Catapults, Trebushet, Canon, Hwacha, Artillery and radar A.

[fuad]

ok, been trying for a long time with the C3C editor to try to find ways and means to make the AI produce and stack and use all the land bombarding units familly well ofensively in the game like the human player does use them.

for the production side , well assigned some improvements to build them so that indeed over came the AI not producing much of them , but the only way it seems to me after many kinds of tests the AI use them well is when the bombard range is increased to 4 and indeed the fighting becomes very entertaining and challening.

well that soultion is cool if ur playing on huge or large maps with 4 or 5 civs 6 as maximum but not cool if u wanna play on any world map where u can't just increase the bombard range cos then it would be not real firing from one side of the mediteranean to the other side just in one shot it becomes more like super bombard land units...lol......

My questions here since i hope am asking this in the right forum .does anyone know about any other solution regarding this thing ?? since i would imagine many mod makers tried to fix this thing , i have tried many other solutions like making them the only land units that can pillage or the only land units that are invisible and can detect invisible too even tried to gave them some defense points only and radar ability too all of them i even thought of just making them cruise missiles like a one shot thing with high bombardement thing but didn't feel right at all to me

Also increased there costs dramtaticly too so human player can't just build huge amount of them , am left with one option now is to cripple down there bombardement strengh and take the ROF of them so that things don't become easy once u have a Stack of them ......any ideas or comments would be much appreciated .
thx

 

[Stormrage]

First, yes its the right forum

Second, I`m going to read this a few times more, then, I`m going to have a cup of coffee, and then try to read this again... Dude, your text is a bit... dense. It looks like you came running and you are trying to ask us someting as fast as you can Please make some paragraphs.

Third, I hate Civ artillery, its so stupid! The AI never uses it as its supposed to, and if you use it, it makes you feel like you are taking candy from a blind kid!

Fourth, I hate Civ artillery, its so stupid!

Fifth, sorry this post isn`t helpful at all

 

[fuad]

there did the the paragrah thing.. .lol.... ur right sorry about that .... but still u didn't give me any ideas if there could be any kind of solution for this ????

 

[Stormrage]

any ideas or comments would be much appreciated

Well, ya said: or

I`m sorry I`m not very helpful, as you can see from my Join Date, I`m just a noob. So, even if I had any ideas they would probably make me sound like I`m from Mars or something

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

One thing I did is give Tanks and certain other units, such as Mages (I'm working on a Fantasy mod, OK) Bombard values in addition to their regular attacks. The AI mostly uses them to attack, but sometimes they bombard, and they, of course, always bombard defensively (makes taking out a stack of Tanks, Airships and Mages very risky indeed....). Also, since anything except artillery or Radar artillery can't hit the broad side of a barn most of the time, I usually don't start building artillery until the industrial or modern eras. Even then, I figure I'd rather use the 100 shields it takes for a Radar artillery for building a Mech infantry or Tank, which can actually guard/capture cities, rather than on some slow-ass unit that only slows down my Late Industrial/Modern Blitzkrieg attacks

 

[Traianus]

Your suggestions seem to me to be just making the use of artillery more difficult for the human player rather than encouraging the AI to use them correctly. I can understand that as AI is stupid regarding artillery but it is only really a bypass around your problem.
I have wondered for ages how the AI can use naval bombard units to great effect (Check out the Carthaginian fleet in RFRE !) but is so hopeless on land.
I asked myself, what is different about naval bombard unit? The answer is two things;
1. Naval units have their own attack and defence values, ie. They don't need to be escorted.
2. Naval units always have a movement greater than 2.

I'm not sure if the first would matter much but the second might be important as it would allow the AI to bombard and then retreat. Maybe you could experiment with this a little.

 

[Traianus]

Sorry, Hikarosan. I wasn't refering to your suggestions but fuads. I hadn't seen ur post yet!

 

[Bjornlo]

I added horse drawn artillary to my game and the AI makes only a little more use of it then conventional artty. But, when it does use it, it is very effective and annoying.
I too noticed that ship artty was used better then land artty, and the horse drawn cannon is clearly a unit the AI understands prehaps because of some similarity between this unit and naval units. It kept rolling up with hit and run tactics. It even used Fusilliers (musket/riflemen) to cover the retreat of the cannons.
I gave the unit a low attack (1/2 to 1/3 of lancers/cavalry) and a -1 on defense compare to these same units. Thus this unit has some mobility. Some attack. Some defense. It does not require escourt (though the AI usually escourts it). It is not widely used because this is a mid-game unit where the technology disparity is usually the greatest. If you have firearms and they do not, you can do without cannons.
I also use less arttillary then I might otherwise use. I haven't experimented too much with having them auto-generated. I might test that. I have played games where the AI and I were locked in a pretty good race for supremacy, and in those instances the might AI deploy more cannon (etc), up to 6 in a stack in one case by the AI-Germans. It used them to break by version of the "maginot line" (a string of forts at some key choak points).
Maybe if you remove maint. costs on bombard units the AI might flood the field with them.

 

[fuad]

It's ok Stormrage ...lol... am a noob too


Traianus ..yes ur fully right in what u thought of , cos that was always an exploit for the human player to win or at least one of the exploits , but the movement rate and the attack defense stats might be a way since the AI understands naval ships.

Hikaro takayama...... yes ur fully right giving defense bombarding to other units makes them real hard to take out.

Bjornlo..... hmmmm..ok ...was the AI using the horse drawn artillery for bombarding too ..i mean other units ... and something u said is exacetly what am aiming for . when u said when the AI uses the land bombarding in a right way it can very effective and annoying !!!!

so basicly if givin the ( catapult, trebushet, canon, hwacha, artillery and r.artillery ) a 1 attack and a 1 defense with higher movement rate and no maintance cost they will use it as a hit and run tactic in bombarding either other units or cities?

Bjornlo :

I have played games where the AI and I were locked in a pretty good race for supremacy, and in those instances the might AI deploy more cannon (etc), up to 6 in a stack in one case by the AI-Germans. It used them to break by version of the "maginot line" (a string of forts at some key choak points).


this is intresting i wonder what trigerred this for them (AI ) to act that way??maybe cos u made it similar to a sea bombarding unit ?

 

[mrtn]

Hikaro, that works good then? I've been thinking of giving all the Mages in WH Bombard Range 1, in a special version of the mod...

 

[Bjornlo]

The one time the germans really used alot of artillary was probably some weird random event since it was before I added horse drawn cannons. I was honestly surprised to face such a large amount of ranged fire. I both loved and hated it.

Adding more mobile artillary does seem to slightly increase useage. Also adding more early naval units with bombard also helps. I added a "siege-barge". I make it available as a fairly early naval unit, it has A/D of 1/1 but a bombard of 4, so those stinkers shell my shores with some regularity.

I do not know if removing maint. cost increases useage. I suspect it might, but I don't know. It was just a suggestion for an experiment. But in thinking about it some more, I suspect that the "artillary flag" is pointless. Ships with bombard are used correctly. They do not have this flag. So, here is an experiment for you. Try giving artillary a A/D of 1/1 or higher and then giving them some other role. I suspect this might cause it to move the unit out of the city and also cause it to be built at the same rate as other units at the same tech level with the same flag. The downside is you might get AI civ's a little artty crazy.
But again, this is theory. Maybe you can test these variants out and let us know?

 

[mrtn]

The AI sometimes build quite a lot of mages in the WH mod. These have quite low stats* and range 0 bombard.

*A spearman has 2/4/1, a swordsman 6/4/1, a mage typically 3(3)/3/1.

 

[fuad]

actually u just answered what i was about to ask u cos i gave the catapult an A/D of 1/1 and bombard range 1 bombarad strengh 4 and rate of fire 1 increased the movement rate too , so now they are like early ancient time sea bombarding unit (dromon) , but a land one instead ..... i was thinking to test them like this (first solution)


if that doesn't work then will give them the ofense , defense thing next to the artillery one in AI land strategies box (second solution)


i will make sure that they have the less attack and defense stats comparing to other land units so they don't end up just going and attacking the cities and enemy units instead of bombarding them if i go along with the second solution.

and yes once i get some results from the tests will post them here for sure


as for the improvements generating those units ...... i have also a quite real and nice solution for this but am not good in adding improvements to the game or making new ones so that will need someone to do them , let's say that u add an improvement that is called as an example ( seige workshop ) in ancient time with mathematics it will give the city 1 sheild of production and generate a catapult every 5 or 6 turns ..... then it will go obselete by the arrival of engeniring and u can built instead ( seige factory ) and it will generate a trebushet every 5 or 6 turns ...and give 1 sheild extra.


then with the arrival of metallurgy u can have the (canon factory ) that will do the same thing and generate a canon every 5 to 6 turns .

then just by removing the factory to the replacable parts the canon fac will go obselete and the factory will genrate and artillery every 5 to 6 turns .

and finally removing the manufacturing plant to syntetic fibers and make them generate a radar artillery every 5 to 6 turns too.

oo yes and also increase the land bombarding units costs very high too , so basicly the human player rely on getting them through these improvements, also make some great wonders put them in each city , once that great wonder is built ( ex: the granaries with the pyramids ) am saying this cos AI beats most of the times the human player in building the great wonders.

maybe the improvement costs shouldn't cost too much since they are temp. improvements in the game .

all the above are just examples like i said earlier i did this with just some improvements that are allready in the game not added ones .

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Hikaro, that works good then? I've been thinking of giving all the Mages in WH Bombard Range 1, in a special version of the mod...

Well... One piece of artillery the AI uses to deadly effect in the FF mod is the Makou Cannon, but it is generated by a SW (to keep there from being too many). The Makou Cannon is immobile (but has two movement and blitz so that you can bombard with it twice in one turn) but it can be airlifted, has 0 attack, 30 def, something like +2 or three HP, and a 50-tile bombard range (effectively infinite on anything smaller than a standard-size map), something like a 100 bombard value with lethal land and sea bombardment.... During one war between two AI civs in one of the playtests of the Final Fantasy mod, I saw a transport convy get repeatedly hit by the opposing civ's Makou Cannons (at that time they were buildable but very expensive, but it was still possible to build too many of them for my liking) until almost all of the ships were redlined....

Needless to say, attacking a city with a Makou cannon in it is a daunting prospect, to say the least (unless you want to risk the wrath of the entire world and use a Meteor(ICBM) to blast the city back to the stone age).

 

[fuad]

ok made many tests and now could confirm that the improvement generating the artillery familly peices by x number of turns does make the AI use them more they even reached with a bombard range of one 13 catapults being stacked in one of the SOD but that was just one of there stack of dooms , the others stacks had about from 1 to 7 peices of catapults it varried


on a bombard range of two for catapults the AI had about 26 of the catapults again in one of his SOD his others SOD had about 2 to 8 in them


that seems like a good improvement so finding a way to give them to the AI since they don't produce much of them does help and of course but that is allready known increasing bombarding range does help too , however in my opinion the AI still doesn't use them effectively as the human player does but certainly does use them more often now and sometimes quite good.

the results i got were done on a large map with 11 civilizations