Accuracy of artillery units

[JDAllison]

Gots a question for you: Can the human increase the accuracy of the artillery units? Has anyone done any research on this?

The reason I ask is here. I think this is bogus, but I'm willing to ask everyone else and see if there is actually something to this.

 

[psweetman1590]

Firstly, I doubt it's true, but I could be wrong.

Second, if it is true, it's a bug and I wouldn't use it.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Some random guy who joined yesterday vs. the consensus of people who have been playing for years.

Hmm, what a difficult choice. I'd say that guy is full of it.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

False.

I side with psweetman; 'accuracy' of artillery depends upon both the bombard strength, and the bombard rate of a unit.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Some random guy who joined yesterday vs. the consensus of people who have been playing for years.

Hmm, what a difficult choice. I'd say that guy is full of it.

After reading some more of his posts, I have concluded that this guy has no idea what he is talking about. Pay no attention to him, for he is clearly delusional.

 

[ecuwins]

lol

I'm playing Civ3. Like I said, you have to aim these things. I've literally fired tens of thousands of these things. There is a specific aiming point. It's actually ever so slightly off-center.

This is not how the mechanics work. In a FPS yes but this is a turn based strategy game. You push a button and a "dice" is rolled at value "X". "X" is plugged into a formula that calculates bombard vs defense. The outcome is ultimately up to that "dice" roll -- hence the dreaded AKA RNG "aim" has nothing to do with it as several others have mentioned.

 

[Bartleby]

I personally don't believe it either, but if it were true, I fail to see how it could be a bug.

 

[Marsden]

Not to say I believe this, but I have noticed increase accuracy if I use the autobombard button instead of the regular bombard, especially for the 50+ Dromons I frequently have. If you haven't heard, I like the Byzantines
I'm sure it's a coincidence, though, not an actual increase in accuracy.

 

[Snarkhunter]

When I first started playing, artillery seemed so inaccurate that I thought as well that it had to be aimed properly. But as time went on, no change of aiming point seemed to have any affect on the outcome. I suspect this is the well-known statistical phenomenon of remembering only successful tries & not realizing how many unsuccessful tries there are. In the same vein, more modern artillery units seem more accurate to me, but I haven't actually sat down and recorded success/failure--so that could be bogus.

In any case, without actually knowing how bombardment success is supposed to be calculated, it would be tough making a reasoned judgment on this, on whether it is an exploit, etc.

kk

 

[Lord Emsworth]

It is actually something that you could test very easily. But I don't have the slightest doubt that 'aiming' will not get you better results.

 

[JDAllison]

Ok, that's what I thought. I figured I'd ask around, though. I may not be the best Civ player out there, but I have played the game quite a bit, and even I know that aiming is not part of the equation.

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

[Aabraxan]

I read that post and wondered about that. I've read thousands of posts here and had never seen anyone else claim that you can aim arty. Nonetheless, I don't think it can hurt to test it. So that's what I'll do. Either he's right or he's wrong. If he's right, my arty becomes that much more deadly. If he's wrong, I lose nothing. I don't have the time to do a statistically significant test, but I'll see what I find. Oh, and it will be a couple of days before I can test it.

 

[Bobv13]

I'm 99.9% sure that artillery can not be aimed in C3C however it does seem as though the number of consecutive bombardment does have an effect. Or when firing cannons at an infantry most often the first several always miss, but I continue to fire the hit rate seems to increase. ie in the first four shots most often I get no hits, but in shots 5 through 8 I get mostly hits. This is why I always try to fire my artillery in mass.

 

[MAS]

Read it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

Learn it!

know it!

 

[Chamnix]

I am 100% positive that you can aim artillery in civ 3 and hit every single time if you do it right. My main problem is that I'm not that good at aiming, so I do miss pretty often. However, at some point in the game, I get into a rhythm so I hit much more often with cannons and artillery than I did with catapults and trebuchets. For some reason, I also find it easier to aim properly when I am fighting against obsolete units than against modern units. It just takes practice...

 

[MAS]

Why aim manually? There exists software that can take control of your cursor, aim it exactly at a pre-specified location (accurate to the pixel) and send a mouse-click signal to the specified piece of software.

It should be easy enough to test this.

 

[Marsden]

I am 100% positive that you can aim artillery in civ 3 and hit every single time if you do it right. My main problem is that I'm not that good at aiming, so I do miss pretty often. However, at some point in the game, I get into a rhythm so I hit much more often with cannons and artillery than I did with catapults and trebuchets. For some reason, I also find it easier to aim properly when I am fighting against obsolete units than against modern units. It just takes practice...

You're a bad bad man.

 

[Snarkhunter]

I am 100% positive that you can aim artillery in civ 3 and hit every single time if you do it right. My main problem is that I'm not that good at aiming, so I do miss pretty often. However, at some point in the game, I get into a rhythm so I hit much more often with cannons and artillery than I did with catapults and trebuchets. For some reason, I also find it easier to aim properly when I am fighting against obsolete units than against modern units. It just takes practice...

If the bombardment algorithm for hit probability takes into account the bombardment strength of the unit & the defense, with a bias for more hits with stronger factors, and against weaker defense factors, this would demonstrate what you see--without aiming being an issue.

kk

 

[Bobv13]

If the bombardment algorithm for hit probability takes into account the bombardment strength of the unit & the defense, with a bias for more hits with stronger factors, and against weaker defense factors, this would demonstrate what you see--without aiming being an issue.
kk

you're just trying to take the fun out of it by making sound like a problem in statistical probability

 

[AutomatedTeller]

That was what he was trying to say, SnarkHunter. He was just saying it in a way to make fun of the other person.

I'm almost tempted to call his bluff and create a scenario with 100 artillery and 100 infantry and ask him to play 1 turn. if he is correct, every infantry should come back injured.

However, I don't really want to spend the time...