Artillery changed in 1.29 ?

[cycle]

Since I upgraded to 1.29, I noticed changes on the "performance" of artillery when attacking fortified units in cities.

Please note that the following is not based on hundreds of iterations of a test sample. I am just sharing my experience so far and I'm wondering if I am the only one or not. I'm saying this because I don't want a reply that says "...prove it with a statistical test..., blablabla"

In 1.21, I used artillery a lot. I had very good results with it to soften (ie reduced the health to 1 or 2) fortified infantry. I would come with 12-16 artillery, bombard, and then move in with my infantry and would take the city with very few (1-2) loss on my side.

Since 1.29, I bombard with 16+ artillery for 2+ turn, and I barelly hurt them at all.

I haven't seen anything in the readme about such a change for 1.29

Another interesting thing happened, seeing that my artillery was not working at all, I had to use more of my offensive unit to attack the cities. Now I found that cavalry units are extremely effective, no matter how good the defenders is. Their retreating abilities is very,very usefull. Do not underestimate it.

You would think that the meager offensive ratio of 6 would be useless against fortified infantry in size 6+ city on a plain square. The defender ratio is 22.69 = 10(basic defense ratio) x 1.25(fortify) x 1.10(plain) x 1.50 (city size). So you are attacking 6 vs 22.69, or a 1 vs 3.78 ratio.

In my limited experience, I found that 2-3 cavalry unit can usually defeat 1 infantry unit with 2-3 health bar (inflicted by artillery)

This is a very important because an older unit like cavalry is still very effective against a modern unit like infantry.

Stategically speaking, this is a big finding for me. Instead of using so much ressource to build artillery, I will build cavalry instead. Artillery is still good, but doesn't seem to be as good.

 

[Zarn]

You can change the artillary's stats to make it more accurate. I changed several things in my editor, including this, naval movement, and the ability for planes to sink ships.

 

[Architect]

I just finished a large domination Deity game that never made it to Modern Armor becuase of Calvary ARMIES. Calvary armies eliminated the effects of War weariness on unit losses and combined with stacks of 30+ artillery I could take very large cities without Armor. Now that armies have blitz, you don't lose any calvary attacks (until the pentagon when you can have 4 in a army). I had 8 calvary armies going at one time.

I noticed that if the city was over size 12 artillery damage was much less pronounced. However, once I got it to size 12 and even more so size 6, my artillery really became effective again. I don't know if this is anything new however as the defensive bonuses for city size have always been around. Now vs. Mech Infantry, it was very difficult especially in the 20+ size cites of the modern era. I ended up with 90+ artillery and that seemed to get the job done with 3 attack groups 30+ artillery each. I took to using Cruise missles too which I think I'll do a new post about...

For me it is all about war weariness. I never had to stop a campaign or use the luxury slider to prevent cities from going into revolt while the game was on the line because I very rarely lost units using so many armies + artillery to attack. Mind you this is with fully happiness buildings and max luxury resources. I didn't have sistene or bach (this was Deity) so those could make a big difference in how quickly you start to feel WW effects.

 

[cycle]

Interesting indeed.

I didn't know that losing unit would cause WW. That would explain why during a democracy, everybody just started to revolt everywhere. I had to switch to communism and lower research to anemic level just to be even on expenses.

About the blitz for cavalry armies, you mean that an army with 4 cavalry could attack 4 time in a turn, if each attacking unit of the army win its round ? If this is a bad interpretation, please explain. Very curious about this.

Did army mechanics changed recently or I just didn't get it ?

 

[Architect]

Blitz was just added to armies in 1.29. It means that for every movement point left the entire army can attack. So a calvary army with 3 moves left right next to an enemy city can attack it three times in a row. However, an army with only 1 move left can only attack once. Its a trade-off but one I prefer.

Once you get the pentagon, you are "wasting" a calvary when you go to 4 units but you don't have to add that extra unit. I usually do for the extra HP.

Makes the calvary army IMO the best in the game until the Modern Armor one.

 

[Toastedzergling]

Aha, I didn't know that, right now in my game I have 4 calvary armies but I've never tired to attack more than once during the same turn

On second thought, armies do need a lot of time to rest.

 

[dominox]

In my opinion artilley has always sucked bigtime
(especially bombers considered the price and risc of getting shot down)

But then again, that might just be me.

 

[sabo]

Originally posted by Zarn
You can change the artillary's stats to make it more accurate. I changed several things in my editor, including this, naval movement, and the ability for planes to sink ships.

How do you make it more accurate Zarn?

 

[Zarn]

So, it would seem more realistic. That's what I mean. You can't have a warrior with 4/4/1 stats and a rifleman with 3/2/1 stats. Can you?

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

didn't notice any change. when i started using artillery it always looked like i was bound to get strings of loses interspersed with some wins. i still get that so i go for overkill . i field 130+ artillery grouped in stacks of 40 to make sure all defenders are reduced to 1 hitpoint and the population is at least below 12. any unused artillery hangs around to clobber any promoted infantry (wouldn't wanna take the chance of them getting a leader).