Artillary Frustration

[Watiggi]

The reason people don't think most Siege weapons are worth it is because they are using them wrong. Suiciding against a city... Yes, you do collatoral damage, but not a lot of it. They are primarily used to bombard a cities defences to get rid of that annoying 65% (or whatever) bonus defenders get and to keep your lovely promoted units from dying. People who whine about it being "broken" just don't know how to use them properly.

I use the seige to bombard and to attack the cities. Those lovely promoted units *are* the seige units with me. I value them more than the other units and will suicide them if needed instead of my seige units.

When it comes down to it, the seige units are far more capable of capturing a city than normal units....they are built for it. They carry the ability to bombard the defenses, destroy a stack and capture the city.

 

[zeeter]

The reason people don't think most Siege weapons are worth it is because they are using them wrong. Suiciding against a city... Yes, you do collatoral damage, but not a lot of it. They are primarily used to bombard a cities defences to get rid of that annoying 65% (or whatever) bonus defenders get and to keep your lovely promoted units from dying. People who whine about it being "broken" just don't know how to use them properly.

I really don't think that the system is broken, either. And typically, if you attack a normal city with five artillery you might lose two. That's an acceptable loss when compared to the build time versus tanks. Not to mention the promotions.

 

[Harrier]

I really don't think that the system is broken, either. And typically, if you attack a normal city with five artillery you might lose two. That's an acceptable loss when compared to the build time versus tanks. Not to mention the promotions.

I agree with you that it is not broken. The fact that you can weaken say 6 units with one attack by a siege weapon, even if you do lose it, is much more useful than just weakening or killing 1 unit from an attack by another.

Infact, if you are just behind in military terms (so the AI has slightly stronger units) collateral damage makes all the differance. Now you have the possibility of capturing a City, instead of sending your units on suicide missions.

 

[Watiggi]

Infact, if you are just behind in military terms (so the AI has slightly stronger units) collateral damage makes all the differance. Now you have the possibility of capturing a City, instead of sending your units on suicide missions.

Exactly. Collateral damage reduces the stack units odds of success and it reduces their hitpoints. The collateral damage makes it easier for less strengthed units (like the seige units) to win because it increases the next seige unit's odds of success (by lowering the stacks collective strengths). That makes them useful against a superior army.

Hmmm, how do you destroy a stack of stack killers? Say you encountered a stack of 10 catapults, how could you kill them? You would need 10 horse archers (who have a bonus against catapults, I believe), or you could use another equal sized stack of catapults?

Maybe horse archers (and the equivilent, ie knights and cavelry) need a collateral damage bonus when attacking seige in order to balance it out?

EDIT: Ohh, I know. One strong unit. A unit that would offer very little odds of success when attacked. If the catapults attack it, they wouldn't stand a chance of winning, and their collateral damage (strength reducing ability) would have no effect on lowering the strength. That is why people are suiciding their seige units - they are attacking a strong unit when they shouldn't be. Use another high strengthed unit to lower the strong unit's strength - sacrificing it if need be. Then hit it with seige.

Watiggi

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I think the Civ3 and Civ4 systems for siege weapons have their respective pros and cons. I think a possible solution could be to keep the Civ4 version as is, but grant a MUCH higher retreat chance (especially for cannons and artillery), and give them some kind of 'Defensive Bombardment' capability-so that, if they are part of an attacking/defending stack, every siege weapon within the stack gets a single chance to hit their target before the remaining units attack each other. This is in conjunction with their city bombardment effects of course (which, I might add, should be occasionally able to damage improvements and/or improvements INSTEAD of reducing the defensive bonus of the city).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Colossian]

it wasnt fixed in 1.61 patch.

 

[Giaur]

Try powerful combo: Pentagon (rushed by Great Enginier), Theocracy and Vassalage. Promote Artillery to City Raider I, II, III. Only first attack is risky. Next ones convert infantry to cannon-food.

However lack of Radar Artillery and Bombards (beetween Catapult and Canon) is upsetting ...

 

[casey1966]

Below are a list of values that are located in CIV4UnitInfos.xml.

You can edit these for your own personal preferences.These are my settings for artillery.I prefer siege weapons not to capture cities.As far as I'm concerned siege weapons are way overpowered..esp. artillery.Anyways for anyone that wants to change them,here you go....


<bNoCapture>1</bNoCapture>=set to 1 to capture cities

<iCombat>15</iCombat>= Combat strength

<iWithdrawalProb>50</iWithdrawalProb>=Chance of retreating from (losing) fight

<iCollateralDamage>100</iCollateralDamage>=Chance of doing Collateral Damage

<iCollateralDamageLimit>60</iCollateralDamageLimit>=Percentage Collateral Damage Unit is allowed to do (100 means you can destroy units using Collateral Damage)

<iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>7</iCollateralDamageMaxUnits>=Number of Units in stack that the Unit is able to hit with Collateral Damage

<iBombardRate>25</iBombardRate>=Damage a ground/sea unit can dish out against Cities

<iFirstStrikes>0</iFirstStrikes>=Number of First Strikes Ability the Unit has

 

[casey1966]

Try powerful combo: Pentagon (rushed by Great Enginier), Theocracy and Vassalage. Promote Artillery to City Raider I, II, III. Only first attack is risky. Next ones convert infantry to cannon-food.

However lack of Radar Artillery and Bombards (beetween Catapult and Canon) is upsetting ...

Yeah,I agree...miss the Radar Artillery. There are a few mods that have an advanced artillery. Definately need something to counter MA & MI.

 

[SilentDemon]

In my opinion, artillery is one of the most unbalanced units in all of civ 4. I have repeatedly found myself massing things such as panzer tanks on higher difficulty games (monarch and above) only to find myself losing attacks because the game is "all about the numbers" rather than what makes sense. In civ 3 I was rewarded for using better units, such as tanks, on a regular basis. In 4 I find myself having attacks annhilated (completely unrealisticly) by any computer or player who has successfully massed artillery. Artillery in its nature, although devastating is supposed to be used as a *support unit.* What annoys me is I'll find myself saying that "I shouldn't be losing" when in truth although artillery is devastating to any enemy line, if that is all you have you'll find yourself overrun by the small numbers that do make it through the bombardment. You are not going to be able to defeat entire enemy lines of tanks on a battlefield by *just* using artillery on an open field - city engagement, neither should you be able. Of course what annoys me most is the fact that "I should be losing" because in truth its all about numbers, simple formulae in this game that are easy to predict but just don't make any sense in real life application. I'm starting to think I should conquer my home town by building as many cannons as I possibly can, afterall I dont need an army to back them up.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I like almost all of the stats you have there, except for too. First, I would give artillery at LEAST some First strike capability (after all, they are long-range weapons). I would also give it a slightly higher retreat chance.
Anyway, hope they make these kinds of changes to the vanilla game.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Roland Johansen]

If you increase the retreat chance of artillery type units without increasing the building costs of these units, then you will make them overpowered.

Example:
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 0 % will survive 0 retreats (it will never retreat),
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 25% will survice an average 1/3 retreats and can thus be used 1 1/3 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 50% will survive on average 1 retreats and can thus be used 2 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 75% will survive on average 3 retreats and can thus be used 4 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 90% will survive on average 9 retreats and can thus be used 10 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 99% will survive on average 99 retreats and can thus be used 100 times for a suicide attack.

An artillery with a retreat chance of 75 % will on average be used for 3 times as many suicide attacks before it dies as the artillery piece in the vanilla game and thus be about 3 times as valuable (not completely true, but true for suicide attacks on cities and stacks). An artillery piece with a 90% retreat chance is about 7.5 times as valuable as the artillery piece in the vanilla game for suicide attacks. If you make the retreat chance very high, then you will create a unit that can freely do damage on the attack without chances of losing the unit.

Also, the human player is typically far better in keeping its units alive than the AI. Thus you will do everything to kill the retreating artillery that the AI uses to attack your cities or stacks while the AI is typically less smart in doing this to you.

The game will probably become easier when you make these kinds of changes to the artillery. You might want to keep that in mind.

Good luck modding!

 

[tymmail]

I think the current artillery unit is in fact a combination of two units: suicidal terriorist attacker and true bombarment unit.

People may make a mod adding a new unit called terrorist/suicidial attacker, which barrage into a city or stack of units causing colleteral damage.

The true artillery should be unable to barrage and only serve for lowering defense and should be able to shot 2 squares away for modern artillery.

 

[Watiggi]

I don't really see a problem with Artillery. I mean, the realism and what not is obvious, but for gameplay, I don't see a problem. Artillery are the high end collateral damage, city and stack killers. What's the problem? Modern Armour kills just about anything thrown at it. It's supposed to. Numbers allow a user to overcome the tech advantage. I like it. It allows a player whether advanced or not to get somewhere. I think the formula for gameplay works well. The Artillery *should* do the enormous amounts of damage because a) they are the top stack killer and b) the opponents stacks are usually loaded with Modern Armour and what not.

This gives the AI (and you) an ability to counter a huge SoD. If it is such a problem, don't put the units in a stack. Artillery are meant to pack one hell of a punch because they go up against one hell of a stack of good units.

I think making those adjustments Casey, will actually make it worse and above all, will prevent the AI and players from effectively countering your modern units (which may really be what you're after, I don't know). You may not know, but the max amount of collateral damage the Artillery does to the stack *has* been changed in 1.61 (or the change was in 1.52 but I didn't realise), in the original it was 75%, now it is 70%.

I don't get to play many modern games, but I did get there once where I fought a modern war. I simply slaughtered the less advanced civs with Modern Armour/Stealth, but when it came time to go up against an equally advanced civ, my Modern Armour/Stealth got slaughtered. They had a reasonably number of Artillery which killed my units.

You see, if you reduce the effectiveness of Artillery, the AI wont have a chance to counter. The fact that it is a rock-paper-scissors combat system means that every civ, AI or otherwise has a chance, if they are willing to do what's needed. That is what gives Civ4 the gameplay it has. It's meant to be rock-paper-scissors, not pebble-paper-scissors.

Watiggi

 

[SilentDemon]

I don't really see a problem with Artillery. I mean, the realism and what not is obvious, but for gameplay, I don't see a problem. Artillery are the high end collateral damage, city and stack killers. What's the problem? Modern Armour kills just about anything thrown at it. It's supposed to. Numbers allow a user to overcome the tech advantage. I like it. It allows a player whether advanced or not to get somewhere. I think the formula for gameplay works well. The Artillery *should* do the enormous amounts of damage because a) they are the top stack killer and b) the opponents stacks are usually loaded with Modern Armour and what not.

This gives the AI (and you) an ability to counter a huge SoD. If it is such a problem, don't put the units in a stack. Artillery are meant to pack one hell of a punch because they go up against one hell of a stack of good units.

I think making those adjustments Casey, will actually make it worse and above all, will prevent the AI and players from effectively countering your modern units (which may really be what you're after, I don't know). You may not know, but the max amount of collateral damage the Artillery does to the stack *has* been changed in 1.61 (or the change was in 1.52 but I didn't realise), in the original it was 75%, now it is 70%.

I don't get to play many modern games, but I did get there once where I fought a modern war. I simply slaughtered the less advanced civs with Modern Armour/Stealth, but when it came time to go up against an equally advanced civ, my Modern Armour/Stealth got slaughtered. They had a reasonably number of Artillery which killed my units.

You see, if you reduce the effectiveness of Artillery, the AI wont have a chance to counter. The fact that it is a rock-paper-scissors combat system means that every civ, AI or otherwise has a chance, if they are willing to do what's needed. That is what gives Civ4 the gameplay it has. It's meant to be rock-paper-scissors, not pebble-paper-scissors.

Watiggi

You mentioned you dont get to play many modern games, so I'll try to not make this a scathing response.

Modern armor kills most things that are thrown at it, but you can get artillery earlier. You need fewer artillery units (or even cannons / catapults) to conquer a city, and their survival rate will be larger. Artillery should do enormous damage, but in conjunction with their ability to capture cities and the fact they cost less than most "more powerful" units, they are seriously overpowered. It isn't just about units being in a stack, since their primary reason for being overpowered is that they can take out cities too effectively on their own.

Simply put, artillery will lose against most other modern units very easily, but when you consider you should have more of them and massing them makes city conquests absurdly easy it shows their advantage. If you have say 20 artillery outside of a city, and they have 20 modern armor, the modern armor will defeat the artillery if they attack it. However the artillery will defeat the modern armor if they attack them... While city garrisoned. With collateral damage taken into consideration, you really dont need to do anything but mass artillery and you can very easily theoreticly win againt most of your opponents.

 

[casey1966]

If you increase the retreat chance of artillery type units without increasing the building costs of these units, then you will make them overpowered.

Example:
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 0 % will survive 0 retreats (it will never retreat),
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 25% will survice an average 1/3 retreats and can thus be used 1 1/3 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 50% will survive on average 1 retreats and can thus be used 2 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 75% will survive on average 3 retreats and can thus be used 4 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 90% will survive on average 9 retreats and can thus be used 10 times for a suicide attack,
an artillery piece with a retreat chance of 99% will survive on average 99 retreats and can thus be used 100 times for a suicide attack.

An artillery with a retreat chance of 75 % will on average be used for 3 times as many suicide attacks before it dies as the artillery piece in the vanilla game and thus be about 3 times as valuable (not completely true, but true for suicide attacks on cities and stacks). An artillery piece with a 90% retreat chance is about 7.5 times as valuable as the artillery piece in the vanilla game for suicide attacks. If you make the retreat chance very high, then you will create a unit that can freely do damage on the attack without chances of losing the unit.

Also, the human player is typically far better in keeping its units alive than the AI. Thus you will do everything to kill the retreating artillery that the AI uses to attack your cities or stacks while the AI is typically less smart in doing this to you.

The game will probably become easier when you make these kinds of changes to the artillery. You might want to keep that in mind.

Good luck modding!

That's some good advise. I was wandering if seige weapons lose their attack & collateral damage after it has lost strength.

 

[sand]

not sure if this had been said but.
if an artillery peice attacks a stack it would cause collaterall a better way would be units have a chance to destroy it before it fired thus stopping any collateral. the defending units chance would increase if it had first strike. or units could retreat causing no collateral (improve's with flanking).

 

[supersoulty]

I to prefer the method used in Civ III. Not just for the cannons, either. I was a big time ship builder in the older version. Now I find that the navy is almost usless. Buildings don't move. Therefor, battleships should be able to at least do damage to cities, not just their "defenses". Another thing I miss is how you could use ground artillery against enemy ships, if they staryed too close to your shores. In Civ IV, the only motivation for building a fleet of any concequence is to defend off shore resources against the enemy fleet, since this (unrealistically, I think) can't be done from the land anymore.

Personally, I wish they would expand the roles of both siege weapons, and the navy in the game. They don't have to go back to the old Civ III system, but they could find a way to integrate the two games and come up with a happy medium.

For instance, they could go back to the old Civ III model, but the weaken the over all effectivness of artillery. At the same time, if the other player has sieze units in that territory, they have a "return fire" option, where the defense can fire back and cause damage to the attacker, or at least limit the effectiveness of the enemy barage (I am kinda stealing this idea from Civil War Generals II).

As is, though, I think the description of siege units as "suicide bombers" is pretty accurate and their role in the game is pretty unrealistic.

And, while I like the fact that you can play a game all the way through and not end up with 3 civs at the end who control everything (as happened 80% of the time in the last one) defenses are too stong in the game, overall.

 

[SilentDemon]

I to prefer the method used in Civ III. Not just for the cannons, either. I was a big time ship builder in the older version. Now I find that the navy is almost usless. Buildings don't move. Therefor, battleships should be able to at least do damage to cities, not just their "defenses". Another thing I miss is how you could use ground artillery against enemy ships, if they staryed too close to your shores. In Civ IV, the only motivation for building a fleet of any concequence is to defend off shore resources against the enemy fleet, since this (unrealistically, I think) can't be done from the land anymore.

Personally, I wish they would expand the roles of both siege weapons, and the navy in the game. They don't have to go back to the old Civ III system, but they could find a way to integrate the two games and come up with a happy medium.

For instance, they could go back to the old Civ III model, but the weaken the over all effectivness of artillery. At the same time, if the other player has sieze units in that territory, they have a "return fire" option, where the defense can fire back and cause damage to the attacker, or at least limit the effectiveness of the enemy barage (I am kinda stealing this idea from Civil War Generals II).

As is, though, I think the description of siege units as "suicide bombers" is pretty accurate and their role in the game is pretty unrealistic.

And, while I like the fact that you can play a game all the way through and not end up with 3 civs at the end who control everything (as happened 80% of the time in the last one) defenses are too stong in the game, overall.

I have to agree with you as far as artillery in civ3, they worked far more accurately.

 

[Watiggi]

You mentioned you dont get to play many modern games, so I'll try to not make this a scathing response.

Scathing response? I didn't realise not playing many modern games deserved a scathing response. If you want a discussion, don't start with this.

Attacking a city with 20 Modern Armour will get a good result too. I still don't see what the problem is. More to the point, I don't see Artillery as being the problem. No, I am not asking for you to explain it, I see what you are saying, but I don't see a problem with it.

If you attack a city with massive amounts of anything (within reason), all be it Tanks, Modern Armour, Mechanized Infantry, hell Infantry even, the city will go down. This has nothing to do with Artillery, it has to do with how effective having numbers is in this game. It has to do with the combat system in general. I find it works out well and thus don't have a problem with it. Is it realistic? Hell no, but I am talking about gameplay, not realism. I don't see Artillery as being overpowered. It does what it's supposed to. It's a counter to stacks. Stacks in a city get a defense bonus (city defense percentage) and the seige unit is able to remove that. If anything, the problem is that there isn't a real counter to a stack of seige units bar having one very strong unit. Having a counter may solve the problem.

Artillery is an 'infantry age' unit (industrious?), not a modern age unit. That is why it comes earlier, but I am sure you know that. The modern seige unit is the stealth, it combines the speed with the Modern Armour and the Mechanized Infantry. Yeah sure, the Artillery is effective, but it's slow.

I see the seige units as the main attack unit (from back in the days of civ2). Not playing civ3 that much - certainly not enough to get a good feel for the seige units there - I find I do relate with this seige system in civ4 as it is simply a powerful offensive weapon. To me it is a unit that attacks as in civ2, not the way it is used in civ3 (which is more realistic). When I go on the offensive, I build seige and have support units with the seige stack. Is it overpowered? Any effective strategy done properly becomes overpowered. There are cons with seige, namely how weak they are and how slow they are. Get good with them and you dominate with it. That doesn't make them overpowered.

supersoulty: Yeah, I would like there to be more intergration between sea and land during warfare. It would make for some interesting tactics. I didn't get much play with civ3, but I did enjoy firing Artillery shells at ships passing by. Making destroyers able to carry cruise missles that have a good range that could fire them inland would be interesting. Carriers that carry parratroopers could be another. Maybe allow the big guns on the battleships to be able to destroy improvements a significant distance inland?

Watiggi