Artillery is too powerful

[microbe]

As we know, it's powerful already in CIV3, now it's much more powerful - it in fact is more powerful when facing more units.

Yeah you could spread forces around. Not mentioning whether it always makes strategic sense, the land is always limited. For example, chokepoint is now becoming even harder to break. And consider a Sid game with small islands - the AI's ridiculously huge stack will now be much less a threat.

I think it's a bad change (worse than lethal bombardment), ESPECIALLY if the AI still doesn't know how to use artillery.

 

[Texan General]

Interestingly, I find it underpowered and consistantly mod my games so that it reaches its potential. Bombardment on the scale Civilization represents would do ALOT of damage. Artillery isn't the historically largest real world killer on the battlefield for no reason. When used properly it can be devastating. Instead of decreasing its power I feel that the power should be brought closer to real world standards (meaning increased) and the computer's intelligence on the matter greatly improved.

 

[Lillefix]

Civ4 and civ3 are totally different games. You can't compare the artillery for civ3 with artillery from civ4. Everything may have changed.

 

[warpstorm]

Interestingly, I find it underpowered and consistantly mod my games so that it reaches its potential. Bombardment on the scale Civilization represents would do ALOT of damage.

Are you using it right? A large stack of any arty (from the lowly catapult on up) in Civ3 is an unstoppable force since they can attack and take no damage.

 

[Avayaman]

i think between powering up the artillery vs the stack of doom, i'd rather go for the artillery. stacks of doom screw up the balance too much, on both sides. i'd also want to see how the new power system of the units before passing judgement.

 

[Civrules]

I think that it makes sense that each unit on the tile should get damaged. They are all in one place after all...

 

[Carver]

First, we have to know how much damage Civ4 arty will do - what are the chances of hitting each unit and how much damage wiil/can arty do to a unit?

However, I think I would like to see an upper limit on the number of units that can be hit by one arty piece.

 

[warpstorm]

I think that it makes sense that each unit on the tile should get damaged. They are all in one place after all...

Except that the "one place" is many, many square miles...it would take a carpet bombing campaign on a scale heretofore (wow, I never thought I'd use that word in a sentence) unseen. Unless I'm screwing up my math, a ballpark figure of a tile on a standard (100x100 tile) map (don't give me any 'facts' about what the demographics screen says, those numbers are fubar) mapped to the real world is ~60000 square miles at the equator.

 

[Xen]

it would take a carpet bombing campaign on a scale heretofore (wow, I never thought I'd use that word in a sentence)

I think Dresden Germany woudl disagree with you on that

 

[Lord_all_Mighty]

From what I understand, isn't it that every unit in a stack can be damaged, not will be damaged?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

First up, the developers have already stated that how many units in a stack can be potentially damaged is dependant on the type of artillery unit you are using (eg. I reckon a catapult will only damage 1 extra unit, wheras arty might damage as much as 4-5).
Also, we don't know whether artillery units are 'Lethal' or 'Non-Lethal'-i.e. we don't know if they can only redline units, or kill them outright-I am hoping the former will prove true.
Funny thing is, what annoys me about arty is the graphical representation of the Catapult hit .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Himalia]

That would be correct. I must say i dont think artillery is ove powered at all. I dont use huge amounts of it by anymeans myself. It has its place but you certainly cant depend all on the big guns.

 

[warpstorm]

I think Dresden Germany woudl disagree with you on that

Last I looked Dresden isn't 60000 sq miles.

 

[Dida]

As we know, it's powerful already in CIV3, now it's much more powerful - it in fact is more powerful when facing more units.

Yeah you could spread forces around. Not mentioning whether it always makes strategic sense, the land is always limited. For example, chokepoint is now becoming even harder to break. And consider a Sid game with small islands - the AI's ridiculously huge stack will now be much less a threat.

I think it's a bad change (worse than lethal bombardment), ESPECIALLY if the AI still doesn't know how to use artillery.

People, get a life.
The game has not even come out, and we have losers here whinning that Arti are too powerful. Have you even seen a single civ4 arties yet? So stay quiet and wait peacefully to see what Firaxis has in store for us. Stop whinning about things you know next to nothing about.

 

[microbe]

People, get a life.
The game has not even come out, and we have losers here whinning that Arti are too powerful. Have you even seen a single civ4 arties yet? So stay quiet and wait peacefully to see what Firaxis has in store for us. Stop whinning about things you know next to nothing about.

I have seen the video and read the previews. You'd better educate yourself more. If you have any concrete contribution to the discussion, welcome, otherwise stay quiet.

 

[warpstorm]

Having played games with arty like the description, it is very powerful. I do hope that the testers speek up if it is imbalanced.

 

[vbraun]

I bet they will make it cost more to mantain and build.

 

[nullspace]

The problem with artillery in Civ 3 is that it can damage the enemy at no risk to itself. It simply cannot lose when attacking. This is totally different than any other combat unit. Whenever regular units at full health fight, there is a risk of your unit dying. The risk is ususally close to 50% unless you have some big tech or resource advantage. Even when you win, your unit is often damaged and must stop to heal. Artillery does not get killed, and it does not get damaged. And once you bombard your enemy, then you can finish them with regular units with very little risk. Basically, artillery lets you kill the enemy with very little loss on your side. It's really the only way to do that, short of a huge tech lead.

The only way to lose artillery in Civ 3 is if your entire stack is wiped out. There needs to be a counter to artillery that does not require fighting through every unit the enemy has.

My hope for Civ 4 is that artillery is good against some targets (like large stacks, or cities), but isn't good against everything (like it is in Civ 3). Also, there needs to be a effective way to beat artillery. Perhaps fast units, precision strikes from aircraft, or flanking manuevers. Anyway, I don't know everything about the game, so it's quite possible there's already a solution in place. And there's a lot of time for testing between now and release, so it'll probably work out.

 

[Xen]

Last I looked Dresden isn't 60000 sq miles.

no, but who said it had to be; no compitent commande rin his right mind leading an invasion force woudl spread out his forces to that extent, unless it wasnt one invasion, but several 9which rather defeats the purpose of having a stack of doom in the first place, as they represent those megalithic gatherings of armies)

No, you going to have most of an invasion force within the same 10 miles, which is easilly bombable in a singel mission, and that obviouslly dicounting the distorted timescale of civ, which means a single bombing run could easilly represent a years worth of occasional bombing runs on the enemy, which again will lead to large portions of an army receiving casulties, even if you have a ocmmander stupid enough to divide his forces over 60,000 square miles

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As Nullspace pointed out, the problem with Civ3 Arty was that they were so good against all units and they could attack at no risk to themselves. Add to this the fact that once battle was joined, arty were almost useless in determining the outcome of battle-and you can see why these bombardment units were often so disliked in Civ3.
In Civ4, though, we know that bombardment units attack and defend like normal units, and we also know that whilst they are good against infantry, they are at a disadvantage against Cavalry. Also, as I said above, collateral damage only extends so far-depending on the bombardment unit involved. So, though Civ4 arty will clearly be quite powerful, it is pretty clear to me that this power is tempered by some fairly realistic limitations. It still comes down to good strategy-for both the user of arty and those who potentially face it. So long as the AI makes proper use of these units too, then it sounds all good to me !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.