Predator145
Prince
- Joined
- May 22, 2020
- Messages
- 426
Hi, I've been reading on past attempts of people trying to mod around the broken artillery strategy flag where the unit does nothing but fortify in the city it's built and only hit units within range.I've tested them in the WWII Pacific scenario and have found them to be unsatisfactory. My goal is to have the AI use arty in both sieging cities and supporting in the open. This is gonna be long a detailed.
So here's the TLDR: Use Quintillus/Steph editor to assign artillery units to air bombard and land units.
Here are some attempts and their results:
1.) Glass Cannon: The 2 previous Civ games have artillery line be glass cannons with the last unit having the "ignore walls" ability. Civ3 doesn't have that ability. So you'd need your artillery to have 40 attack to even have a decent chance of breaking a metropolis. This is broken vs anything in the open. But the main reason this solution doesn't work is that once the attack stat is that high, the Civ3 AI builds NOTHING BUT ARTILLERY in their offensive unit slot and uses them unescorted like they use longbows. This cripples them. I'm not sure how civ1 and civ2 handles this. From memory they build a mix of fast offensives and slow glass cannons. Even if you give mono unit civ3 AI 40/10/1 artillery they'd be better off making tanks. And having the offensive/defensive strat means they will never use the bombard function. Only artillery, cruise missile, sea power and air bombard strats can use it. Which brings us to:
2.) Cruise missile: It's just as broken as the artillery strat. The unit will just fortify in the city and bombard those within range, never moving.
3.) Sea Power: With the Quintillus/Steph editor you can put your artillery units sea power strat. Have them still be land units. This confuses the AI and it will not build the unit because the artillery line's stats will always be less than that of contemporary warships. So auto build is a must. The AI will either assign the artillery unit as "defensive sea power" or "offensive sea power". The defensive one is just as broken as the artillery and cruise missile strat, not relocating at all. But the offensive one will move out to bombard enemy cities. They do so unescorted and will only go for enemy cities. And even then they march right up to the city to bombard despite having 2 range. Most of the artillery will be assigned as defensive. So while looking good for a screenshot, this solution offers little to gameplay.
That leaves us with the last solution I've yet to see anyone post:
4.) Air bombard. As with Seapower you need autobuild as all bomber units will out range artillery and thus the AI will never build them. Have the unit be a land unit so that it can provide defensive bombard support. Do not assign it to air unit with stealth as they AI will futilely try to make fighters. The AI will actively move their pieces into the front cities but NEVER STEP OUTSIDE. The movement of these artillery pieces is not shown by the game somehow but they do move. How they'd behave without rail roads I'm not sure as they're very reluctant to be out of a city. But I'm sure they moved out as not all of the Chinese cities have rail connection but their artillery pieces managed to arrive at Nanning and Foochow.
The AI will then bombard enemy units within range. This accomplishes far more than the previous solutions. I gave them 5 bombard range to compensate for them not stepping out of the city (do not animate battles on the first turn as this could crash the game). But then I noticed once their are no more enemies in the open to bombard they'd just fortify instead of bombarding the cities within their 5 range. The bombardment function seems to ignore cities unless they're up close. The goal is to have the AI siege cities as well.
So I added a bombing attack with an operational range of 5. The AI promptly bombs any city within reach but then ignores the enemy units at its doorstep. Bombing ignores units in the open and will always go for cities. Even though now the AI has both bombard and bombing at 5 range, it's not able to switch up. It will ALWAYS HITS CITIES if there are any within range.
This means the AI needs 2 separate artillery units: one for sieging cities and one for supporting in the open. I have them auto produced with 2 small wonders. The siege one has both 5 range bombard and 5 range bombing. The support one however has 5 range bombard and only 2 range bombing so that they can't reach enemy cities and will hit the units up close instead. The reason for retaining the 2 range bombing I will explain below.
The AI though never stepping out of cities will do so in the case of TRANSPORTING VIA SHIP. It will land them often unescorted next to cities and then fire at them. That's why I retained the bombing function as bombard would only hit units. And with no army to back it up, it's not much use. Once the city is taken it will move into that city. Being ill guarded means they need defense stats and a capture flag. Having a defense stat also helps them defend border towns better as the AI does not focus defensive units where it needs them.
Offensive "Field Guns"
With all their artillery being in border towns the invading AI army still doesn't have defensive bombard support. During testing I've discovered that the AI when building an Offensive strat unit will take bombard value into consideration. So it ended up mixing in some 6/6/1 artillery with 12 bombard. This class of "field guns" will escort the AI's offensive army (which often sorely lacks defensive strat units). Tweak the stats carefully however, as too high and you'll up with the AI ceasing to build fast attackers. I've never found a lackluster attack stat on a high defense unit with offensive strat to be a problem with the AI as it will never suicide into bad odds. A very scary army to face is the Javelin Thrower+Longbow stack because the JT too is of offensive strat and will escort the LBs.
In order to have the AI build mix of units, the stats have to be just right. A good example is the Light Tank+Combat Engineer mix. This line of idea is still untested largely. So I'm not sure.
I hope some people can tests these ideas and develop more on them.
So here's the TLDR: Use Quintillus/Steph editor to assign artillery units to air bombard and land units.
Here are some attempts and their results:
1.) Glass Cannon: The 2 previous Civ games have artillery line be glass cannons with the last unit having the "ignore walls" ability. Civ3 doesn't have that ability. So you'd need your artillery to have 40 attack to even have a decent chance of breaking a metropolis. This is broken vs anything in the open. But the main reason this solution doesn't work is that once the attack stat is that high, the Civ3 AI builds NOTHING BUT ARTILLERY in their offensive unit slot and uses them unescorted like they use longbows. This cripples them. I'm not sure how civ1 and civ2 handles this. From memory they build a mix of fast offensives and slow glass cannons. Even if you give mono unit civ3 AI 40/10/1 artillery they'd be better off making tanks. And having the offensive/defensive strat means they will never use the bombard function. Only artillery, cruise missile, sea power and air bombard strats can use it. Which brings us to:
2.) Cruise missile: It's just as broken as the artillery strat. The unit will just fortify in the city and bombard those within range, never moving.
3.) Sea Power: With the Quintillus/Steph editor you can put your artillery units sea power strat. Have them still be land units. This confuses the AI and it will not build the unit because the artillery line's stats will always be less than that of contemporary warships. So auto build is a must. The AI will either assign the artillery unit as "defensive sea power" or "offensive sea power". The defensive one is just as broken as the artillery and cruise missile strat, not relocating at all. But the offensive one will move out to bombard enemy cities. They do so unescorted and will only go for enemy cities. And even then they march right up to the city to bombard despite having 2 range. Most of the artillery will be assigned as defensive. So while looking good for a screenshot, this solution offers little to gameplay.
That leaves us with the last solution I've yet to see anyone post:
4.) Air bombard. As with Seapower you need autobuild as all bomber units will out range artillery and thus the AI will never build them. Have the unit be a land unit so that it can provide defensive bombard support. Do not assign it to air unit with stealth as they AI will futilely try to make fighters. The AI will actively move their pieces into the front cities but NEVER STEP OUTSIDE. The movement of these artillery pieces is not shown by the game somehow but they do move. How they'd behave without rail roads I'm not sure as they're very reluctant to be out of a city. But I'm sure they moved out as not all of the Chinese cities have rail connection but their artillery pieces managed to arrive at Nanning and Foochow.
The AI will then bombard enemy units within range. This accomplishes far more than the previous solutions. I gave them 5 bombard range to compensate for them not stepping out of the city (do not animate battles on the first turn as this could crash the game). But then I noticed once their are no more enemies in the open to bombard they'd just fortify instead of bombarding the cities within their 5 range. The bombardment function seems to ignore cities unless they're up close. The goal is to have the AI siege cities as well.
So I added a bombing attack with an operational range of 5. The AI promptly bombs any city within reach but then ignores the enemy units at its doorstep. Bombing ignores units in the open and will always go for cities. Even though now the AI has both bombard and bombing at 5 range, it's not able to switch up. It will ALWAYS HITS CITIES if there are any within range.
This means the AI needs 2 separate artillery units: one for sieging cities and one for supporting in the open. I have them auto produced with 2 small wonders. The siege one has both 5 range bombard and 5 range bombing. The support one however has 5 range bombard and only 2 range bombing so that they can't reach enemy cities and will hit the units up close instead. The reason for retaining the 2 range bombing I will explain below.
The AI though never stepping out of cities will do so in the case of TRANSPORTING VIA SHIP. It will land them often unescorted next to cities and then fire at them. That's why I retained the bombing function as bombard would only hit units. And with no army to back it up, it's not much use. Once the city is taken it will move into that city. Being ill guarded means they need defense stats and a capture flag. Having a defense stat also helps them defend border towns better as the AI does not focus defensive units where it needs them.
Offensive "Field Guns"
With all their artillery being in border towns the invading AI army still doesn't have defensive bombard support. During testing I've discovered that the AI when building an Offensive strat unit will take bombard value into consideration. So it ended up mixing in some 6/6/1 artillery with 12 bombard. This class of "field guns" will escort the AI's offensive army (which often sorely lacks defensive strat units). Tweak the stats carefully however, as too high and you'll up with the AI ceasing to build fast attackers. I've never found a lackluster attack stat on a high defense unit with offensive strat to be a problem with the AI as it will never suicide into bad odds. A very scary army to face is the Javelin Thrower+Longbow stack because the JT too is of offensive strat and will escort the LBs.
In order to have the AI build mix of units, the stats have to be just right. A good example is the Light Tank+Combat Engineer mix. This line of idea is still untested largely. So I'm not sure.
I hope some people can tests these ideas and develop more on them.