A solution to the Artillary Bombardment Problem....

[Sentinali]

When Civ 3 first came out many people said, why can't my artillary bombardment destroy units. Then Sid and Co. gave in and allowed a Mod of lethal artillary. Now other people are complaining that this goes too far.

There are often two valid arguments;

1.) Bombardment almost never does the job by itself for dispersed ground forces (ie; mounted units and infantry). These units can hide/take cover ect.

2.) Bombing/ Artillary has historically been very sucessful at taking out large, slow moving targets in the open (ie; ships at sea and armour).

What I would like are some changes in the next patch that is, instead of "enabling lethal bombardment" option, I would like to see an flag added to each unit for "susceptibility to bombardment".

As I see it:

Units Immune to Lethal Bombardment:
All Foot (Infantry) Units
All Mounted Units

Units Susceptible to Lethal Bombardment
Mech Infantry
Tank
Modern Armor
All Naval Units (ex. Aegis Cruiser)

Comments welcome. If you agree with this schema please let me know and I will forward this on the Firaxis.

Sentinali.

 

[Zouave]

Wasn't there a LONG thread on this topic yesterday??

No one ever asked for lethal land bombardment; we wanted lethal sea bombardment by air units.

There should be no lethal land bombardment. End of story.

 

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by Zouave
Wasn't there a LONG thread on this topic yesterday??

No one ever asked for lethal land bombardment; we wanted lethal sea bombardment by air units.

There should be no lethal land bombardment. End of story.

Well they did give us that. But they also gave us the opportunity to enable the rest of it, as they knew that if they didn't there would be loads of complaints from some people as to why they did not include the other lethal bombardment options, or that lethal was broken.

 

[damunzy]

I thought I enabled lethal bombardment...but it seems as if I haven't because my catapult cannot attac a unit when they are down to 1 HP. Does this have to be done with each and every unit or is it an universal setting in the editor?

Off-Topic:
Does a universal sound better to anyone else? An universal just doesn't sound correct.

 

[royfurr]

Sentinali-

I don't agree with some of your premise, but cannot totally discount your idea. Here are some thoughts for you to digest.

(1) The "destruction" of a military unit usually DOES NOT invovle the death of all the troops in the unit and ususally does not involve the physical destruction of all the machines involved (armoured units) ... the main exception is naval units. A modern land combat unit is typically "combat ineffective" (reduced to 1 HP, shall we say?) with somewhere between 15 and 35% casualties, depending on the nationality and the nature of the situation. ("Desperate situations call for desperate measures".) Some slight point above that in losses typically leads to the complete disingration of the unit (troops desert, surrender, etc), in game terms a destroyed unit. Complete physical destruction (fighting to the last man) is quite rare, although more common in ancient times.

(2) Except for significantly dug in, fortified troops, artillery has been the prime casuative agent of combat casualites for infantry since the Napoleonic era. Yes, infantry, given the time to prepare, can withstand even the heaviest bombardment- that is the prime lesson of the First World War.. But it they have NOT had the time, the level of destruction caused by artillery will stop an infantry attack in its tracks ... one common comment by German commanders on the Eastern front in the Russo-German war 60 years ago was that as long as the German artillery was in place and supplied, they could stop almost any Russian attack. Although this comment concerns the defensive use of artilllery, pre-attack artillery preparation of the enemy was not done for fun. If the defenders were not heaviely dug in they suffered enough causualties that the attackers could often simply walk into the former defensive position. Not always, of course, but often enough that the "destruction" of a unit by artillery fire, especially in the era before the common use of defensive entranchments (say 1864?), can be justified. After generals smarted up about entrenchments, this great modifier to the survivability of the defender MUST be taken into account. Before that, or for a non- fortified defender, I think that the lethal bombardment of a defender is quite justifable. This if for gunpowder bombardment. Catapult attack was so slow and less effective that I would not make this statement for that mode of artillery.

So the defensive "entrenchment" status of a unit should be a primary consideration in this debate. Catapults should have their on seperate considerations, and likely against troops in the field their use for lethal purposes is debatable.

For armoured units, it was primarly a question of how heavy the arty was, and how much. Light artillery had little effect and could not be lethal, heavy aritllery could do so. This in game terms can only be resolved by a probablility, since we do not have "heavy" or light artillery. Certiainly artillery effect agains armoured units should be less lethal then against "soft" targets. Too bad that target type is not really taken into account in Civ3's combat system.

Naval units are a different matter entirely. Lethal bombardment is the whole point of cannons firing at each others "containers" (ships).

Just some thoughts. Sorry for the length.

 

[LaRo]

Originally posted by etj4Eagle


Well they did give us that. But they also gave us the opportunity to enable the rest of it, as they knew that if they didn't there would be loads of complaints from some people as to why they did not include the other lethal bombardment options, or that lethal was broken.

They put it only in the editor. No lethal bombardment for sea unit in GOTM or HOF.

 

[Dinorius R.]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76


Off-Topic:
Does "a universal" sound better to anyone else? "An universal" just doesn't sound correct.

"a universal..." definitely is correct - which is rather odd when I think about it. Normally if a word begins with a consonant, you use "a" (eg. a pale horse) but if it begins with a vowel, you use "an" (eg. an off-topic posting). Universal begins with a vowel, but for some reason "an universal" sounds screwy to me. Go figure. Just another example of irrationality in the English language (the result of too many invasions and culture flips perhaps?).

As for the units that should be killed by bombardment, I agree with the others, all those small fast moving land units should be pretty much immune. It's really only fortresses, buildings and ships, and possibly the Firaxis person who included corruption in Civ3 that should be subject to lethal bombardment.

 

[Sentinali]

Okay maybe instead of a unit "tag" for susceptibility, you could go with a terrain modifier.

ie;
Chance of Last Hits being LETHAL

Ocean/Sea/Coast 200%
Desert/Floodplain 90%
Grassland/Plain 75%
Hills/Jungle/Mountains 5%
Fortress/City 0%

Fortified Troops would decrese this likelyhood by 50%. Therefore a Fortified Destroy would still be destroyed, but a infantrymen fortified in grassland would only rarely be (38%).

Sent.

 

[simwiz2]

"Mech Infantry [should be susceptible to lethal bombard]"

One problem. Infantry uprade to mech inf. So you are making an upgrade of a unit, in some ways, WORSE than the unit before it. Could result in people AVOIDING the computers tech because they want to keep building regular infantry. Also mech inf doesnt mean they are fighting from vehicles that could be destroyed. They use the APC's to get where theyre going, then fight more or less like regular infantry. The increased A/D are more modern rifles/weapons.

 

[Sentinali]

I thought about that, and it was probably the biggest tossup in the group. I would have to say that maybe you should be able to build both Infantry and Mech Inf. With Mech infantry having three movement and arty susceptibily and Infantry with 1 movement and no susceptable to lethal arty.

I always think of Mech Infantry as something like the Canadian PPCLI (god bless thier souls). Infantry that predominantly fights from APCs with antitanks and antiaircraft capabilities. It should also be noted that these guys move faster than armor and are amphibious. Maybe I will make them a UU for a Canadian Civ.

Sent.

 

[MrBiggBoy]

yes, sentinali, that would be an excellent idea. being a canadian (yes ontario is in canada, even tho some of use ACT like americans), the canadian PPCLI would be a GREAT idea. lets see, replacement UU for mech inf of M.A.? make it maybe amphibious attack or increased movement.

 

[Copernicus]

I couldn't resist posting on a grammar issue -

"a universal" is correct because what matters is the sound with which a word begins. "Universal" starts with a consonant sound - "y."

For words that start with vowel sounds, use "an."