could march through heavy artillery fire completey exposed and come out on the other side ready to fight. Alive... okay... I'll give them that. Ready to fight? No way.

Just like you mentioned, the Iraqis were bombed forty ways to Sunday and though they could have kept fighting, it would have been futile.

Making the comparison to reality and the game would hold true, but for the fact that in the game I know exactly where the enemy troops are stacked most heavily. I know precisely where to bomb. They could dig trenches down into the bedrock but eventually my mortars would find them. And of couse that leads to the conclusion that if they are dug in , they won't be advancing .

(wow, this thread filled up quick!)

You can set it to defeat units in the editor. But, like everyone else said, it's easy to do a lot of damage when there's 10,000 troops standing in front of you. But, when there's about 100 or so stragglers, you'd have to take out each hiding place, and it becomes much harder.

Airpower and artillery have rendered armies useless in the past including WWII. Example: the Germans 7th Army was wiped out for all practical purposes, i.e. the army was so torn up it couldn't function as an army anymore despite the fact that a few individuals survived, in the Falaise Gap. Artillery and airpower created a situation like the highway of death in the gulf war. Anything that moved was targeted and destroyed. Since units represent a cohesion fighting force and not individual units I feel that units can be destroyed by artillery fire and airpower. The few straggling individuals remaining cannot be considered an effective fighting force, hence they cannot be considerd a unit anymore. In naval warfare, airpower has shown that it can sink every ship in a fleet, that is if there is no opposing airpower.
I will admit that troops that are dug in very deep inside of mountains and the like are next to impossible to destroy completely with airpower or artillery. Of course dug in units can always be outflanked just like the Maginot line was in France. The reason cities don't build walls and try to tough out a seige anymore is that the enemy can always cut you off from any supplies and just leave you their to die while they advance past you.

For another war example, look at the Persian Gulf War. Airpower knocked out much of the Iraqi infrastructure, and with artillery, the ground troops went in pretty easily.

I like the way bombardment works right now, I find it accurate, but what I really find STUPID id air bombardment.
how can possibly a fighter miss when bombard a city???

I mean, your target is THE ENTIRE CITY!!! and you miss???

Originally posted by Zcylen
I like the way bombardment works right now, I find it accurate, but what I really find STUPID id air bombardment.
how can possibly a fighter miss when bombard a city???

I mean, your target is THE ENTIRE CITY!!! and you miss???

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In WW2 they missed plenty so it's not all that far fetched.

I don't think the bombardmant accuracy formula has been dicovered, even for bombardmant of units out in the open. It has something to do with defense strength and "bombard strength" in the unit tab in the editor, but it is definitely not a simple ratio of bombard strength/defense strength.

FIRAXIS: What is the formula to determine bombard hit probability?

Originally posted by sumthinelse
I don't think the bombardmant accuracy formula has been dicovered, even for bombardmant of units out in the open. It has something to do with defense strength and "bombard strength" in the unit tab in the editor, but it is definitely not a simple ratio of bombard strength/defense strength.

FIRAXIS: What is the formula to determine bombard hit probability?

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Sumthinelse, just decided to take up your challange. Need some good number crunchy to keep me from going crazy in these finals days before my move to OH . From my initial observations it does look like bombardment does follow the standard combat model. I engaged in 190 bombardment rounds and calculated a 4.2 for defense value when the actual value was 4.4.

The thread is here Bombardment Investigation

One way to allow you to bombard units to practical uselessness without actually killing them off is to up the amounts of HP for all units (you'll have to increase bombardment rates-of-fire too to keep things balances). While you still 'll only be able to knock down units to one HP, one HP is effectively alot less if a health unit has 9 (or whatever) rather than 3. Incidentially, this'll also decrease the amount of uncertainty in individual battles - less risk of a Spearman defeating a Tank.

As for the realism aspect, I pretty happy with the present system. A much bigger problem in this respect is, IMHO, that modern land and sea untis can do absolutely nothing against attacking aircraft. Afghan Mujahideen guerillas shot down Sukhoi 25s, and my Mech Inf can't even nail a WWII-style propeller fighter ...

Originally posted by Cartouche Bee


In WW2 they missed plenty so it's not all that far fetched.

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well, in WW2...
but what about the jet fighters???
I think I'd fire the pilot

Originally posted by Zcylen
I like the way bombardment works right now, I find it accurate, but what I really find STUPID id air bombardment.
how can possibly a fighter miss when bombard a city???

I mean, your target is THE ENTIRE CITY!!! and you miss???

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Have yet to see a nuke miss

Originally posted by Praetorian


Have yet to see a nuke miss

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I'll have to agree with that...
I had a game as the Greeks when there were 7 civs left on a huge map and only I had ICBM's. After I won a spaceship victory I decided to use my nukes and see what happened. I had over 50 nukes and they all hit... The amount of ensuing pollution was huge, but it was fun....

Originally posted by Praetorian


Have yet to see a nuke miss

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If that happened to me
I'll shot my generals and then shot myself!