Arioch's Analyst Thread

[PawelS]

Maybe the Civ5 implementation of "indirect fire" is not exactly what the term means in real life, but I don't think it's complicated - with indirect fire you can shoot over obstacles, without you can't. And of course the target must be visible by any of your units in both cases. Pretty simple.

 

[AriochIV]

Ranged attacks in Civ V are by dictionary definition indirect fire, as it involves shooting over the heads of friendly units. The dictionary definition is not likely to be much help as regards the true behavior of the promotion.

Tooltip descriptions often tend to be terse (short) and sometimes therefore ambiguous. The description of indirect fire from the Battleship Civilopedia entry seems a lot less ambiguous: "Its indirect fire ability allows it to bombard targets it cannot see (as long as other friendly units can see them)."

 

[Schuesseled]

Maybe the Civ5 implementation of "indirect fire" is not exactly what the term means in real life, but I don't think it's complicated - with indirect fire you can shoot over obstacles, without you can't. And of course the target must be visible by any of your units in both cases. Pretty simple.

I'm gonna give up after this one last attempt.

It allows you to fire over obstacles because without it you can't see the target, but if your unit has a line of sight of 2 how can you shoot at a hex 3 tiles away without indirerct fire being used. And arioch's civpedia entry he mentioned had me convinced that other units with 3 range would need to have indirect fire before they could shoot anything more than 2 hexes away, which is logical, but not correct apparently.

 

[mjs0]

It allows you to fire over obstacles because without it you can't see the target, but if your unit has a line of sight of 2 how can you shoot at a hex 3 tiles away without indirerct fire being used.

From a hilltop perhaps?

 

[PawelS]

I'm gonna give up after this one last attempt.

It allows you to fire over obstacles because without it you can't see the target, but if your unit has a line of sight of 2 how can you shoot at a hex 3 tiles away without indirerct fire being used.

From the realism perspective you're right. But from the gameplay perspective it's not important why it allows you to fire over obstacles.

 

[Schuesseled]

From a hilltop perhaps?

I'm pretty sure that just allows you to see over forests and hills (and thus allows you to shoot over them without the indirect fire promotion) but you can still only see two tiles away without a sentry promotion or another unit in front of you.

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@pawel

Yes it is fine for gameplay, can't shoot over forests or a hill without this promotion (or standing on a hill), simple,

but logically (i don't like the word realism, it has a negative aspect) it makes no sense, its confusing especially for new civ'ers who aren't expecting the game to defy logic at every turn, and on every turn too

Anyway i'm done winging about this.

 

[Peng Qi]

Tooltip descriptions often tend to be terse (short) and sometimes therefore ambiguous. The description of indirect fire from the Battleship Civilopedia entry seems a lot less ambiguous: "Its indirect fire ability allows it to bombard targets it cannot see (as long as other friendly units can see them)."

Yeah, this is pretty clear. Basically, take every unit you have off the map except your ranged unit. If your ranged unit could see its target (i.e. it's not behind a hill or something), it can shoot at it without indirect fire (provided it's in range). With indirect fire, it can hit any unit you can see within its range.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

"Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves: Britons never, never, never shall be slaves."

You added one too many nevers"

 

[Schuesseled]

Yeah, this is pretty clear. Basically, take every unit you have off the map except your ranged unit. If your ranged unit could see its target (i.e. it's not behind a hill or something), it can shoot at it without indirect fire (provided it's in range). With indirect fire, it can hit any unit you can see within its range.

If you had no other units then you wouldn't be able to see units behind obstacles as they block your LoS as well as your shots. Therefore having indirect fire would be pointless. It's use comes in when you can see the untis behind hills and forests.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

And a CIV5Religions.xml file

Other weird files inc;

Hate to spoil your day, but its Civ5Regions.xml. Don't worry, I thought the same thing when I first saw it !

 

[rastak]

Hate to spoil your day, but its Civ5Regions.xml. Don't worry, I thought the same thing when I first saw it !

You pre-ordered? Seemed like you weren't to keen on this version from many of your comments.

 

[thungrim]

I think there's some pretty hilarious implications for the Aztec's special ability. If culture is the currency with which you buy social policy and the Aztecs gain culture by destroying enemy units, then the slaughter of enemies is at least partially a means by which Aztec culture becomes more progressive. Some interesting dark humor can be gleaned from this.

"If we slaughter but 100 more enemies, we may become a more RATIONAL people"

"FREEDOM isn't free"
"Indeed! We count the cost in the blood of our enemies!!"

"Our trade unions demand more blood!!"

 

[PawelS]

"FREEDOM isn't free"
"Indeed! We count the cost in the blood of our enemies!!"

This is sometimes true in real life...

 

[Boris Godunov]

Is there a clear screenshot anywhere of the latest version (of which we know) of the game that shows the battle odds calculator?

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'd suggest watching Greg's video. The early part would present the least confusing info, but the sample size is less. He had numerous battles against Napoleon, but Japan's special ability confuses things a lot.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You pre-ordered? Seemed like you weren't to keen on this version from many of your comments.

No I haven't pre-ordered, but I almost certainly will buy the game!

Aussie.

 

[Boris Godunov]

I'd suggest watching Greg's video. The early part would present the least confusing info, but the sample size is less. He had numerous battles against Napoleon, but Japan's special ability confuses things a lot.

I've seen it, I'm just looking for a clear screenshot already posted online. Someone on another site is kvetching that the battle info screen doesn't show enough info, but I'm thinking he's basing that opinion on an earlier build.

 

[bjbrains]

I've seen it, I'm just looking for a clear screenshot already posted online. Someone on another site is kvetching that the battle info screen doesn't show enough info, but I'm thinking he's basing that opinion on an earlier build.

I pulled this out of Greg's video. It shows everything you should need to know IMO: The relative damages dealt, the strengths of the units involved (and where the modifiers come from), and what the outcome should be. There's obviously some deviation possible, but it's always been +/- 1 of the displayed outcome.

 

[rastak]

No I haven't pre-ordered, but I almost certainly will buy the game!

Aussie.

I think it'll be good. Here's hoping Aussie!

 

[CannonballJack]

Minor point, and I apologize if somebody has already brought it up: I think the Ustream vids show that city-state personalities aren't permanent.

We get a couple of chances to see lists of city-states in both games, and it looks like each one gets a personality tag (Friendly, Neutral, Hostile, or Irrational), but they don't match the list on Arioch's site. In particular, six minutes into the second video, we see that Geneva is (appropriately) Neutral, intead of the Irrational that we'd seen it as previously. For my money, the most likely explanation is that personalities are shuffled with each game.