Bombardment of settlements in C3C 1.22

[justanick]

This article is based on some testing i did on civforum.de in 2013. A scenario file and a savegame used for testing are attached there.

When bombarding a settlement different rules apply for different types of units. This article aims to develop an understanding of those rules.

Bombardment by land based artillery:
City walls are hit first. This is even true, if the walls are only simulated by the world wonder "great wall".
If there is are no city walls or the settlement has already reached city level, then land units are hit.
If neither city walls nor land units are left to be hit, then citizens or buildings are hit, apparently with same probability.
Ships and air units cannot be hit with land based artillery.

Bombardment by air units:
If air units are left in the settlement, then air units or citizens are hit.
If no air units are left in the settlement, then ships, citizens or buildings are hit.
If there are no air units in the settlement and no ships are left to be hit, then land units, citizens or buildings are hit.

Bombardment by ships:
A coastal fortress is hit first.
If there is no coastal fortress, then ships are hit.
If there is no coastal fortress, and no ships left to be hit, then air units are hit.
If there is no coastal fortress, no air unit and no ships left to be hit, then land units are hit.
If there is no coastal fortress, no air units and no ships and no land units are left to be hit, then citizens or buildings are hit.

Bombardment by cruise missile:
Ships are hits first.
If there are no ships, then air units are hit.
If there are no ships and no air units, then land units are hit.
If there are no ships, no air units and no land units, then citizens or buildings are hit.

Bombardment by nuclear weapons:
All nuclear weapons are immune against nuclear attack. All other units are destroyed at a chance of 2:1. All units that survive that loose 2 hitpoints. All units with 2 HP, 1 HP or no HP are killed instantly.

Each building is destroyed with 50% probability. 50% of all citizens are killed, the amount surviving is rounded up to integer.

Peculiarity of world wonders:
If the bombardement occurs against a settlement of a civilization that has reached the industrial age, then any world wonder in this settlement is immune against any bombardment. Before the target civilization has reached the industrial age this is not the case and world wonders can be destroyed like any other building.

Oddity of civil defence:
If a regular building(meaning neither a coastal fortress nor city walls) is hit and a civil defence is in the settlement, then it is the civil defence that is hit.

Lethal bombardment:
Land units can only be destroyed by bombardment, if the bombarding unit has the capability "lethal land bombardment".
Naval units can only be destroyed by bombardment, if the bombarding unit has the capability "lethal naval bombardment".
Air units can be destroyed by bombardment. There is no such attribute as "lethal air bombardment".

 

[tjs282]

Thanks for posting this, @justanick!

(My post also now edited, since the niggle has been removed)

 

[Jivilov]

Good one. A wrist-slapper though (sorry for the nitpicking): Shouldn't it read 'TOWN walls are hit first. This is even true, if the walls are only simulated by the world wonder "great wall"? Cheers and thanks.

 

[Lanzelot]

I vaguely remember a bug concerning the Great Wall, but can't remember, whether it applies only to Vanilla or also to PtW. In C3C apparently itgot fixed: if the target owns the Great Wall and you successfully bombard the GW-induced walls of a town, the game tries to remove the walls from that town, which are not really there, (they are only "simulated"), the game apparently tries to access non-existing memory and crashes...
Same may happen when capturing a town with GW-induced walls, or barbarians enter such a town, and the dice determines that the (non-existing) walls should be pillaged... --> Crash.

 

[justanick]

Shouldn't it read 'TOWN walls are hit first.

Possibly. Maybe it is best to simply remove the "city" before the "walls". City walls was just a translation, but it seems that the term used in the game is simply "walls". If so, then "walls" it should be.

 

[Jivilov]

Thanks guys. FWIW in my last C3C game successful bombardment of towns against the Great Wall-owning Civ only led to destruction of town improvements. Didn't try against cities (>6 Pop); just took them out with Cav Armies and single Cav units. Much faster that way.

 

[justanick]

FWIW in my last C3C game successful bombardment of towns against the Great Wall-owning Civ only led to destruction of town improvements.

This statement is confusing. Do you simply mean to tell that the bombardement destroyed the simulated walls? Because this is no actual destruction at all because the walls reappear instantly.

 

[Jivilov]

No. By "town improvements" I meant stuff inside the town, like barracks, temples, libraries etc., not the simulated walls. IIRC only after these internal improvements were destroyed did bombardment directly attack city defenders. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[justanick]

No. By "town improvements" I meant stuff inside the town, like barracks, temples, libraries etc., not the simulated walls. IIRC only after these internal improvements were destroyed did bombardment directly attack city defenders. Sorry for the confusion.

I am afraid this only amplifies the confusion. My tests from 2013 had shown that towns with simutated walls are immune against bombardment by land based artillery. That is because damage is done only to the walls which are replaced instantly.

 

[Jivilov]

Could be I was mistaken. Sorry my bad.

 

[tmn]

FWIW in my last C3C game successful bombardment of towns against the Great Wall-owning Civ only led to destruction of town improvements.

I can confirm that. I have been bombarding a capital (size of 6) with the Great Wall (they've had no Metallurgy yet) and had destroyed Palace(!), Barracks and the Great Wall itself before I did damage to any units.

It's a known bug.

When you bombard a town with walls, the walls are the first thing to be destroyed. So far, so good. But when you bombard a town of the civilization that has the great wall, the walls cannot be destroyed, so something else gets destroyed instead. That 'something else' can even be a Wonder in this case.

 

[Jivilov]

Thnaks tmn. Nice to know I wasn't just hallucinating. Maybe you and I have different versions of C3C from justanick's?

 

[Lanzelot]

I can confirm that.

No, that is not a confirmation: The town that builds the Great Wall does not get a free wall from that! This is a bug not easily noticed, because usually great wonders are built in big productive cities with size > 6. (And the bug seems to affect only the Great Wall. Other "building-providing wonders" like Artemis and Hoover Dam do provide a temple/water plant in the city where they were built!)

So that is the reason, why you were able to destroy all those buildings: the capital did not have a wonder-induced wall!
I can confirm justanicks observation: In a town with "Great Wall - induced" walls, all buildings and units are immune to bombardment. (Because the wall is always hit first, and if it gets destroyed, the Great Wall immediately "resurrects" it...)

 

[tmn]

The town that builds the Great Wall does not get a free wall from that!

But it does. It shows up in the list of improvements and seems to work as in any other town.

I've tried to bombard other towns of a GW-owning civ. Sometimes the virtual walls get hit, other times the improvements. The units get hit too, at least when there are no improvements left.

Possibly, this bug still occurs even after the Great Wall becomes obsolete, but I haven't tested that.

 

[jarred!]

These images are from a .biq I created to test bombardments. In "successful bombard1," the town has simulated walls from The Great Wall, as well as several other basic improvements (barracks, granary, temple). As you can see, the barracks have been destroyed by a catapult. In "successful bombard2," I am bombarding the town which contains The Great Wall (and Palace, barracks, granary, temple). A successful bombardment of this town destroys the Palace; other attempts destroyed different improvements.
With catapults, I destroyed multiple improvements but was unable to injure any units, possibly due to brining too few catapults to the battle. When using Radar Artillery (Rate of Fire = 2), I successfully damaged units. It seemed like the first bombard hit the walls, and the following bombard then hit the units (here I am referencing the 2 shots from a single unit due to the rate of fire).

Edit, changed the wording a bit

 

[tmn]

With catapults, I was unable to injure any units. When using Radar Artillery (multiple bombard), I successfully damaged units. It seemed like the first bombard hit the walls, and the following bombards then hit the units.

Trebuchets were able to damage Spearmen in my case. Trebuchets have Rate of Fire = 1, but successful animation looked like 2 hits too.

 

[jarred!]

I suppose I was wrong to say "I was unable to injure any units," since I didn't bombard enough times to destroy all improvements, and then continue to bombard. I suppose I actually meant "I hit multiple buildings in the towns instead of hitting units." I would like to run a test where I bombard a town whose only improvement is a GW induced walls, but I wanted to test out destroying improvements first.

 

[Jivilov]

IIRC bombardment did wound a defender once after first destroying improvements. So apparently if you destroy all improvements you may start hitting defenders.

 

[jarred!]

No. By "town improvements" I meant stuff inside the town, like barracks, temples, libraries etc., not the simulated walls. IIRC only after these internal improvements were destroyed did bombardment directly attack city defenders. Sorry for the confusion.

Trebuchets were able to damage Spearmen in my case. Trebuchets have Rate of Fire = 1, but successful animation looked like 2 hits too.

This is my experience as well.

The two hits from the trebuchet are from the bombardment hitting the walls and then hitting the unit. Sometimes I would score a successful hit on the walls, and then miss the unit afterward, other times it would animate two successful bombardments and injure the unit. I did my test with catapults, rate of fire = 1.

 

[Lanzelot]

Just to make sure: all these tests (tmn, jarred!, Jivilov) were conducted with the Great Wall?
So that would mean, the Great Wall (or the simulated walls) is messing up the rules outlined by justanick in post #1 completely!?